1 Tuesday, 10 February 2004

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

6 JUDGE PARKER: Good morning. Mr. Hvalkof, if I could remind you

7 of the affirmation you made yesterday which is still applicable.

8 Mr. Weiner.

9 MR. WEINER: Yes, good morning.

10 WITNESS: PER HVALKOF [Resumed]

11 Examined by Mr. Weiner: [Continued]

12 Q. Good morning, sir. Could you please move to tab Number 8. It's

13 dated October 29th, 1991. So it's a letter. And could you tell us who it

14 is to and who it's from.

15 A. It's to General Strugar from Ambassador Bondioli.

16 Q. Who was Ambassador Bondioli?

17 A. He was the head of the of the regional centre Split.

18 Q. Was that your supervisor or supervisor?

19 A. He was my boss.

20 Q. Now, were you present when this letter was drafted?

21 A. On October 29th, 1991.

22 Q. Yes. Were you present when this was drafted or did you see this

23 letter when it was prepared?

24 A. No, I was not present when it was drafted, but it was given to me

25 shortly afterwards. Of course, I can't see [phoen] the time.

1 Q. Now, this document talks about movement of the JNA lines in

2 violation of their agreements. Did ECMM make many protests to the JNA for

3 violations of the movement of lines?

4 A. I am aware of in this particular case that the ECMM down in

5 Dubrovnik had made complaints about this specific incident, and I've heard

6 about those. But I can't remember.

7 Q. And were any of your protests successful in having those lines

8 moved back to their original positions?

9 A. Not to my knowledge.

10 Q. Now, in paragraph 3 of the letter it indicates that you were going

11 to notify or send a copy of this to the EMM -- it should be ECMM liaison

12 officer in Belgrade. What was that. Could you tell me about that,

13 please, or tell the Court.

14 A. Well, when you were informing, of course, headquarters in Zagreb,

15 they had copies of this. And when you send it to the liaison officer we

16 had in Belgrade, it would normally be so that the liaison officer could

17 communicate that to the highest authorities in Belgrade.

18 Q. So you believed that -- or at least the office believed that

19 breach of any cease-fire breaches was important enough to notify Belgrade?

20 A. Yes. Specifically because when you couldn't reach of a certain

21 field and this one was on the 25th. And between the 25th and the 28th,

22 the line had moved or the JNA had moved forward and apparently

23 Mr. Bondioli was complaining about that and he wanted to make sure that

24 some higher resources could force it through that the troops withdrew to

25 the line they were at the 25th.

1 Q. Thank you, sir. Could you move to tab Number 23, please. We're

2 at tab 23. In the middle of the document it says: November 28th, in the

3 middle of the first page. Is that date correct, sir?

4 A. No, it is not. I have given remarks about that before. It for

5 sure -- it should be -- read October 28th, because that was the day, as I

6 also mentioned yesterday, the radio centre became operative. And

7 Mr. Bondioli was working very hard and was very busy, so it's an error he

8 made that day. And he made it also further down the page. And I have

9 given remarks about that before.

10 Q. Sir, could you first tell us what type of document this is.

11 A. Well, it's -- let's say -- I would call an assessment of the

12 situation and a sort of a report from Mr. Bondioli to the head of the ECMM

13 mission, Ambassador Fernhaufen [phoen] in Zagreb where he sort of gives

14 his first impressions of what is happening in the area of responsibility

15 he has just taken control over.

16 Q. Okay. Now, could you just look at the last page for a moment, and

17 based on reading the last page could you give us an idea of -- although

18 you said it mentions October 28th or it should refer to October 28th on

19 the first page, when this document was prepared by looking at the last

20 page.

21 A. Well, this is obvious because now we are talking about -- it's

22 obvious it's made before the 29th of November, because now he is

23 mentioning this in the week up to the 10th of November, and he wouldn't

24 write anything like that. And it is true. It is -- it was made -- I

25 can't give you the exact date, but it was made, I believe, about the 1st

1 of November, maybe the last date of -- yeah, or maybe the last date of

2 October. But I can't remember exactly the day he wrote it.

3 Q. Now, on the second page.

4 A. Yeah.

5 Q. There's a date on the second line.

6 A. Yeah, November 2nd -- yeah, well -- sorry. I said 1st. Anyway,

7 it was written before the 10th of November.

8 Q. Okay. If we look at the second, the first full paragraph on the

9 second page, which is kind of in the middle, it starts HRC --

10 A. Would you say that from the beginning.

11 Q. The first full paragraph on page 2, it starts HRC and previously

12 paid a courtesy call.

13 A. Yeah.

14 Q. And if we look to the fourth line down it says: "The EC

15 declaration on Dubrovnik of November 27th," what date should that read?

16 A. It again should be October.

17 Q. And it said: "Was delivered to General Strugar, commander of the

18 2nd MD." What does that stand for?

19 A. The 2nd MD should be the 2nd military district.

20 Q. And where is that located? Can you read that in --

21 A. Well, according to my information, that was the Dubrovnik area.

22 Q. And it says: "In" -- can you read MIL -- is that Miljine [phoen]?

23 A. That is Miljine, which is down in that area.

24 Q. And then it says: "In that of -- on -- that of November 28th. Is

25 that date correct?

1 A. Not to my knowledge, no.

2 Q. On Yugoslavia to General Vukovic in Zitnic. Was Zitnic within

3 your area of responsibility?

4 A. Yes, it was. That's up in the area -- Krajina area. It's a

5 little bit north -- well, a little bit north of Sebra [phoen] -- of the

6 Zadar, up in that area.

7 Q. And was this letter maintained in the files at the regional centre

8 in Split?

9 A. Yes, we were sending nearly daily negotiating with

10 General Vukovic and his representatives from Knin.

11 Q. Can we go to the third page, please. Now, if we go down to the

12 11th line, it says in the middle: "Assurances about keeping the

13 cease-fire were repeatedly provided by the two generals to the RCS teams."

