Page 13611
1 Friday, 14 March 2003
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 4.04 p.m.
5 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Good afternoon to everybody. Would the
6 Registrar please call the case.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon. This is Case Number IT-97-24-T,
8 the Prosecutor versus Milomir Stakic.
9 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And the appearances for the parties.
10 MS. KORNER: Good afternoon, Your Honours. It's Joanna Korner,
11 Ann Sutherland, assisted by Ruth Karper, case manager.
12 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And the Defence.
13 MR. LUKIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Branko Lukic and Danilo
14 Cirkovic for the Defence. And I think that our phones are not working,
15 headphones.
16 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Maybe we could have some technician to help.
17 MR. LUKIC: It's working now. Thanks a lot.
18 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: I haven't heard, for the Defence, appearances.
19 MR. LUKIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Branko Lukic and Danilo
20 Cirkovic for the Defence.
21 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Thank you. Unfortunately, Judge Schomburg is
22 still ill. For the same reasons as stated previously, considering that
23 Dr. Trifkovic is still in The Hague and has not yet concluded his
24 testimony, it is in the interest of justice for Judge Argibay and I to
25 continue sitting under Rule 15 bis to hear him. For the record, I would
Page 13612
1 again ask both parties and Dr. Stakic himself formally register their
2 consent to this procedure for today's hearing, 14th March, year 2003.
3 Starting with the Prosecution, Ms. Korner.
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we consent.
5 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And the Defence.
6 MR. LUKIC: We consent, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Dr. Stakic?
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no objections, Your Honour.
9 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Thank you. Therefore, considering that Judge
10 Schomburg is still ill and not available to sit in this case today, Judge
11 Argibay and I being satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to do
12 so, and again based on the consent of the parties and Dr. Stakic himself
13 hereby order pursuant to the Rule 15 bis of the Rules of Procedure and
14 Evidence that the hearing continue in the absence of Judge Schomburg.
15 Before I call the witness into the courtroom, could I ask the
16 Defence if there are any updates and breaking news in relation to the
17 witnesses that will be available to testify next week.
18 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour. It's news, but not breaking news.
19 We will not be able to bring Witness 058 to The Hague.
20 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Will not be able.
21 MR. LUKIC: Will not be able.
22 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And what about Witness 089?
23 MR. LUKIC: I think that the situation is the same, so we will not
24 be able to bring this witness either.
25 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And what about the Father Loncar?
Page 13613
1 MR. LUKIC: I think that Mr. Ostojic is in charge of this witness,
2 and for now --
3 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: But the Defence is one team as I understand.
4 MR. LUKIC: It is really, and we think that we work as one team.
5 But I think that this witness will not be able to testify in front of this
6 Tribunal live.
7 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Okay, thank you for your information.
8 Could the usher please --
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, just before, sorry, just before you
10 bring the witness in, Your Honour, may I know whether it is apparent that
11 the witness cannot finish today, may I know whether the witness will be
12 ordered to return on Monday or at a later stage? Because that will make a
13 difference as to how I conduct the cross-examination.
14 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Of course, of course. Well only for you,
15 Ms. Korner, we decided to ask the witness to stay on Monday.
16 MS. KORNER: Well, I'm very grateful to Your Honours indeed. The
17 consideration shown by this Trial Chamber is touching, if I may say so.
18 [The witness entered court]
19 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Good afternoon, Dr. Trifkovic.
20 THE WITNESS: Good afternoon.
21 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: I would like to remind you that you are still
22 under the solemn declaration. I think the parties and the witness himself
23 have been given notice of our ruling in relation of your stay in The
24 Hague. I will now read the Court's written order in this regard dated
25 today, 14th March, year 2003, which was filed earlier this afternoon.
Page 13614
1 "Trial Chamber II of the International Tribunal for the
2 Prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international
3 humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since
4 1991 [Tribunal],
5 "Noting that Dr. Trifkovic, the expert historian for the Defence,
6 started his testimony in this case on 13 March, 2003,
7 "Noting that although the Defence had originally estimated that it
8 would need only one hour for its direct examination of Dr. Trifkovic, it
9 was not able to conclude the examination-in-chief of this witness
10 yesterday in the hour and eleven minutes of the session remaining,
11 "Noting that the Office of the Prosecutor estimated that it would
12 need two hours to cross-examine Dr. Trifkovic,
13 "Noting that the Chamber took the necessary steps to have the
14 maximum possible sitting time, that is, two hours, available for today
15 despite the fact that no hearing had been scheduled for today in this case
16 in order based on the original estimates to be able to conclude the
17 testimony of Dr. Trifkovic today,
18 "Noting that the Defence now estimates that it will need more than
19 one additional hour today to conclude the examination-in-chief of this
20 witness,
21 "Noting that based on the amended estimate for the length of the
22 direct examination, it will not be possible to conclude the testimony of
23 Dr. Trifkovic,
24 "Noting that for administrative reasons [Courtroom availability,
25 interpretation facilities, et cetera] it is not possible to have
Page 13615
1 additional time for a hearing either today, 14 March 2003, or tomorrow,
2 Saturday, 15 March, 2003,
3 "Considering that it is mandatory to continue with the
4 uninterrupted hearing of this witness in the interests of justice and,
5 especially in the interest of granting the accused a fair trial by not
6 imposing a time limit on the Defence for the examination-in-chief of its
7 expert,
8 "Considering the interests of Dr. Trifkovic and his explanation of
9 his schedule for the next week, that is, 17 to 21 March, year 2003,
10 "Concludes that balancing this interest, priority must be given to
11 the interests of justice and the interests of the accused, not forgetting
12 the fiscal interests of the international community,
13 "Hereby orders Dr. Trifkovic to remain in The Hague until his
14 evidence is concluded,
15 "and emphasises that Dr. Trifkovic must bear the consequences of
16 any breach of this order."
17 Done in English and French, the English text being authorative.
18 Any remarks, questions? Then let us proceed.
19 Well, before I will give the floor to the Defence, I would like to
20 say that in relation to the over 250 documents which Dr. Trifkovic relied
21 upon in writing his report, the Chamber hasn't yet had an opportunity to
22 review these documents. And as it was in the case with the Prosecution
23 expert, Dr. Robert Donia, the Chamber is unwilling to admit them as a
24 package. Therefore, the Chamber would suggest the Defence identify the
25 core documents from the bundle, 250, and seek to have them admitted on an
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1 individual basis during Dr. Trifkovic's testimony, if it is necessary. As
2 to the remaining documents, the Bench will rule at a later stage, at a
3 later date.
