1 Thursday, 5 April 2007

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 10.01 a.m.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, could you call

7 the case, please.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning,

9 everyone. This is case number IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor versus Prlic et

10 al. Thank you.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. I'd like to greet

12 Mr. Scott, the Defence, the accused, and the Ambassador, whose testimony

13 will be completed today. We'll continue with the cross-examination now.

14 But as far as time is concerned, I'd like to point out the following:

15 We'll have the cross-examination for one and a half hours, and then we

16 will have a 20-minute break. We will then resume our work, which would

17 bring us up to 1.15 or 1.20. We will then have a one-hour break for

18 administrative reasons and to allow everyone to have lunch, and we will

19 resume our work again around 2.15 or 2.20, and I hope that the

20 cross-examination and re-examination will be completed by about 4.00 p.m.

21 This should then give time to the accused to address certain procedural

22 matters. And we should adjourn by 5.00 p.m. at the latest, I hope.

23 I will now give the Defence the floor to continue with the -- the

24 cross-examination.

25 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honours.

1 WITNESS: HERBERT OKUN [Resumed]

2 Cross-examination by the Accused Praljak:

3 [Continued]

4 Q. [Interpretation] Good day, Ambassador. According to my

5 calculations, I have another 35 minutes, but could that please be checked,

6 and I think I will be granted a few additional minutes.

7 Before I start with the cross-examination, could we have 3D 00873

8 on the screen. It's in the e-court system it. And while waiting for it

9 to appear on the screen, I will put the following question to the

10 ambassador:

11 Ambassador, I will now mention certainly international peace

12 initiatives and the plans that were put before the warring factions, the

13 warring parties. There is the Cutileiro Plan, March 1992; then the

14 Vance-Owen Plan, 1992, 1993. This plan evolved. Then there is the

15 proposal of the international community on the structure of Bosnia and

16 Herzegovina as the union of three republics. Geneva, the 20th of August,

17 1993, and then we have the Washington Agreement dated the 1st of March,

18 1994. Then there's the Contact Group plan on the internal structure of --

19 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was to be composed of two entities,

20 Geneva July 4 1994 is the date, and then we have the Dayton agreement the

21 10th of November, 1995.

22 Ambassador, are these the proposals that the international

23 community put on the table before the warring factions in

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina during that period of time?

25 A. Yes, they are. You have omitted two plans. One was called the

1 Owen-Stoltenberg Plan, and the other was called the Invincible Plan, named

2 after the British warship on which it was concluded, but basically your

3 outline is correct.

4 Q. Invincible. So that was on the Invincible warship.

5 My question is quite simple. As far as all these proposals are

6 concern, did the Croatian side sign first and did never withdrew its

7 signature?

8 A. Excuse me, I hear you in Serbo-Croatian and read you in English,

9 but I do not have the English coming through my microphone. Could that be

10 adjusted? I've pushed all the buttons and it doesn't help.

11 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Number 4.

12 THE WITNESS: Could you speak, General, just so we test the

13 system?

14 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Good day. Good day.

16 A. I hear you in Serbo-Croatian. Excuse me.

17 Q. One, two.

18 A. Yes. Yes.

19 Q. Two, two.

20 A. Thank you very much. It's fine now.

21 Q. So my question was as follows --

22 A. Ah, your questions as far as these proposals are concerned, did

23 the Croatian first and never withdraw its agreement. That is the case

24 that I know of for Cutileiro and the Vance-Owen Plan. I wasn't involved

25 with the others, so I can't be sure. So I don't know about the others.

1 The answer, as far as the Cutileiro Plan of March 1992 and the Vance-Owen

2 Plan of January 1993, is that the Croatian side signed first.

3 Q. Thank you. So could we draw the following conclusion: Dayton,

4 and you as a political analyst are well aware of the fact we were given a

5 divided state. We had the Federation on the one side and the Republika

6 Srpska with 49 per cent of the territory on the other side. Would that be

7 correct according to the information that you have?

8 A. Yes. I'm well aware of Dayton. The Dayton plan partitioned the

9 State of Bosnia-Herzegovina about in half with the Federation of Croats

10 and Muslims being granted 51 per cent and the Republika Srpska 49 per

11 cent. That is of the territory.

12 Q. Thank you. Are you also aware of the following fact: When a

13 census was taken in 1991 in the territory of Republika Srpska less than 10

14 per cent of Croats -- or 10 per cent less of Croats lived in the area than

15 was the case before, and about -- there were about 85 per cent of Bosniaks

16 who didn't live in the territory of Republika Srpska any more.

17 A. I wasn't aware of those exact figures.

18 Q. Thank you. Let's move on to the next question. It's in relation

19 to Bill Clinton's book, "My Life." Have you had this book in your hands?

20 A. Never.

21 Q. That's not that important. There are certain political ideas that

22 he expresses here. Could we first see 3D 00873. 3D 00873. That's the

23 book. And now 3D 00856. 3D 00856.

24 In his book the American president Bill Clinton, and this can be

25 seen in the pages that have been translated into English, says the

1 following -- first I'll read out certain paragraphs, and then I'll ask you

2 whether you agree with his political assessments and with the facts

3 expressed here.

4 At the very beginning it says that Slobodan Milosevic seemed to be

5 withdrawing his army from Bosnia, whereas weapons, supplies, and Bosnian

6 Serbs were left under the control of commander Ratko Mladic. Fights and

7 killings continued during 1992. The European Community leaders were

8 restrained while the Bush's government was rather insecure as to what

9 should be done, and it was also indecisive and could not decide to enter

10 into new problems in the year of an election, so it left these problems to

11 be solved by the European Community. However, the Bush government stood

12 by the European Community in order to impose economic sanctions on Serbia,

13 and measures that General-Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the French, and

14 the British tried to resist initially, and then we'll skip a few lines,

15 and then Mr. Clinton says the following: "The problem with the embargo

16 was that the Serbs had a sufficient amount of weapons and ammunition to

17 fight a war for years."

18 And could we now see page 489 of the Croatian translation where it

19 says at the beginning of February I decide the not to support the

20 Vance-Owen Plan, and it since and reads as follows: "A few days later on,

21 we concluded -- we completed a new proposal for Bosnian policies, and

22 Warren Christopher said that the United States wanted to discuss new

23 agreement."

24 And then on the same page it continues to read as follows: "On

25 the 9th of the very same month, at our first meeting the French president

1 Francois Mitterrand informed me that although he had sent 5.000 French

2 soldiers to Bosnia as part of the UN humanitarian forces, he was more in

3 favour of the Serbs than I was and he was less willing to see a united

4 Bosnia under the control of the Muslims."

5 And then it says: "I met with Helmut Kohl on the 26th of March.

6 He complained about the events and, like myself, was in favour of revoking

7 the weapons embargo. However, we were unable to convince the French and

8 the British who believed that without the embargo, the war would only be

9 prolonged and the UN forces would be in jeopardy.

10 And then it says, in April, and we're talking about 1993, the

11 American team for military and diplomatic and humanitarian aid returned

12 from Bosnia with the request that we should become militarily engaged in

13 order to put an end to the slaughter.

14 Now I'll skip a few sentences. "By the end of the month the team

15 for foreign policy suggested that if we couldn't convince the Serbs to

16 stop the killing we would have to withdraw or revoke the embargo on

17 weapons for the Muslims and start launching airstrikes targeting Serbian

18 military targets."

19 And then in the following paragraph it says: "The end of the

20 first 100-day period we weren't even close to finding a satisfactory

21 solution to the crisis in Bosnia. The British and the French didn't

22 accept Warren Christopher's suggestions, and they reaffirmed their right

23 to be the key players in finding a solution to the problem."

24 And then finally I will read out the following in the last

25 paragraph: "I ended up in a situation that Dick Holbrooke called one of

1 the biggest collective failures of safety in the West since the '30s. In

2 his book Holbrooke said five factors contributed to failure: Firstly,

3 misinterpretation of the history of the Balkans; secondly, the obvious

4 loss of the strategic the importance of Yugoslavia after the end of the

5 Cold War; and, thirdly, the victory of nationalism over democracy as the

6 dominant ideology of post-communist Yugoslavia; four, the unwillingness of

7 Bush's government to be involved in another military action immediately

8 after the war in Iraq, and five, the US decision to let Europe deal with

9 this issue instead of NATO, and confuse and --

10 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour. This statement has now gone

11 on for some seven minutes, seven minutes. I wonder if we're getting to a

12 question.

13 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Naturally we will get to a

14 question. It's not a statement. I'm just reading out something, and you

15 have done the same.

16 MR. SCOTT: I'm objecting, Your Honour, at this point. I'm

17 objecting to the continued reading out of this material, and if

18 Mr. Praljak has a question, he should go straight to his question, please.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak, you've enumerated

20 the five items mentioned by Mr. Holbrooke, so go ahead and put your

21 question to the witness since the Ambassador has also had ample time to

22 read out Bill Clinton's text. So you can put your question to him right

23 now.

24 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] I have just two more

25 sentences, Your Honours. "I would add a sixth factor to Holbrooke's list.

1 Some European unions do not want to have a Muslim state in the heart of

2 the Balkans and they fear it might become a base to which extremism is

3 imported, although the result of their neglect was rather similar." And

4 that's the end.

5 Q. Ambassador, could you tell me the following -- or, rather, could

6 you tell the Chamber the following: Did Mr. Bill Clinton directly

7 enumerate the problems that you also became aware of in relation to the

8 way in which these peace plans were submitted and developed, the peace

9 plans for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

10 A. Part of his analysis is correct. Part is incorrect.

11 Q. Could you briefly tell us which part of the analysis is incorrect?

12 A. The part that's incorrect first is his rejection of the Vance-Owen

13 Plan. You will notice in the book, which I'm seeing for the first time as

14 we mentioned earlier, that he gives no reasons for rejection by the United

15 States of the Vance-Owen Plan. That itself is significant. The silence

16 speaks very loudly.

17 With regard to the points he gives quoting Holbrooke, the first

18 point is incorrect. There was no historical misinterpretation of the

19 situation by the negotiators. The press often spoke about ancient

20 hatreds, as the press is want to do, but the negotiators understood full

21 well, as did the European countries, the situation in the -- in the

22 Balkans. This is not the first time in European history that the Balkans

23 have been a difficult problem for the rest of Europe, as we all know.

24 The second point is correct. The loss of Yugoslav strategic

25 importance after the Cold War because Yugoslavia, having stood up to the

1 Soviet Union, leader of the non-alined, did have greater significance

2 during the Cold War period.

3 The third point the difference of nationalism over democracy.

4 Well, that's a rather cliched point; nobody would argue with that. A

5 wavering decision of the Bush government; that's not correct. The Bush

6 government did not waver.

7 Five, the United States decision to transfer this issue to Europe

8 instead of to NATO, that's also incorrect. And eventually a rather

9 confused and rather passive European reply. That is largely correct. The

10 European reply was not passive but one could not call it active,

11 particularly in the military area.

12 President Clinton's sixth factor about having a Muslim state in

13 the heart of Europe, there were some individual European leaders who had

14 that view, no doubt, but it has to be remembered that Albania was a -- a

15 Muslim state in, as Clinton puts it, the heart of Europe. Albania was a

16 member of the organisation of the Islamic conference, in fact. So

17 there -- there was already a Muslim state in the Balkans, and Clinton is

18 exaggerating this point.

19 That's my answer.

20 Q. Thank you. But would you agree with me if I said that he

21 significantly contributed to creating the policies in the Balkans later

22 on, to the way in which Bosnia-Herzegovina was in fact constructed?

23 America and Bill Clinton had a significant contribution to make through

24 the Washington Agreement and the Dayton agreement to the creation of

25 Bosnia and Herzegovina; is that correct?

1 A. Absolutely correct.

2 Q. Could we now see 3D 00858 on the screen, 3D 00858. It's in

3 e-court. It's an interview with the general, Jacques Klein. You know who

4 Mr. Jacques Klein was?

5 A. Yes. He was not a general by the way. He was a career Foreign

6 Service Officer.

7 Q. Thank you, I'd just like to read out a brief passage. Towards the

8 end of his interview Mr. Klein says the following: "There's a reality in

9 politics that many people do not understand or do not want to see.

10 They've told me this very same thing object numerous occasions," and he

11 has Mr. Izetbegovic and Mr. Tudjman in mind. "I would act as you have

12 suggested, Mr. Klein, but if I tell that to my people I shall lose their

13 support. No, "Then he continues to say, "after Mr. Izetbegovic had indeed

14 offered him the separation of Herzegovina, I openly asked the president of

15 Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo about this issue, and he told me that

16 the Croats were a major problem for him and that he want the to get rid of

17 them, so he thought this was the best way. However, Tudjman did not

18 accept the offer."

19 And my question is as follows: In the course of your work, did

20 you ever hear anything about Mr. Izetbegovic offering such a solution to

21 Mr. Tudjman to have Herzegovina secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina and

22 join Croatia and that Franjo Tudjman rejected this proposal?

23 A. No, I never heard anything to that effect. Quite the contrary.

24 Izetbegovic, Alija Izetbegovic, president of Bosnia, was adamant in public

25 and private about maintaining the territorial integrity of the state. It

1 was one of his idees fixes.

2 Q. I'll now mention five or six place names in Bosnia and

3 Herzegovina. Trusina, Grabo -- Grabovica, Uzdol, Doljani, Hoducko,

4 Gracanica, Krizancevo Selo. I'll stop there.

5 Ambassador, my question is: Did you ever hear anything about

6 these places I have just mentioned?

7 A. About Gracanica, yes, General. The others I don't recall. Excuse

8 me, I should say Uzdol. Gracanica and Uzdol.

9 Q. And tell me, why is it that you remember Uzdol and Gracanica?

10 A. There was fighting there that apparently was heavy enough so that

11 it was brought to our attention.

12 Q. I'd just like to remind you that on the 14th of September, 1993, a

13 crime against the Croatian population was committed in Uzdol, and some

14 ABiH units killed them. Twenty-one civilians were killed. Sixty-three in

15 Doljani were killed. My question is as follows: If the television units

16 weren't present, if they hadn't filmed what happened as they did in Stupni

17 Do and Ahmici, then nothing in fact was known about the events. So this

18 was an old thesis from communication theory; current communication theory,

19 if it wasn't on the BBC or the CNN, it doesn't exist. Would you agree

20 with me?

21 A. No, I don't agree with you, General, because we had UNPROFOR UN

22 soldiers on the ground who investigated, and ECMM monitors. And you've

23 just asked a question, and after 14 years I remembered Uzdol. So I think

24 you can see that it was brought to our attention, because I can assure you

25 in the intervening 14 years, from 1993 to April 2007, this is the first

1 time I have heard Uzdol mentioned. I'm not objecting to that at all, but

2 I do want to correct the -- your interpretation that it was not brought to

3 our attention.

4 Q. Very well. In any case, we can say that out of the names that

5 I've mentioned you remembered two by the fighting that took place there,

6 but you didn't tell me that you heard about the crimes that were committed

7 against Croats over there.

8 Yesterday, to my question --

9 A. Excuse me, General. Thank you. When I talked about the fighting,

10 I was subsuming the events of the killings. So we were aware of that

11 also.

12 Q. Ambassador, did you know that Trusina is the place where 23

13 civilians, Croat civilians, were killed and that this happened on the same

14 day, on the 16th when the crimes in Ahmici happened? However, you knew

15 about Ahmici, but you didn't know about Trusina, irrespective of the

16 European Monitors and other people.

17 Please be honest and tell us, did you hear about Trusina at the

18 same time you heard about Ahmici? And Trusina, I repeat, is the place

19 where civilian Croats were killed, but this was not widely reported. Did

20 you know about that event?

21 A. As I have reported, we were informed adequately and promptly,

22 perhaps not always on the same day, but we were informed adequately and

23 promptly by the European Community Monitoring Mission and by the UNPROFOR

24 UN troops of events in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

25 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Praljak, I cannot help wondering where you

1 are going with your questions. I must confess that so far this morning I

2 haven't heard anything that -- that I see how it could assist the Chamber.

3 This Mr. Klein is hearsay five times removed, and it has -- I

4 wonder what you are using the time for.

5 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Trechsel,

6 let me put it simply. I'm just trying to show the conflicts that existed

7 within the international community with regard to the solutions to the

8 problem.

9 Second of all, Jacques Klein was not just anybody. He was the

10 commissioner of the United Nations for the peaceful reintegration of

11 Eastern Slavonia, and we can receive the statement from him, the one that

12 we are reading from here.

13 And as far as the TV reporting is concerned, unfortunately I

14 cannot elaborate on that. But I just wanted to show that the opinions

15 that were going on differed and were basically shaped in the light of the

16 fact whether BBC was on the spot or not. And from such reporting, and

17 it's very difficult to look at the burnt bodies, a conclusion was arrived

18 at as to what was going on in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

19 This is just one topic that I cannot elaborate here with the

20 ambassador, but I have very clear positions about what was going on and

21 base on what information the positions arose, including the positions of

22 the ambassador present here today.

23 Q. And my last question for the ambassador: Sir, yesterday when I

24 asked you to give me an example from history, you mentioned the Japanese

25 helping two sides in the Chinese civil war, but can you assume what the

1 position of an army commander is when he's helping an army that would

2 tomorrow use the same weapons that he helped them obtain and turn them

3 against his own people? If we let convoys pass through, and we did it

4 regularly, and the 250.000 soldiers that received those weapons turn those

5 weapons against us on the following day, can you put yourself in the

6 position of such a commander? And my question is this: Do you perhaps

7 wonder how come that nobody actually killed me, assassinated me, knowing

8 that I had led the weapons through and those same weapons were used to

9 kill their brothers, fathers, and sisters? That's my last question, and

10 could you please answer that?

11 A. Yes --

12 MR. SCOTT: Before we do, Ambassador, my apology for interrupting

13 you. Could we have the date of the convoy that Mr. Praljak is referring

14 to, the particular convoy that he says those weapons were then used to

15 kill Croatian soldiers?

16 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] We have presented a series

17 of documents about that, but I will remind Mr. Scott that I will present

18 to the Trial Chamber a hundred thousand pages on CDs and 33 binders

19 testifying to the help of the Republic of Croatia to the BiH army.

20 So, Mr. Scott, you can expect a hundred thousand pages of

21 documents in these proceedings to testify to the fact that during the

22 course of the war between Muslims and Croats the weapons did not stop

23 arriving.

24 If you think logically, you can ask yourself: What weapons

25 department the Muslims use if not the weapons that was let go through by

1 the Croats all this time?

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak, Mr. Scott asked you

3 a question. He asked for a date. Your reply does not at all address this

4 question. You speak about different things. It would be helpful if we

5 were a bit more concentrated.

6 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I -- I don't think

7 that my learned friend has the right to put questions to the accused. He

8 can attempt to do that, but I don't think that the accused must answer

9 him.

10 Second of all, since I am on my feet, without any dates or

11 numbers, so far we have introduced at least six documents that are clear

12 evidence that from Croatia, in the course of 1992 and 1993, after the

13 Croat and Muslim conflicts had already started, convoys carrying weapons

14 would go through Croatia and -- and -- with the BH army. We have these

15 exhibits in evidence, and I believe that Mr. Praljak's question is

16 well-founded. In addition to that, the Defence has the right to

17 anticipate the future evidence that they will introduce, and we will.

18 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation].

19 Q. And another question, the ambassador testified yesterday that

20 Croatia --

21 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me. Before the question is put I want to

22 respond to what has been said in response to the points I made. First of

23 all, my question wasn't directed, of course, directly to Mr. Praljak; all

24 I can do is object and ask for the Trial Chamber's assistance. So I'm not

25 engaging in any dialogue with Mr. Praljak now or at any time, but I'm

1 asking -- I did object to the question. I asked for the Court's

2 intervention to sustain my objection and that that -- directs that

3 information be directed to provide, number one.

4 Number two, the reasons it's particularly relevant Your Honour,

5 and we've addressed this before and I'm going to continue to address it

6 whenever it's raised in this manner is, the Chamber is well advised by

7 this point in the trial that in the course of the -- in the course of the

8 war from 1991 to 1995 there were any number of places where indeed the

9 Croats and the Muslims were fighting together against the Serbs, both in

10 1991 and 1992, again in 1994 and 1995, and indeed in some places even in

11 1993 while they were fighting each other they were also fighting together

12 against the Serbs in various parts of Bosnia. So when these general

13 statements are made about how we were arming the Muslims and sending them

14 arms, it's -- it's only meaningful, only meaningful if it's very specific

15 as to dates and locations because the fact that the -- Croatia provided

16 arms to Bosnia in 1991 or early 1992 to fight the Serbs has no bearing on

17 the point that Mr. Praljak is trying to make about assisting them in

18 killing their own soldiers. I asked a very specific -- my objection was

19 very specific -- excuse me. My objection was very specific, and

20 Mr. Praljak chose to frame his question by referring to a date and a

21 particular convoy that he said he was on and that those weapons were used

22 the next day to kill HVO soldiers. That's my objection. I want him to

23 tell me the date and so the ambassador can properly frame his answer

24 specifically to that question.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Praljak, the

1 Prosecutor has raised an objection. He told you a few minutes ago that he

2 doesn't contest the fact that weapons were provided in 1991 and in 1992,

3 but when it comes to the crucial period, the relevant period, which is

4 1993, if you believe that the question that you are putting to the witness

5 also refers to 1993, could you pinpoint the period that you're referring

6 to when you're talking about the weapons that were sent or provided to BiH

7 army?

8 I believe that I remember having seen documents that talk about

9 the delivery of arms. I don't have these documents before me. You

10 certainly know these documents better than I do, and I believe that you

11 are better suited than me to remember the dates of these documents.