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And the two generals mentioned above on that page are both Strugar

16 and Vukovic. Did they abide by these assurances to maintain the

17 cease-fire?

18 A. No.

19 Q. And the two generals that made these assurances, who are they?

20 A. General Vukovic and General Strugar.

21 Q. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Sir, I'd like to move back

22 to where we started towards the beginning to a group of documents which

23 all concern the month of November, documents 9, 10, 11, and 12, concerning

24 November 9th.

25 A. Say again, 9th --

1 Q. They relate to November 9th. They're documents 9, 10, 11, and 12.

2 We'll take them as a group but one by one, please.

3 A. Yeah.

4 Q. If we could start with document -- tab Number 9. Do you recognise

5 this document?

6 A. I wrote it myself.

7 Q. Could you tell us how this information was received.

8 A. It was received on the SatCom from our ECMM team in Dubrovnik.

9 Q. And what seems to be the problem that's happening in this

10 document?

11 A. It's that shelling is going on continuously in the area. It had

12 increased, and both -- you can read and I can easily remember that, that

13 targets were closing in and now they mentioned the detailed places on

14 Lokrum island where it's pronounced, ready, Lapad and Svei Jakov and fires

15 crossing the city.

16 Q. On that first page in number 3 you wrote: "We appeal to HRC

17 Split, now in Zagreb, that he sends an urgent message to

18 JNA General Strugar and headquarters in Belgrade asking them to order

19 immediate cease of fire over Dubrovnik."

20 First: What do you mean by: "HRC Split now in Zagreb"?

21 A. Ambassador Bondioli was in Zagreb for consultations with the head

22 of the ECM mission, so I was his acting representative in Split at the

23 time.

24 Q. Why was a request being made to contact General Strugar?

25 A. You're talking about, I understand, why the ECMM monitors in

1 Dubrovnik are asking this question?

2 Q. Yes.

3 A. Well, they felt very much under pressure and they had not for a

4 long time had a pleasant time in Dubrovnik, so they wanted help from the

5 highest authorities, which I do understand very well and I did understand.

6 Q. But why General Strugar?

7 A. Well, they are referring to General Strugar because he was the

8 commander of the forces opposing Dubrovnik.

9 Q. Did General Strugar ever advise the ECMM that he was not the

10 commander of the JNA forces in Dubrovnik?

11 A. Not to my knowledge. I've never heard it.

12 Q. Did General Strugar ever tell the ECMM that he lacked authority to

13 issue orders?

14 A. I've never heard that either.

15 Q. Did General Strugar ever tell the ECMM that their requests or

16 protests were being made to the wrong person?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Did General Strugar ever advise the ECMM that they should send

19 their requests to someone else?

20 A. No.

21 Q. Now, if we continue on this document, if we could move to page 3.

22 Could you tell us about this document.

23 A. Well, the top says who signed it. They were three ECMM members

24 who were on the team in Dubrovnik, an Italian diplomat, a Greek colonel,

25 and a Czechoslovakian, that time a Czechoslovakian colonel.

1 Q. If we can go to the next page. "Reasons to evacuate ECMM mission

2 from Dubrovnik."

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Does a monitoring team has to provide reasons for evacuation? Is

5 evacuation considered serious? What can you tell us about that?

6 A. Well, when they sit down there and they were feeling very

7 miserable and I was actually feeling miserable having unarmed men sitting

8 as neutral peacekeepers in the middle of a shelling show, you're not

9 sending people, monitors or military observers out to get killed. So I

10 felt and I -- we felt responsible for these people. At the same time, it

11 was sort of -- they were informed they had to tell themselves when they

12 wanted to get out. And now they had reached the point they are giving

13 reasons why they want to be moved out of the place.

14 Q. Did you agree with their basis for evacuation?

15 A. Yes, I did.

16 Q. Thank you. Could we move to the next document, Document Number

17 10, please. Are you familiar with this document?

18 A. Yes. I wrote it myself or anyway, I signed it. Maybe somebody

19 else helped me to write it, but I certainly know what is there and I had

20 made the -- expressed what I wanted to say.

21 Q. And that document is dated November 9th, 1991?

22 A. That's correct, yeah.

23 Q. And that's the same date as the previous document?

24 A. Yeah.

25 Q. Now, who did you send the letter to?

1 A. It was sent to General Strugar.

2 Q. And that's your signature on the bottom?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Excuse me. And what is the basis of this letter, sir?

5 A. Well, the selling of -- the ongoing shelling down there,

6 protesting about that, reference to the message we just had been talking

7 about from the militaries down in Dubrovnik. So I'm thinking in a

8 reasonably kind way asking to have the nonsense stopped.

9 Q. Now, in the second paragraph you talk about the security of the

10 monitors.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And it says that they could not leave. Why couldn't the monitors

13 leave at the time?

14 A. Well, Dubrovnik was surrounded from the land side and there was a

15 naval blockade by the JN -- or the Yugoslavian navy, so you could not stay

16 in Dubrovnik. So it was impossible to leave Dubrovnik in a safe way if you

17 did not have, let's say, that was a fact anyway, permission from the JNA

18 forces, that meant from the command, in my opinion from General Strugar,

19 to be sure that there was cease of fire so these people could get out, and

20 permission, as we could not go by land, permission to send some vessel,

21 rowing boat or whatever, to Dubrovnik to get out.

22 Q. Thank you. Now, I ask you to look at the next document, also

23 dated November 9th. And is that your signature on that document?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And when I say "the next document," I'm referring to the document

1 at tab 11.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And who did you send this to?