4 And now, the Defence. Mr. Lukic, the floor is yours.
5 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
6 WITNESS: SRDJA TRIFKOVIC [Resumed]
7 Examined by Mr. Lukic:
8 Q. Good afternoon, Dr. Trifkovic.
9 A. Good afternoon.
10 Q. I will continue your direct examination due to the absence of my
11 colleague, John Ostojic. And you heard that you are ordered to stay on
12 Monday as well. We hope that it wouldn't cause too big problems for you.
13 You know, it will be -- probably cause the inconvenience, but hopefully
14 they will be solved.
15 In the context of the discussion you had yesterday with
16 Mr. Ostojic, could you be so kind and explain to us what effect if any the
17 secession of Slovenia and Croatia had on BH, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
18 A. The effect was three-fold. First of all, the rising level of
19 violence in Croatia, and the apparent ineffectiveness of the YPA, both in
20 Slovenia and Croatia, changed attitudes towards this, until that time,
21 highly respected - and I respected from the standpoint both of people who
22 liked the YPA and those who didn't like it, both those who feared it and
23 who trusted it - there was a huge loss of credibility of the Yugoslav
24 People's Army in the aftermath of the Slovene secession.
25 It was effectively routed in Slovenia without ever trying to
Page 13618
1 counter the secession. And in Croatia, in the ensuing months, displayed
2 an inability to counter the secessionist forces, including the surrender
3 of garrisons in for instance Bjelovar and Barusdin [phoen], with the
4 extensive weaponry and even undamaged tanks.
5 The second effect of the secession was to focus the minds of
6 everybody in Bosnia-Herzegovina as to what will happen next.
7 Izetbegovic's position was becoming increasingly clear at this time, that
8 he would not remain in a rump Yugoslavia, and that no Yugoslavia is
9 possible without Croatia and Slovenia, that with their departure, we are
10 looking at a qualitatively new situation in which Bosnia-Herzegovina ought
11 to become sovereign and independent as well.
12 Among the Serbs, the prevalent position was that whoever wants to
13 go is free to go, but they want to remain, and they would not be taken out
14 of even the reduced, rump Yugoslavia, against their will.
15 The third effect, and I don't think it can be overemphasised, is
16 the proximity of violence on the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina. For as
17 long as various political options remained in the realm of the
18 theoretical, it was one thing. But when in August and September and
19 October of 1991, thousands of refugees started arriving in
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, most notably Serbs from the urban areas of Croatia,
21 and when the tales of horror that some of them conveyed, including the
22 tragedy, for instance, of the Zec family in Zagreb, who I understand
23 originally came from Prijedor, and with the engagement of the reserve
24 units mobilised in Bosnia-Herzegovina, again notably in the border regions
25 of Bosanska Krajina, across the River Sava and Una, all this had the
Page 13619
1 effect of electrifying the public opinion and creating the sense of
2 imminent danger and of escalating tension.
3 So the effect, to summarise, was roughly speaking three-fold: One
4 was the massive loss of credibility of the YPA; two, the political tension
5 resulting from the determination of the different political forces to draw
6 different conclusions from the secession of Slovenia and Croatia on the
7 Croat and Muslim, the determination that they will not be left in rump
8 Yugoslavia; on the Serbian side, not to be taken out of the Yugoslavian
9 context. And last, but by no means least, the sense that violence is now
10 on our doorstep, and that try as we may, we may not remain immune to it,
11 that there was an almost relentless and fateful march of events over which
12 the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina themselves had less and less control.
13 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, can you also help us understand when these
14 secessions of Slovenia and Croatia happened, and why.
15 A. The formal date, of course, is June 25th, 1991. But the writing
16 had been on the wall for more than a year. Specifically with the victory
17 of the Croatian democratic alliance, HDZ, in the spring of 1990, and the
18 ensuing series of demands from Zagreb and Ljubljana for the reorganisation
19 of the Yugoslav federation along the confederal principles, demands that
20 on the Serb side were seen as only a stepping stone to full secession,
21 because what Kucan and Tudjman were suggesting, as far as the Serbs were
22 concerned was a de facto secession through the back door, because under
23 the proposed confederal arrangement, the soul sovereignty would reside
24 with the constituent republics, and they would be able at any moment
25 through the declaration of the assembly to announce their total separation
Page 13620
1 from the confederal framework.
2 In addition, I believe that the whole concept of secessionism in
3 the individual republics was enhanced by the piecemeal process of
4 verifying the will of the people concerned by not having an all-Yugoslav
5 referendum on whether people wanted to remain part of Yugoslavia or not,
6 but by having it carried out not simultaneously, but at different times,
7 in different republics. And in some cases, by having the referendum
8 question itself couched in ambivalent and ambiguous language which did not
9 imply, quite clearly, the starkness of the choice that faced the
10 electorate.
11 I apologise, I'm down with bronchitis, so my delivery may leave a
12 little bit to be desired today.
13 To this outcome, the near complete control of the media mechanism
14 in practically all of the republics by the not ostensibly post communist
15 ruling structures certainly made a contribution, even though in Slovenia
16 and Croatia, which were usually branded in the western media as
17 pro-western and reform minded, the post communist parties came to power.
18 And in Serbia, the recycled communists led by Slobodan Milosevic
19 reinforced their grip on power in the election of December 1990. The
20 media climate was marked by intolerance, by black and white simplicity,
21 and by mere demonisation of the rival ethnic groups in the presentation of
22 the issues in a way that carried unfortunate overtones of an earlier
23 period of 50 years earlier that were still vividly present in the
24 collective memory of many Yugoslavs on all sides of the ethnic divide.