12 Mr. Praljak, could you please be more precise and rephrase your

13 question by introducing a precise date into your question, because this is

14 the gist of the Prosecutor's objection to your question.

15 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, not only five

16 or six but over 20 or even 30 documents have been presented to the Trial

17 Chamber referring to the period up to April 1993 and even later.

18 Actually, the 4th of October, 1993, talking about Arif Pasalic. There was

19 a witness here, and I'm not going to mention his name, who said it clearly

20 that the arms arrived in Mostar in the summer of 1993. In Mr. Okun's

21 diary, the same thing -- the same thing is mentioned. Fourth of all, the

22 ambassador when I asked him yesterday also confirmed to me that weapons

23 did arrive from Croatia and through Croatia and ended up with the BH army

24 in the course of the entire war.

25 My question is only logical and well-founded. At this moment I

1 don't have any documents, and I'm kindly asking the ambassador to answer

2 my question in any way he can or will.

3 Q. Mr. Ambassador, do you know that through Croatia from Turkey, from

4 Iran, from Argentina, from --

5 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Praljak --

6 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation]

7 Q. -- weapons arrived --

8 JUDGE TRECHSEL: You put this question yesterday and it is

9 answered. It is answered, this question, and we really do not have the

10 time to have the same question put twice to the same witness.

11 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Very well then.

12 Q. Mr. Okun, if you can provide your opinion, I would be grateful to

13 you, to the Trial Chamber. Ambassador, thank you very much for having

14 answered my questions, and I wish you a safe journey back home.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And can we now go to the other

16 Defence team. Ms. Alaburic, you have the floor.

17 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.

18 Cross-examination by Ms. Alaburic:

19 Q. [Interpretation] Ambassador, good day to you. I represent

20 General Milivoj Petkovic in these proceedings, and I would like to clarify

21 a few things with you because I believe that your rich diplomatic

22 experience, the experience as a political analyst can help the Trial

23 Chamber to understand the events in the territory of the former

24 Yugoslavia.

25 I have just provided you with a binder of documents that I will be

1 using during the course of this cross-examination, but this will obviously

2 depend on your answers to my questions.

3 In your diary you mentioned Badinter Commission, and yesterday on

4 several occasions you commenced this commission before this Trial Chamber.

5 And that is why my question to you is this: Is this the commission that

6 was composed of legal experts of five European countries that were

7 supposed to define the legal rules for, as you've said it, a peaceful

8 separation or divorce of the republics of the former Yugoslavia?

9 A. The Badinter Commission, whose name was actually the Commission

10 d'Arbitrage, the chairman was the very distinguished French former

11 Minister of Justice, now Senator Robert Badinter, was designed to

12 answer -- I should say was asked many questions by Lord Carrington in

13 order to it assist the conference on Yugoslavia, which Lord Carrington

14 headed, across the broad range of issues. One of them of course was the

15 separation, but there were other issues as well. The Badinter Commission

16 was designed to answer -- to seek to answer from the legal point of view,

17 from the point of view of public international law, the whole range of

18 questions of a legal nature.

19 Q. Thank you for this very detailed answer. And now could you please

20 look at a document in my binder. At the same time I would kindly ask for

21 the document to be placed on e-court the number is 4D 00540. Those are

22 three opinions provided by the Badinter Commission to the questions put to

23 them by Lord Carrington. What I am interested in at the moment is the

24 question of borders.

25 Opinion number 2, which is on page 3 of this document, concerns

1 the issue as to whether the Serbs in Croatia, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a

2 constituent people within Yugoslavia, might be given the right to

3 self-determination. That's under item 1. And it says here: "The

4 commission is of the opinion that the right to self-determination must not

5 involve changes to the existing frontiers at the time when the

6 independence is gained, save for the situation in which the states

7 concerned agree otherwise."

8 Let's also look at the opinion number 3, which reference to the

9 issue of internal borders between Serbia and Croatia, and between Bosnia

10 and Herzegovina and Serbia, and whether these borders could be considered

11 frontiers in terms it of the international public law.

12 Under item 2 -- 2, Second, it says: "The boundaries between

13 Croatia and Serbia and between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, may not be

14 altered except by agreement freely arrived at by the parties."

15 I am interpreting from the English original. That is why there

16 may be slight discrepancies between what you are receiving in your

17 headphones and what you're reading on the screen.

18 Ambassador, these opinions provide by the committee, did they

19 become the positions of the conference for Yugoslavia and later on by the

20 ministerial council of the European Union, and finally all the relevant

21 factors on the European and international political scene?

22 A. Yes, these positions, these opinions rendered by the Commission

23 d'Arbitrage were widely accepted by the international community.

24 Q. Mr. Okun, you're probably familiar with the fact that the

25 ministerial council of the European Union, on the 16th of December, 1991,

1 in Brussels passed directions for the recognition of new states in east

2 Europe and the former Soviet Union, or guidelines for the recognition of

3 those newly emerged states.

4 A. That's partially correct, but in addition to that, Ms. Alaburic,

5 the EC and Lord Carrington's conference on Yugoslavia formally requested

6 that the Badinter Commission pass on -- make a judgement on whether the

7 four republics that had declared independence were eligible for

8 recognition by the European Commission. The four republics, of course,

9 were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia. Those were the

10 four republics that in December 1991 had already declared their

11 independence. They had not been recognised by anybody, and Lord

12 Carrington asked the Badinter Commission to render an opinion as to

13 whether and which republics merited recognition.

14 Q. What you have just told us does not refer directly to the document

15 that I've asked you about, but I am familiar with what you have just

16 mentioned, and there's no contest about that. But let's look at a

17 document that I was asking you about. Let's look at 4D 00542. All these

18 documents are in a sequence and arise from what you have been telling us.

19 In this document the guidelines for the recognition of new states

20 in east Europe and the Soviet Union, which were adopted on the 16th of

21 December, 1991. What I'm interested in are just boundaries. If we can

22 look together the third bullet where it says that the joint position is

23 adopted in the process of the recognition of new states, which requires,

24 under bullet three, "respect for the inviolability of all frontiers which

25 can only be changed by peaceful means and by common agreement." I suppose

1 you're familiar with this document, aren't you?

2 A. Yes. Well, that's perfectly standard. After all, it's in the

3 United Nations charter that you don't change boundaries by force; it's in

4 the League of Nation charter. This is hardly a great discovery on

5 December 16th, 1941 [sic]. It's standard practice. I mean, it's only

6 understood one does not change international boundaries by force otherwise

7 it's aggression as defined in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.

8 Q. Mr. Okun, at this moment we're talking about 1991 and Yugoslavia.

9 At that time there were still no internationally recognised boundaries.

10 We are talking about something that up to then was considered internal

11 boundaries of the republics within the state that was known as Yugoslavia.

12 So this is not rephrasing international laws but this had a huge bearing

13 on the future organisation of the former republics of Yugoslavia.

14 Wouldn't you agree with me?

15 A. As I already answered in a question yesterday, the EC in

16 accordance with the Helsinki agreement of 1975 had already decided that

17 the internal boundaries in the former Yugoslavia could not be altered

18 except by mutual agreement.

19 Q. All these documents preceded that final position in a way, but I

20 believe that we can agree that the international community would not

21 recognise any alterations of the boundaries of the republics of the former

22 Yugoslavia unless they agreed it upon those alterations in a peaceful way.

23 Wasn't that the position that was the starting point for the conference on

24 the former Yugoslavia and every other institution after that that dealt

25 with the issue of the former Yugoslavia? Wouldn't you agree with me on

1 that?

2 A. Yes. Yes, that is correct.

3 Q. I suppose that we will also agree that these decisions, as well as

4 all the other decisions supplied by the international institutions were

5 something that the Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, was familiar with?

6 Do you know that for a fact? Was he familiar with all these decisions

7 that were passed concerning the former Yugoslavia?

8 A. Well, I can't speak for the president on every single issue, but

9 on the broad question of whether Croatia's borders, for example, with the

10 internal borders of Yugoslavia, whether they were all of Croatia and could

11 not be changed, yes, he certainly was familiar with that. It came up

12 indeed very importantly in our negotiations, that is Secretary Vance and

13 me, our negotiations for the cessation of hostilities in Croatia during

14 the -- during the Serbian invasion of Croatia. So it was definitely on

15 his mind.

16 Q. Tell me, please, could President Tudjman consider that this

17 applied only to Croatia or that that was the rule that was applicable to

18 all the republics of the former Yugoslavia? What could have been his

19 opinion until?

20 A. His opinion that I was aware of was in the main concerned with

21 Croatia.

22 Q. Does this mean that you didn't know that President Tudjman, when

23 it came to the AVNOJ borders, whatever he might consider about them, was

24 something that the international community would not change or would not

25 allow to be changed unless there was an agreement between the parties that

1 were interested in those borders? Does this mean that you didn't know

2 that?

3 A. No, it does not mean that.

4 Q. Did you know that Franjo Tudjman knew that this rule as worded in

5 these documents was applicable to all the republics of the former

6 Yugoslavia?

7 A. I'm quite confident the president knew it as an abstract fashion

8 that did not necessarily affect his views as to the application of his

9 policies and those of the Herceg-Bosna people within Bosnia.

10 Q. Mr. Okun, we will come to Herceg-Bosna a bit later. Now I would

11 like to talk about the principles of the matter and clarify the starting

12 points for our future communication.

13 In your view and according to your knowledge, was President

14 Tudjman aware that opening the issue of any alterations to the so-called

15 AVNOJ borders of the republics of the former Yugoslavia would also open an

16 issue of the alterations to the boundaries of Croatia, i.e., the

17 separation of the area of the Republic of Croatia where Croats, Serbs,

18 resided and where the so-called Krajina had been established?

19 A. Yes. As I've said, he was very aware of the Croatian situation.

20 The Serbs, as we will all know, tried both militarily and politically to

21 detach Eastern Slavonia from Croatia. That was the area of the heaviest

22 fighting indeed, so that he was surely aware of the need to protect

23 Croatia's borders. And may I please give you one concrete example of

24 President Tudjman's awareness of his -- I can't give it? I was answering

25 your question. That's okay.

1 Q. Mr. Okun, believe me, that I'm listening to your answer was a lot

2 of interest, but I want to get through all of this with you, and

3 unfortunately I have very little time.

4 You mentioned Eastern Slavonia. Tell me, was there a problem

5 relating to borders in the territory of western Slavonia and in the

6 territory of the Knin Krajina which during that period of time was under

7 the control of the Croatian Serbs?

8 A. Western Slavonia was much less of a problem, although the Serbs in

9 Croatia, as you know, had declared an autonomous region, a SAO, of Eastern

10 Slavonia, western Slavonia, and the Krajina, but in western Slavonia it

11 was not a problem because the Croatian armed forces drove the Serbs out of

12 western Slavonia and the Croatian army was in control of western Slavonia

13 by the end of 1991. The Krajina was a separate problem being 90 per cent

14 populated by Serbs. It had a sort of de facto autonomy, but those were

15 the areas that precisely for this reason the peacekeeping operation that

16 Secretary Vance and I developed had four non-connected, non-contiguous

17 protected areas, namely Eastern Slavonia, western Slavonia, and the north

18 and south parts of the Krajina. This was to avoid and to make impossible

19 the Serb, the Serb desire to draw a -- have a cease-fire along the line of

20 confrontation which would have given to the Serbs one-fourth or so of

21 Croatia, and we wouldn't -- President Tudjman would not agree with that,

22 and we certainly did not agree with that. So for the first time in

23 history a cessation of hostilities with the peacekeeping operations for

24 them did not have a contiguous front line, sort of like a green line like

25 they have in Cyrus, like you have in Israel in 1949.

1 Finally, the Vance-Owen Plan naturally at President Tudjman's

2 strong insistence -- excuse me, I didn't mean the Vance-Owen Plan. I'm

3 talking about Vance Plan, the peacekeeping operations for Croatia required

4 the withdrawal of JNA forces from all of Croatia. So we were attentive,

5 and, to answer your question completely, President Tudjman was very

6 attentive to the need to retain the territorial integrity and maintain

7 it's territorial integrity of Croatia.

8 I'm sorry for the long answer but one really must try to give the

9 Chamber the full picture. I'm trying to do that.

10 Q. Thank you. In the last part of your answer you in fact said what

11 I was going to ask you about, and that is that the main concern of

12 President Tudjman at the time was to maintain the territorial integrity of

13 the Republic of Croatia within the borders such as they were at the time

14 of Yugoslavia; is that correct?

15 A. Yes, indeed. That's why he demanded and we demanded the

16 withdrawal of the JNA from all of Croatia. The immediate withdrawal,

17 which the Serbs did not do but the JNA finally did leave.

18 Q. Mr. Okun, according to your information, in order to obtain that

19 objective did -- or, rather, was Mr. Tudjman one of the first persons to

20 ask for international arbitration when it came to solving the problem of

21 the break-up the former Yugoslavia?

22 A. I don't think he was one of the first. There was a general desire

23 from the European Community to establish an arbitration concerning the

24 declarations of independence of Slavonia and Croatia. He certainly would

25 have been in the advan [phoen], but there was a widespread desire very

1 quickly, almost immediately after the June 25, 1991 declarations, the EC

2 was in action.

3 I do not say that to criticise President Tudjman; simply to point

4 out that he was not alone.

5 Q. Mr. Okun, I didn't even mean to imply that he was the only one,

6 but I think it amounted to knocking on an open door, the open door of the

7 international community in a certain sense, but I wanted to say that he

8 was one of the first individuals from the territory of the former

9 Yugoslavia who requested the arbitration of the international community.

10 Could we agree on that?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Could we also agree that he was one of the first from the

13 territory of the former Yugoslavia who requested that the UN peace forces

14 be deployed in areas where there was ongoing combat in order to attempt to

15 establish peace there?

16 A. No, that's not true. Paradoxically enough, it was Milosevic who

17 was the first to suggest it. That's in my diaries. It's quite clear.

18 Q. Mr. Okun, I didn't say the first, but one of the first. So could

19 we agree --

20 A. Well, there was a conflict between two parties. Milosevic was the

21 first. He was the second. That means he was the last. You could also

22 say he was one of the first, but there were only two parties, and if

23 you're the second, you know, then that makes you the last.

24 Now, I have to tell the Chamber, it must be said that Milosevic

25 did not suggest this peacekeeping operation out of benevolence or goodwill

1 towards President Tudjman. He wanted it to -- as I've just said, he

2 wanted a green line. He wanted UN troops on the line of confrontation,

3 which would have left the JNA controlling one-fourth to one-third of

4 Croatia. That's why he suggested the peacekeeping operation.

5 Q. Mr. Okun, could we agree that Mr. Milosevic's initiative concerned

6 the occupied territory in Croatia, whereas Mr. Tudjman's initiative

7 concerned the borders between the republics of the former Yugoslavia,

8 which at the time already had the status of independent states?

9 A. Well, President Tudjman, as we said several times, was of course

10 interested in retaining and maintaining the territorial integrity of

11 Croatia. That's precisely why he would not accept the concept of the

12 green line.

13 Q. Did Milosevic in fact want international peace forces to protect

14 the Serbs in occupied areas in Croatia, whereas Mr. Tudjman wanted the

15 state borders to be protected from the arrival of foreign enemy troops?

16 A. President Tudjman wanted the JNA to withdraw entirely from Croatia

17 so that Croatia would be master of its own destiny. He fully agreed to

18 our concept of the four discontinuous UN-protected areas along with the

19 full withdrawal of the JNA from Croatia. Yes, he was always concerned

20 about the borders. Understandably so.

21 Q. Mr. Okun, could you answer my question a little more precisely, my

22 question as to whether Mr. Tudjman wanted international forces to be

23 deployed at the borders of Croatia. So when the JNA had already left

24 Croatia, he wanted international forces to protect the borders of the

25 Croatian state. If you can't add any more detailed information to your

1 answer, we can move on.

2 A. I can answer that precisely, because it was a subject of very

3 intense negotiations between Mr. Vance and me and President Tudjman and

4 Milosevic.

5 President Tudjman's initial position was that the JNA withdraw

6 completely from Croatia, tout de suite, nothing else. Milosevic's

7 position was, as I've said -- I have to answer your question. I'm sorry.

8 I --

9 Q. Mr. Okun, we don't have the time.

10 A. But you asked the question and I'm trying to answer it as briefly,

11 as accurately, but also as fully as I can, and if you wouldn't interrupt

12 me, we would have been finished by now.

13 Q. Mr. Okun, I do apologise, and it's really not my intention to be

14 rough or impolite, but we really can't go into the subject of the internal

15 relationships and the situation in Croatia and the war in Croatia. I'm

16 only interested in the subject of borders at this point in time, and

17 perhaps we could focus on the borders.

18 As to this request for the JNA to withdraw from Croatia, I think

19 we have dealt with that and you have provided us with a detailed

20 explanation about that matter. I would just like to now establish that

21 Mr. Tudjman wanted the international forces to be deployed at the borders

22 of the Republic of Croatia. That is important for me so that I can

23 continue to analyse the relationship with neighbouring Bosnia and

24 Herzegovina had, and that's why I'm trying to restrict myself to the issue

25 of borders, but personally I'd be extremely interested in the situation in

1 Croatia and in the events that transpired there. I do apologise and it

2 really is not my intention to be impolite. Perhaps we can move on.

3 In your opinion, was President Tudjman a realistic and pragmatic

4 politician?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And tell me, like other politicians, did he sometimes express

7 certain positions in order to see what the position of the other party was

8 with regard to a certain issue?

9 A. That was not his style. President Tudjman was a very serious man.

10 As I responded and as Mr. Karnavas read the interview I gave correctly

11 about President Tudjman, you will recall I said he was in style rather

12 rigid. He was not a person to play around with ideas. So the answer to

13 that question is basically no.

14 Q. Tell me, according to your information did President Tudjman

15 always express his opinion about certain issues in public and quite openly

16 or in order to find out what his position was about certain issues did you

17 have to engage the services of certain secret services, and did you have

18 to tap into secret sources of information?

19 A. We were not in the hands of the secret services, Mr. Vance and I,

20 and Lord Owen, when he joined us, spoke frequently with President Tudjman.

21 We were aware, of course, of his public statements, and we took them into

22 account. Naturally we paid the most attention to what he told us

23 privately. I think you can understand that.

24 Q. Tell me, do you have any information about the position President

25 Tudjman held with regard to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and would you say that

1 this is a position that you didn't hear about from him directly or

2 position that you didn't read about in the media or in some book?

3 A. We heard about it directly from President Tudjman, and then, of

4 course, we could see it in his meetings with Izetbegovic, for example. He

5 disliked Izetbegovic intensely. He said that to us. He told it to

6 Izetbegovic, in effect to his face. He always referred to Izetbegovic, to

7 us, as "the fundamentalist." The fundamentalist Izetbegovic.

8 With respect to Izetbegovic's governance of the state, he was

9 scornful and scoffed at it and maintain that Izetbegovic would not even be

10 in power were it not for the Croats defending him. He did not respect

11 Izetbegovic, nor Izetbegovic's governance of the state. He made that

12 quite clear.

13 Q. Ambassador, could we agree that President Tudjman publicly spoke

14 about the fact that the AVNOJ Croatian borders were, in his opinion,

15 unjust?

16 A. The AVNOJ borders? I don't recall he made too much of it. There

17 were times -- actually, I don't want to go into it, but it was the -- it

18 was the Serbs who complained more about the AVNOJ borders. They

19 complained so much that I had a direct discussion with Milovan Djilas

20 [Realtime transcript read in error "Gilos"] in December 1991, because

21 Djilas was the person who was in charge for Tito in 1945 of deciding on

22 the borders, and the Serbs were so violently opposed to it in their style

23 than I immediately contacted Milovan Djilas.

24 JUDGE TRECHSEL: For the record would you like to spell out the

25 name because here it is written with a G.

1 THE WITNESS: It's D-j-i-l-a-s. D as in David, J as in jota, I as

2 in item, L as in Lawrence, A as in able, S as in sugar. Djilas, Milovan

3 Djilas.

4 Q. On the basis of your answer could I correctly draw the conclusion

5 that President Tudjman believed the existing borders of Croatia to be

6 just? And I'd like to point out that the existing borders means the AVNOJ

7 borders.

8 A. No, he never went that far because he, as a military man, and I've

9 mentioned this in previous testimony, was very aware of the Cazinska

10 Krajina and its strategic importance to Croatia. He pointed out to me

11 frequently that the main railway between Belgrade and the major cities of

12 the Dalmatian coast cut through Bosnia-Herzegovina, went through the

13 Cazinska Krajina. He was also very aware, needless to say, of the Serbs

14 in the -- in -- who lived in Croatia and who straddled the border, the

15 Krajina being heavily occupied, on both sides of the border, that is to

16 say the Croatian side and the Bosnian side, with the Serb self-declared

17 capital of Knin. That was a concern to him. And he was well aware and

18 often said that Croatia -- just in passing that this Croatia, the AVNOJ

19 borders, was but a shadow of its former self.

20 Q. Mr. Okun, could we now try to define President Tudjman's attitude

21 towards the Croatian borders? Was he content with those borders or not?

22 You answered negatively to both those questions, didn't you?

23 A. Yes. I think he envisaged an enlargement, either directly or via

24 Herceg-Bosna joining into Croatia at some day. I've said that in my

25 witness statement, and I've been repeatedly asked questions by everybody,

1 and I think that I've answered it adequately. I'm happy to answer it

2 again.

3 Q. No, you don't have to answer that question again, but I would now

4 like to briefly discuss wishes and reality. What someone wants in

5 politics and the possibilities he sees of obtaining such objectives.