4 A. I sent this to the JNA in Split, which means to General Mladenic

5 who was strange for me. He was a major general of a naval base. He was

6 the -- what I would call and we would call in peacekeeping language, the

7 local authority in Split. We communicated with daily and when we had no

8 chance, which we often had difficulties of passing information to other

9 JNA forces, for example, in the Dubrovnik area we would pass it through

10 the naval headquarters in Split to be sure that it came out. Because it

11 was our understanding that the communication between the Yugoslavian

12 forces was quite good and went well, whereas we had -- within our

13 organisations in the fast way it was built-up, we had problems with

14 communications. So we informed also Split this way about the local

15 authorities in Split about the situation and hoped that that could help.

16 Q. Now, where was the Split base located in relation to your offices?

17 Was it far away? Was it a short distance?

18 A. A couple of kilometres. As far as I remember it was called Lora

19 base. It was quite a big establishment. And that was where it was an

20 enclave of -- like you have many places in the Croatian territory, an

21 enclave of the JNA units surrounded by Croatia and whatever there was of

22 small Croatian units. There was another barrack in Split which we

23 actually later on evacuated down to the Lora base before the whole lot was

24 evacuated out of Split.

25 Q. Now, in the first sentence, sir, it says, sentence number 1: "I

1 prefer to my protest earlier today." Who protest are you referring to?

2 A. I'm referring to the one we've just talked of -- what was that?

3 Number 10. Yeah. And as I have to recall it today - it is a long time

4 ago - but we sent a copy of the other one also. It was either handed over

5 to a liaison officer or it was sent down to Lora.

6 Q. Now, when you say "number 10," are you referring to tab 10, the

7 protest to general --

8 A. Your tab 10, yeah. And I can add to that. I might also or one of

9 my staff officers might also have done that extra-verbally on the local --

10 one of the local daily meetings we normally had with the representatives

11 of the JNA. And they either took place in the morning up in our

12 headquarters or they took place at the Lora base or at a hotel I've

13 forgotten the name of down in Split.

14 Q. Thank you. Sir, could we move to the final document concerning

15 that date, number 12, tab Number 12, please. Could you look at it and

16 tell us if you recognise it?

17 A. Yes, it's not a pleasant look. The handwriting was absolutely

18 horrible. I was very busy. Yes.

19 Q. And whose handwriting is that?

20 A. It's my handwriting. And I'm very sorry to admit it, but it is.

21 Q. And what is this?

22 A. Well, lots of things happened and I was called to the

23 communications room where I had a very excellent team of French

24 non-commissioned officers. And they said, there's something important;

25 they want to talk to you personally. It happened now and then. And then

1 I got this actually from a Dane. And it tells in Danish, we are down on

2 the floor. Well, that's quite clever in a situation like this. The hotel

3 has been hit. There's an impact on the hotel close to a window. The JNA

4 is shelling Orsula or shooting at Orsula from canon belts. And now I have

5 really problems reading my own handwriting; I know that.

6 Q. When you --

7 A. It and -- the eastern approach to Dubrovnik -- distance to the

8 hotel, approximately 1 to 1 and a half kilometres. The island Lokrum is

9 under heavy shelling or fire all morning. One missile. Machine gun fire

10 close to the hotel. Helicopter in the area at most likely an artillery

11 observer -- observation helicopter. At 11.55, a recce plane was crossing.

12 The plane was of the type M-4 Bison. And then I've just written here

13 the report was -- is sent via Zagreb to Belgrade or this. During that day

14 all -- well, every information coming in of that nature was passed on to

15 Zagreb and Belgrade.

16 Q. Now, you said you got this from a Danish associate. Who was that?

17 A. This fellow was a Danish airforce officer, who was belonging to

18 the ECMM team in Dubrovnik.

19 Q. Okay. Now, if we go to the second page --

20 A. And may I -- sorry. May I add that he was not the leader of the

21 team, because he was ordered to pass the message by the leader of the

22 team.

23 Q. Okay. Can we go to the second page. Now, on the second page it

24 says: "JNA General Strugar" -- number 3 it says: "We appeal to HQ -- or

25 headquarters, RC Split now in Zagreb that he sends a message urgently to

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1 General Strugar in -- headquarters in Belgrade." Is that the reference in

2 earlier tab 9 letter that we referred to?

3 A. Yeah. It it's -- it's the same request. To be honest right now,

4 I don't know if the second time we got it, but it's the same request from

5 the same people, yes. It might have been passed twice; that I cannot

6 recall today.

7 Q. Could we go to page 5, please. There's a note. It says: "1520,"

8 which is 3 hours and 20 minutes in the afternoon.

9 A. Sorry. I'm -- now I'm not aware of what you're talking about.

10 Would you repeat that, please.

11 Q. There's an ERN number or number on the top right. 02187325.

12 A. Okay, here. Now I'm there.

13 Q. And there's a column and it says 1520 or we would say 3.20 in the

14 afternoon. Could you read that, please.

15 A. I'm in doubt of the first word, but it looks like it says:

16 "Witnesses the shelling of the Old City. At least two shells landed on

17 the church in the city, bursting great amount of smoke." Then I can't

18 read what is the next, but it says: "Close to Domino church."

19 Q. And then what do they say at 1505 hours?

20 A. Several attempts to JNA headquarters." That means several

21 attempts to get in contact with JNA headquarters, and they are mentioning

22 that the attempts were not successful because the general in the JNA

23 headquarters was busy.

24 Q. Okay. Now, could we go two more pages down to the page which has

25 the numbers at the top, 7327, the last four digits. And it says something

1 about crisis committee to JNA.

2 A. It's an answer from the crisis committee to the JNA on an

3 ultimatum they received earlier from General Strugar concerning a

4 ceasefire which he proposed to come into effect at 1430 hours.

5 Q. And then what does it say under that? Can you read that, read

6 that please, where we --

7 A. "We received this answer at 1445 hours local time. The answer

8 is: Your ultimatum demands us to accept your proposal for a demarcation

9 line. In the first place we point out that our forces have not once

10 violated the cease-fire and that they answer only when forced to prevent

11 your attacks. We cannot accept your proposal for the demarcation line for

12 the many reasons explained several times at the negotiations in Saftat.