25 So instead of having a comprehensive and informed debate about the
Page 13621
1 choices facing them, many people in Croatia, in Serbia, and in
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina were almost intoxicated by a heady brew of historical
3 revisionism, and of simplified nationalist rhetoric that blurred the
4 issues and precluded meaningful debate of the kind that, had it be carried
5 out in the spirit of dispassionate analysis of the issues facing different
6 people, could have contributed to the avoidance of the war. It is
7 additionally unfortunate that the so-called voices of reason were all too
8 often identified with the inheritance of the old communist power structure
9 so that the most loudly Yugo nostalgist voices belonged to, for instance,
10 the veterans' association, the League of Communists movement for
11 Yugoslavia, or federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic's reformists, all of
12 which were in one way or another identified with the legacy of the Titoist
13 period that was becoming thoroughly discredited and regarded as unable to
14 provide meaningful answers and to offer a road map for the future.
15 Q. Thank you. And I would like now to move to Bosnia-Herzegovina and
16 ask you first: Did Mr. Alija Izetbegovic get the most votes during the
17 elections of November 1990 which resulted in him being elected president
18 of BH pursuant to the interparty agreement reached between SDS, SDA, and
19 HDZ. And if you can explain us what actually happened with the votes.
20 A. In terms of the actual number of votes polled, the man who is
21 sometimes described as the maverick businessman from Velika Kladusa in the
22 extreme northwest of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the name of Fikret Abdic was
23 the winner. But because of the vagaries of party-political constitutional
24 arrangements and because he didn't belong to the SDA, it was Alija
25 Izetbegovic who was duly elected in the caucus.
Page 13622
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Page 13623
1 Fikret Abdic undoubtedly commanded a considerable body of
2 following among the Bosnian Muslims and was regarded as a somewhat safer
3 bet by many when it came to the arrangements and -- with both Serbs and
4 Croats, and when it came to the nonideological skill in finding optimal
5 solutions, especially since his pivotal role in making the company called
6 Agrokomerc a major player in that part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the
7 accusations of financial misconduct notwithstanding, turned the Cazin area
8 into a showcase of relative development and, again relatively speaking,
9 prosperity in that part of the world. But in the aftermath of
10 Izetbegovic's appointment as the president of the presidency, due as I say
11 not to the simple number of votes polled, but to the support of the other
12 members of the collective body, Abdic was very often regarded by the
13 Izetbegovic establishment as a nuisance at best and a dangerous threat at
14 worst, and ultimately proclaimed a traitor for his attempts to chart a
15 middle road and to avoid the kind of political extremism that presented
16 the other side with relatively little choice.
17 It's one of those ifs that we have so many in history. We cannot
18 answer it with any degree of certainty, whether the war could have been
19 avoided if Abdic rather than Izetbegovic had led the Muslims. The one
20 thing we can guess with some degree of certainty is that the outcome could
21 not have been worse than it was.
22 Q. Did Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, a long time before the elections in
23 1990, expressed his views in a book named "Islamic Declaration"?
24 A. I believe that the actual manuscript of the book antedates 1990 by
25 quite a few years. And that it was only in 1990 that it was actually
Page 13624
1 published and openly disseminated. But the opinions expressed in the
2 book, including the view that there can be no peace and coexistence
3 between Islamic and non-Islamic forms of social and political organisation
4 are not particularly remarkable from the standpoint of a committed
5 Islamist. Quite the contrary, Alija Izetbegovic's views are imminently
6 part and parcel of the mainstream tradition of political Islam since its
7 earliest days. And his view that the world is divided into the area of
8 faith, the Uma, in which Islam is triumphant, and the world of war, dar al
9 harb, in which it is yet to triumph, is eminently in line with both
10 Koranic precepts of prophet Muhammad himself, the hadith, the traditions
11 of the prophet, and the 14 centuries of Islamic political and military
12 practice since the Hidra of 1622 and onwards.
13 Let me clarify: Many people claimed that Izetbegovic's views were
14 somehow radical, even in terms of the Islamic thought and practice. I
15 would say that he's just a regular, run-of-the-mill Islamic fundamentalist
16 of the kind that we encounter all over the Muslim world and that he has
17 both the scriptural and the historical precedents for holding the beliefs
18 that he does. Now, of course, it's an entirely different story as what
19 the non-Muslims thought to draw as a lesson of disposition of his. But I
20 have no doubt whatsoever in my own mind that with his beliefs and his
21 views, such as they are, and such as they have been for the past 50-odd
22 years, in the aftermath of September 11th, Alija Izetbegovic would not
23 have been able to sell himself to the western world as a multiculturalist,
24 multiethnicist, multiconfessionalist democrat.
25 Quite the contrary, I think that one might say the Bosnian crisis
Page 13625
1 in this sense came a decade too early, and provided militant Islam with a
2 foothold in the heart of Europe, that when the first warnings of it were
3 sounded back in the 1990s were routinely dismissed in some western
4 quarters as paranoia or Serb propaganda. But now in the aftermath of all
5 too many revelations about the Bosnian connection of a variety of
6 terrorist groups and plots, and the findings of the US house of
7 representatives task force on terrorism, that we can see in the reports by
8 Yossef Bodansky and the James Chatres, I'm afraid that we now know better.
9 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, is it common knowledge that there was presence of
10 mujahedins in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and do you know --
11 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, that's an exceedingly leading question.
12 "Is it common knowledge that there were mujahedins in.." What is the
13 state of Dr. Trifkovic's knowledge and from what did he get that
14 knowledge?
15 MR. LUKIC: I will restate my question.
16 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Reformulate your question.
17 MR. LUKIC: I thank you, my learned friend.
18 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, did you have any knowledge in the past or do you
19 have any knowledge now about the presence of the mujahedins in
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina in early 1990s, and if you can tell us from which
21 sources have you gathered those informations.