6 Do you know who Josip Manolic is? Are you familiar with that

7 name? Josip Manolic.

8 A. No --

9 Q. Have you ever heard of that name?

10 A. No, I'm not familiar with that name. I've seen it, but I really

11 am not familiar with it.

12 Q. I wanted to quote him, as I believed that you would know who this

13 person was, but I'll paraphrase what he said. He was a witness in this

14 case. In 1992 and 1993 he was one of President Tudjman's closest

15 associates. He was involved in a political conflict with Gojko Susak, and

16 in 1994 he left the Croatian Democratic Union, the HDZ. He said here that

17 Franjo Tudjman was a very realistic politician who would never gamble, and

18 I paraphrase. He would never gamble with the fate of Croatia. He would

19 never put the fate of Croatia on the line in order to obtain some of his

20 objectives. And one of his wishes concerned the territory of Bosnia and

21 Herzegovina where the Croatian population was in the majority.

22 Mr. Okun, since you yourself have described Franjo Tudjman as a

23 realistic and pragmatic politician, would he ever endanger the fate of

24 Croatia in order to obtain a small parcel of the territory of some other

25 state?

1 A. In supporting Mate Boban and the Herceg-Bosna people, he was in no

2 way endangering Croatia.

3 Q. As far as supporting Mate Boban and Herceg-Bosna is concerned,

4 this very same gentleman, Mr. Manolic, said that Croatia was involved in

5 pursuing the following policies, and I will now quote him. He said, page

6 4319 of the transcript that the policies pursued by Tudjman with regard to

7 Herceg-Bosna was as follows -- Mr. Okun, I haven't shown you this

8 document. It's not among the bundle of documents. This is not an

9 exhibit, but I will quote from it and I will read it out in English to

10 make sure what I say is not misinterpreted.

11 [In English] "He upheld the position that I too upheld. Organise

12 yourself, mobilise yourself in your environments where you feel in

13 jeopardy and stand up to the aggression, and we will help you within the

14 frameworks and possibilities that we are allowed to do because we are also

15 threatened by the same aggressor."

16 [Interpretation] Would you agree with this statement made by

17 someone who left Franjo Tudjman in 1994 for political reasons?

18 A. Well, it's clear -- it's clear that President Tudjman here is

19 talking about resisting the Serbs. He uses the term "aggressor," but it's

20 understandable, and he says we are all -- we are threatened by the Serbs.

21 True. Even though the cease-fire existed there were obviously problems

22 with Serbian bad faith. And you, too, in Bosnia, we want to oppose the

23 Serbs. So that's completely consistent, and I've -- indeed I've so stated

24 in my witness statement.

25 Q. Mr. Okun, in order to conclude, I have one more question before

1 the break. Could we agree that Franjo Tudjman, being a realistic and

2 pragmatic politician, would never have attempted to use force and to

3 ignore the desires of the international community in order to change the

4 borders of his state, because he was aware of the fact that, first of all,

5 it wasn't possible for him to do this; and secondly, if he had made such

6 an attempt this long waited state would have covered very serious

7 consequences and would have been seriously harmed?

8 A. President Tudjman's realism and pragmatism was also tempered by a

9 very strong sense of Croatian history. He was perhaps unique among the --

10 all of the Yugoslav -- former Yugoslav leaders in his deep understanding

11 so that his fight against Serbian and JNA aggression in Croatia and his

12 desire for an independent state of Herceg-Bosna via Mate Boban and his

13 people were actually quite consistent, and he made that clear to us.

14 There was no doubt about it. I've so stated in my witness statement. He

15 made it clear to us that he supported the goals, aims, activities of Mate

16 and his people.

17 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. Okun.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We'll have a 20-minute break

19 now.

20 --- Recess taken at 11.30 a.m.

21 --- On resuming at 11.52 a.m.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We'll now resume.

23 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, with your leave,

24 before I continue with my cross-examination I'd like to ask you something

25 about the time we have at our disposal. In the meantime, we have had

1 consultations with our client, and I believe that half an hour for

2 procedural matters would be quite sufficient, so I would like to know

3 whether it might be possible to be granted additional time for the

4 cross-examination of Witness Okun, if you believe that the questions might

5 be relevant.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The Trial Chamber has granted

7 the Defence teams eight hours. So far five hours and 40 minutes have been

8 used up, but the registrar will make any corrections if necessary. Eight

9 hours and less five hours and 40 minutes, well, that is the time that the

10 Defence has at its disposal.

11 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

12 Q. Mr. Okun, in response to my last question, you said something that

13 we cannot find in your statement, and it's also something that can't be

14 found in your diary if I didn't miss it, and no one has said such a thing

15 in this courtroom, and I, who was a relatively well-informed citizen of

16 the Republic of Croatia, am also not aware of any such thing.

17 The desire of President Tudjman was apparently to establish the

18 independent state of Herceg-Bosna.

19 For the sake of the transcript, let me clarify this. Let me

20 clarify the last sentence with regard to the desire of Mr. Tudjman.

21 This was a quote from Mr. Okun's answer to my last question. It

22 can be found in line 35 [as interpreted] of today's transcript.

23 A. Are you asking me a question?

24 Q. My question is: Can you tell us where this can be found in your

25 statement or in your diary, where we can find the statement that

1 President Tudjman's desire was to create the independent state of

2 Herceg-Bosna?

3 A. I said that President Tudjman supported the goals, aim, and

4 actions of the -- of Mate Boban and his people. Those were my words.

5 I refer you, counsel, to paragraph 6 of my witness statement

6 where, after I give the war aims, and I'll just repeat the last war aim,

7 "to erect and maintain" -- I'm quoting from paragraph 6 of my witness

8 statement: "To erect and maintain a separate Bosnian Croat entity

9 (Herceg-Bosna) which could eventually unite with the Republic of Croatia

10 formally or informally. These war aims were made clear to the

11 international negotiators throughout the 1992/1993 period by the Bosnian

12 Croat leadership, Mate Boban and his associates. President Tudjman

13 privately gave the negotiators to understand that he fully supported these

14 aims."

15 That is the end of paragraph 6 of my witness statement.

16 Q. Mr. Okun, in item 6 of your statement -- well, this is identical

17 to all the statements of Mate Boban that you noted in your diary, and they

18 relate to the creation of a Croatian entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

19 So within the borders of an international -- of the internationally

20 recognised state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. If this is not the case, can you

21 tell me where we can find a different statement given by Mate Boban in

22 your diary or of any other representative of Herceg-Bosna?

23 A. We've discussed this extensively, Counsel, in this Chamber. Both

24 the Bosnian Serbs, Radovic -- Karadzic and others, and the Bosnian Croats

25 knew that at the initial phase they would have to remain within the

1 borders of the Bosnian state. Their aims, however, went beyond that.

2 Q. So when we're talking about the creation of a Croatian entity in

3 Bosnia and Herzegovina, can we claim for certain that we're always talking

4 about the internal organisation of an independent and sovereign state of

5 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that all the negotiations about the internal

6 structure of the state, and this includes the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, in

7 fact concerned such an organisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an

8 independent state?

9 A. The Vance-Owen Peace Plan, like all the other peace plans,

10 envisaged a sovereign, independent Bosnian state. You will recall that in

11 the constitutional principles of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan it was

12 explicitly forbidden for any of the provinces to have relations with any

13 foreign state or international organisation. That was inserted in the

14 constitutional provisions of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan precisely to

15 obviate what we knew to be the Bosnian Serb and the Bosnian Croat goal, to

16 have special relations with their mother countries. Otherwise, there

17 would have been no need for that constitutional provision.

18 I don't know how I can answer that any more clearly than that,

19 Counsel.

20 Q. Tell me, given the Dayton agreement and the rules in

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina, was it possible to have close ties of the entities of

22 neighbouring countries? For example, between the Republika Srpska and the

23 former Yugoslavia or what is now Serbia?

24 A. Under the Dayton agreement?

25 Q. Yes, in accordance with the Dayton agreement and the regulations

1 in force in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina at this time?

2 A. Yes, the Dayton agreement of November 19 --

3 Q. This is quite sufficient.

4 A. No.

5 Q. It's sufficient for you to say yes?

6 A. It's not sufficient, Counsel. I'm very sorry, it's not. The

7 Dayton --

8 Q. Mr. Okun, either the regulations allow for this or they don't.

9 Therefore, at this moment all that is important for me is to have a yes or

10 no answer, because, believe me, I don't have enough time for any other

11 details.

12 A. I sympathise with you. If you wish to silence me, so be it. The

13 floor is yours.

14 Q. Naturally I don't wish to silence you. You are here not to remain

15 silent, but I would appreciate it if you could answer my questions by

16 saying yes or no, and if you say this is not possible, then I will decide

17 to ask you for further explanations or whether to move on to another

18 subject.

19 If I have understood you correctly, it's not possible to answer

20 this question with a yes or no answer.

21 A. I will answer it: Yes.

22 Q. Thank you very much. On the 3rd of April, page 10, you said that

23 the Vance-Owen Peace Plan was very generous when it came to maps, but it

24 was just in relation to the Croats. Do you remember that statement of

25 yours?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Could you tell us what you meant by generosity? Why was it

3 generous?

4 A. It was generous because in the mixed Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Muslim

5 areas the benefit of the doubt was given by and large to the Bosnian

6 Croats, and that is why Izetbegovic refused to sign the map, and that was

7 evident from the day the map was officially presented on January 1993.

8 Indeed, I was told -- I wasn't in Zagreb at the time, but I was told that

9 there were newspaper headlines that said HVO stood for "Hvala Vance-Owen,"

10 "thank you Vance-Owen," and they were referring to the map. I have since

11 learned that indeed there were statements and headlines to that effect so

12 that the Bosnian Croats, as well as the Croatian people, were very

13 satisfied with their treatment, the provincial boundaries established by

14 the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

15 Have I answered your question?

16 Q. Yes, thank you very much. Can we focus on more -- on certain

17 provinces to see what this exactly would mean there? Can we be more

18 concrete therefore? I assume you have this map, and let's have a look at

19 the map. In which provinces would the Vance-Owen Plan be generous?

20 According to those criteria, which provinces would be considered as

21 provinces in which Croats were in the majority or in which provinces would

22 the Croats have benefited from this generosity? Could you provide us with

23 an interpretation?

24 A. Yes. A glance at the map indicates, if we look at province number

25 8, you will note that the eastern side, the central eastern side, is

1 completely green, meaning it's completely Muslim, and next to it is a

2 blue, large blue area where the Serbs are, and there are scattered Muslim

3 areas throughout 8, but you -- it would have been very easy to draw the

4 line straight, you know, and put -- put all of that green area into a --

5 into province 7, a Muslim-majority province.

6 Likewise, province 10 at the very northern tip, you see a point

7 there that's all green and was Muslim included in a Croat-majority

8 province. And 9 is half and half.

9 So there's no question that the Vance-Owen map was thoroughly more

10 than -- more than acceptable, generous to the Bosnian Croats.

11 Now, I must add at this point that the provinces were not to be

12 ethnically based - that was the essence of Vance-Owen - so that they tried

13 very hard to make sure that there were balances in -- in the provinces in

14 order to emphasise the multi-ethnic character of the country. And I've

15 given you yesterday -- I won't repeated today, but I've stated yesterday

16 the numbers of percentages of Croats, Muslims, and Serbs who were outside

17 of their majority provinces. That was bitterly opposed, particularly by

18 the Bosnian Serbs. Their lawyer Buha used to say to us, "You've given the

19 Croats and the Muslims everything. All we Serbs got were the rattlesnakes

20 and the stones of Western Bosnia."

21 So one has to take that into consideration. But there's no

22 question that the Bosnian Croats were well-treated in this plan.

23 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Ms. Alaburic, perhaps you wanted to put the same

24 thing, but may I just take up a small point?

25 Ambassador, you have referred to the province number 9, but that,

1 if I understand correctly -- I see -- I leave it to you, Ms. Alaburic.

2 You wanted to ask the same thing.

3 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Yes, precisely.

4 Q. We wanted -- I wanted to clear up the question of province number

5 9, of which you said it was half-half. But I see in province 9 very

6 little areas inhabited by Croats. So did you really mean half-half, half

7 Muslims and half Croats, or did you have in mind a different ratio?

8 A. No. I said half-half -- excuse me, I said it rarely loosely, just

9 to mean that there were people there. Sorry, I apologise to the Chamber

10 for the imprecision in my remarks.

11 JUDGE TRECHSEL: My point was slightly different. You started off

12 speaking of the "Croat provinces," and in these -- in this framework you

13 mentioned 9, which according to the map that I have in front of me is

14 green.

15 THE WITNESS: That was my error, Judge. That's what I just

16 apologised for.

17 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Oh, sorry.

18 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Mr. Okun, we shall now go back to the issue of multi-ethnicity. I

20 am aware that in addition to ethnicity you had in mind many other criteria

21 in the formation of the provinces. Therefore, if I have noted correctly,

22 the 29 per cent of Croats that would remain outside the provinces with the

23 Croatian relative majority; is that correct?

24 A. Yes, that's correct.

25 Q. Are we talking about 29 per cent Croats -- of Croats remaining

1 outside provinces 3, 8, and 10?

2 A. Yes, that would be the number. It would be the number remaining

3 outside provinces 3, 8, and 10. You're entirely correct.

4 Q. Very well. Now let me focus on my client. So will you, in my set

5 of documents, look at an interview given by Milivoj Petkovic in February

6 1993, number 4D 00100.

7 Could we please look at the final passages of that interview.

8 That is the last page of it. I will be concentrating on the answer to the

9 last question and the last part of the answer to the previous question.

10 Speaking about the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, General Petkovic says,

11 and I quote: "For us representatives of the Croatian people were most

12 interested in the first and seventh part of the Geneva document. In the

13 first there is reference to the cessation of hostilities, and the seventh

14 said that within a period of 45 days all units in Herceg-Bosna must

15 retreat to their provinces."

16 Have you managed to find that last part of the interview, the last

17 page?

18 A. I'm looking for it.

19 Q. I'm reading it as it is written.

20 A. I believe you, but I can't find it. Perhaps somebody could help

21 me.

22 Q. It is the last -- fifth page?

23 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel approach the microphone, please,

24 and speak up a little.

25 MS. ALABURIC:

1 Q. If I could just show like this. This is the third passage from

2 above.

3 A. Yes, I have found it, counsel. We, the representatives, the

4 Croatian people. That's what you're referring to?

5 Q. [Interpretation] Yes. This seventh section of the Geneva document

6 which speaks of the retreat of military units to their provinces within a

7 period of 45 days, can you explain what this really entails? I will

8 assist you by telling you where exactly it can be found in the Vance-Owen

9 Peace Plan, the document shown to you by the Prosecution, P 9852.

10 A. Thank you. I know quite well where it is in the Vance-Owen Peace

11 Plan. Thank you for your assistance, but it's not necessary. The

12 Vance-Owen Peace Plan --

13 Q. Let me say this for the benefit of those who don't find their way

14 as easily. It's Annex VII, page 36 of the Prosecution exhibit.

15 A. May I answer the question?

16 Q. Yes, please do.

17 A. Yes. There are two relevant portions in the Vance-Owen Peace Plan

18 to the question you've raised. The first is section E of the first annex

19 to the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, as printed by the United Nations. The

20 identifying number is S, as in Samuel, /25479, page 12, and I will quote,

21 it's very brief, what it says about withdrawal of forces. This is the

22 Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

23 "Sarajevo province shall be immediately demilitarised. All Serb

24 forces shall withdraw into provinces 2, 4, and 6; HVO forces into province

25 3; Bosnian army forces into province 1. Both Bosnian army and HVO forces

1 shall be deployed in provinces 5, 8, 9, and 10. Under arrangements agreed

2 between them the process of demilitarisation shall apply to it all forces

3 in these nine provinces," and then it goes on to say how it should be

4 carried out.

5 Then in annex VIII of the plan, on page 41 of the same UN

6 document, it reads: "To enable the process of return to normalcy and as a

7 direct follow-on for the cessation of hostilities and the separation of

8 forces," and here I interject, "the separation of forces," of course, is

9 the passage that I've just read to you where the provinces -- where they

10 go. To continue reading, "And the separation of forces and a return to

11 the designated provinces will be conducted." So you have this paragraph

12 that you read that states the general principles, that the separation of

13 forces and they will go to provinces, and then you have the complete

14 section, section E, about the disposition of the forces inside the

15 provinces, and it's really quite clear.

16 Now, when General Petkovic was making this interview, which I'm

17 seeing for the first time today but that's fine, when he was giving this

18 interview I see the date is sometime in February 1993. Am I correct? It

19 says Vecernji List, date: 16 February. So this was already one month

20 after the Bosnian Croat defence minister had issued what was an illegal

21 order, really, because it was inconsistent with the Vance Plan about the

22 subordination of HVO units in certain provinces to the HV -- excuse me,

23 the subordination of Bosnian army units to the HVO and of other provinces.

24 That was not in line at all with the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

25 We've discussed that, I know, but I think since you raise it again

1 I have to make clear that when General Petkovic says what they were

2 interested in, and he says it rather incompletely, to put it mildly --

3 okay.

4 Q. I apologise --

5 A. Okay. I appreciate --

6 Q. -- Mr. Ambassador.

7 A. I hope I've answered your question. I do just try to speak for

8 the Chamber.

9 Q. I will come to my client's order that of you have just mentioned,

10 but let us do that in the way I think is best.

11 At the beginning of your answer, you say -- you talk about a

12 section A of the first annex, and you talk about the return of Serb forces

13 to provinces 2, 4, and 6, of the Croatian forces to 1, and then the

14 agreement between the army and the HVO to provinces 5, 8, 9, and 10, and

15 you're referring to the introductory statement by Lord Owen. Is that

16 right?

17 A. No, that is incorrect.

18 Q. Could you please look at page 12 that you referred to?

19 A. Page 12 is the document itself. It's not an introductory

20 statement. It is the -- it is the Vance-Owen Peace Plan. I mean, there's

21 no question about that. I don't know -- I don't know -- I can't imagine

22 what you're referring to when you call it a statement by Lord Owen. It's

23 the text of the peace plan. It's Annex I, agreement on interim

24 arrangements, capital A, interim Presidency and interim government.

25 Capital B -- let me finish, please. Let me finish, please. Boundary

1 commission. Capital C, Sarajevo; capital D, provinces; capital E,

2 withdrawal of forces. It has nothing to do with the statement of Lord

3 Owen. It's the text of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

4 Q. Mr. Okun, for the record I wanted to indicate this, and that in

5 the document P 09052 that I was referring to, on pages 11, 12, and 13, is

6 the introductory statement by Lord Owen, and I wouldn't dwell on that any

7 more because of the shortage of time.

8 I should like us to look into the order of my client, which you

9 haven't seen yet in this courtroom. You have only seen the order by

10 Mr. Prlic.

11 Now, will you look at my set of documents, please. Document

12 number P 01135. It is an order by General Petkovic.

13 A. Yes, I have it.

14 Q. We an agree from the introduction that it refers to the order of

15 the head of the defence department, dated the 15th of January. Isn't that

16 so?

17 A. That's -- that's what it says, yes.

18 Q. This is an order that my colleagues from Mr. Stojic's Defence will

19 be discussing, but I will focus only on the part that differs from the

20 order of Mr. Prlic. The decision of the Croatian Defence Council signed

21 by the president of the HVO, Dr. Jadranko Prlic. Paragraph number 5 of

22 this order, of General Petkovic's order, says: "Use forces of the Central

23 Bosnia operative zone to close all routes from the area of Zenica towards

24 the area under the control of the -- this zone."

25 This is the implementation of the agreement.

1 Mr. Okun, in January 1993, were you familiar with the directive of

2 the commander of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the HVO?

3 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel speak up, please.

4 THE WITNESS: Counsel, before I answer, could I ask you a

5 question? I didn't understand something you just said. May I ask a

6 question?

7 The quotation is: "This is the implementation of the agreement,"

8 and I don't understand what implementation you're talking about or what

9 agreement you're talking about. Could you expand on that, please? What

10 implementation? What agreement?

11 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. In the introduction it says: "Pursuant to agreements on the

13 regulation of Bosnia and Herzegovina." So the entire order relates to the

14 annex that we were looking at a moment ago about the withdrawal of

15 military units to provinces within a delay of 45 days. And this agreement

16 on Joint Commands, if that is what you're referring to, did you know that

17 there were any agreements between the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the

18 HVO?

19 A. I was not aware of any agreements.

20 Q. Let us look at the document 4D 00395. It's a document from

21 November 1992, signed by the Chief of Staff of the Main Staff of the armed

22 forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sefer Halilovic. And could we look

23 through this document together quickly.

24 In the introduction paragraph 2, second sentence says: "During

25 discussions about joint commands, it is necessary to make arrangements

1 which, for example, in the Mostar Corps the appointed commanding officer

2 selected from the HVO, and the person from the Bosnian army and so forth

3 in terms of percentage based on the actual number of soldiers for all

4 headquarters and units on the territory under the responsibility of the

5 Mostar Corps. For Zenica the person in command should be appointed from

6 the BH army, and the other person from the HVO units. This should be the

7 principle applied also for appointing commanding officers of the smallest

8 army units up to the headquarters. You, when reaching agreement, you can

9 refer to an agreement reached between President Izetbegovic and Mr. Mate

10 Boban."

11 Has this document refreshed your memory about information about

12 the formation of joint commands?

13 A. It refreshes my memory. The document refreshes my memory of the

14 sequence of events, yes. Early November, immediately followed the HVO

15 depredation in Prozor, so there was a period of intense activity. It

16 wasn't the first and it wasn't the last, but there was a period of intense

17 activity to try and bring the HVO and the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina into

18 a better relationship. It did not work, and again we had heavy activity

19 as you know and we discussed in January and again in April of 1993.