13 Our proposal for the demarcation line is fair enough. Collected to our

14 damage regarding the lines occupied by both sides at the time of the

15 agreed cease-fire on October 25th, 1991, at 1700 hours. So we ask you to

16 study it carefully in order to be able to discuss it at the negotiations

17 scheduled for 10 November 1991 at 1100 hours in Saftat. We take the

18 obligation of not firing first, except when forced to reject your attack.

19 Signed by the President of the crisis committee Zeljko Zigic."

20 Q. Now, sir, was this document maintained in your records at the

21 regional centre in Split?

22 A. Oh, yes. As you can see, it's again my nasty handwriting, so it's

23 one I had been on the SatCom to receive from the ECMM in Dubrovnik.

24 Q. Now, did you usually receive messages, whether it's fax or through

25 communications, from the crisis committee or the Crisis Staff?

1 A. Yes. The Crisis Staff or the crisis committee, as they called

2 themselves, normally communicated their messages straight to the EC

3 monitors in Dubrovnik, and then they forwarded them to us.

4 Q. Do you know what --

5 A. It also happened that they passed it if they had possibilities,

6 both to the monitors in Dubrovnik and directly to us, if there was a

7 possibility. It was varied a bit, but we had information generally often

8 and from a routine from them. Yes.

9 Q. Do you know what this crisis committee was, this crisis committee

10 in Dubrovnik?

11 A. Well, it reminded me about my childhood during the war. And as a

12 group we had something called the liberty council. It seemed to be a

13 group of intellectuals, idealists, maybe nationalists, anyway of people

14 who had the respect of the population in Dubrovnik who had sort of more or

15 less -- maybe both selected but also elected themselves as leaders and

16 were respected as such. I'm not sure that this was right, but this was my

17 impression.

18 Q. And were these people involved in negotiations, cease-fire

19 negotiations?

20 A. This is the -- in some places, I believe they were. I have no

21 records in general of who took part on the Croatian side in the meetings

22 with the JNA. I have no record of it, and I didn't take part in it before

23 I came down on November -- or December the 5th. But at that time, I

24 believe they were crisis committee member people. And now and then I will

25 have to add, it could be difficult to distinguish for me or maybe there

1 was not even a difference, because you had -- we were receiving

2 information from the crisis committee. We were receiving information

3 directly, as you will note some places, from the mayor of Dubrovnik. But

4 there was no doubt that they worked together and later on when I met them,

5 they were together, whatever they were, crisis committee or the mayor's

6 office, it seemed to be the closely-connected group, respected by the

7 people.

8 Q. Thank you. Sir, could we move on to the next four documents which

9 would be tabs 13 through 16, relating to November 10th.

10 A. Sorry. What did you say? The 14th --

11 Q. 13. 13 through 16. We'll take those four documents together,

12 relating to November 10th. Could you look at document number 13 first.

13 Do you recognise this document?

14 A. Yeah. It was written on my orders and in connection with me by

15 one of my staff officers and signed by me.

16 Q. And could you tell us, what is the -- just summarise the letter,

17 please.

18 A. May I add this, that this is still many years ago and there are

19 lots of paper, and I remember that yesterday somebody was questioning why

20 I didn't know all this by heart or what have you. Well, maybe it's

21 because of my old age, but it is difficult to remember all this, so I will

22 have to have a look at it. And anyway, I know what I wrote, and that is

23 true.

24 Q. Okay. If you could look at it for a second, please.

25 A. Yeah, I'm aware of it.

1 Q. Thank you. It says on the top: "Protest from headquarters of

2 regional centre, European monitoring mission, Split, to General Mladenic

3 JNA naval headquarters, Split." Why were you sending a letter to Split

4 first?

5 A. Because we had difficulties getting in contact the other way down

6 to Dubrovnik. As I mentioned before, when we had problems that way, we

7 would try to go through General Mladenic.

8 Q. Now, in paragraph 1, the last two lines it says: "I strongly

9 protest against this continued serious breach of the cease-fire and

10 through you request that it be restored."

11 Was shelling continuing in that -- on that date, on the 10th?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And were you able to take any action to have it cease on that

14 date?

15 A. Well, we did our best. I know the monitors down in Dubrovnik did

16 their best to get in contact and pass information with no success. And

17 while this was one of the ways we did -- we tried to do it from the Split

18 end. And we also -- well, I don't have all these files from the

19 headquarters in Split or our regional headquarters, but we passed, as I

20 have mentioned before, in normal good military way, all information to our

21 headquarters in Zagreb. And I cannot say what they did up there, but I'm

22 absolutely sure that they did their very best from their end to pass the

23 information to the proper side on the Yugoslav part.

24 Q. Thank you. Could we turn to the next tab, tab 14, also dated

25 November 10th?

1 A. Yeah.

2 Q. And could we go to the letter on the second page. Now, is that

3 your signature on the bottom of the letter?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And could you look at it for a moment, become familiar with it

6 again, please.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Now, that letter is from the EC monitoring team in Split to

9 General Strugar, admiral Jokic and Admiral Letica. Why were you sending

10 the letter to the three individuals, beginning with Strugar?