22 A. First of all, let me emphasise that I am not aware of the active
23 presence of militant Islamists from the rest of the Muslim world in
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina now as we speak. But as I mentioned earlier, there's a
25 comprehensive report by the task force of terrorism of the US House of
Page 13626
1 Representatives, which unfortunately I don't have with me, but can supply
2 the Court with subsequently. And now I'm afraid I speak from memory,
3 which talks in some detail about a whole village in the vicinity of
4 Travnik, formerly inhabited by the Serbs that had been taken over by the
5 jihadists from the Arab world, Pakistan, elsewhere. Also, there had been
6 a Bosnian connection, if you will, to various attempted or actually
7 performed terrorist attacks, including the plan -- the attack on I believe
8 it's Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the planned attack on the US military bases in
9 West Germany, and the action by the French police in the northern French
10 city of Lille where all five of the people either apprehended or killed in
11 the shootout at the time of a European Union top-level conference in the
12 city, were found to have had either experience as veterans fighting for
13 the Bosnian Muslim army or else having a Bosnian connection of some other
14 kind. I regret not having documentation at my fingertips right now to
15 answer your question in greater detail, but I have written on the subject,
16 and I would be able to follow my oral testimony, once I return to the
17 United States, with a more comprehensive written answer that would contain
18 references to specific documents and events, dates, and names.
19 Q. Thank you, Doctor.
20 Will you be also so kind and share with us and describe the
21 circumstances which led to Alija Izetbegovic requesting the
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina join an organisation of Islamic nations as a whole
23 country.
24 A. Under the Bosnia-Herzegovinian constitution, the president of the
25 presidency was effectively "primus inter pares," first among equals, and
Page 13627
1 was not authorised to make ad hoc decisions, especially those affecting
2 the key political issues, including foreign relations, of the republic
3 without reference to other members of the collective presidency, which as
4 we know also included Serbs and Croats. But both Izetbegovic's request
5 for the membership of the Islamic Conference Organisation on his visit to
6 Turkey and his request for Saudi aid during a visit there on March 27th,
7 8th, and 9th of 1992 came as a surprise to other members of the presidency
8 because neither the request for membership nor the request for assistance
9 had been discussed, let alone cleared, by the collective body in advance
10 of having been made.
11 And of course their effect was to increase mutual mistrust and to
12 feed the fears and the apprehensions of the non-Muslims, that Izetbegovic
13 was not only acting unilaterally, but also that his unilateralism was
14 strongly motivated by his Islamism and that when faced with a choice
15 between following the dictate of his faith and its political consequences
16 on the one hand, and the dictates of constitutionality and legality and
17 political prudence on the other, he would opt for the former.
18 Q. I believe that you have a list of 65 ter exhibits somewhere in
19 front of you. And is it true that under number 165 on that list, we have
20 a clip from Oslobodenje, Sarajevo paper, mentioning the same event.
21 A. I remember the article very well. I don't think I need to look at
22 it. The other Muslim member of the Presidency, Ejup Ganic, when asked by
23 the reporters to comment on the significance of Alija Izetbegovic's sudden
24 departure for Saudi Arabia, declared that -- or rather, admitted that he
25 himself was surprised and explained that the visit had a semi-private
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1 character.
2 Now, the category "semi-private visit" does not exist in the
3 constitutional and political arrangements of Bosnia-Herzegovina of that
4 time, and especially in as sensitive a moment as the end of March of 1992
5 with the Cutileiro-led negotiations entering the period of crisis and the
6 tensions rising throughout the republic, the move had to be seen as both
7 grossly provocative and even sinister. But the interesting twist was also
8 provided only days later when the Saudi Gazette, which is an
9 English-language weekly, commentated that Mr. Izetbegovic could not
10 automatically count on the unlimited support of the Muslim world without
11 undertaking certain obligations in return, implying that Izetbegovic had,
12 in fact, requested open-ended support of the Muslim world. And that in
13 order to obtain that support he would be expected to undertake certain
14 clear commitments.
15 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, yesterday we discussed the formation and
16 proclamation of Serb Republic of BH on January 9th, 1992. And would you
17 be so kind and share with us, was that a public proclamation pursuant to
18 the Badinter commission which requested the deadline of January 15th,
19 1992?
20 A. The proclamation was a reaction to the imposition of the
21 deadline. As I stated quite frankly yesterday, after the fatal memorandum
22 on sovereign and independent Bosnia-Herzegovina of October 14th,
23 everything done by all sides was both constitutionally and legally
24 dubious. By voting for the memorandum in the absence of Serbian deputies,
25 the SDA/HDZ tactical coalition entered the uncharted waters. And
Page 13630
1 likewise, the Serb plebiscite on November 8th and the proclamation of the
2 Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina of January 9th were all ad hoc moves
3 in reaction to the perceived attempt by the other two parties to present
4 the Serbs with an unacceptable fait accomplis.
5 In that sense, the announcement by the European Community that
6 January 15th would be the cutoff date for recognition requests had the
7 effect of adding fuel to the fire. It prompted the separatist-minded
8 forces to proceed single-mindedly towards what they regarded as an
9 objective that would be aided and abetted by the international community,
10 while at the same time prompting the Serbs, who would have preferred the
11 status quo, remaining within Yugoslavia, to resort to -- improvised
12 devices that would give expression to their collective will not to be
13 taken into secession. In a funny way, we may compare this situation with
14 that prevailing in Ireland in the run up to the partition of 1921 when
15 both the nationalists and the unionists resorted to a whole host of moves
16 and political and military decisions that were extralegal but reflected
17 their determination not to be forced by the other side into unacceptable
18 solutions.
19 Q. I would ask you something now about the Cutileiro plan, and if you
20 would be so kind and share with us the goals of this plan, the process,
21 and the negotiations which resulted therefrom.
22 A. The underlying assumptions of the Cutileiro plan as well as the
23 whole negotiating process initiated by Cutileiro under the auspices of
24 Lord Carrington's negotiating effort were fairly simple. Though
25 assumptions took the pending international recognition of
Page 13631
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina as a given and sought to devise the internal
2 rearrangement of the republic along the ethnic lines so as to provide its
3 constituent nations with a sense that they have a stake in the new order
4 of things.
5 To put it very crudely, and I suspect that neither Cutileiro nor
6 Lord Carrington would ever put it as simply as that, but the underlying
7 assumption was that if we are to get the Serbs to agree to
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina's complete secession from Yugoslavia and its
9 internationally recognised independence and sovereignty, let's at least
10 try to devise the internal constitutional rearrangement that would give
11 them the sense of being the masters of their own destiny in the
12 territories where they compromise a majority and removing the very
13 important ingredient in the equation, which was present on all sides, and
14 way was the fear of being dominated and ruled by another ethnicity.