20 So this statement concerns the situation post-Prozor in October,

21 November 1992. The document which you displayed for the Chamber, General

22 Petkovic's order of 16 February 1993, referred to a quite different

23 situation.

24 Q. Could you clarify something with regard to the 16th of February,

25 1993? You have the interview in mind, do you?

1 A. Yes, I have in mind the document that you showed us.

2 Q. Interview.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Mr. Okun --

5 A. I was actually referring to the order, not the interview. But

6 they are roughly congruent.

7 Q. The order I am referring to was issued on the 15th of January,

8 1993.

9 A. Yes. That's the date of the order you showed me. The interview

10 was 16 February. My point in answering was to make clear to you that that

11 followed the introduction of the Vance-Owen Plan with section E concerning

12 the disposition and redeployment of -- of orders.

13 Excuse me. I said, "redeployment of orders." Could that please

14 be changed to redeployment of forces.

15 Q. Mr. Okun, are you aware of the fact that these decisions or orders

16 dated the 15th of January, and when I use the plural I'm also referring to

17 the HVO decision and to the Ministry of Defence and the chief of the Main

18 Staff, are you aware of the fact that those decisions were also provided

19 to members of the ABiH or, rather, to Bosnia and Herzegovina,

20 representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina? And this proposal was

21 discussed, and in fact the other side rejected this proposal.

22 A. Yes. We have had that introduced in the Chamber, President

23 Izetbegovic's denunciation of the order issued by the defence minister,

24 which as we all recall he said was unilateral and therefore illegal.

25 Q. Just a minor clarification. It concerns the order from the

1 minister of defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I'm referring to the

2 order of the minister of defence of Herceg-Bosna.

3 In any event, what's important to me is that you have just said

4 that you know that representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina or, rather,

5 representatives it of the ABiH rejected this proposal.

6 And now for my following question. Are you aware of the fact that

7 there was no obstacle to implementing these orders or, rather, the units

8 of the ABiH were not disarmed, and no one insisted on having them

9 resubordinated to certain units, nor did anyone insist on having them

10 resubordinated to units that were Muslim units. Are you aware of this?

11 A. I'm aware that the HVO order was basically that all army of

12 Bosnia-Herzegovina units in certain provinces should be subordinated to

13 the HVO.

14 Q. Yes, but what I'm interested in is the following: These orders

15 were not carried out. Isn't that correct?

16 A. That we cannot say. The HVO sought to carry them out. They were

17 not carried out, if by that you mean they were not implemented officially

18 with the concurrence of the Bosnian government. We know there was no

19 concurrence. We discussed that, Izetbegovic's denunciation of the defence

20 minister's statement, but there was an attempt by the HVO to unilaterally

21 effectuate the orders that they gave themselves, because in effect they

22 were telling themselves what to do.

23 Q. Can you please tell us where and when? Where and when did the HVO

24 unilaterally try to implement these orders?

25 A. They tried to do it via their actions in ethnic cleansing on the

1 ground, which we've discussed.

2 Q. And could you tell us, Mr. Okun, the following -- in fact, we are

3 discussing orders here that refer to the resubordination of ABiH units to

4 the HVO command. These are the orders we are discussing here, and my

5 question is: Where and when did the HVO take any steps in order to

6 implement this order?

7 A. You -- you mean two subordinate the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

8 Well, I can't give you the exact date and place, but we know of the

9 actions they took. What they wrote on paper was one thing, and what they

10 did on the ground was another.

11 Q. Mr. Okun, if you say that you are aware of the actions they took,

12 the only thing that is of importance to us in this courtroom is to know

13 when and where. I'm only asking you for facts. If you can't be more

14 precise, just say so.

15 A. I'm giving you the facts. You will recall the lengthy meeting

16 between the Bosnian Croat and the Bosnian Muslim sides in Sarajevo and

17 Zagreb. We've discussed that thoroughly. Those are facts, counsel.

18 Q. Mr. Okun, those aren't facts that might prove that the HVO took

19 action to disarm the ABiH, to expel it from Croatian provinces or to

20 resubordinate it to its command. That is the order that we are

21 discussing, and I would ask you to answer the question as to where and

22 when action was taken in order to effectuate that order.

23 A. I repeat, the actions on the ground, which were the intense

24 subject of meetings at all levels of the international conference give the

25 answer to your question.

1 Q. Could you tell us which actions on the ground you are referring

2 to?

3 A. Yes. The -- the cleansing operations in Gornji Vakuf was one.

4 Q. Let's move on. What was the second one?

5 A. A second cleansing operation? Ahmici.

6 Q. Some other operations, some other action taken to implement this

7 order. Mr. Okun, please, we are discussing the order according to which

8 the ABiH should be resubordinated to the HVO. This involves disarming,

9 expulsion from Croatian provinces. Have a look at the order we are

10 discussing; and we're discussing the matter of implementing the order.

11 Where and when was any action taken in order to carry out these orders?

12 On the basis of your answers the conclusion I can draw is you don't know.

13 A. That is an incorrect --

14 Q. If you don't know, that's probably because no such action was

15 taken?

16 A. That's an incorrect conclusion, Counsel. I must state that quite

17 clearly for the benefits of the Chamber. I have said to you that the

18 actions speak louder than the words. I've said that before. I say it

19 again. And you can put anything on paper. Joseph Stalin used to

20 say, "Bumaga dopuskjet" [phoen], "paper will tolerate anything." The

21 actions were what concerned us.

22 Q. Mr. Okun, and that is why I'm asking you about actions. When and

23 where did the HVO disarm members of the ABiH? When did they expel them

24 from Croatian provinces? And we are discussing the ABiH. Or when did

25 they do anything to forcibly and unilaterally implement this order dated

1 the 15th of January, 1993? We are only interested in action taken.

2 A. They did that by the totality of their actions in Central Bosnia.

3 Q. Very well. Mr. Okun, the conclusion I can draw is that you can't

4 answer my question precisely. Can you at least tell us when the conflict

5 in Central Bosnia broke out?

6 A. There was, of course, always small actions here and there, cases

7 of random and occasional violence, but the major actions broke out, to use

8 your words, the major actions broke out after the middle of January.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Counsel Alaburic, as far as the

10 time granted to you is concerned, so far the Defence has used up six hours

11 and 40 minutes, which means that in theory, Counsel Nozica and Counsel

12 Murphy, who have requested one hour and 20 minutes should now take the

13 floor, unless they have granted some of their time to you.

14 Ms. Nozica, what is your position?

15 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] My colleague, Senka, has just

16 granted me five minutes, and, Your Honours, would it be possible to have

17 an additional minutes or two since there are certain details I would like

18 to clarify and I would like to move on very rapidly, if I could.

19 Q. Mr. Okun, on a number of occasions you mentioned Prozor in October

20 1992 and you mentioned it as an example of wide-ranging action of ethnic

21 cleansing in the Prozor area? Do you remember that? A minute ago you

22 mentioned Prozor as an example of ethnic cleansing committed by the

23 Croats. Do you remember that?

24 A. Yes, I do.

25 Q. Have a look at the bundle of documents I provided you. P 00744.

1 I haven't got sufficient time to show you documents on the causes and

2 reasons for the conflict in Prozor, but I would like you to have a look at

3 a document that --

4 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for counsel, please.

5 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. That the Muslims from Prozor drafted. It's an information dated

7 the 14th of November, 1992. Have a look at item 2, the last part of item

8 2, which reads as follows -- and before the quote, and I'd like to point

9 out that this conflicted lasted for one day; it was on the 23rd of

10 October, 1992. And now I'll read part the of the document out.

11 "At the time of the shelling there was no significant damage

12 inflicted on the buildings apart from those that were specific targets.

13 We also know that during the attack there were no civilian victims. After

14 the artillery attack, the withdrawal commenced (on the 24th of October).

15 Withdrawal of the civilians and soldiers commenced from the town, through

16 the south exit." And in brackets it says, "in the direction of

17 Jablanica." "During the retreat of units one of our soldiers got killed.

18 Around 1200 hours the Croat forces entered Prozor."

19 Mr. Okun, is that the fierce HVO attack launched on Prozor, the

20 attack you've been referring to, or are you referring to some other event

21 we're note familiar in the courtroom?

22 A. Excuse me whose document is this that you were reading Counsel?

23 Who wrote those words? Whose document is it?

24 Q. This is a document drafted by Muslims from Prozor. They had

25 gathered in the forum of the expelled Muslim organisations. It's a

1 document used by the Prosecution in the part of the case that concerned

2 Prozor. I didn't want to show you HVO documents because I didn't want you

3 to doubt their authenticity. So my question is as follows: When you

4 mention Prozor, when you mention the very heavy operation of ethnic

5 cleansing, are you referring to that attack or some other attack that we

6 in the courtroom are not familiar with?

7 MR. SCOTT: In fairness to the witness, the witness should be also

8 referred to the next paragraph, number 3, item number 3 immediately

9 following the end of paragraph -- section 2.

10 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours. Your Honours, this

11 is something that my colleague Scott can do during redirect, and I'll be

12 very happy to listen to this witness's answers to any other questions, but

13 at this point in time all I'm interested is, in the intensity of the

14 attack.

15 Q. And to deal with Prozor rapidly, Mr. Okun, I would like to tell

16 you that in the indictment in which charges have been levelled against my

17 client, the attack on the village of Paljike is also mention and in that

18 attack two individuals were killed and the indictment states that in

19 November 1992, after the negotiations of the organs of the government of

20 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and the ABiH the civilians returned

21 to Prozor this is paragraph 50 of the current indictment. Sir, is that

22 the example of intensive ethnic cleansing that you have referred to here

23 on five or six occasions?

24 A. May I answer?

25 Q. Please.

1 A. The last sentence reads: "About 1200 hours the Croat forces

2 entered Prozor." That's after 1200 that the cleansing started and began,

3 and now I can understand why you did not wish to show it. That's

4 perfectly clear. But that document you've shown me, and this one we're

5 looking -- Counsel --

6 Q. Mr. Okun --

7 A. You're silencing me once again. Let the record show that you have

8 silenced me.

9 Q. Mr. Okun, I'm asking you to be fair now and to see that before

10 that sentence on the Croatian forces entering around 1200 hours it says

11 that after the attack the civilian population and the ABiH withdrew from

12 the town. So that means that they left Prozor before the HVO entered

13 Prozor. That is what I wanted to show to you, but the Judges are familiar

14 with the document, and we can move on now.

15 Mr. Okun --

16 A. Yes, thank you, Counsel; it does not say what you said it said.

17 It actually says the civilians and soldiers started to retreat. I repeat,

18 started to retreat. It does not say they retreated or they finished their

19 retreat.

20 Q. They say when the retreat started, and they said in the course of

21 the retreat one soldiers was killed. The retreat started at night, and

22 the HVO entered Prozor on the following day at 1200 hours.

23 Mr. Okun, let's move on to the next subject.

24 You also mentioned as an example of ethnic cleansing some wartime

25 events in April 1993. General Praljak attempted to determine whether you

1 also familiar with crimes committed against the Croats, as you seem to be

2 familiar with the crimes apparently committed against Muslims, but I would

3 like as though you a -- a decision, P 02078. We have already discussed

4 this. This is a joint statement signed by Mate Boban and Alija

5 Izetbegovic on the 25th of April, 1993, immediately after midnight. This

6 is a document that was drafted after a meeting that you yourself attended,

7 and in that document, under item 5, the following is stated -- it's in the

8 middle of the paragraph. "According to the information we have to date,

9 both sides are responsible for violations of international humanitarian

10 law, and they undertake to urgently carry out investigations into each and

11 every case of such violations."

12 Mr. Okun, given that you were at that meeting, is it certain that

13 in April 1993 there were conflicts -- there was a conflict between two

14 armies, and the HVO and ABiH were involved, and both sides were equally

15 responsible for all the events, and that also includes the crimes

16 committed in the course of that fighting?

17 A. I have already stated -- well, with respect to April 24th, yes, I

18 was there. I'm well aware of the meeting. I've also stated that there

19 were no angels. You have the statement of Lord Owen saying there are no

20 innocent parties in this. Yes, of course there were reciprocal actions,

21 but the level of activity, the massive damage was done by the HVO and the

22 Bosnian Croat side, and I would simply recall for you in this respect the

23 United Nations Security Council Resolutions which denounced the Bosnian

24 Croat activity at this time.

25 I realise you hold up your hand because it's unwelcome for you to

1 hear that, but I think it's important that I say it.

2 Q. Mr. Okun, I'm glad to hear whatever you have to say since this is

3 really based on good and very balanced information.

4 Tell me, do you know how many members the ABiH had in January

5 1993?

6 A. Not specifically, no.

7 Q. Do you know that the ABiH had six times the amount of soldiers

8 that the HVO had?

9 A. At all times the HVO was better equipped and, one must say, better

10 led than the ABiH. The preponderance of numbers has to be seen in the

11 entire picture of the fighting throughout Bosnia, and one would need to go

12 through the entire orders of battle and deployments, which we certainly

13 won't do, in order to -- to arrive at an answer to your question.

14 So to answer the question specifically whether they had 6 times or

15 600 times doesn't really get to the point.

16 Q. According to which military doctrine is the number of soldiers in

17 the field an irrelevant factor? But I won't ask you about that. We

18 haven't got time to go into that.

19 Let's sum up. Mr. Okun, are you familiar with an area in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina that was under the control of the ABiH, the army of

21 Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the beginning of your involvement in Bosnia and

22 Herzegovina and at the end of your involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

23 Was that area, was that territory augmented? Did it diminish or did it

24 remain as it had been? And when I ask you about that it's in relation to

25 the HVO. When you have a look at the territory in relation to the HVO,

1 not in relation to the Republika Srpska. That you could only have three

2 possible answers. I apologise, four.

3 A. Would you tell me what my answers are?

4 Q. No, no. All I want to say is that you can answer this very

5 briefly since my time has already run out.

6 A. Within the areas behind the confrontation line with the Bosnian

7 Serbs were chequer-board, one might say, chequer-board, smaller areas with

8 this or that army or sometimes Territorial Defence held control. I think

9 you can understand that. So that the question whether and at what time

10 these areas behind the confrontation line with the Serbs, how they changed

11 over time, they did change over time, yes, indeed.

12 Q. Yes. But Mr. Okun, my question was how it changed. At the time

13 when you were involved in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the territory under the

14 control of the BH army, did it increase at the expense of territory and

15 decrease under the control of the HVO until then?

16 A. In some areas -- in some areas the HVO -- the ABH area increased.

17 In the areas of concern to the HVO, their areas increased. There was, of

18 course, much back and forth because we're talking about a war. We're

19 talking about combat operations where one naturally has a changing picture

20 even from day-to-day.

21 Q. That's quite so, but, Mr. Okun, let us go from the individual to

22 the more general. Let us try and make a summary conclusion. Let us look

23 at the whole. If we sum up the entire territory under the control of the

24 ABiH, did it increase while you were involved with Bosnia-Herzegovina at

25 the expense of the HVO? Or in other words, did the intensity of combat

1 operations of the BH army increase during 1993?

2 A. I'm not aware of that.

3 Q. Very well. Thank you very much.

4 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, for the record, I just

5 wish to say that I did not complete my cross-examination, but I have to

6 end there. In any event, thank you for giving me some additional time.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] For the transcript, we gave you

8 20 minutes more.

9 It is now 1.00. We are going to have a one-hour break, which will

10 allow Counsel Nozica and the other counsel to prepare, and we will resume

11 in exactly one hour's time.

12 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.59 p.m.

13 --- On resuming at 2.01 p.m.

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

15 I give the floor to Mr. Murphy.

16 MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon, Your

17 Honours.

18 Cross-examination by Mr. Murphy:

19 Q. Good afternoon, Ambassador.

20 A. Good afternoon.

21 Q. By way of introduction, my name is Peter Murphy, and with my

22 colleague Ms. Senka Nozica, we represent Mr. Bruno Stojic. I will have a

23 few questions for you, as well Ms. Nozica, but hopefully we won't take too

24 long.

25 First of all, Mr. Okun, have you ever met Mr. Stojic?

1 A. I believe not.

2 Q. You've never had any conversation with him as far as you recall?

3 A. I have never had any conversation with him as far as I recall.

4 Q. And you've never, I take it, then, entered into any correspondence

5 with him?

6 A. To the best of my knowledge, no.

7 Q. I'd like to begin by referring you back to paragraph 6 of your

8 witness statement, which you have read to us before. Do you have that in

9 front of you still?

10 A. Yes, I do.

11 Q. It seems to me, Ambassador, listening to your evidence for the

12 last few days that probably because of your long experience as a diplomat

13 you place a high value on precision of language. Would that be fair?

14 A. Well, I try to. I'm sure I'm as imperfect a human being as

15 anybody else, but I try to be precise.

16 Q. That's my impression, too, and when I look at paragraph 6 of your

17 statement, I would like to ask you about just one particular phrase that

18 you use in describing the Bosnian Croat war aims, and about halfway down

19 the paragraph you say one of the aims was "To erect and maintain a

20 separate Bosnian Croat political entity (Herceg-Bosna), which could

21 eventually unite with the Republic of Croatia, formally or informally."

22 And with that precision of language, when you refer to an entity that

23 could eventually unite with the Republic of Croatia, I take it you're

24 referring there to a political process?

25 A. Yes, formally or informally. Yes. A political process that could

1 have evolved over time. I didn't go into it all here. The Bosnian

2 Croats, for example, would speak of a special relationship sometimes. So

3 there were various formulations which I tried to summarise in the three

4 words "formally or informally."

5 Q. Yes. And today I think at one point you described Croatia, and

6 indeed Serbia. As being, so to speak, the mother countries of the two

7 groups within Bosnia.

8 A. That is how the Bosnian Croats saw Croatia and how the Bosnian

9 Serbs saw Serbia.

10 Q. Now, just focusing for a moment, then, on the -- the creation of

11 the community, the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, do you recall that

12 that community was brought into existence during November of 1991?

13 A. Yes, I recall, but it was not of primary concern to us in November

14 1991. Mr. Vance and I were overwhelmingly occupied with -- with Croatia

15 itself.

16 Q. I understand. My question is just to establish that as -- as a

17 chronology. You would agree with me that was the time frame in which it

18 was created?

19 A. Oh, yes.

20 Q. At that point in time there were already in existence some of the

21 Serbian autonomous regions; is that right?

22 A. In Croatia?

23 Q. No, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

24 A. Yes, there were self-proclaimed autonomous regions in Croatia and

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina, yes.

1 Q. And these self-proclaimed Serbian regions pre-dated the formation

2 of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna by a short time?

3 A. They were almost simultaneous, but I think they probably did

4 pre-date it.

5 Q. Then moving forward a little, we come to April of 1992, some four

6 to five months later, and that is the period when the Republic of Bosnia

7 and Herzegovina is recognised as an independent state by the European

8 Union and then by the United States?

9 A. Yes, April 6 and April 7, 1992.

10 Q. So when the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was established, we

11 can agree that it was not established on the territory of the Republic of

12 Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state?

13 A. The original establishment was on the territory of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina was not on that of a recognised international state;

15 however, it was on the territory of the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina which

16 had declared its independence from the former Yugoslavia.

17 Q. Now, you, sir, are a -- you told us, I think, on the first day of

18 your testimony that you have in the past lectured on international law at

19 Yale University?

20 A. That is correct.

21 Q. Presently you teach at Johns Hopkins, I believe?

22 A. Yes. I should add, I'm not a lawyer.

23 Q. No, I understand. But I think you mentioned to us that the course

24 which you teach does encompass international law?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. And in addition to that, throughout a very long and distinguished

2 professional career, you have been involved in the practical application

3 of public international law as a diplomat?

4 A. Yes. I've been fortunate to negotiate numerous treaties during my

5 time of service.

6 Q. Now, at the time when the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was

7 establish, the -- it was in the general period when the Bosnian Serbs had

8 been and were exercising force against or attacking the Republic of

9 Croatia from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina; is that right?

10 A. Yes, from Bosnia and from Serbia, yes.

11 Q. Yes.

12 A. Yes, that's correct.

13 Q. Now, as someone who has had a long and active involvement in the

14 diplomatic field, have you had occasion to come across a system for

15 diagnosing whether a state -- well, let me back up. Before I get to that,

16 based on your long experience in international law, first of all, would

17 you agree with me that in more traditional international law, before an

18 entity could be regarded as a state it had to possess certain

19 characteristics.

20 A. Yes. Control of territory, that sort of thing.

21 Q. Yes. Control of its borders. Having a government that

22 functioned. Wouldn't that be right?

23 A. Mm-hmm. Yes.

24 Q. And if the state then demonstrated over a period of time that it

25 had those characteristics, it would gradually become recognised by other

1 members of the international community?

2 A. Yes, but there were many exceptions to that rule also, as I'm sure

3 you're aware.

4 Q. Yes. And you're also aware that in more modern times the practice

5 has been for statehood to be conferred more directly by the process of

6 recognition by other states?

7 A. That's the more common practice. Again, it's not always the case.

8 Witness the current situation in Kosovo, for example.

9 Q. Yes. And of course I also understand that a large number of

10 states have purported to recognise Palestine, but, as we know, that's not

11 generally accepted?

12 A. And on that same point if I may mention, Mr. Murphy, which is very

13 relevant, when the state of Israel was created in 1947 and then proclaimed

14 its independence, it did not control its territory.