11 A. Well, General Strugar was, as mentioned several times before,

12 according to us, the whole of our knowledge, the commander of the JNA

13 forces surrounding Dubrovnik. This letter is concerning also a movement

14 on ship. And as we were then -- I'm an army person but dealing with the

15 navy, I thought it would be proper to approach the admiral in the area,

16 and we knew Admiral Jokic was on down in that area and attached to the

17 best of our knowledge to General Strugar. So that would be a decent way

18 of addressing it to him, too. And that, now, letter, sir, is -- again

19 this confusing thing from us. He was a Croat admiral, apparently retired,

20 I think, earlier from the Yugoslavian navy, but now he was the commander

21 of the Croat forces in the Split area. And when we want to move around

22 and anyway it's a question of opposing parties, and we want to move around

23 safely, it's appropriate to inform both sides what we are doing, what we

24 intend to do. And I can add that all this -- this was also sent through

25 Zagreb. It was reported -- they got this and they were asked and I don't

1 have any documents of that, to approach the highest authorities in

2 Belgrade and what have you to have the message passed down through those

3 lines. And we actually succeeded -- I don't have those papers, but we got

4 it in -- on fax messages, a confirmation from Zagreb that our plan -- it

5 was slightly changed later, but the general plan lined up here was

6 accepted by Belgrade, that means by the -- to the best of my knowledge, by

7 minister of defence or whatever, title he might have, the equivalent, in

8 Belgrade, which meant that information should have been passed down to

9 General Strugar or the other people responsible for the Dubrovnik area.

10 And the same information was passed then to Croatian forces in the area.

11 Q. Thank you. Could we go to the next tab, Number 15, also dated

12 November 10th. Could you look at it for a moment, please.

13 A. Yeah.

14 Q. Could you tell us if you're familiar with this document.

15 A. I have seen it before, yes.

16 Q. And it's to General Kadijevic minister of defence from, and it's

17 signed from head of mission, DJ Van Houten. Who was Mr. Van Houten?

18 A. Mr. Van Houten was a Dutch ambassador and head of the ECMM, that

19 meant he was the commander in my war language for the ECMM sitting at the

20 headquarters in Zagreb.

21 Q. And what was the reason for sending this letter?

22 A. Well, you would have to ask the ambassador, but I -- of course I

23 am -- I don't doubt what was the reason he wanted to support and help

24 people under his command. And he wanted, of course, a cease-fire down in

25 the area. But he was concerned about the monitors' lives.

1 Q. Now, in the third sentence, which begins in the middle of line

2 four it says: "This breach of the cease-fire has been brought to the

3 attention of General Raseta, deputy commander of 5 military district, and

4 General Strugar, commander of the forces in Dubrovnik area, without any

5 response."

6 Had you received any response as of that date, which is the 10th,

7 to your statements or protests to General Strugar?

8 A. No.

9 Q. And is that something you would have notified Zagreb, the lack of

10 response?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Thank you. And could we move to the final letter of that date.

13 A. Is that --

14 Q. Number 16.

15 A. 16, yeah.

16 Q. Now, could you look at it for a moment, please.

17 A. Yeah. I'm ready.

18 Q. Could you tell us what type of message this is. Is it a letter or

19 a message or a fax? What is it basically?

20 A. Well, it's a -- you could call it a message passed from Dubrovnik

21 and coming through the ops room, that means the operations room, from the

22 monitors -- had down in Dubrovnik. So they had received this in writing

23 from President Zeljko Zigic. We had had his name up before. And then

24 they are passing this on the SatCom, which has been working still at this

25 stage. And it's noted down by one of my staff officers or one from my

1 communications section, and passed on.

2 Q. Now, it says on the top to the left: "Republic of Croatia,

3 assembly of Dubrovnik," and it's signed President Zeljko Zigic." What is

4 the assembly of Dubrovnik?

5 A. Well, again, the organisation of how -- I'm not familiar with it.

6 As I mentioned before, it could be a bit confusing. But the way I

7 understand it is that that is what I would call the town council. But --

8 and anyway, this man was well-known to the monitors and I met him later on

9 myself.

10 Q. Now, did you file and maintain files of letters that you received

11 from the local assembly or local crisis committee?

12 A. Yes. We filed all appropriate material, as I mentioned yesterday,

13 and we forwarded whatever -- and we would forward, for example, for us

14 something like this to our headquarters in Zagreb. And by the way, if you

15 want to know how we forwarded it, we had a secure fax.

16 Q. Thank you.

17 A. To Zagreb, not anywhere else, but to Zagreb.

18 Q. All right.

19 A. Sorry.

20 Q. Sir, could we move to a document which is tab 24, please.

21 MR. WEINER: Tab 24, Your Honours. It's a long document.

22 Q. Which is dated the next day, November 11th. Are you familiar with

23 this document, sir?

24 A. Yes, it is. It's unfortunately again my handwriting in a busy

25 time, yes.

1 Q. Now, before we look at this document, could you tell us what is

2 happening now, beginning November 11th.

3 A. Well, this time, as we had requested and that we could go down to

4 Dubrovnik to pick up the monitors. But we had also got permission and

5 agreed by both sides and confirmed through our headquarters in Zagreb that

6 we could bring back wounded people, old people, children, pregnant women,

7 and women in general, and in case we had place for nationals out of

8 Dubrovnik, and we could bring down, if we had the possibility, of water,

9 potatoes, gas, fuel, and that was essential to us, because it was not

10 anywhere nice to just go down and take out our own people when you were

11 surrounded by people in a miserable situation. So we wanted to help as

12 many people as we could. We had got this information or we had got the

13 approval. So then we had it organised that we could go by ship, and it

14 was also approved that we could move out of Split harbour and that was

15 approved by the Yugoslavian navy. So we left Split, and as you can see at

16 1650 we actually had permission. That means permission granted by the

17 Yugoslavian navy that we could leave on this ferry, Partizanska, to move

18 not to move to Dubrovnik but to the isle of Hvar [Realtime transcript read

19 in error "Wa"]. At the isle of Hvar we had -- and we had found out and

20 there was this old Danish ferry, Slavija, and it was loaded with supplies,

21 essential supplies for Dubrovnik, but because of a blockade, a naval

22 blockade, it had not been able to move further, so we stopped at Hvar

23 which is a place I'm not -- frankly, normally had never stopped at. So we

24 had arranged that was a ship we could move down with. I can add at this

25 stage also that we had been informed and fully accepted that and

1 understood why that when we are moving down here to Dubrovnik, we could

2 not go straight to Dubrovnik, but we had to go to Zelenika [Realtime

3 transcript read in error "Selenika"] so that the JNA could inspect the

4 ships to prove that we were not bringing ammunition, guns, rockets, and

5 loads of soldiers down.