15 Accordingly, the Cutileiro plan proposed the division of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina into three ethnically-based cantons, and a central
17 authority in Sarajevo that would have the responsibility for a number of
18 joint functions, including foreign affairs, defence, foreign trade,
19 central bank currency, and so on. And in many ways, it was a mix of
20 federal and confederal ingredients which not only Serbs, but also Croats,
21 found quite attractive.
22 In fact, the leadership of both the Serbian democratic party and
23 the Croatian democratic union was ready and willing to sign on the dotted
24 line and obviously some details concerning the maps that remained to be
25 ironed out. But the ambivalence on the Muslim side was felt even before
Page 13632
1 the referendum on independence, but more strongly in the weeks following
2 it, when Izetbegovic started talking about elements other than ethnic
3 criteria in determining the boundaries of the cantons, such as economic
4 infrastructure or geographic and historical, cultural patterns. When he
5 started mentioning the possibility of more than three cantons, all of
6 which was very alarming to those who believed that it was necessary to
7 provide the blueprint for the constitution rearrangement that would
8 overcome the fear of centralisation among the opponents of full
9 sovereignty and independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
10 In the event, after the international recognition of April 6th,
11 1992, the Muslim side increasingly proved to be disinterested in the
12 continuation of the Cutileiro process, and even though the Karadzic/Boban
13 agreement concluded in Grac, I believe, in the first week of May 1992,
14 left the door open for the SDA to come on board, many commentators
15 believed that with the recognition and with the at least tacit
16 encouragement from Washington to persevere in the demount for a more or
17 less centralised, more or less unitary state, Izetbegovic was no longer
18 interested in the deal.
19 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Mr. Lukic, it seems to me it is high time to
20 have a short break with your permission. The trial stays adjourned until
21 5.10. 10 minutes break.
22 --- Recess taken at 5.01 p.m.
23 --- On resuming at 5.14 p.m.
24 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Mr. Lukic, please continue.
25 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
Page 13633
1 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, would you be so kind and tell us when Cutileiro
2 plan was actually brought public.
3 A. To the best of my recollection, the plan was made public in its
4 main outline in the third week of February. I can't remember the exact
5 date. Certainly, it was in the weeks prior to the referendum of February
6 29th, March 1st.
7 Q. Thank you. And please describe the measures taken by the Serbs
8 pursuant to the Cutileiro plan and Badinter commission?
9 A. Well, the reaction to the deadline of January 15th, I already
10 indicated was primarily manifested in the proclamation of the Serb
11 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina on January 9th. The crisis of the
12 Cutileiro negotiating process manifest in the increasingly unwillingness
13 of Izetbegovic to commit himself to the principle of the tripartite
14 cantonal internal arrangement led to the proclamation of the constitution
15 of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina on I believe March 28th of
16 1992. I may be off by one day.
17 Q. I'm sorry to bother you, but because of administration of this
18 Tribunal, we have to establish and to spare some time, I will just ask you
19 from the list whether documents 121 from that list, 138, 145, 160, 162,
20 197, 233, 236, and also 105 and 107 talk about this plan and negotiations
21 regarding these plans.
22 A. Yes, they do indeed. And as far as the reactions of different
23 negotiating parties to the Cutileiro negotiating process are concerned, in
24 some of these articles, suspicion is raised on the Muslim side that prior
25 briefings had been made by the European mediators leading to what they
Page 13634
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Page 13635
1 suspected was preconceived outcome vis-a-vis the ethnic tripartite
2 arrangement of the proposed cantons, while on the Serb side, there is an
3 almost oscillating pendulum between encouragement and disappointment, hope
4 and despair, depending on the one hand the vagaries of Izetbegovic's
5 public pronouncements, on the other, continuously optimistic statements by
6 the negotiators and by Cutileiro himself about the prospects for a deal.
7 In retrospect, when we look at these articles, I think that the
8 whole process was doomed by the act of international recognition on April
9 6th and by the at least implicit encouragement from Washington to
10 Izetbegovic to persevere in his attempt to create a more or less unitary
11 and centralised state, and that the political underpinnings of the
12 Cutileiro assumptions were no longer present after April 6th, which in
13 itself indicates the lack of coherence and diplomatic skill and savoir
14 faire of the international community, because the act of recognition - and
15 I'm now talking about one of those ifs in history - but it's realistic to
16 assume that had the act of recognition been made contingent upon the prior
17 agreement among the parties, such as sought by the Cutileiro plan, then
18 those negotiations could have been crowned with a successful outcome.
19 In view of the fact that recognition was extended not only in the
20 absence of such agreement, but while the negotiating process was fully
21 underway, practically sealed the destiny of the proposed deal.
22 Q. Do you have an opinion based upon a reasonable degree of certainty
23 whether the measures taken by the Serbs were reasonable and consistent
24 with the Cutileiro plan and Badinter commission?
25 A. It is impossible to answer this question in a value-neutral way
Page 13636
1 that would be divorced from the context of the times. Until the
2 proclamation of the Republika Srpska in July of 1992, all of the statutory
3 and plebiscitary moves by the Serb side could have been fitted in and
4 could have been made compliant with some kind of Bosnia-Herzegovinian
5 wider framework. The plebiscite was a largely symbolic exercise without
6 clear-cut legal consequences. The proclamation of the Serb Republic of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina sought to pre-empt the act of international
8 recognition. The proclamation of constitution of the Serbian Republic of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina sought to emphasise the existence of political and
10 legal structures of the Serb people within Bosnia-Herzegovina that could
11 not be ignored and overcome in the rush for international recognition.
12 But all of them could be made compliant, at least retroactively, with the
13 kind of tripartite internal rearrangement of the Republic of
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina that was the underlying basis of the Cutileiro plan.
15 Let me be specific: Had the plan been accepted and signed by all
16 three sides, the end result quite possibly would not have been all that
17 different from the end result of Dayton, but the republic would have been
18 spared four and a half years of suffering and bloodshed, and even
19 elementary pragmatism on the side of those who sought separation seems to
20 dictate a modicum of realistic understanding of the impossibility of
21 imposing on one third of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina a dictum
22 that they deemed unacceptable.