15 Q. Yes.

16 A. But was recognised instantaneously by the Soviet Union and the

17 United States in May 1948. Just to make the point that you're making that

18 I'm agreeing with that there are all kinds of flexibilities involved in

19 recognition.

20 Q. Yes. And it's true to say also, isn't it, that even if a state is

21 recognised it may still not function efficiently as a state?

22 A. Yes, that's true.

23 Q. And it may attract what has become known in international law in

24 more recent times the status of being a failed state?

25 A. Yes. The expression "failed state" is not an official term, but

1 it is an accurate description of certain states.

2 Q. Now, Mr. Okun, I think of in front of you yet more documents, I'm

3 afraid. This time in this distinctive Stojic Defence pink colour. Do you

4 have that binder in front of you?

5 A. Yes, I do.

6 Q. And I would like you to just direct your attention, please, to one

7 document, the very -- it should be the first one in the bundle. The

8 number is 2D 00440. It should be the first document after the index.

9 A. Mm-hmm.

10 Q. And it should be headed "The Fund for Peace: Failed States Index

11 2006." Do you see that?

12 A. Yes, I do.

13 Q. Right. And Their Honours should also have a copy of this.

14 First of all, are you familiar with the Fund for Peace?

15 A. In a general, way. I believe it's an American non-governmental

16 organisation. I would not claim any extensive familiarity with it, but

17 I've seen the name certainly.

18 Q. And there's a reference there to what is the acronym C-A-S-T for

19 CAST. Have you ever come across that before?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Okay. Well, perhaps -- since we don't have very much time,

22 perhaps for now you would accept it from me, and I will be corrected if

23 I'm wrong, that what this document does is to describe what is -- what the

24 fund for peace known calls a failed states index. You're not -- have you

25 come across that before?

1 A. No. This is the first time I've seen it.

2 Q. So you wouldn't know, for example, that a number of governments,

3 including the American government's now making use of this system for

4 political analysis purposes?

5 A. I've never heard -- I deal extensively with the American

6 government officially and unofficially. I've never heard anybody refer to

7 this.

8 Q. All right. Well, let me -- I don't need to go into great detail

9 then about it since -- but I would just like to ask you as someone who has

10 great experience in this area to -- to just help me make -- to assume with

11 me for a moment that we can use this system to make some judgements about

12 a state, and you'll see about halfway down the page a reference to 12

13 indicators. Do you see that in rather small print?

14 A. Yes, I see it.

15 Q. And I will represent to you that these indicators are what the

16 fund uses to make an analysis of the status of a state as being a failed

17 state, and you can see underneath, we don't need to go through the details

18 but they have a list of different states analysed under all these 12.

19 I'd just like to ask you a few questions about these various

20 indicators, and I want to focus particularly on a certain period between

21 April of 1992 and going forward to, let us say, the end of 1993. I don't

22 really need to go beyond that. Can we focus on that period then?

23 A. Mm-hmm.

24 Q. The first of these indicators is what it calls mounting

25 demographic pressures. And again if we had the web site up we could get

1 more information about what that means, but -- but basically it means that

2 there are a lot of pressures between conflicting groups of the population

3 which can result in conflict over such things as disputes over land,

4 property, and so on.

5 We could agree, could we not, that that indicator would certainly

6 be very characteristic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the period that I

7 mentioned?

8 A. I would not agree with that.

9 Q. You wouldn't agree.

10 A. No, because Bosnia-Herzegovina did not have a large population at

11 all. Before the war it was a bit under 4 million. It -- because of the

12 invasion and the fighting and the hundreds of thousands of refugees that

13 have been referred to earlier by Mr. Karnavas and other members of the

14 Defence, there were many fewer. I don't think there are 4 million today,

15 actually, but that was by no means a large or too large a number of people

16 residing in the -- in an area the size of Bosnia-Herzegovina. So one

17 could not speak of demographic pressures in that sense.

18 Q. Well, I didn't mean demographic pressures in the sense that there

19 were too many people. What -- the sense that I was trying to convey was

20 that there were different groups of the population in conflict with each

21 other about such things as disputes over land, property, and so on?

22 A. Oh, yes, in that sense.

23 Q. In that sense.

24 A. Of course.

25 Q. Second indicator is a massive movement of refugees or internally

1 displaced persons, IDP, as it's abbreviated there, which results in

2 humanitarian emergencies. We can agree that during the period that was

3 certainly happening, wasn't it?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. The third one is a legacy of vengeance, different groups seeking

6 grievance or seeking revenge against each other because of long-standing

7 grievance. That's certainly true, is it not?

8 A. It's true of the Serbs by and large. It was not true of the

9 Muslims. And by and large not true of the Bosnian Croats. They -- they

10 did not talk about redressing old grievances the Serbs did constantly.

11 Mladic, General Mladic, just for example, one sentence, would always tell

12 me that he was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that his father was a Bosnian

13 and that his family had been killed during the Nazis, fascists during the

14 Second World War, that sort of thing. But that was very common with the

15 Serbs but not with the Muslims or Croats.

16 Q. You could get back to the Battle of the Field of Blackbirds after

17 just a few minutes' conversation, couldn't you?

18 A. Well, I'd prefer not to. I'm sure you would -- you wouldn't want

19 me.

20 Q. In discussions with Bosnian Serbs that would not be uncommon?

21 A. No, no absolutely in discussion with the Bosnian Serbs.

22 Q. The fourth indicator is what it calls chronic and sustained human

23 flight. The tendency, that is, of those who can - the professionals,

24 intellectuals and those who may fear persecution and ill-treatment -

25 tendency for them to leave the country and be displaced can we agree that

1 was so?

2 A. Remarkably enough that was not happening. It was quite surprising

3 how many of the intellectuals, for example, and journalists and lawyers

4 and professional people remained in Sarajevo during the intense Soviet --

5 sorry, Serbian - that's a real lapsus lingue - during the intense Serbian

6 shelling of the city and in other places as well. That was indeed one of

7 the noticeable aspects, was the desire of people in the main, all of them,

8 to stay where they were. So that was not characteristic of the fighting.

9 Q. All right. Well, let me move on, then, from that. The next one

10 is uneven economic development along group lines. In other words, certain

11 segments of the population might have grievances about perceived

12 inequality of the distribution of wealth and opportunity.

13 A. That was not a factor either. The Bosnian Muslims and the

14 Croats -- well, the Muslims were the most urbanised of the three people.

15 The Serbs were the most rural. The Croats were something in between. But

16 they -- there was -- there was no great economic disparity among the three

17 groups.

18 Q. All right. Sharp or severe economic decline.

19 A. That occurred once the fighting began. Before the fighting began

20 Bosnia was doing fine.

21 Q. But by the time the war got under way there was indeed a very

22 sharp economic decline, was there not?

23 A. Yes and no. There were areas where the food supply was reduced.

24 Sarajevo, for example, because of the Serbian siege. We had to fly in

25 food to Sarajevo. But in the rest of the country one could go into small

1 towns and go into the local restaurant and get a meal without any trouble.

2 Q. Number 7 is the criminalisation or delegitimisation of the state,

3 which appears to mean a loss of popular confidence in state institutions,

4 the tendency towards corruption or the collapse of governmental

5 institutions. That was certainly true, wasn't it?

6 A. Well, again, that tended to occur and was a particular Bosnian

7 Serb talking point. They asserted that -- constantly, you know, that

8 there was no such thing as Bosnia-Herzegovina.

9 Q. Yes. Number 8, the progressive deterioration of public services.

10 We could agree on that, I'm sure.

11 A. Well, they held up pretty well all things considered, remarkably

12 well, the public services. Again Sarajevo is the best example. Here's

13 the capital city besieged for months with an average shell count per day

14 of 5.000. We had UN observers in the city and on the hills, and the

15 average number of Serbian shells falling on Sarajevo was 5.000 per day,

16 and yet, in spite of that, the water system - very important, the water

17 and sewage system, you can imagine vital to the city - was maintained with

18 difficulty and with foreign assistance, but the water and sewage system

19 functioned during the entire Serb siege.

20 Q. All right. I have a lot to go into that but for reasons of time

21 we'll go on. Number 9, widespread violation of human rights?

22 A. Yes, indeed.

23 Q. Number 10, the security apparatus or a security apparatus

24 operating as a state within a state, private armies or --

25 A. Well, we've already discussed the HVO.

1 Q. Yes?

2 A. And the Bosnian Serb territorial militia, that they had taken

3 over. But I would not call it a security apparatus as a state within a

4 state. That's something quite -- really quite different. I mean there

5 you're talking about the NKVD or -- in Russia, or the Ministry of State

6 Security in the old German Democratic Republic, or countries of that ilk.

7 That did not happen in Bosnia.

8 Q. All right. Number 11, the rise of factionalised elites. In other

9 words, different groups --

10 A. That's another interesting point, because one might have expected

11 that, but as I had mentioned earlier in answer to another question about

12 the legacy of vengeance, by and large that did not happen in

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is to say the journalists in Oslobodjenje, for

14 example, in Sarajevo, Serbs, Croats, and -- and Muslims by and large held

15 together and -- and sought to maintain the multi-ethnic Bosnia. Haris

16 Silajdzic, surely an elite, the very Muslim deputy Foreign Minister in the

17 Bosnian government, was passionate on the subject of non-factionalising

18 the elites even as he supported the Muslim position. So that was a more

19 complex picture but basically they held together. That was one of the

20 encouraging aspects of the situation in what was generally a depressing

21 picture during 1992 and 3.

22 Q. One of the reasons it was a depressing picture, though, was

23 because of the amount of political rhetoric along ethnic lines. Isn't

24 that right?

25 A. Yes, that happens, yes.

1 Q. And finally number 12, the intervention of other states or

2 external actors, and that certainly occurred, did it not?

3 A. Oh, yes.

4 Q. Yes. Now, the reason I've taken so long to go through those

5 indicators with you is to try to establish if we could, and to ask you to

6 agree with this proposition, that between April of 1992 and the end of

7 1993, even though Bosnia and Herzegovina was a recognise state, it was for

8 all practical purposes a failed state.

9 A. I do not agree with that.

10 Q. All right.

11 A. May I explain why? Briefly.

12 Q. Please.

13 A. The country had been invaded and was occupied 70 per cent of the

14 country by the Bosnian Serbs. That doesn't make it a failed state any

15 more than France between 1940 and '44 was a "failed state." It was

16 occupied by the German army. They fought a war. Unfortunately, they

17 didn't do very well, and so the German army occupied the country. That's

18 not at all consistent with the concept of a failed state.

19 Q. Well, let's look at what was going on. I think you've testified

20 that President Izetbegovic had what I think you called a dual function.

21 They may not be your exact words.

22 A. No, that's correct.

23 Q. On the other hand he was representing himself to be the

24 representative of the Independent State of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

25 A. Correct.

1 Q. On the other hand, he was attending the negotiations with which

2 you were involved, representing what we might call the Muslim side as the

3 head of that delegation.

4 A. Correct, but when you say he was representing himself to be the

5 president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that's not quite right. He was the

6 president of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

7 Q. All right. He was the president. But --

8 A. But as I -- you're quite right. He took the Muslim position, yes.

9 Q. At the same time, a member of his government, a colleague within

10 the government, Mr. Akmadzic, who held ministerial office, was a member of

11 what we could call an opposing delegation at those same talks.

12 A. I would like not to think of it as an opposing delegation, but

13 certainly a different delegation and different from the Muslim delegation,

14 yes. He sat with the Croats and represented the Croat position.

15 Q. Yes.

16 A. He didn't hide that at all.

17 Q. No. Well, exactly my point. It was all out there in the open

18 that within the -- the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina there were

19 different factions who were trying to achieve a different ultimate result.

20 A. Yes. Exactly so.

21 Q. And partly as a result of that, and partly because of difficult

22 conditions in Sarajevo, I would suggest to you that the government in

23 Sarajevo was effectively unable to provide services to its constituents

24 throughout the state.

25 A. Well, that's true, that the government didn't -- I've mentioned

1 that the Serb army controlled 70 per cent, roughly 70 per cent, of the

2 state. Therefore, ipso facto, the Bosnian government did not control

3 70 per cent and could not provide the services. This was a country at

4 war.

5 Q. Yes. Now, we -- the next step that I want to take, Mr. Okun,

6 from -- from there is to suggest to you that in those very difficult

7 circumstances any group, but since we're talking about the Bosnian Croats,

8 let's talk about them, throughout the period that I've mentioned, between

9 April of 1992 and the end of 1993, was entitled to take action to organise

10 themselves for the purpose of survival, defence, and providing for their

11 everyday legitimate needs?

12 A. Up to a point, yes. Beyond a certain point, no. Of course every

13 group had the right of self-defence. It's Article 51 of the United

14 Nations Charter. It's enshrined in international law; there's no question

15 about self-defence. But what the Bosnian Serbs did and what the Bosnian

16 Croats did went well beyond that.

17 Q. I'm just dealing now with what the entitlement was. I think we

18 can all agree that on the ground on all sides of this conflict things

19 happened that should not have happened.

20 A. Mm-hmm.

21 Q. But I'm looking now as a broad picture. Let me explain why I'm

22 putting this question to you. You've represented to the Trial Chamber

23 that the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna represents an attempt

24 essentially to set up an entity, a political entity with the ultimate goal

25 in some manner of being incorporated with or being annexed by the Republic

1 of Croatia.

2 A. Correct.

3 Q. What I'm suggesting to you is that, as a matter of public

4 international law and as a matter of the facts that were prevailing during

5 this period, there is in fact an alternative explanation for the existence

6 of that entity, which has nothing whatsoever to do with territorial claims

7 but is, rather, associated with defence and the practical need to survive

8 in time of war.

9 A. It went beyond that, sir. If that is where it had stopped there

10 would be no dispute, but we have had examples of the Bosnian Serbs and the

11 Bosnian Croats telling us, talking to us about their desires for the

12 future territorial composition of the state that went way beyond

13 self-defence.

14 Q. Let's work with that assumption for a moment. Let's suppose

15 that's right. You're familiar with the expression, "hindsight is 20/20."

16 I'm not sure -- that's probably not going to translate into French or

17 B/C/S. Let me rephrase it. It's a mistake to look at history backwards

18 from the present time. Would you agree? We have to try and put ourselves

19 in the position of the people who were there at the time.

20 A. Of course.

21 Q. And to understand how things looked to them.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And would you not agree with me that during the period that I've

24 been referring to there was, to say the very least, a serious doubt as to

25 whether the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina could survive?

1 A. There was both a serious doubt given the invasion and the

2 fighting, and also a serious hope on the part unquestionably of the

3 Bosnian Serbs and to a lesser degree on the part of the Bosnian Croats.

4 Q. Well, if -- if you were in that position, I mean, you're --

5 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Please excuse me.

6 MR. MURPHY: Please, Your Honour. Please do.

7 JUDGE TRECHSEL: You said there was a hope. In which way? What

8 are you saying they hoped for?

9 THE WITNESS: They hoped to be able to link their political

10 entities, Republika Srpska for the Bosnian Serbs, Herceg-Bosna for the

11 Bosnian Croats. They wanted to link their entities with their mother

12 countries when they could.

13 MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Your Honour. I'm very grateful, because I

14 want to confront that head-on.

15 Q. Let's assume that's true. In the context of a dissolving state

16 which the former Yugoslavia was, we can agree, and in the situation of

17 chaos that Bosnia and Herzegovina represented during that period, I

18 suggest to you that both legally and in every other way there is nothing

19 inherently illegitimate in that proposition.

20 A. Oh, I'm afraid you're wrong there, Counsel, because what has been

21 brought out by numerous questions, territorial integrity does manner --

22 matter. Bosnia and Herzegovina was a sovereign state within recognised

23 international borders. So to say that chaos represented during that

24 period, I suggest to you that legally and every other way there was

25 nothing inherently illegitimate in that proposition. I can't agree with

1 that. It is inherent from beginning -- inherently illegitimate from

2 beginning to end to take advantage of a wartime situation to set up

3 alternate states.

4 Q. Well, that wasn't quite what I was suggesting, but let's -- let's

5 just pursue it for a moment.

6 A. Mm-hmm.

7 Q. You've made the equation between -- or drawn a comparison between

8 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna on the one hand and Republika

9 Srpska on the other.

10 A. Mm-hmm.

11 Q. Is that right?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Now, to the extent that the Bosnian Serbs wanted to create an

14 entity that eventually might lead to incorporation into or some

15 relationship with Serbia, the simple fact of the matter is that they have

16 succeeded, at least in part, isn't it?

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. Because today Republika Srpska, as we know, is an entity within

19 Bosnia and Herzegovina.

20 A. That's correct.

21 Q. That arrangement was the result of an internationally brokered

22 agreement.

23 A. Yes, the Dayton framework accord.

24 Q. And it was internationally brokered because those who were

25 conducting those negotiations realised that it reflected a certain reality

1 with which they had to deal.

2 A. That's a very long story. I could go into it. I'm sure you don't

3 want me to. There are many reasons why it was recognise.

4 Q. That's true. But the fact is that with international approval,

5 however in some ways reluctant, it was so recognised.

6 A. It was recognised.

7 Q. And is recognised today.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Now, one thing you -- you worked long and hard, and I'm not sure

10 anybody has said this in -- I don't think Mr. Scott did, but in case

11 nobody has, we all appreciate the long work you put in with Lord Owen and

12 Mr. Vance to try and solve this situation, but one thing puzzles me about

13 the -- the evidence that you've given about the Vance-Owen agreement.

14 You've said repeatedly that the proposal was not ethnically based. Is

15 that -- am I right? You've said that?

16 A. What I have -- what I've said, Mr. Murphy, was that the

17 composition of the provinces to the maximum degree were not ethnically

18 based, and we've discussed that extensively. You know, how many people

19 lived -- lived where. I've also said that the important aspects of the

20 plan were to reverse ethnic cleansing and to maintain to the maximum

21 degree possible the overall multi-ethnic nature of the Republic of

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina. One, of course, had to take into account the fact

23 that certain people lived in certain places. We were not drawing maps on

24 the moon, and that, of course, accounted for anomalous situations. And

25 one of the previous counsels asked me to look at the provinces and, you

1 know, where were the Serbs, et cetera. But the essence was to maintain a

2 multi-ethnic state which Bosnia and Herzegovina had been in, let us say,

3 1990, to the maximum degree possible.

4 Q. But --

5 JUDGE TRECHSEL: May I? I'm sorry.

6 MR. MURPHY: Yes, of course, Your Honour, please.

7 JUDGE TRECHSEL: You ought to slow down a little because they are

8 behind with the transcript, and I'm afraid something might get lost.

9 MR. MURPHY: Thank you very much, Your Honour. I was for a while

10 listening in French as I usually do, but I couldn't hear the ambassador so

11 I switched back to English. I apologise for that. I'll try again.

12 Q. You said this morning, for example, that in case of uncertainty

13 where you had a mixed Croat-Muslim area, that you tended to give what you

14 called the benefit of the doubt to the Croats.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And that does indicate, doesn't it, that essentially the drawing

17 of the boundaries between the cantons or the provinces was, in fact,

18 ethnically based?

19 A. No, it was not ethnically based. There were other factors,

20 Mr. Murphy, that we had to take into account, and that's so stated in the

21 plan discussing the structure of the provinces. Of course the people who

22 lived there counted, but also the geography. Where were the mountains?

23 Where were the valleys? What was the industrial base inside that canton?

24 What about the power lines and the power grids? So a multiplicity of

25 factors had to be taken into account, and were taken into account.

1 Now, it was a complex situation. For example, just to get

2 directly to your point, the Muslim majority provinces had the best part of

3 the industry of the industrial base of pre-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. And it

4 was not a large industrial base, but as we've discussed here there were

5 major industrial installations. The only jet factory in all of Yugoslavia

6 was located in Sarajevo, for example. We've discussed Novi Travnik, and

7 things like that.

8 The point I just want to make in answer to your question about

9 benefit of the doubt was that we knew from our own map and from our

10 experts that the Muslims were going to receive a very good industrial

11 base, and we wanted to be fair to the Bosnian Croats to make sure that in

12 other ways they were compensated. Just as in the same case the Bosnian

13 Serbs under the map of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan had -- in geographic

14 terms, 43 per cent of the entire country were in Bosnian Serb majority

15 provinces, but as Mr. Buha said, "You've given us the snakes and the rocks

16 and the stones." They were the poorest areas of the country. So that in

17 drawing the map, which was a difficult business, as everybody knows, many

18 factors had to be taken into account, and the negotiators did their best.

19 Q. Just one short matter finally, Ambassador. Can I ask whether you

20 have read the indictment in the present case?

21 A. Yes, I've read it some months ago. I have not read it recently.

22 Q. I think that's all I have. Thank you. My colleague Ms. Nozica

23 has a few questions. Thank you very much, Ambassador.

24 A. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

25 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.

1 Cross-examination by Ms. Nozica:

2 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Ambassador, my name is Senka Nozica, and I'm

3 an attorney from Sarajevo.

4 Over the past four days you have shown an enviable level of

5 knowledge about Bosnia-Herzegovina, its territory, and the whole of the

6 Balkans, in fact. You have shown us that you remember a great deal of

7 things, that you have an exceptionally good memory, but you also

8 demonstrated that you had a lot of information available to you, and

9 because of that latter, I'd like to tell you as somebody who spent the

10 entire war in Sarajevo, linked to your answer in response to my

11 colleague's question about the communal system, you said that the

12 observers from Sarajevo told you that this communal system, in addition to

13 the 5.000 shells a day, was kept going, the utility system and the

14 communal system. And I'd just like to tell you that the citizens of

15 Sarajevo on average, for the four years of war, did not have water, if you

16 were to do add the days, more than two months during that whole period and

17 an equal amount of electricity. There was water in just three or four

18 points in town, and it was very dangerous to go there, and we received our

19 electricity very rarely, so that I think, and you can accept this just as

20 a piece of information, that your information along those lines are not

21 completely correct and are somewhat lacking.