6 Q. Okay.

7 A. Well, that was fair enough, and we had this agreement.

8 MR. WEINER: For the record, Your Honour, "Wa" should be Hvar, and

9 "Zelenika" is Z-e-l-e-n-i-k-a.

10 Q. Now, sir, when you say "we got permission," and "we're doing

11 this," who is doing this?

12 A. The we, that is the "we" as the representatives of ECMM and "we,"

13 the representatives present in Split.

14 Q. Who led the group?

15 A. I did.

16 Q. Now, according to the notes here you arrive in Zelenika on

17 November 12th?

18 A. Yeah.

19 Q. Did you meet with anyone from the JNA on that date?

20 A. Yes. It was difficult to get into Zelenika. The captain was

21 called and we were stopped outside the harbour as mentioned at 6.55 on the

22 12th of November. And we were told we -- they were not informed we were

23 coming; they didn't want us to enter the harbour. Because I could not

24 understand what was going on, so it was the captain of the ship who had

25 the conversation on the ship's radio. I talked to him and asked him to

1 inform about the agreement as I was informed, that we were expected. It

2 was all accepted. Anyway, finally we were permitted to enter and we

3 harboured at 0800 hours.

4 Q. Did you meet anyone from the JNA once you arrived in Zelenika?

5 A. As soon as we stopped or whatever -- I'm used to -- I'm not a navy

6 man. But as soon as the ship was harboured, it was my -- in my language,

7 I don't know what it is in English, a "leider", a sort of a ladder down

8 the side of the boat. And up came a small navy officer. He was already

9 talking while he was climbing up and he was not in a good mood. Even

10 before he really presented himself, he was talking about a criminal ship

11 and criminal people and illegal arrival and not being informed. Anyway,

12 we found out that this man was a commander, a captain, Kapitan, whatever,

13 Jeremic. That's the name we got the other thing I think I had spelled out

14 somehow. Anyway, he called him Jeremic. And he was specifically

15 referring to -- the good ship Slavija had taken part in the earlier peace

16 convoy, which -- where President Stipe Mesic was along, lots of boats

17 going down earlier. And he said, as he had taken part in that, that

18 convoy had brought down military equipment or troops or God knows what.

19 So the ship was criminal. It was the first criminal ship actually I met.

20 But the crew was criminal, too. And they had to be arrested. And besides

21 that, nobody was aware that we were coming and what was I doing there, et

22 cetera. He was not, I would say, a kind man. He was a very upset and

23 arrogant little man. Well, I've never been scared of people, so actually

24 I said -- well, I said: You should be informed about this. You should

25 have been aware. And I had, which I don't have anymore, I had a sort of a

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1 fax, a confirmation, from Zagreb telling that the trip had been approved.

2 So I said: You will have to notify your superior about this, and I want

3 to talk as soon as possible to these people. And I also demanded that I

4 had got -- had means of communication. So I wanted to -- I said: I want

5 a place where I -- there is a telephone and a fax machine. And I would

6 like to give that navy officer credit, because suddenly he changed and

7 became a very polite and nice man and within no time we had an office --

8 occupied an office in the harbour area, not too far from the ship, and

9 with a fax machine and a phone.

10 Q. Now, let me ask you a few questions and then we'll get back to

11 that. On your first page, on November 12th, it says: "At 10.00, General

12 Strugar denies Slavija to enter Dubrovnik. Only ECMM monitors can get

13 consent."

14 Can you tell me what that's about.

15 A. Yeah, well as I said, we got into this office. And then I tried

16 to pass messages to people I thought it was necessary to pass messages to.

17 And one of the messages was of course, as I'd said before to this navy

18 officer, that there was an agreement that we could come, that they could

19 check the ship, and then that we could proceed to Dubrovnik. And I wanted

20 him to remind his superiors, that was General Strugar, about this. This

21 was done on some -- apparently on the telephone there. I can't really --

22 it must have been on that phone or whatever. And the answer was that

23 General Strugar denies Slavija to enter Dubrovnik. Only EC monitors can

24 get out, and that meant get out of Zelenika.

25 Q. Okay. Can we go to page 7 which has the last -- on the top the

1 number 0218, but the last four numbers, 7304. And you have notes in two

2 conversations. A conversation on the top, there's a blank space in the

3 middle, and then a conversation on the bottom.

4 A. Yeah. That refers -- that note refers to the conversation I had

5 with Captain Jeremic.

6 Q. Now, being your notes, can you read that first paragraph, the

7 conversation of what he said.

8 A. "On behalf of General Strugar, the above-mentioned gentleman

9 declared that we could not go into Dubrovnik because Mr. Stipe Mesic" -

10 may be spelling this wrong - "had misused the convoy to bring in armed CNG

11 personnel. He knew that because they had taken some of these very persons

12 as POWs, thus the confidence in Croatians and EC monitors had suffered

13 severely. Slavija could not go to Dubrovnik."

14 Q. Now, does this concern that earlier conversation you had with

15 General -- I'm sorry, with Captain Sofronije that day --

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. -- I'm sorry, Sofronije, Jeremic?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And down below there's a second paragraph and it says -- looks

20 like 10.00 a.m.?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. 10.00 in the morning. And could you read that paragraph?

23 A. "The ship cannot go to Dubrovnik. The members of the EC mission

24 can. The EC team from Dubrovnik can also leave. These people on the PC

25 caused about ten casualties. PC is the peace convoy. There is no

1 cease-fire yet because they are shooting at us all the time.

2 General Strugar suggests that we go to Cavtat by car and then with a boat

3 to the Old City or the ship Argus will bring us, will bring the monitors

4 out of Dubrovnik and bring them to Zelenika."