23 So what I'm really suggesting in answer to your question is that I
24 cannot judge the reasonableness of those moves from the vantage point of
25 more than a decade later. I would suggest that the way to deal with this
Page 13637
1 judgement, which is obviously a value judgement, is to try and understand
2 the restraints and the metal paradigm and the pressures that were being
3 exerted on the actors at the time, what the French would call l'histoire
4 elementaire, that without putting yourself in the shoes of those people
5 and looking at the options that they were facing and the pressures they're
6 experiencing, simply passing a verdict laden with value connotations such
7 as the reasonableness of their behaviour is very difficult. So I would
8 prefer not to give a clear-cut answer to that question.
9 Q. Thank you, Doctor. Please share with us your view as academic
10 historian and political scientist how the war started in
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
12 A. For every war, the pivotal question is who fired the first shots.
13 The war between the States, the civil war in the United States, started
14 with the shelling of Fort Sumter in April of 1861. And it was the guns of
15 Fort Sumter that were taken as the clear-cut point. From that point on,
16 it was no longer possible to resolve the problem by political means.
17 The first shots in Bosnia-Herzegovina were fired on March 1st by
18 the Green Berets, the Muslim paramilitary, illegal organisation. And the
19 first victim was a Serb, a man by the name of Nikola Gardovic who was
20 celebrating the wedding of his son. The first mass slaughter of members
21 of one ethnic group by another in Bosnia-Herzegovina occurred in the
22 village of Sijekovac near Bosanski Brod, days later. The victims were
23 Serbs, and the culprits were Muslims and Croats.
24 There is a certain logic to the mindlessness of violence. It is
25 that unfortunately once the shots are fired and lives are lost, the
Page 13638
1 exponential escalation of violence is much more difficult to control. The
2 barricades that started springing up all over the city of Sarajevo in the
3 aftermath of the slaying in Bascarsija on March 1st were admittedly
4 dismantled some days later, and the violence did not completely get out of
5 hand for some weeks to come, but an important threshold had been passed.
6 Unless we bear in mind both the brutalising effect on the mental
7 framework of the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina that the war in
8 neighbouring Croatia had had, it will be difficult to understand how was
9 it possible for people who lived in reasonable harmony for a good many
10 decades to succumb to the collective call of the wild and to seek
11 resolution of the conflict by violent means. But it is also important to
12 remember, and this is something that too many people in the international
13 community were not prepared to do, to remember the painful legacy of the
14 relatively recent past still in the living memory of many people, the
15 legacy of 1941 to 1945 which, in the collective memory of the Serbs in
16 both Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Croatia, was comparable to the collective
17 memory of the Holocaust among the European Jews.
18 The logic of violence in the months of April and May also
19 reflected different expectations on different sides. As far as the Serbs
20 were concerned, the big uncertainty about the willingness and ability of
21 the YPA to act decisively in order to protect their interests was resolved
22 with its departure and with the leaving of Bosnian-born personnel and a
23 sizable segment of equipment behind. In the case of the HVO, the reliance
24 on Croatian regular units was manifested very early on, particularly in
25 western Herzegovina, and except for the desire to carve out and control an
Page 13639
1 area which was more or less clearly Croat in terms of majority population
2 residing there, in western Herzegovina, Central Bosnia, and the Sava River
3 valley, the Croats' essential posture was reactive at this stage rather
4 than proactive.
5 And finally as far as the Muslims were concerned, with the
6 transfer of the paramilitary units into the Territorial Defence and the
7 activation of the pre-existent Patriotic League cells and structures and
8 their blending with the TO in the Muslim-controlled municipalities, we had
9 a numerous, albeit at this stage still, lightly-armed force that was
10 primarily geared to expecting, hoping for, and if necessary provoking
11 foreign intervention by the stunts such as the notorious bread queue
12 massacre in Vase Miskin Street in Sarajevo, and by seeking to expand the
13 territory under its control without entering into an open, all-out
14 military clash of the kind that would display the weaknesses of
15 Muslim-armed formations at that time, all of which is amply documented in
16 the memoirs by Generals Halilovic, Hodzic, and others.
17 Q. And based upon your analysis and literature you reviewed, what was
18 the role of JNA at the beginning of the war and throughout the spring and
19 summer of 1992?
20 A. It is important to bear in mind that the JNA developed from the
21 partisan forces during World War II as an explicitly party controlled
22 armed force that sought to identify Yugoslav patriotism with a strictly
23 Titoist form of party political identity and interpretation of history.
24 MS. KORNER: May I interrupt for one moment. Dr. Trifkovic was
25 put forward as an expert historian and not an expert military man. I
Page 13640
1 understand there is going to be an expert called on behalf of the
2 Defence. I'm wondering whether this is properly an area with which he can
3 deal.
4 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Yes, Mr. Lukic.
5 MR. LUKIC: Not Trifkovic is not giving an expertise on military
6 matters, but he has to touch upon some military issues because we are
7 talking now about prewar and wartime. And of course, that the war is part
8 of history as well. So I don't think that Mr. Trifkovic will give us a
9 lengthy explanation, but let him tell us a few sentences to be -- because
10 our next questions will be in this context.
11 THE WINTESS: I think that without touching upon strictly military
12 issues -- sorry.
13 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Dr. Trifkovic, please do continue. I don't
14 believe these are strictly military issues. It is more political issues.
15 THE WITNESS: An officer corps nurtured on the legacy of the
16 so-called people's liberation struggle that was the basis of the JNA
17 esprit de corps and the JNA commitment to defending not just Yugoslavia
18 but socialist Yugoslavia based on workers' self-management, nonalignment,
19 brotherhood, unity, and all the rest of it, was a highly politicised view
20 of Yugoslavia, what it meant, what it implied. So with the beginning of
21 disintegration of Yugoslavia, the JNA and its top brass faced a serious
22 problem.
23 On the one hand, part and parcel of their ideological upbringing
24 was that it was impossible for honest, hard-working, good patriotic
25 Yugoslavs to be ethnic separatists, and the refusal to even countenance
Page 13641
1 the possibility of mass ethnic separatism in any ethnic group as part of
2 the JNA doctrine proved well nigh fatal. A nonideological army will
3 postulate different scenarios and different possible threats to the
4 country's stability, sovereignty, and develop different responses to those
5 challenges. In the case of the JNA, we had the utter inability of the top
6 brass to do so because even postulating the possibility of such challenges
7 as were witnessed in Croatia and Slovenia in the summer of 1991 would have
8 been deemed treasonous or politically incorrect. If you're a communist
9 officer in the JNA, and you started talking in 1986, 1987, 1988, or 1989
10 about the possibility of secession of certain republics and their armed
11 rebellion against the constitutional order, you were putting yourself in a
12 very vulnerable position.