22 However, I'd like to deal with some other issues now. I don't

23 have much time at my disposal, and they are subjects touched upon by my

24 colleague, Ms. Alaburic. I have to go back to those questions because the

25 Prosecutor showed you at least two documents which referred to Mr. Bruno

1 Stojic, and they are documents which deal with January 1993, and they are

2 the documents which speak about subordination, the HVO and the BH army in

3 both directions, vice versa, one to the other, et cetera. And during the

4 examination-in-chief, you said in addressing those documents, and you said

5 about those orders and decisions that they were premature?

6 A. Excuse me, I never said that. Lord Owen used the word

7 "premature." Lord Owen -- that's Lord Owen's word. If I said that word,

8 I was quoting him. Excuse me.

9 Q. Yes. Thank you. Did you say that they were not in the spirit of

10 the Vance-Owen Plan, that they did not reflect the spirit of the

11 Vance-Owen Plan? Would that be correct?

12 A. I said they reflected neither the spirit nor the letter of the

13 Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

14 Q. Very well. And the third point. You gave these three

15 qualifications, and you said that they led to untoward consequences,

16 undesired consequences. Do you agree with that as being your third

17 qualification?

18 A. I made that point, yes.

19 Q. Thank you. Now, I'd like to focus on the second point, this

20 one -- especially this one order signed by my client, and linked to that

21 order, the orders that followed, was it in the spirit and letter, as you

22 say, of the Vance-Owen Plan? We have already had an opportunity of

23 looking at the document today, so may we have it back on e-court. It is P

24 09852. That is the document number. And it is a document which is the

25 fourth in your binder. It is green, to help you find it. And I'd like to

1 inform you and the Chamber and the Prosecutor that I have placed all the

2 documents that I'm going to use in the binder including the ones that have

3 been use by the Prosecutor. Ours are pink, and the green ones are the

4 documents that the Prosecutor used during the examination-in-chief.

5 Have you found the document? The number of the document once

6 again is 9852, and --

7 A. Yes, I have found it.

8 Q. Okay. Can we take a look at page 13 together, now, please. My

9 colleague said a moment ago, and we can find that on page 11, it is the

10 introductory statement by Lord Owen, but as to the first paragraph on page

11 13 you said that they were in fact the principles laid down by Lord Owen,

12 or paraphrased by Lord Owen in the introductory speech, if I understood

13 you correctly. And I'm referring to the first paragraph on page 13?

14 A. Well, we don't need Lord Owen's paraphrase. We have the text of

15 the document, Ms. Nozica. So, you know, Lord Owen's paraphrase, Secretary

16 Vance's paraphrase, is precisely what you call it, a paraphrase. We have

17 the text in front of us. We don't need to paraphrase it.

18 Q. Ambassador, I'd like to ask you to look and see what he said about

19 subordination, Mr. Owen that is, at this conference which was held in

20 Geneva, linked to the matter of subordination. Now, we haven't received

21 it from the Prosecutor, the translation of this text into the Croatian,

22 Bosnian, Serbian language, but just in order to have the right transcript

23 come up, could you read it out, please? Could you read the sentence out?

24 A. You mean what Lord Owen said?

25 Q. Yes. Yes.

1 A. Well --

2 Q. And it begins were "Bosnian Serb forces." It's the second line.

3 The first sentence, second line, page 13.

4 A. Yes, I see it.

5 Q. To the end of the paragraph, please, if you would.

6 A. Yes. Lord Owen says, and I quote: "Bosnian Serb forces might

7 withdraw to provinces 2, 4, 6. Bosnian Croat forces could be deployed in

8 province 3, and the remaining forces would hopefully reach agreement as to

9 their deployment in provinces 1, 5, 8, 9, and 10. Under our

10 constitutional principles (number 8) Bosnia and Herzegovina is to be

11 progressively demilitarised." End of paragraph.

12 Q. Yes. Thank you. As you say, constitutional principles number 8,

13 the eighth constitutional principle, in fact relates to demilitarisation,

14 does it not?

15 A. I assume if Lord Owen says so it does. I don't have it in front

16 of me.

17 Q. Could you now take a look at page 11, which comes before this

18 paragraph if there are any uncertainty so that we can be certain about

19 what we're reading? Can we have a look at page 11, Annex III, the opening

20 statement of Lord Owen. That's what it is. Is that right? Just for the

21 transcript so we know what we're reading from.

22 A. Yes, I see it.

23 Q. Ambassador, can we agree that from this explanation and these

24 qualifications made by Mr. Owen that it emerges that the armies in the

25 provinces would suppose -- were supposed to reach an agreement about how

1 they were going to be deployed?

2 A. Yes, that is so stated in the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

3 Q. Thank you. Now, the Prosecutor read out to you part of the

4 discussion by Mr. Izetbegovic from a meeting held in Zagreb, dated the

5 15th of January, 1993. And at that meeting -- well, you said you didn't

6 attend the meeting, that you weren't there.

7 Are you a little tired? I seem to feel that you are a little

8 tired already. Am I right?

9 A. No. I follow you with intense interest and even enthusiasm.

10 Q. I'm very pleased to hear that. Thank you.

11 So you said you were not at that meeting; is that right?

12 A. We've gone over this several times. You had the transcript. I

13 believe I was not. I would have to consult my diaries. Unlike Mr.

14 Karnavas, I have not read them 10.000 times. I stand -- whatever you say

15 about the record, the record I think has already been made clear, so why

16 don't you continue.

17 Q. Yes. All right. Now, may we look at the transcript? It is in my

18 binder, and the number of the document is P 01158, and it is the sixth

19 document from the bottom.

20 The Prosecutor read out part of the discussion by Mr. Izetbegovic

21 on page 18 in the English version, and it is page 48 in the Croatian

22 version. Let me remind you, and you can believe me when I tell you that

23 it is the portion where Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, in his own way, is seen to

24 be a little nervous or showing dissatisfaction because he considers that

25 the interpretation of the plan by the Bosnian Croats is not being done in

1 the way in which the plan reads, especially about this question of

2 subordination of the 15th of January.

3 Now, may we take a look together at this again and see what

4 Mr. Owen said at the meeting about this matter. And that will be found on

5 page 52 in the Croatian version and page 20 of the English version. If

6 you can't find it, I'll read it out.

7 A. I have found it. Thank you.

8 Q. That's great. Thank you. Now, what he says here, and I'd like to

9 start off from the third sentence, is this: "As far as the individual

10 provinces are concerned, in explaining the system I said that the Serb

11 military forces were to withdraw to Banja Luka, Bijeljina, and Eastern

12 Herzegovina. As to the rest, I didn't offer any suggestions, but I think

13 that I've already mentioned that this is a question which should be

14 resolved together by the BH army and the HVO."

15 Do you agree with me that once again Mr. Owen is suggesting that

16 consultation and agreement be used to resolve this issue about the BH army

17 and the HVO?

18 A. He's summarising section E of the Vance-Owen Plan, the one called,

19 "the withdrawal of forces." And the line in the plan that he's

20 summarising reads: "Both Bosnian army and HVO forces shall be deployed in

21 provinces 5, 8, 9 and 10 under arrangements agreed between them."

22 Yes, there was to be joint consultation about the deployment in

23 those provinces. That's what Lord Owen meant. Of course, he didn't have

24 the plan in front of him when he was speaking so some of the words may

25 vary, but he's accurate. He's quite accurate in saying that the -- this

1 was an issue for the BH army and the HVO to discuss together, yes.

2 That's -- that's accurate.

3 Q. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. Let us now look at one of

4 these orders which was not shown to you by the Prosecutor, and it is under

5 number P 01140. It is number 3 from the top in your binder, and it is

6 marked with a pink sticker.

7 Could we please have a look at it, because I consider it to be

8 essential because it was signed by Mr. Stojic. I wish to refer to points

9 1 and 5 because we've already seen some other -- the others. Let us see

10 what it says under point 1.

11 "The Main Staff of the forces of the HVO must immediately

12 establish contact with all operative forces and commands of the army of

13 Bosnia and Herzegovina in the territory of provinces 3, 8, 10 and 1, 5,

14 and 9 in order to make concrete the implementation of the decision."

15 Have you found it? I see you're looking through the documents,

16 but every word is important for me. 1140, three from the top, bearing a

17 pink sticker.

18 Ambassador, it's on the screen now.

19 A. Thank you. I see it.

20 Q. You've found it, I see.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. So to order -- in order concreting to implement the decision of

23 the HVO HZ, dated the 15th of January, 1993. This is the decision passed

24 by the HVO and signed by Mr. Prlic.

25 Now I'd ask you to look at point 5, which says: "Officers of the

1 army of BH shall enter the command of the armed forces of the HVO at the

2 level of operations zones and brigades in proportion to the number of

3 soldiers that are at the front lines."

4 And then we see at the end to whom it was addressed the Main Staff

5 of the HVO, the staff of the army of BH, the defence minister of

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the military police administration, et cetera.

7 Now, this preamble, to the best of your understanding, I assume

8 that you see this document for the first time, the preamble instructing

9 the Main Staff of the armed forces should establish direct contact with

10 all operative zones and staffs of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina for

11 concreting implementing the decision.

12 Doesn't this order imply an attempt at an agreement precisely in

13 the way it is stated in the Vance-Owen Plan and its annex?

14 A. The answer to that question is no, and the reason for it is as

15 follows: On the same day, in the immediately preceding document in your

16 package, there is the decision announced by the Croatian Defence Council,

17 the one signed by Dr. Prlic, which says as its first sentence: "All units

18 of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina which at this moment are stationed

19 in provinces 3, 8, and 10, which have been declared Croatian provinces in

20 the Geneva Accords, shall be subordinated to the command of the Main Staff

21 of the HVO forces."

22 The item that you read descends from this document. So when it

23 says we will -- you know, you should come and discuss with us, it was on

24 the basis your subordination to the HVO. That's on the basis of

25 Dr. Prlic's document that I just read. So it was not an independent,

1 "come let's talk about matters." It was: You are subordinate to us.

2 You report to us and now we talk.

3 Q. Ambassador, I will tell you quite sincerely that I didn't expect

4 you to give me a different answer. I kindly ask you to look through these

5 documents together, and the conclusion will be drawn by Their Honours.

6 The decision that was sign by Mr. Prlic is a decision, and this

7 ask an order that operationalises that decision. My question is whether

8 this order says that the decision signed by Mr. Prlic can be effectuated

9 together with the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Is that what this says?

10 I'm just asking you to respond at the level of what it says.

11 A. It --

12 Q. I'm sorry, can we move on? I have little time left. I have a few

13 more documents. At the end I will let you tell us what you believe, and

14 I'd love to listen to you, but you are in The Hague for the first time in

15 a courtroom where our time is limited, and you may consider us being a bit

16 impolite, but I have no other way.

17 The Prosecutor showed us -- showed you a document, P 01168. It is

18 number 5 in your set with a green sticker because it was shown to you by

19 the Prosecutor. And let me remind you, it is an order by Mr. Sefer

20 Halilovic, dated the 16th of January, 1993. Have you found it?

21 A. Yes, I have.

22 Q. Previous order by Mr. Stojic, as we have seen, he is sending this

23 order to the Main Staff of the BH army. From the first sentence of this

24 order by Mr. Sefer Halilovic we see that he has received it, because he

25 says in the first sentence: "On January 15, 1993, the Main Staff of the

1 arm forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was informed about

2 the decision of the HVO of Herceg-Bosna and the command of the unit

3 commander of the defence department HVO HZ HB in Mostar."

4 And under the word "Order," Mr. Halilovic says: "Command staffs

5 and units and institutions of the army may not accept nor implement the

6 decisions of the HVO but must exclusively abide by the decisions of the

7 staff of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of the Republic of Bosnia

8 and Herzegovina."

9 This document was shown to you by the Prosecutor. Does it follow

10 from this document that the BH army -- or, rather, the Chief of Staff did

11 not accept the offer to jointly just and agree on further action? We see

12 that he received it. And in his order, in paragraph one he instructs his

13 army, the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not to accept nor implement that

14 decision. Does it follow from this document?

15 A. He was instructing the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina not to agree

16 with the HVO unilateral announcement that they subordinate themselves to

17 the HVO.

18 Q. Ambassador, you are rather acting as counsel for Mr. Halilovic,

19 because he doesn't say in this order. He says, "You must not accept." He

20 does not provide the arguments that you have given, but let us move on.

21 A. I must differ with you there, Counsel. I'll be very brief. If

22 you only read the first two sentences of his statement, it reads: "On

23 January 15th, SVK OS RBiH was informed about the decision," et cetera,

24 "and the command, the unit commanders," et cetera, et cetera, "these

25 documents contain the command that all BiH army units that are at the

1 moment on the territories of provinces 3, 8, 10, the provinces that were

2 declared Croatian on the Geneva talks are to be subordinated to the

3 command of the main headquarters of OS HVO. He does say it and he says,

4 "I disagree." You cannot say he does not say it. I've just read it to

5 you. I mean, why do you say he -- but how can you say he doesn't say it

6 when I've read it to you?

7 Q. Yes, I agree with what you have read out, but, please, let us move

8 on.

9 A. Let's move on.

10 Q. A meeting was held in Zagreb -- I'm sorry, I'm referring to the

11 meeting in Sarajevo, on the 20th of January, 1993, and at that meeting,

12 and this is in your diary, I hope you will trust me because we don't have

13 time to find it. But I will say for the transcript that it is document P

14 01038, and I am referring to page R0164313, and the discussion was about

15 the order issued by Mr. Rajic. Do you remember that?

16 A. Yes, I was present at that meeting. I devoted an entire paragraph

17 to it in my witness statement. I won't, of course, read it, but just for

18 the benefit of the Chamber, it's paragraph 19 of my witness statement.

19 Q. Fine. That is quite true. In your diary you devote a whole part

20 when you're quoting Mr. Owen and saying: "I personally believe that the

21 announcement of the defence minister was premature." That's what Mr. Owen

22 said, isn't?

23 A. Yes, I referred to that explicitly, specifically in my witness

24 statement, and I said just in two lines, "referring to the order as

25 'premature,' which was a diplomatic way of expressing his disagreement

1 with Akmadzic, Lord Owen made it clear that he supported Izetbegovic's

2 position."

3 Q. Can we look at document 2D 00441. It is the third document in my

4 binder from the bottom. Have you found it?

5 A. Yes, I have.

6 Q. Thank you. It is an order by Mr. Bozic Rajic, dated the 21st of

7 January, 1993.

8 So we agree that the order was issued only a day after this

9 meeting held in Sarajevo when Lord Owen expressed his disagreement and

10 dissatisfaction with this order.

11 On the 21st of January, Mr. Bozic Rajic, the defence minister of

12 the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in point 1 says: "The deadline

13 for the execution of the command of the 16th of January, 1993, was set for

14 January 20, 1993, until 24.00 hours is being extended until completion of

15 peace talks at Geneva."

16 And he's addressing it to the same people as he did the other

17 order that we looked at dated the 15th of January.

18 This is a document of the state archives of Croatia, and it has a

19 stamp at the bottom so as to avoid any questions about it.

20 Ambassador, it follows from this order that Mr. Rajic rescinded

21 his order of the 16th of January before declaring invalid the decision of

22 the minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina published in the Official Gazette

23 on the 29th of January, issued by Mr. Izetbegovic. Is it possible to make

24 such a conclusion on the basis of this document?

25 A. I would say this document per se states the abrogation of the

1 earlier order. Whether it was obeyed on the ground or whether it was

2 meant to be obeyed on the ground by HVO forces could be another matter.

3 Q. Unfortunately, I don't have time. Because my colleague Ms.

4 Alaburic asked you about the implementation of this order, I just wanted

5 to follow the path that this order followed.

6 For the transcript, I would like to say that on the 20th of

7 January, 1993, and this is document P 0 -- it's not in my binder, but for

8 the transcript, I don't have time for it, P 01240. It is a meeting held

9 on the 20th of January at Mr. Tudjman's, and at that meeting, Mr. Boban,

10 already on the 20th of January, that is the -- the day that followed your

11 visit to Sarajevo, when he announced the abrogation or the rescinding of

12 these orders.

13 As my time is running out - I have even less than I thought - let

14 us go back to April and the April conflicts. This is an issue that was

15 touched upon with you by Mr. Karnavas, but unfortunately he didn't have

16 time.

17 Repeatedly you told -- you spoke in this courtroom about the fact

18 that these were conflicts whereby the HVO carried out certain ethnic

19 cleansing for which he was officially declared responsible, and you linked

20 all this to the orders from January 1993.

21 I would kindly ask you, you attended the meeting, and Mr. Karnavas

22 asked you, and he even quoted parts of the text from the meeting on the

23 24th of April, 1993. When Mr. Owen speaks about responsibility for those

24 conflicts, and then you asked whether that is included in my diary and, if

25 so, that is correct. Now, in a few steps I would like us to reach that

1 point.

2 Let us first look at the transcript from that meeting you

3 attended. It is P 02059. In my binder, it is the fifth document from the

4 top. No, I'm sorry, from the bottom. I'm sorry, from the bottom. I'm

5 sure you will remember all this. I just want to show you page 48 - it's

6 the same page in the English version and the Croatian version - for you to

7 see what Mr. Owen said with reference to the April conflicts.

8 It is page 48, and it says -- there was a lot of discussion about

9 this about those conflicts. I don't have time to go into the details, but

10 Their Honours have this document. At the end, Mr. Owen says: "If I may

11 say so, there's really no doubt that both sides are responsible. Let me

12 just read part of an article from The New York Times. This is not a

13 newspaper which is anti-Muslim. The article says the following: The UN

14 spokesperson in Sarajevo, Commander Barry Frewer from Canada, said that

15 the Bosnian forces were focusing on expelling the Croats from the Muslim

16 town of Zenica, 20 miles to the north-east of Vitez. A large number of

17 Croats are walking with bundles towards Vitez, while the Muslim refugees

18 are fleeing in the opposite direction towards Zenica. To all appearances,

19 there are very strong indications of ethnic cleansing, torching of house,

20 dead bodies of civilians in the streets.' It is quite obvious that this is

21 happening on both sides. I think that we really should not believe that

22 it's only one side. I have also received some other reports, and I can

23 make them public."

24 And then Mr. Izetbegovic says: "I am not saying that both sides

25 are not to blame. I'm just saying that this should not be mentioned in

1 advance ..." because he's referring to the final statement.

2 And this story goes on. Mr. Izetbegovic insists. And can we look

3 at page 50. Mr. Owen says in the first paragraph, third or fourth

4 sentence which says: "But I certainly think that it is very important to

5 admit that both sides are responsible for these undesirable events. I

6 really think this is very important."

7 And finally let me also show you your diary or, rather, the page

8 in your diary, and this is document P 01772. In my binder you can find

9 just this one page of the diary. So it is easier for you to find your

10 way, it is page 064542, where it is explicitly stated, and this is the

11 24th of April, 1993. This is a note about that meeting, and it says that

12 both sides are responsible. And then the same date but this time page

13 164544, when Owen says again, "The problem is Central Bosnia. Tensions

14 are not new. They precede the Vance-Owen Plan. And I have the best

15 insight into information that everyone has contributed to it."

16 Mr. Ambassador, having shown you these documents and reminding you

17 of these things because you were present, I just wanted to refresh your

18 memory. Do you remember that with respect to the April conflicts that you

19 have repeatedly attributed the blame to the Croats here in the courtroom,

20 can we come to the conclusion that at least it was Mr. Owen's position

21 that both sides were responsible?

22 A. I have said in this courtroom that both sides were responsible.

23 My words were -- they were, "neither of them were angels." So I have said

24 the same thing that Lord Owen has said, and there's no difference between

25 us. I've stated that in this courtroom.

1 Q. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your answer. In your answers, on a

2 number of occasions there were indications and even quite open statements

3 that the Croats were more responsible, and you linked this even to the

4 decisions of January 1993. We will carefully read through the transcript.

5 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] I would have another one or two

6 questions if I have the time for them, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please finish with your one or

8 two questions, but be very concise, please.

9 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] I will. I will.

10 Q. And this is very important for me. The document that has been

11 shown to you, it is a document addressed to my client, and that is why I

12 consider it important to show it to you. It is document P 01338, and it

13 is a document which is the fourth from the bottom in the binder. Let me

14 just check that. No, I'm sorry, it's the third. P 01338.

15 Have you found it, Ambassador?

16 A. Yes, I have.

17 Q. This document was shown to you by the Prosecutor, because in this

18 document it is stated -- or, rather, in this letter written to Mr. Stojic,

19 he's complaining about Rajic's decision. He says it was a unilateral

20 decision. The tone is as expected. And he also speaks about the strength

21 of the army that doesn't need assistance from anyone, but there are two

22 important points that you can comment on. And this is on page 2 of the

23 English text, third paragraph, and it says that the Supreme Command Staff

24 in its units does not have nor will it have units composed of foreign

25 nationals. This is a response to the reproach that there are Mujahedin in

1 his units.

2 You were a witness that there were Mujahedin in the territory of

3 the Bosnia-Herzegovina -- or, rather, in the territory controlled by the

4 BH army.

5 A. Is that a question?

6 Q. Yes. Yes.

7 A. Actually, when I saw the Muslim units, that is chaps with the

8 green band around their head and with printing in Arabic, I mentioned that

9 earlier, but it was actually in a Croatian-controlled area. They were in

10 a truck shooting weapons off into the air, as I stated previously. But it

11 was on the day, and I have reported this to the Court, that we drove from

12 Split to Sarajevo, et cetera, but it was in an area controlled by Croats.

13 I don't draw any invidious conclusions from that, Ms. Nozica, but I'm just

14 answering the question.