5 And then I don't know what I meant with no cars; I can't say.

6 But this is what I had been writing down at the time receiving this

7 information by Jeremic.

8 Q. Now, this conversation, is this the one that you referred to as

9 10.00 a.m. On November 12th, on the first page --

10 A. That's correct. It's continuing -- there was a long conversation

11 with that captain that morning, but this is at 10.00.

12 Q. Could you -- since this is a telephone conversation, did this

13 occur in that office that you were telling us about?

14 A. Yes. That was -- there was no communications to land at, let's

15 say, in general from the ship except the ship's radio. And we had to go

16 down. That's why I wanted communications, obviously. So we went down,

17 found that office. He found that for me.

18 Q. Now, what did you do in that office? Tell the Court what you were

19 doing that morning.

20 A. Talking, trying to persuade -- on our behalf trying to persuade

21 now in this case Captain Jeremic to bring on to his superiors that we had

22 to do -- we had go, trying to get in contact, and report to Belgrade -- or

23 sorry, to Zagreb through the various channels we might have or where we

24 could get telephone contact or fax contact about our situation, what we

25 were doing, like sending back a normal SITREP as you normally do when you

1 are out on a job.

2 Q. Could you turn to page 2 on this document. Towards the middle of

3 the page it says -- at 10.45, it says: "Contact with German embassy in

4 order to relay the latest message from General Strugar through him."

5 What's the contact with embassies about or what is that all about?

6 A. Well, as you know, as I've said before, now and then communication

7 difficult. I don't know why. I thought the telephone system was supposed

8 to work properly in Yugoslavia -- normally it was. But we could not get

9 through. It is part of my duty to report to my headquarters. And then I

10 had numbers of the various embassies in Belgrade, and they were members of

11 the EC. And that was a possibility of passing proper information. And I

12 knew the various embassies would help me, the EC embassies, would help me.

13 So that was a way of passing information to Zagreb.

14 Q. Now, in the next time note at 11.20, it says: "I informed

15 Belgrade about General Strugar's latest proposals and my reports." And

16 then Mr. Cunningham informed me --

17 A. And then my replies, sorry.

18 Q. And what was the latest report or proposals and your reply, your

19 reports?

20 A. Well, the -- what I was trying to get through at that time was the

21 denial of movement out of Zelenika going to Dubrovnik. It took time. It

22 takes time. And specifically in a situation like this. I was trying to

23 pass this message. General Strugar does not want us to go, as we were

24 promised, to go to Dubrovnik. He wants to keep us here or he would only

25 let the monitors out. And also at the same time, that's what I wanted to

1 pass and that's actually what I passed. I said -- I can add here now, I

2 said: I am not and the monitors are not leaving Zelenika before it is

3 back where it came from. And I felt -- we felt responsible for the crew

4 the ship. And we were actually in our presence verbally threatened by

5 Captain Jeremic. We were told they were criminals and they were -- they

6 ought to be arrested. So then, said we better stay and they have to

7 arrest us, too, if they want to arrest people with a diplomatic passport.

8 We had to use that later on. We didn't show them a diplomatic passport at

9 the time. They ought to be aware of the fact.

10 Q. Now, you said you told them: I am not -- excuse me -- that you

11 were not leaving Zelenika before it is back where it came from. What are

12 you referring to?

13 A. I'm referring to the fact that when they wanted -- didn't want to

14 release the ship, and this was a criminal ship, then -- well, I was sort

15 of responsible that it came back. I -- we had arranged it; we got

16 approval. They went down with us because they trusted us and the

17 neutrality of the ship when we were on board. The ship was not bringing

18 any war materiel, soldiers, or anything, except us and the goodies and a

19 few truck drivers and some other people, civilians, who were no danger to

20 anybody, and realised that apparently by the JNA, too. So I mean that I

21 wanted to be sure -- I felt responsible for this, that we followed this

22 ship to the bitter end, whatever the end had to be. It had to be, in my

23 opinion, out and back to Croatian territory where it came from.

24 Q. Did you make any attempt to contact General Strugar on that date?

25 A. Well, I tried. I asked to have a meeting with him. And that was

1 again through Jeremic or, I think -- I can't remember that exactly, but

2 after we got communication if Jeremic left later on. But then we had the

3 telephone. And one of my men was a German diplomat who spoke Serbian or

4 Croatian or both and -- very well, and maybe he is the one who has passed

5 it. But I have asked several times that we had a meeting. We've also

6 told that the general was busy - generals very often are - and somebody

7 else would arrive and talk to us. And this gentleman showed up about 1500

8 hours in the afternoon.

9 Q. Now, if you look at your document it says right around 12.40 --

10 12.42: "General Strugar's two IC to be here in two hours." What does the

11 two IC mean?

12 A. It means second in command; that was what we were told.

13 Q. Okay. Did you have any other means of communication on that date,

14 other than the room?

15 A. Yes. When we had sort of ended up with no results and we found

16 out we couldn't move and what have you, anyway we were stuck because we

17 were not allowed to leave. Then I didn't intend to sit in that lousy

18 office the rest of the day, so I wanted to go back to the ship. So I

19 demanded in a polite way to have a telephone brought on board to my cabin

20 in the ship. And this was kindly arranged fast and efficient and highly

21 appreciated. So thank you to the JNA for that.

22 Q. Now, if we go to the next page. If we go to the next page, at

23 1.05 there's a message from Bondioli and there's a message down to

24 Strugar. "Agreement from yesterday is still in effect at 1305 or 1.05 in

25 the afternoon." What's that about, sir?

1 A. Yeah, well as you know, Ambassador Bondioli was not in Split, I

2 think I mentioned that before, when I left the place. And then now he's

3 suddenly back. And he wants to assist and help. So he's -- we managed to

4 get a message from him through this telephone that all cargo except Red

5 Cross, but including these will be left in Zelenika. Well, a cease-fire

6 would be effective from time of Slavija's departure from Zelenika and the

7 Dutch foreign minister wants direct talks with General Strugar. Well,

8 what he is -- he was aware of the situation, but actually the -- what we

9 had on board was relief for the people of Dubrovnik, as I said, water,

10 potatoes, and gas bottles, because there was no way to get hot food there.