13 And likewise, the insistence of the JNA and of the political party
14 approved of by the JNA which was the League of Communists movement for
15 Yugoslavia, their propensity to call all ethnically-based parties in the
16 context of Bosnia-Herzegovina nationalist and to proclaim that they are
17 all equally culpable for the crisis in the republic was perfectly in line
18 with the old Titoist practice of branding all nationalisms together and
19 claiming that they were all equally bad and equally destructive and
20 equally destabilising [Realtime transcript read in error "stabilising"].
21 So to make the shift and to readjust their mental and political
22 terms of reference to the demand of the Serb people of Bosnia-Herzegovina
23 to have an armed force that would protect their specific right not to be
24 taken into secession by the SDA/HDZ tactical coalition demanded the kind
25 of mental shift that while eminently acceptable for a large number of
Page 13642
1 Bosnian-born Serb lieutenants and majors, and even colonels, certainly
2 when we look at the higher brass of the YPA, the JNA, people such Kadjevic
3 and Hadzic, it becomes obvious this that is the kind of shift that they
4 were simply not able to make, that old Yugo nostalgic assumptions and all
5 ideological mental habits died very hard, and that the rapid developments
6 which they were facing in the second half of 1991 and the first half of
7 1992 required a qualitatively different kind of response, which in the
8 event was not possible without the emotional commitment that locally-born
9 cadre of the former YPA could have by virtue of being Bosnian Serbs, first
10 and foremost, and former communist party members and YPA officers, next.
11 The same phenomenon, let me add, was at work with many Muslim and
12 Croat officers, except for many of them, the shift was easier to make.
13 Because to a large extent, in both the role of Yugoslavia between the two
14 world wars and in the socialist Yugoslavia after 1945, the Serbs were not
15 only the most prominent propagators of the Yugoslav idea, but also the
16 most committed victims of their own propaganda. And while for a patriotic
17 Slovene, Croat, Bosnian Muslim, or Macedonian, when the old Yugoslav
18 assumptions crumbled away, the new patriotic content was easy to find.
19 For many Serbs, this transformation, this shift proved to be more
20 difficult, more traumatic, and more ambivalent.
21 JUDGE ARGIBAY: May I just make an observation only. It's for the
22 transcript. Can you control, Mr. Lukic, in page 26, line 24, I think
23 Dr. Trifkovic said "destablising," and it says here "equally
24 stabilising."
25 Can you confirm what you say, please, Doctor.
Page 13643
1 THE WITNESS: It is destablising.
2 JUDGE ARGIBAY: Destablising. Please correct that.
3 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour, for your help.
4 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, staying in the context, describe for us, please,
5 the actions taken by the Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, with respect to forming
6 their own army, EA, Patriotic League, Green Berets, and so on.
7 A. I regret not having at my disposal some of the memoirs of the
8 early Muslim activists who were instrumental in developing and setting up
9 both the Patriotic League and the Green Beret units which came into my
10 possession subsequent to my preparation of the report. But the story is
11 verified by the fact that from different sources, different direct
12 participants in these events, provide a similar timetable.
13 The pivotal point in March 31st, 1991, four months before the
14 crisis in Croatia and Slovenia when the SDA activists meeting in a mosque
15 at Souk Bunar near Sarajevo decided to set up a rudimentary network of
16 local activists who would be charged with preparing and developing a party
17 militia which they would call Patriotic League. The early efforts
18 received their full imprimatur on June 10th, 1991 - let me emphasise,
19 still two weeks before the violence started with the Slovene and Croatian
20 declaration of independence - with the meeting of leading Muslim
21 intellectuals and SDA activists attended by Alija Izetbegovic himself, at
22 which detailed instructions were prepared for field activists and the
23 overall territorial principle of these efforts was accepted as suggested
24 by I believe it was Halilovic himself who said that instead of going after
25 a small body of highly-trained experts in the militia and command
Page 13644
1 sabotage, they ought to seek a broadly-based mass movement that would have
2 its outposts in more or less every municipality of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
3 Highly significant is the fact that at that meeting it was decided
4 to set up nine regional staffs of the Patriotic League of which one was
5 outside Bosnia-Herzegovina, in southwest Serbia, the area that the Muslims
6 call Sandjak. And in subsequent testimonies and statements by the authors
7 of different memoirs and serialised articles in Oslobodenje and Darne and
8 elsewhere, several of these Muslim activists readily concede that they
9 were hoping that if and when the war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they
10 would be helped by an uprising of the Muslims in Sandjak and the Albanians
11 in Kosovo, and that furthermore they were disappointed that this would not
12 happen in the spring and summer of 1992.
13 By the 2nd of December of 1991, when a detailed military council,
14 again attended by Izetbegovic, was held in a private house on the
15 outskirts of Sarajevo, the Patriotic League had branches in 104 of 107
16 municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and two months later, when a further
17 military council was held in the village of Mahurici, near Travnik, where
18 a whole series of specific instructions concerning the future developments
19 were issued, by that time, we are looking at a fairly strong and
20 centralised force of close to a hundred thousand men, which while devoid
21 of heavy weaponry, had a detailed command and control structure and
22 compartmentalisation into different arms and services resembling the fully
23 fledged armed force which, as I mentioned earlier, only two months later
24 was indeed blended into the TO which then was turned into the army of
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Page 13645
1 So the initial impetus came on 31st of March of 1991. The
2 detailed blueprint was elaborated on June 10th of 1991. The review of the
3 fruits was summarised in -- on December 2nd of 1991. And the elaboration
4 of specific tasks in the anticipated violence ahead was considered in some
5 detail at Mahurici in the second half of February 1992.
6 Q. Was this whole preparation by the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina
7 done before the referendum held in 1992?