15 Q. That is the only piece of information that you have about the

16 Mujahedin on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the territory

17 controlled by the BH army during that period. Yes, I understand, the only

18 thing you saw, but what about information? Did you have any information

19 from that period of time? That would be something else, about the

20 presence of the Mujahedin within the frameworks of the BH army or under

21 the control of the BH army on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Do you

22 have any information to that effect?

23 A. Yes. We knew there were various Arab units, people from the Gulf,

24 people from Iran. Whether and to what degree they were formally

25 incorporated into the army I did not know, and I do not know today.

1 Q. Very well. Now, for the record, and that's what my learned friend

2 from the Prosecution did, I would like to indicate 2D 00438. It is a

3 document of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Supreme Command Staff,

4 which confirms what I've been talking about, but unfortunately I don't

5 have time to discuss it with you.

6 And now my very last question. Mr. Sefer Halilovic says that,

7 "Now and in the future the staff of the Supreme Command of the armed

8 forces will implement orders from the Presidency as the sole legitimate

9 body of all the citizens of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina." He says

10 that at the end, and that sounds very nice does it not? But tell me this,

11 please -- and I prepared another document which the Trial Chamber has

12 already seen so I won't trouble you with that. I'd just like to mention

13 it for the record. It is an interview, in fact, which Mr. Sefer Halilovic

14 gave one day prior to the response from my client, that is the 27th of

15 January, and it was given to a Spanish journal, 2D 0048 is the document

16 number, and in that interview -- well, they say that politicians can

17 negotiate anyway they like but yet the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina will

18 struggle for a unitary, sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it will continue

19 to fight for that.

20 Now, during the negotiations did you gain the impression that

21 there were different positions, different attitudes within -- I'll have to

22 say this and you say that within the Muslim Corps between the politicians

23 and the army? Did you gain that impression, that the army in its own way

24 did not allow the politicians to arrive at a signature more easily and to

25 establish a peace and a truce simply?

1 A. No, I did not. I did not gain that impression, neither for the

2 Muslim civilian and army leadership, nor for the Bosnian Croats, nor, for

3 that matter, for the Bosnian Serbs. I think Mladic and Karadzic worked

4 hand in glove. I have no indication that there was a difference. It's

5 possible there was, but I never saw any indication of it.

6 Q. Do you allow for the possibility that if that was stated publicly

7 that there were differences but they weren't demonstrated before you, for

8 instance, in front of you?

9 A. Well, lots of things happen in the world not in front of me, so of

10 course. Of course it could happen.

11 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. Unfortunately, my time is up. Otherwise,

12 I would have been very happy to discuss a number of other issues with you,

13 but I do want to tell you, especially with regard to your conclusions as

14 to the reasons why Mr. Boban accepted that you have the military plan and

15 the constitutional principles, but as time is short and don't allow us to

16 go into that, I'd like to say thank you. You were a very important

17 witness to us. I'm not complaining about the Trial Chamber's decision,

18 I'm just saying that the situation is sometimes such that when you have

19 key witnesses, unfortunately you have little time according to the

20 principles and Rules of this Tribunal. But anyway, thank you very much.

21 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] And thank you, Your Honours.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The Judges would like to ask

23 four questions, to put four questions to this witness, but before that,

24 before we see how we will proceed, I would like to ask Mr. Scott if he has

25 any additional questions and, if so, how much time does he need?

1 MR. SCOTT: I do have additional questions, Your Honour, and I'm

2 not sure. I don't think it will be too long, but it will be more -- it

3 will be more than 10 or 15 minutes. I expect somewhere between 20 and 25

4 minutes.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So this is what we

6 will do. We have to take a break for technical reasons. We have to take

7 a 20-minute break. The Bench will then put questions to the witness. It

8 will not take too much time. And then I will hand the floor to Mr. Scott

9 for his additional questions, which will be -- which will enable us to end

10 the hearing, to end the witness's testimony, and once the witness is --

11 will leave the courtroom we will give the floor to Mr. Prlic and at the

12 end this is how we will end the session today.

13 Twenty-five [as interpreted] minute break.

14 --- Recess taken at 3.36 p.m.

15 --- On resuming at 3.56 p.m.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. The hearing is

17 resume.

18 Questioned by the Court:

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Ambassador, I have two

20 questions to put to you. They are very brief. The first question being

21 the following: You've told us that you've already testified three times

22 in three different trials before this institution. Do you know how long

23 you testified in each case? You mentioned, I believe, the Milosevic

24 trial, for instance. How many days did you testify in the Milosevic

25 trial? If you remember, of course. If not, it doesn't really matter.

1 A. I testified in the Milosevic case for three days, 26, 27, 28

2 February 2003. I testified in the Krajisnik case, also three days, 22,

3 23, and 25 June 2004. And I testified in the Mrksic days for two days, 16

4 and 17 November 2005.

5 MR. STEWART: Your Honour, I think Ambassador Okun testified on

6 the 24th of June as well in the Krajisnik case.

7 THE WITNESS: I stand corrected.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So in the Krajisnik

9 case you testified for four days. Very well. So you've testified in this

10 matter as well four days.

11 My question is the following: In answering a question that was

12 put to you, you told -- you've said that you received from the European

13 Commission in Geneva and from the UNPROFOR you receive some information.

14 Do you confirm to us that you were informed of everything that was going

15 on on the field as days went by?

16 A. Well, I can confirm, Mr. President, that we -- we read carefully

17 every document we received. I believe that they were accurate and

18 thorough. I cannot say they covered every county in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

19 but they certainly covered a good deal of it.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. And in order to help

21 you in this, in this task consisting of reading reports and analysing

22 them, you had some military advisors with you who were able to analyse

23 militarily what was going on on the field?

24 A. Yes. The international conference had military advisors, and they

25 were very good, and -- and they interpreted this for us exactly as you

1 say.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I

3 will now give the floor to my colleague.

4 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Ambassador, I have two points that I would like

5 to raise with you, and the first one I think I've understood you

6 correctly, but I would just leave no doubt on this.

7 At the beginning when you were interrogated here, you explained

8 the basic principles underlying the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, which included

9 the multi-ethnicity of the province, decentralisation, consensual

10 decision-making, and you showed us a map to put it a bit simply is

11 chequered where you have different colours. Documents we have also been

12 supplied when we have this map number 11, with which you are quite

13 familiar, which is monochrome.

14 Now, my question is this: Did all the parties to the negotiations

15 fully understand and fully accept the principles as you have described

16 them to us?

17 A. All of the parties understood the principles -- Excuse me. All

18 of the parties understood the principles. They did not accept all of the

19 principles. As I reported to you, the Bosnian Serbs never accepted

20 anything except, on May 2, under duress, Karadzic signed the plan and then

21 immediately the Bosnian Serb parliament rejected it. So the Serbs

22 accepted nothing. And we did get acceptance from the Bosnian Croats and

23 the Bosnian Muslims.

24 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Now, we are concerned, of course, with the

25 Bosnian Croats mainly, and more specifically I thought I understood you as

1 saying that, one, they started implementing the peace plan although it was

2 not really adopted and not a valid -- a legally valid document. But the

3 second point I thought you made was they implemented only parts of it in

4 or the of a cherry-picking method. They started to implement the parts

5 that suited them while not prepared to implement also others that suited

6 them levels. Was that what you have told us?

7 A. Yes.

8 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you. The second point is I would like to

9 take you back to a document which -- with which you have been confronted a

10 number of times. It is these minutes of the meeting of 15 January in the

11 presidential palace in Zagreb, and I would like you to go to page 49. You

12 find a statement there of Lord David Owen which was referred to but where

13 one sentence was left out, which I think may have a certain pertinence to

14 the case. It is the third sentence, I think, from the bottom where Lord

15 David Owen is quoted as saying: "I think that the HVO was more aggressive

16 in some of its actions."

17 I wonder whether you could specify what, whether you have heard

18 this, because I think you were present there, and if you could give us

19 some specific details. What was he referring to? What did he mean

20 with "some of its actions"?

21 A. He meant the -- the cleansing actions in and around Gornji Vakuf

22 primarily.

23 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you. That's all.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Scott.

25 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours.

1 Re-examination by Mr. Scott:

2 Q. Good afternoon, Ambassador.

3 A. Good afternoon.

4 Q. Sir, I'm going to try to move fairly quickly in the interest of

5 the hour. It's now after 4.00. However, I do want to give some balance

6 toll a few things that were raised during the various cross-examination

7 over the last several days.

8 Defence counsel today made several references to the testimony of

9 a man named Josip Manolic, who you indicated you were not particularly

10 familiar with, but there was no dispute, I think, he was a senior Croatian

11 leader in the early 1990s, and in the interest of balance and fair play

12 let me just read to you then ask for a response to an another part of his

13 testimony in this case, which was given publicly. In reference to the

14 policy towards -- Croatia's policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina at the

15 time, in response to it a question Mr. Manolic said: "Until that point in

16 time we had pointed out that Gojko Susak and, as we called it, the

17 Herzegovina lobby were the main exponents of this policy of Herceg-Bosna,

18 the conflict with the Muslims, the weakening of the central government,

19 and the setting of demands for the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

20 However, in a speech of his President Tudjman made to the deputies' club

21 in the Croatian parliament, and this is where we definitely parted ways,

22 he said the policy being implemented in Bosnia-Herzegovina and towards

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina was his policy. He took on himself this responsibility

24 by saying it was his policy. Gojko Susak, as the minister of defence, was

25 said by Tudjman to be a good minister because he was implementing

1 Tudjman's policy. And this is evidence of who was responsible for what

2 was happening in that area at the time."

3 And for the record, and I should have say, I'm quoting his

4 testimony from the 4th of July, 2006, pages 4330 to 4331.

5 If you can hold that thought in your mind, sir, let me then refer

6 you to your statement before I put a question to you. Going directly to

7 the end of paragraph 8 of your statement. After making references to the

8 Graz agreement and Karadjordjevo you said: "The negotiators understood

9 that the main result of these meetings was Croat-Serb agreement to

10 structure BiH along the lines of the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement of 1939,

11 i.e., to partition the state."

12 Now, your understanding as you've expressed in your statement and

13 as you've expressed it over the past several days, and from what I've toll

14 you, and again picking up on the cross-examination of what Mr. Manolic

15 said, were your concerns as you expressed them in your statement

16 consistent with what Mr. Manolic said about the partition, the plans for

17 the partition for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

18 A. Well, the first -- first let me say that I'm hearing that Manolic

19 statement that you quoted, Counsel, for the first time.

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. But that is consistent, yes. The president, President Tudjman

22 that is, showed great trust and faith in Gojko Susak, which I must say

23 was, from my dealings with him, correctly placed, because Susak was a very

24 smart, very capable, very strong defender of Croatian interests during the

25 Serb invasion and afterwards, and there was -- he was from Grude. He was

1 from Herzegovina, as was Mate Boban, as was several other important

2 members of the Bosnian Croat delegation, and they were Herzegovinians to

3 the core. They made no bones about it.

4 Q. And further, sir, given the continuing questions about the Graz

5 meeting, I'd like to direct your attention to --

6 MR. SCOTT: If the witness could be provided -- there are two

7 exhibits, new exhibits to be used on redirect. One is Exhibit 9853, and

8 the other one will be 9927. If you -- I'm not sure the witness has those

9 yet.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: If I may at this point, Your Honour, just raise one

11 observation. It would appear, at least in looking at -- we just -- we've

12 just received this material. On 9853, I am told that it's not in -- this

13 is the first time it's being disclosed to us, so it wasn't available to us

14 before. 9927 is an excerpt from a book. I'm familiar with the book, have

15 read it. I would point out, however, that the one page of text -- two

16 pages of text is heavily footnoted, and this -- I don't see the footnotes

17 attached to the material, the references to the footnotes. So perhaps --

18 while I don't object to 9927 because it is out in the public domain

19 being -- being used at some point, I would appreciate if the Prosecution

20 would also provide the footnotes. But as far as 9 -- 9853, I think the

21 Prosecution does owe us an explanation as to where this material has been,

22 whether it's in a special bundle or general bundle, but this is the first

23 time we're seeing it.

24 MR. SCOTT: Well, first point, Your Honour, various parts, in fact

25 the majority of the document -- the exhibit which has now been marked in

1 totality as P 09853, the vast majority of that document has, in fact,

2 previously been tendered and seen in the courtroom in part as Exhibit 187.

3 I think another part of it was perhaps, I think, Exhibit P 00192.

4 However, there were a couple of additional pages which -- I agree with

5 Mr. Karnavas there are a couple of pages that have been added, and I added

6 them specifically so that this witness could give us further assistance

7 about the document, given the number of continuing questions that have

8 been raised about the meeting.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott, the

10 problem that we have, the Judges, are the additional pages. That's our

11 problem. So the additional pages, did the Defence already have those

12 pages when they were disclosing the evidence?

13 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. It's been disclosed as part of the

14 disclosure in the case generally. As I've said, there were some pages

15 that were not included in similar previous exhibits but as a matter of

16 disclosure it's been provided and most of the material, as I've said, it

17 was previously used as Exhibit 187 and Exhibit 192.

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Just for clarification. I don't want to make a big

19 deal out of this, but am I to understand unequivocally that the

20 Prosecution is saying that all of this material has been disclosed to us,

21 albeit not all of it has been introduced before, so has all of it been

22 disclosed prior to this moment? Yes, no, I don't know. I'll settle for a

23 maybe.

24 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me. I believe so, Your Honour. I know we have

25 provided such exhaustive disclosure in this case.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You may proceed.

2 MR. SCOTT:

3 Q. Ambassador, if I could ask you if you have that document in front

4 you 9853, just some questions about that. I've already asked you and

5 you've already talked about the content of the six points, so-called, in

6 the agreement itself talking about the borders and Mostar and south of

7 Mostar and all that. Those aren't my questions. But if you'll look at

8 the first page, please, is it correct that there was an EC monitor mission

9 located in Zagreb as of May of 1992?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Can you tell us in international diplomacy or international

12 mission purposes down in the first page it says "from" and it says "HOM."

13 Did you tell it us what HOM typically stands for?

14 A. From HOM to HDC Sarajevo. HOM was the -- meant the chief of Lord

15 Carrington's conference. That was the -- the conference on Yugoslavia

16 basically.

17 Q. Typically -- typically called the head of mission?

18 A. Yes, HOM, head of mission. Cutileiro, as we've indicated,

19 everybody agrees, everybody knows, had been deputised by Lord Carrington

20 specifically to deal with Bosnia under the aegis of Lord Carrington's

21 Chairmanship of the conference on Yugoslavia.

22 Q. Using the terminology, if you recall, of the ECMM at the time do

23 you recall that HRHC would be the head of the regional coordinating body?

24 A. In Sarajevo, yes. Colm Doyle by name.

25 Q. Indeed, sir, you anticipated my next question. If you go to the

1 next page, perhaps with your language skills you can indicate what the

2 letterhead on the next page indicates.

3 A. That says Foreign Ministry, cabinet of the minister. It's in

4 Portuguese because Ambassador Cutileiro was a Portuguese Ambassador.

5 Q. And does this appear, sir, in fact, to be a note by Ambassador

6 Cutileiro?

7 A. It is a note from Ambassador Cutileiro to Colm Doyle.

8 Q. And I was going to say, who was Colm Doyle in this process?

9 A. Colm Doyle was the chief of the ECMM, that is the European

10 Community Monitoring Mission in Sarajevo. He had been there, I should

11 know, since 1991. He was not a newcomer to the situation and was a very

12 well-informed person.

13 Q. If you can go to the next page, please, and again can you tell us

14 if that is the handwriting -- is that again a reference to Ambassador

15 Cutileiro?

16 A. Yes. You see at the top Ambassador Jose Cutileiro, and then at

17 the bottom, abrosos [phoen] that's the word that begins with "A," which

18 means embraces. It's a polite form, like regards in English. Jose

19 Cutileiro, his signature. So this is again from Cutileiro, the two to

20 Doyle.

21 Q. All right. Can you tell the Judges, I mean, the information of

22 the meeting at Graz in May 1992 between Karadzic and Boban, is that the

23 sort of information that would have been considered important and

24 significant to someone as Ambassador Cutileiro at that time?

25 A. You mean a decision reached by Mate Boban and Karadzic?

1 Q. Yes.

2 A. Would that have been important?

3 Q. Yes.

4 A. Indeed.

5 Q. Is that the sort of thing you would have expected to have been

6 brought to his attention as soon as possible?

7 A. Oh, without question.

8 Q. And if I could just ask you to back toward -- just further into

9 the document, just a couple of newspaper articles, frankly. BBC, the

10 Guardian, Los Angeles Times. Do you recall, sir, and can you confirm to

11 the Judges that the events in Graz were widely reported in the

12 international media at that time?

13 A. Yes, and in the Serbian and Croatian media as well.

14 Q. Thank you. Mr. Karnavas in particular spent a considerable amount

15 of time talking about the Cutileiro Plan. Let me next ask you, please, to

16 go to the other exhibit that's been put in front of you in the last few

17 minutes, P 09927. Let me ask you if you have that, sir. Are you familiar

18 with a book called "The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and

19 International Intervention," by Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup?

20 A. Yes I am.

21 Q. What do you think of that publication.

22 A. This book by professors Burg and Shoup, which was published in

23 1999 is an excellent, thorough, careful accurate depiction of events.

24 Q. You read the book yourself?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Did you find it to be consistent with your own extensive and

2 personal knowledge of these events?

3 A. In the main, yes.

4 Q. Let me ask you, please, to turn to -- in terms of the decks what

5 would be the book pages I'm referring to now, page 111, write would be

6 three sheets into -- the third sheet of the exhibit, if you will.

7 Actually let me not do that just yet. Can I ask you to go about five

8 pages into the exhibit, and do you see a series of maps, map 3.3, the SDA

9 map?

10 A. Mm-hmm.

11 Q. Map 3.4, the HDZ map, and map 3.5, the SDS map?

12 A. Yes, I see them.

13 Q. Now, Mr. Karnavas showed you a map during his cross-examination,

14 but unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe he's shown you the map here shown

15 as 3.4, the HDZ map, is that correct?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Now based on your familiarity of the maps we've looked at during

18 the past several days and the one in the Defence book if you still have it

19 with you P 09841, the one you've provided to us and with the Vance-Owen

20 borders on the demographic map. If you have a copy of any of those maps

21 still available to you.

22 A. I do if I can be permitted to get it out.

23 Q. Please.

24 A. Yes, I have it in front of me.

25 Q. I guess in the interests of time, sir, can you tell us when you

1 look at the HDZ map dated March 1992 and looking at the borders of what's

2 called the Croat districts in this particular version, is that -- are

3 those the borders proposed borders you would have expected to say based on

4 the maps you is an in the Vance-Owen Peace Plan and the other maps you're

5 familiar with?

6 MR. KARNAVAS: If I may, before the ambassador answers the

7 question. First and foremost we need to lay a foundation. Just because

8 these maps are in the book doesn't necessarily mean that these were

9 official maps from the SDA or from the HDZ. If we look at the bought

10 testimony it says adopted from Politika. Politika is -- is from Belgrade.

11 It's a Serbian newspaper. So I don't -- we need a foundation. I think

12 the question -- excuse me, Mr. --

13 MR. SCOTT: Sorry.

14 MR. KARNAVAS: I think the question is a bit more premature now.

15 With some foundation, I may not object.

16 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, my -- my basic response to that is

17 this: I mean, the open-source maps, materials, have been used by everyone

18 in the courtroom and unless there's a different rule that the Defence can

19 use open-source material but the Prosecution can't, I'm not sure what the

20 difference would be. Mr. Karnavas used a map from a publication, several

21 counsel have used open-source materials, and it's no different than what

22 the Prosecution is doing now. So unless we have one rule for the Defence

23 and one rule for the Prosecution, I don't think it's proper.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Ambassador, when you

25 met with your colleagues while negotiating for the Vance-Owen Plan, the

1 variations of the political components, HDZ, et cetera, did those

2 representatives give you maps such as they were seeing the situation from

3 their own standpoint?

4 THE WITNESS: Yes.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. So the maps that you have

6 here, that you see here, do they correspond to the maps you saw at the

7 time, that you were given at the time?

8 THE WITNESS: This HDZ map is by and large congruent with the HDZ

9 maps that were given to us in 1992, 1993. It represents the extreme

10 position of the HDZ. As you'd expect it in negotiation, they put their

11 strong foot forward.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very good. Mr. Scott, please

13 continue, because the witness told us, of course, that the map that you're

14 exhibiting is and was a document that they worked on at the time or that

15 they had at the time as well.

16 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. In light of both of your

17 questions, Mr. President, and the witness's answers, that actually covered

18 most of the points that I was going to make now, so I appreciate that.

19 Thank you.

20 Q. If I could just go -- leaving this document, though, if you could

21 go to the next to the last page, sir. In this same context you made --

22 you just in fact said a few moments ago that of course in late 1992, early

23 1993, the various parties were providing maps, and do you recall this map

24 that is presented here as the Croat map, December 1992, being again

25 consistent with what you recall the maps that you were seeing around that

1 time? Received from, in this instance, the Croat party.

2 A. No, SDS is the Serbian.

3 Q. Sorry. Maybe the next map, map 5.2.

4 A. Ah, 5.2, yes. Yes. It's -- if you compare this from January 2,

5 1993, to the draft map that was given to Ambassador Cutileiro in March

6 1992, you can see they're very, very close to each other.