8 A. Not only was it done before the referendum, but the military
9 council at Mahurici which the Muslims themselves called historic in their
10 own literature was specifically convened in order to consider the state of
11 military preparedness for the aftermath of the referendum. Because they
12 had no doubt that the referendum was the kind of challenge to the Serbs to
13 which they were expected to react in more than merely political way.
14 Q. Prior to April 1992, was there the declaration of imminent threat
15 of war, and when was the state of imminent threat of war declared, and by
16 whom, if you know?
17 A. I cannot remember the date without consulting my papers, but it
18 was proclaimed before the international recognition. I believe -- I'm
19 sorry, I'm not able to answer it offhand.
20 Q. From the literature you reviewed, did you have the opportunity to
21 familiarise yourself with the role of the police during the state of
22 imminent threat of war with respect to the military?
23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, yes, I'm sorry. I haven't objected so
24 far, but none of this, what we're now dealing with, is, in fact, in the
25 report. I think if Dr. Trifkovic is now going to start dealing with the
Page 13646
1 role of the police, then I would like to know on what literature he's
2 relying, on what documents he's relying, not just a general assertion in
3 this way I'm afraid. There are a number of other matters I would be
4 asking for references for, but I don't want to detain the doctor any
5 further. But on this, I would like to know on what he is going to refer.
6 MR. LUKIC:
7 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, are you familiar with the law of all people's
8 defence and self-protection?
9 A. I am familiar with its broad outline including the summary of the
10 law that is also widely available in English. It is a cumbersome document
11 in the original which I readily admit to not having read in its entirety
12 in Serbo-Croatian.
13 Q. Can you, based on your knowledge, answer my previous question, if
14 you know what is prescribed in this law about the role of police?
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the simple answer -- I have no objection
16 if Mr. Lukic wants to put the law in. Rather than having a guess or a
17 memory of what's in this.
18 THE WITNESS: Since I would prefer to give fairly specific answers
19 to matters I am fully familiar with, I would prefer not to deal with
20 issues where I'm not as briefed as I like to be when providing an answer.
21 MR. LUKIC:
22 Q. Thank you, Doctor. Again, because of the procedural matters, I'll
23 just ask you whether the documents listed on this table are based for your
24 conclusions regarding the war. And those documents are 001, 002, 003,
25 006, 115, 216, and 224.
Page 13647
1 A. Yes, they refer to what I mentioned earlier as a whole series of
2 memoirs and personal accounts and reminiscences by various Bosnian Muslim
3 activists and commanders who are surprisingly frank and forthright in
4 their accounts of their preparations, military preparations, even in the
5 period when the public face of the SDA was full of statements about
6 peaceful intentions and determination to resolve all problems by peaceful
7 means.
8 Q. Thank you. And now I would like you -- I would like to ask you,
9 based upon your review of the documents provided, meaning Donia's report,
10 numerous articles and literature, among other things, please describe
11 Dr. Stakic's role before the takeover of Prijedor Municipality on April
12 30th, 1992.
13 A. First of all, I think it's interesting that Dr. Stakic is a
14 relative latecomer to the ranks of the SDS. In the early days of the
15 multiparty renaissance in the former Yugoslavia, he joined the People's
16 Radical Party Nikola Pasic, a political organisation that was initiated by
17 a Belgrade-based lawyer by the name of Veljko Guberina, I believe, in
18 1989, which followed in the footsteps of the well-known Serbian politician
19 from the late 19th and early 20th century who I must emphasise followed
20 the path of social radicalism, which is whence the party got its name. It
21 should not be confused with the later product of the Yugoslav political
22 imbroglio, the Serbian radical party of Vojislav Seselj.
23 Following in Pasic's tradition meant social justice of a
24 distinctly leftish kind when it came to issues of income distribution,
25 land reform, provision of public services. And the desire to give
Page 13648
1 expression to ethnic particularism within the Yugoslav framework. And I
2 emphasise not only that that would give expression to the Serb
3 particularism but also other groups. Because let us not forget that as
4 one of the early prime ministers of Yugoslavia or the kingdom of Serbs,
5 Croats, and Slovenes as it was known then, Nikola Pasic relentlessly
6 worked on the reconciliation with the Croats the work which was crowned
7 with the successful conclusion of the coalition between his radicals and
8 Stipe Radic's Croatian peasant party in 1925.
9 Also, I must say that reading some of Dr. Stakic's speeches and
10 statements from 1991, I was struck by the difference in tone between his
11 approach and that of people clearly identified with the renaissance of
12 Serbian national idea, at that time people like Vuk Draskovic, for
13 instance. Most notably, I believe that his address at the celebration of
14 the republic day in Prijedor on November 29th, 1991, was such an
15 extravagant ode to the Yugoslav idea and to the spirit of Yugoslavism and
16 Yugoslav togetherness, that in itself it would have sounded pretty
17 suspicious, if not outright odious, to a genuine Serb nationalist at the
18 time because by that time, explicit nationalists were no longer talking in
19 terms of preserving Yugoslavia, but of re-inventing a Serb entity that
20 would seek to unite all Serbs on the ruins of Yugoslavia.
21 So as late as the end of 1991, in his public statements,
22 Dr. Stakic reflected the mindset of what I would colloquially call "Yugo
23 nostalgia," the hope for the revival of the old Yugoslav spirit of
24 togetherness, even though by that time, to a political realist, it would
25 have been increasingly obvious that the exercise was forlorn.
Page 13649
1 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Mr. Trifkovic, excuse me. We have run out of
2 time.
3 THE WITNESS: I am also running out of voice. So thank you, Your
4 Honour.
5 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: So it's in our mutual interest to finish these
6 hearings today. I would like to thank you, all participants, for your
7 cooperation. And for you, Dr. Trifkovic, I would like to remind you that
8 until your testimony here has concluded, you may not contact
9 representatives either the Defence or the Prosecution. Please be back on
10 Monday at 9.00 a.m. to continue with the evidence in this case. The trial
11 stays adjourned until Monday at 9.00 a.m. in Courtroom II.
12 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I just think that Dr. Trifkovic in light
13 of the fact that he's still in chief shouldn't think he'll be leaving here
14 on Monday because I don't think he is.
15 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Of course.
16 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned
17 at 6.05 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,
18 the 17th day of March, 2003,
19 at 9.00 a.m.
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