7 Q. And just by way -- just to have everything in one bundle, I'll

8 just simply make a reference to it for everyone's reference, if it's

9 handy in the future. I've also included as map 5.5 from the same

10 publication, and another copy of the January Vance-Owen map, 5.5. Do you

11 see that? 5.5.

12 A. I see it.

13 Q. Again, you were asked extensive questions of the Cutileiro Plan

14 process by a number of counsel. If I can just briefly -- if you go back

15 to briefly -- well, the second page of the document after the cover --

16 after the publication -- the title of the -- the title of the book. Below

17 the Cutileiro map it says about halfway through the paragraph, and I'm

18 just going to read a -- very briefly: "The Bosnian Croats at first

19 supported the plan. Most likely in the hope that it would effectuate the

20 final divorce of Bosnia-Herzegovina from Yugoslavia and the Serbs --"

21 A. Excuse me, where are you reading, Counsel. I don't see it.

22 Q. I'm on page 111 of the text. Page 111 under the Cutileiro map.

23 A. Oh, yes, I have it now. Excuse me. I see it.

24 Q. About halfway through that paragraph, sir, after footnote 219.

25 A. Yes, I read it.

1 Q. The Bosnian Croats at first supported the plan, most likely in the

2 hope this it would effectuate the final divorce of Bosnia-Herzegovina from

3 Yugoslavia and the Serbs, but also because the proposed settlement

4 facilitated relations between the Croat areas in Bosnia and Croatia proper

5 and provided autonomy for Croat-majority opstine. But the Villa Konak

6 agreement was in the end repudiated by all three ethnic communities. On

7 the critical issue of where the cantonal boundaries were to be drawn,

8 there was almost total confusion."

9 In fact, I'll leave it at that in the interests of time. Is that

10 consistent with your knowledge and memory of what happened in the

11 Cutileiro process?

12 A. Yes, the principal blame was placed on Izetbegovic, but all three

13 parties at the end of the day rejected Cutileiro as is described in this

14 paragraph you just read.

15 Q. Thank you, sir. My next topic to you is in light of some

16 questions put to you by counsel for Mr. Stojic, Ms. Nozica, I'm afraid

17 based on that that I need to ask you to look once again and the courtroom

18 to look once again, please, at Exhibit P 01155?

19 A. Do I have that exhibit in front of me?

20 Q. I hope it's still in the -- well, I'm not sure if you do. He may

21 not have the Prosecution bundle anymore.

22 A. I do not have it.

23 Q. Or if it could be put on the e-court, if possible -- either one

24 but the witness will need some assistance please. P 01155.

25 A. I see it on the monitor.

1 Q. Sir, we've talked about this before and I wouldn't come back to it

2 except for -- except for the way it was treated and I feel like now -- I

3 feel like I must. Again, first line of Mr. Prlic's "decision," when he

4 starts: "In line with the agreements --"

5 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I apologise, but I just

6 wish to point out that I didn't show this document to the witness. The

7 witness did speak about it, but it was not an object of my

8 cross-examination. The subject of my cross-examination was document P

9 0 -- a document relating to Bruno Stojic, P 01140, and I object to the

10 Prosecutor going back to doing something he omitted to do in the direct

11 examination.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I have a good memory,

13 Ms. Nozica. When you spoke of the document by Mr. Stojic, you said that

14 there was a link between it and this document dated the 15th of January,

15 1993, signed by Mr. Prlic. Therefore, in your comments you did refer to

16 this document.

17 Continue, Mr. Scott.

18 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. Exactly right.

19 Q. Now, sir, we asked you -- when you looked at this before, again

20 starting with the most basics, in line with the agreements, I have to ask

21 you one more time, on 15th of January, 1993 was there any agreement in

22 existence at that time between all three parties?

23 A. No.

24 Q. And when you look at the document, sir, if you have it in front of

25 you is -- do I read it correctly that in the middle that page it says

1 "Decision"?

2 A. That's what my document says.

3 Q. In paragraph number 1, am I misreading it? I think that it says,

4 "Regions -- ABiH units currently in regions 3, 8 and 10 which were

5 proclaimed Croatia in the Geneva agreements," which you just told us

6 didn't exist, "are subordinate." Now, do you see anything on this list

7 where it says we propose this for discussion or this is a letter to

8 President Izetbegovic saying why don't we meet and talk about this? I

9 mean, is there anything that indicates it's anything other than a

10 unilateral action?

11 A. No, it is a direct command. It's a ukaz [phoen].

12 Q. And just to follow up on counsel's point. If you do have 1140.

13 If 1140 could be put in front witness briefly?

14 MR. KARNAVAS: Could Mr. Scott be so kind as to look at paragraph

15 2. He omitted it yesterday and again he skips it today. And maybe -- I

16 think it's only fair.

17 MR. SCOTT: I'll come to it in a moment.

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Let's just come to it now.

19 MR. SCOTT: No, I'll come to it in a moment. I have --

20 MR. KARNAVAS: He seems to be skipping around it so much. Why is

21 he dancing?

22 MR. SCOTT: Not at all, Your Honour, and I'll come to it in a

23 minute with pleasure.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

25 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Karnavas, may I recall that you have told us

1 that the direct way is not always the good one.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: That's on cross.

3 MR. SCOTT:

4 Q. Sir, if you have 1140, and it's only briefly. If you have the

5 document 1140, and just to make the point that counsel was making. Is it

6 correct, sir, just to put a line under it, Mr. Stojic's order is pursuant

7 to decision of HVO HZ HB 01-I-32/93 of 15 January 1993, which, if never

8 which one in the courtroom wants to take the time, is the reference to

9 Mr. Prlic's decision.

10 A. Yes. It was designed to implement that order.

11 Q. Now, if we have either of those documents in front of us but

12 let's -- we'll use 1155, we still have 11 -- if we can go back to 1155

13 since that's the foundational document for this action, let's talk about

14 Mr. Karnavas's paragraph number 2.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: It's not my paragraph, first of all. Let's be

16 honest. And it's not Mr. Prlic's decision. It's a decision that was

17 reached by the Executive Council. So let's try to be precise and fair and

18 balanced, Mr. Scott, as you keep reminding us.

19 MR. SCOTT: Mr. Karnavas, please. Mr. Prlic signed the document.

20 He was the president of this body. He signed the document. You yourself

21 and others have referred to it in connection with your client, so, please.

22 Q. Paragraph number 2: "All units of the HVO armed forces currently

23 in regions 1, 5 and 9 which were proclaimed Muslim in the Geneva

24 agreements," of course there were no agreements "are subordinate to the

25 command of the General Staff of the BiH army command."

1 Now, again we have to go back and let's use -- let's use your

2 map -- I say your map it's the one you gave me on the weekend, which is

3 now P 09841. And is it correct, sir, that the proposed province number 1

4 is up in the far north-west corner of Bosnia and it primarily -- well, the

5 tip of it is almost all green do you see that?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And number 5 is up in the Tuzla area, and then has the finger that

8 connects to the Sava River; is that correct?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Now, granted, there are a few pink areas in there but primarily --

11 primarily green is that correct?

12 A. Overwhelmingly green.

13 Q. And then proposed provision number -- excuse me, province number 9

14 again granted a few pink areas, but would you agree predominantly green?

15 A. In the main.

16 Q. Now --

17 A. Yes. Yes, in the main it was green.

18 Q. And can I ask you, please, to look at -- and if we could have it

19 in e-court in the interest of time, please, in the Prosecution's book of

20 maps Exhibit P 09276, map 6, which is page 7 in e-court.

21 A. Would an usher bring me that, please?

22 Q. I can -- I can provide a copy to the witness if it's quick --

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak, what is the reason

24 for your intervention? We're talking about maps.

25 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] The size does not correspond

1 with the number of inhabitants. One should ask how many Croats there were

2 in each of these parts, because there are more Croats in Zenica than in

3 Herzegovina. So the number of inhabitants should be decisive.

4 MR. SCOTT: Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Praljak, and probably

5 the same should be said about the green areas in provinces 8 and 10.

6 Q. Sir, if you have that, if you can look at the map now, and would

7 you compare paragraphs 5 -- would you look at provinces 5 and 9, and can

8 you just simply confirm to the Trial Chamber -- we'll just leave province

9 1 we know is way out there out on the top, but as to provinces 5 and 9 are

10 those -- are those located in either the borders claimed by Herceg-Bosna

11 or within the borders of the 1939 Banovina?

12 A. No, they are not.

13 Q. If I can ask you to go in your -- to your diary please P 00159.

14 And again we'll need some help from the usher, please. Binder number 1.

15 A. I don't have it.

16 Q. Maybe these -- all right. Sorry, Ambassador. We have different

17 court staff this afternoon. If you can go to and in -- if we could have

18 it in e-court in the interest of time, please, and specifically page

19 R016-3828.

20 A. I have not found that page.

21 Q. Excuse me for a moment, sir. I'm sorry. Actually, if we can just

22 do it in e-court because I think it is not -- I think this is a reference

23 to a diary that Mr. Karnavas used. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't

24 think I have that particular page marked. But if we could have it in

25 e-court, please, because Mr. Karnavas referred to it. If you could go to

1 page R016-3828.

2 Sir, Mr. Karnavas showed you this page. A part from your diary on

3 the 18th of April, 1992 and talk about whether Mr. -- President

4 Izetbegovic lied or was distrusted or what have you. Can I ask you please

5 can I direct your attention to the last entry on the left side of that

6 page?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. On the bottom left?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Can you read that, please, to us?

11 A. "All three parties lie, but the Serbs are less sophisticated about

12 it."

13 Q. How were the Serbs less sophisticated about it?

14 A. They were blunter. They lied earlier and more frequently and the

15 other sides. They rarely claimed to be telling the truth the way the

16 other sides always did. They were much as I've noted, the Serbs were less

17 sophisticated about their lying, and in fact that's Cutileiro speaking.

18 I'm just quoting Ambassador Cutileiro.

19 Q. And in your experience the question that begs to be asked is: And

20 how were the Croats more sophisticated in their lying, in your experience?

21 A. Well, they left a better paper trail than the Serbs did. They

22 often did things by indirection. It took you a bit longer to get through

23 the fog of what was being said to you. In general, they were better at

24 it.

25 MR. KARNAVAS: Can we have the Muslim side as well for balance

1 purposes?

2 MR. SCOTT: Sure, why not.

3 Q. And the Muslims, sir?

4 A. Yes, I've already been asked that. I'm happy to answer it again.

5 Izetbegovic tended to be vague and would express his agreement or

6 disagreement in very large, vague terms. He was a slippery character,

7 hard to pin down. Of course, we did pin him down.

8 Q. All right, sir. I'm going to cut through --

9 A. If I may characterise for the Court while we're going through this

10 ethnic stereotyping, a Muslim leader in Bosnia-Herzegovina once

11 characterised the three parties to me, not as respects their veracity or

12 lack of veracity but their general behaviour, and this is how he

13 characterised the three parties, the three warring parties. He said the

14 Serbs are butchers, the Croats are killers, and we are assassins. It was

15 his opinion, but it showed a level of appreciation of the situation by a

16 Bosnian Muslim leader.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Ambassador, I have been

18 listening. Is there perhaps an error in the translation? In the English

19 text it says the Croats are killers and we are assassins. I have the

20 impression that you said the opposite. Can you confirm that that is what

21 you actually said, that what we see in the transcript, because in my

22 translation, my understanding was the opposite. Could you clarify,

23 please?

24 THE WITNESS: Yes. The English -- the English translation on the

25 screen is correct.

1 JUDGE TRECHSEL: If I may assist, this is a linguistic issue,

2 because assassin is the qualified form of killing, whereas in French

3 "nucht" [phoen] is worse than "assassinat," and that is why in French it

4 sounds wrong.

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

6 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, for the

7 record, I wish to say that as a Croat I consider this to be an insult and

8 impermissible for a private diary to describe stereotypes. I think this

9 is absolutely impermissible.

10 MR. SCOTT:

11 Q. Very quickly, Ambassador, I'm going to cut through -- cut through

12 some of the questions I have because of the passage of time, I'm afraid,

13 but just two different areas. On the question of the referendum again,

14 the independence referendum, could I please ask the usher to pull up

15 Exhibit P 01622. And specifically page 32. You have it on the -- you

16 have it? If we can bring that around to -- well, that's the B/C/S

17 version. If we can have page 32 in the English version, although it's

18 also page 32 of the B/C/S. It should be.

19 If I can ask -- yes. If we can go to the lower part the page.

20 This is President Tudjman speaking.

21 Sir, do you see this and I'll ask you to react to this in

22 reference to the questions you've been asked on cross-examination and

23 about the referendum on Bosnian independence in February -- at the end of

24 February 1992. "Thus we escaped all those pitfalls because the West --"

25 excuse me, up above that. We're going to read that as well but let me

1 start earlier.

2 "In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we escaped as well the

3 pitfall of being named also as aggressors, you understand. If we had not

4 opted for a referendum, if we had voted for a -- if we hadn't voted for an

5 independent Bosnia, we would have been named as aggressors. We would be

6 in Serbia's position."

7 Can I ask you, what is your reaction to that given your experience

8 with both Franjo Tudjman and with the negotiating positions and stances of

9 the parties at that time?

10 A. That's not -- that's not the real reason the Bosnian Croats voted

11 for the referendum. I've already been asked and have responded that there

12 was a very good reason for the Bosnian Croats to vote for independence,

13 namely that in February 1992, the rump Yugoslavia consisted of Serbia,

14 Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. It was thoroughly dominated by Serbia,

15 and the Bosnian Croats, just as the Bosnian Muslims, wanted to get out

16 from under the Serb domination, and that is why they voted in favour of

17 the referendum for independence.

18 Q. Would it have put -- would it have cast President Tudjman's policy

19 or position in a worse light if he had come out against the independence

20 in the international community?

21 A. The independence of Bosnia?

22 Q. Of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

23 A. Not particularly.

24 Q. All right. Let's me ask you to go because there's been so many

25 questions about it, amazingly, Exhibit P 02078, the joint statement on the

1 25th of April 1993. Again if it's quicker if we could please go there in

2 e-court. 2078, and paragraph number 5. Paragraph number 5 and then the

3 usher will need to be able to go to the next page quickly as well.

4 I mean, let's just look at the exact language of the statement

5 that we'll see on the next page, who it was signed by. "The signatories

6 of the joint statement condemn most severely all violations of the rules

7 of international humanitarian law regardless of their perpetrators, both

8 sides having been responsible according to data available so far, and

9 undertake to urgently initiate joint and individual inquests concerning

10 each instance of violation of such rights and immediately examine personal

11 responsibility for the conflicts and crimes perpetrated against the

12 civilian population." Signed by Boban, Izetbegovic, witnessed by Tudjman

13 on the 25th of April. Correct, sir?

14 A. That's what it says.

15 Q. Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but several Defence

16 counsel have asked you this. In the language I've just read, is there

17 anything -- clearly both sides bear responsibility. Is there anything

18 where it says equal responsibility?

19 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour. Excuse me, Mr. Ambassador. First of

20 all, this was a negotiated statement that was drafted by the parties and

21 we all understand how these statements usually are drafted, and they had

22 to cobble a language that they could find acceptable. Now, whether it was

23 the intent for them to have equal responsibility or not equal

24 responsibility, I don't know, but I think to ask the Ambassador not to

25 opine on this, it's unfair.

1 MR. SCOTT: It's not opine, Your Honour, and I'm sorry to say --

2 MR. KARNAVAS: It's not in there. We can all read it. We're

3 having the Ambassador to come all the way from the United States to tell

4 us what it says.

5 MR. SCOTT: Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Karnavas. But, Your Honour, two

6 Defence counsel, both Ms. Alaburic and Ms. Nozica, both made a point when

7 they examined on this document to say that both parties bore equal

8 responsibility. That was the -- that was what was put and that's not what

9 the document says. Very well.

10 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] I have to say for the benefit of the

11 transcript that I didn't use that. On the contrary. I used a document of

12 the 24th of April, what Mr. Owen said about it, and not what the two sides

13 had signed.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Ms. Alaburic.

15 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, can we look at the

16 beginning of this document, please, so we can see in which part of the

17 document there is reference to equal responsibility of both sides, and

18 we'll see that it is responsibility for the conflict. So the part I

19 quoted is another point from this joint document. So I would appeal for

20 correctness.

21 MR. SCOTT: And where does it say equal?

22 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Can we roll the document up so that

23 we can see the beginning?

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.

25 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Let's see -- no, the bottom part of

1 the document, please.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Scott. The equality of

3 responsibility, where are you drawing that from?

4 MR. SCOTT: I'm not. It wasn't me that drew it. It was the

5 Defence that said there was equal responsibility, and it's not in this

6 document, and that's my point.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I see. Very well.

8 MR. SCOTT: Well, no, I'm sorry, Your Honour, I don't appreciate

9 the accused laughing. That's inappropriate behaviour in the courtroom.

10 The Court should not allow it.

11 Now, the fact of the matter is, whether the counsel like it or

12 not, two different -- and I'll let the transcript speak for itself. Two

13 different Defence counsel suggestion -- if I'm wrong, the transcript will

14 prove me wrong, but I submit the transcript said that this was

15 suggested -- this document said "equal responsibility," and I said -- I'm

16 not -- and I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but if we're going

17 to be accurate, let's being accurate. It does not say "equal

18 responsibility," and that's my only point.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You are saying this with respect

20 to the Defence, but put your question now and we can finish with this.

21 You have implied it.

22 MR. SCOTT: I think it's been put.

23 Q. Ambassador, can you find anywhere in the document where it says

24 that they bear equal responsibility? And I think you said there was not,

25 if I understood your testimony, not equal.

1 A. It was not equal, and the document does not say it was equal.

2 Q. Finally, sir, I've been listening to your testimony very carefully

3 both on direct examination --

4 MS. NOZICA: [Microphone not activated].

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Wait a moment.

7 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] For the transcript, the last question

8 by Mr. Scott was a leading question. This is just for the record.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

10 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, have you finished?

12 MR. SCOTT: I have one last question, Your Honour.

13 Q. Sir, I've listened very carefully to your testimony both on direct

14 examination and on cross-examination, and I'm -- my last question to you

15 is this: Mr. Karnavas referred to an interview that you gave in 2006 in

16 which you expressed certain views about Mr. Tudjman. You recall that?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Sir, in that -- when you were answering Mr. Karnavas's questions,

19 I noticed you were being very careful and you repeatedly said that

20 interview was given about conduct in his relation toward -- to Croatia and

21 events in Croatia, and you were very careful about that.

22 A. Mm-hmm.

23 Q. Do you have a different view as to his conduct or behaviour

24 towards Bosnia-Herzegovina?

25 A. At all times and in all circumstances President Tudjman was

1 strong, stern, quite service, somewhat rigid, as I said in the interview.

2 His views and activities, and I stress his views because, of course, we

3 were not intimately acquainted with his activities, his views with regard

4 to Bosnia-Herzegovina he made known to us. I repeat very briefly what

5 I've said earlier. He had scorn and contempt for President Izetbegovic.

6 He regularly referred to him - to us - as the fundamentalist Izetbegovic.

7 He strongly supported Mate Boban and Susak. We could see that when they

8 were together. So while I don't want to draw any parallels between the

9 situations because the situations were different, but he knew what he was

10 doing in Bosnia -- yes, in Bosnia. He knew what Boban was doing for him.

11 So he was quite familiar with the Bosnian affair.

12 Q. Mr. Ambassador, once again, I thank you for coming to The Hague,

13 and I -- just to make it clear, I do give you my thanks as well for your

14 service throughout this time period and, in fact, throughout your career.

15 And thank you very much.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Ambassador, on behalf of my

17 colleagues, I wish to thank you for coming to testify, and I wish to

18 express my best wishes for your return. I'm going to ask the usher to be

19 kind enough to accompany you out.

20 THE WITNESS: Mr. President, may I speak a few words before I

21 leave?

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] If they're words of thanks, yes,

23 but don't refer any more to the substance of the case.

24 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's exactly what they are, Mr. President.

25 I'd like to thank you, sir, and your colleagues, all of the lawyers on

1 both sides of the room and the ushers for the kindness, the graciousness

2 and the professional ability shown by the lawyers towards me during my

3 entire stay. Thank you.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

5 [The witness withdrew]

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We shall now continue with the

7 hearing. We have 132 pages of transcript.

8 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I would rather strongly suggest that we call it a

9 day. I am quite aware of the fact that Mr. Prlic has been frustrated in

10 his desire to address the Chambers, but I think also it is sort of doing

11 him a bad service if at the end of such a long day when we are somewhat

12 tired, because at least I confess that I am a bit tired now, we have -- we

13 start upon another subject, and I -- I hope Mr. Prlic will understand

14 this. It is definitely rather thought in his favour than in his

15 disfavour.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Prlic, would the best

17 solution would be for you to intervene on Monday when we resume the

18 hearings? You will be the first to take the floor.

19 THE ACCUSED PRLIC: [Interpretation] I'm at your disposal.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Then we commit

21 ourselves that before we resume the hearings, before bringing in a

22 witness, we will give the floor to Mr. Prlic.

23 It is 5.00. We need to adjourn. I thank all the participants.

24 As you know, we will meet again not Monday but the following Monday, and

25 there is a timetable envisaged which will allow us to take a rest in the

1 meantime, because for three months we have had hearings without any

2 interruptions, and we will resume at the same rhythm not next Monday but

3 the Monday after that. Thank you.

4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 5.00 p.m.,

5 to be reconvened on Monday, the 16th day of April,

6 2007 at 2.15 p.m.

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