11 And so he has been talking to people, apparently -- I don't know, in

12 Zelenika -- in Split, and then he sent this message. And then he also

13 passes a message that the Dutch foreign minister would like to talk to

14 General Strugar. And then I put a note here, I need a telephone number,

15 to General Strugar -- no, sorry, to the Dutch foreign minister, and to

16 General Strugar of course, and I passed this straight to the JNA liaison

17 officer.

18 Q. Let us move to the next day, the 13th of November.

19 JUDGE PARKER: Is that a convenient time, Mr. Weiner?

20 MR. WEINER: That would be fine, Your Honour. Thank you.

21 JUDGE PARKER: We will have a 20-minute break.

22 --- Recess taken at 10.24 a.m.

23 --- On resuming at 10.51 a.m.

24 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Weiner.

25 MR. WEINER: Thank you.

1 Q. We were on tab 17, your hand notes. And I'd ask you to go to page

2 9, which has the ERN number of 0218, with the last three digits of 306.

3 So it should be 7306.

4 JUDGE PARKER: Did you mean to say tab 17? I suspect you mean tab

5 24.

6 MR. WEINER: Tab 24, I'm sorry.

7 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

8 MR. WEINER:

9 Q. Tab 24, page 9. Do you have -- at 11.45, General Strugar talked

10 to the captain, but only said something like: We finished the whole

11 thing, then banged the phone, telephone. Could you tell us what that's

12 about, please.

13 A. Well, apparently -- I can't remember exactly how it came in, but

14 the captain and General Strugar had a contact. And the only information I

15 got out of the captain was this, which I have quoted.

16 Q. And this is on November 13th?

17 A. Yes. As I cannot -- could not understand the language, then

18 it's -- it appeared to me to be a conversation about the criminal ship and

19 whatever goodies we were bringing on board that ship and the departure of

20 the ship, et cetera. But that's what I know about that conversation.

21 Q. Now that everything was finished, were you allowed to leave on the

22 13th?

23 A. No, we were not leaving on the 13th -- wait a minute. Now I -- I

24 have to go back here. Yeah, we were leaving -- sorry, we were leaving on

25 the 13th. Yes, we were leaving on the 13th. We came down on the 12th; we

1 were leaving on the 13th around noon. Yes.

2 Q. Now, it says at that same page of 1305, 1.05 p.m., Slavija left

3 Zelenika.

4 A. Yeah.

5 Q. Now, could we go to the next document, which is document at tab

6 17, also dated November 13th.

7 A. I have no document at tab 13 --

8 Q. No. 17, please.

9 A. Sorry.

10 Q. No problem.

11 A. Yeah.

12 Q. Could you look at that and familiarise yourself with that, please.

13 A. Yeah.

14 Q. Have you seen that document before?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Could you tell us what it is.

17 A. Well, at this time, apparently there has been proper information

18 given from various contacts at higher levels. So Ambassador Bondioli, the

19 head of the regional centre Split sends a message to General Strugar and

20 the crisis committee in Dubrovnik of course, because both sides had to be

21 informed. So he requests for them to confirm an effective cease-fire will

22 be in force. So the good ship Slavija can move safely to Dubrovnik.

23 Q. Now, it says -- there was some notes on there. It says:

24 "Received at 12.35," and it says: "Not possible to" -- could you tell us

25 what those markings mean that are at the bottom.

1 A. Well, the marking that I received this at 12.35, and the other

2 one -- and part of it has disappeared. To the best of my -- what I

3 remember, it means it was not possible for me to get in contact with

4 anybody at the time. So I couldn't sort of reply to this or give any

5 answer to it. Anyway, I can also remember that I was quite satisfied. I

6 hoped that that was okay. And shortly afterwards it was confirmed, as far

7 as I remember. And then we could leave and we left. But a long

8 discussion as you might see from the notes, and lots of problems had to be

9 dealt with during the evening and the night and the morning before this

10 happened.

11 Q. Thank you. Could you go to tab 19 now. Now, have you ever seen

12 this document before?

13 A. Yes, I have. This was written by my German colleague, Mr. Haupt

14 who I mentioned before who spoke the local language. And he was along

15 with me when we had any talks with people from the JNA or the captain or

16 anybody who spoke Yugoslavian language. And this is written in connection

17 with the meeting we had of this person we talked and anyway were told on

18 the phone would be the two IC of General Strugar. Colonel Damjanovic,

19 Radomir, that was what we were informed was his rank and his name.

20 Q. Now, it has a conversation. It says: "Hvalkof"?

21 A. Well, this is because he was taking notes, so he was noting

22 apparently what I said, or not apparently. He was noting down what I

23 said.

24 Q. And in the third line it says -- on the fourth line: "We should

25 go with Slavija to Dubrovnik. Any alternative would be less desirable."

1 A. That is correct. It was my point of view that we had to carry out

2 this expedition as planned and agreed upon. And I saw no reason

3 whatsoever why we should change our mind. And in particular, in respect

4 of the crew we had on board and in respect of the sort of promise which

5 Dubrovnik crisis committee was also informed about that we could take out

6 not only the monitors but take out people who really needed to be taken

7 out of Dubrovnik.

8 Q. Now, in the next line it says: "General Strugar could solve this

9 problem."

10 A. That was my opinion. It would be -- the way I was thinking, the

11 way I'm still thinking, is the only one who could give us permission to

12 leave could make the decision would be the commander of the JNA in the

13 local area.

14 Q. Now, on the second page is a letter from Bondioli. Could you tell

15 us about this.

16 A. Yeah. Well, of course I saw this -- I can't remember when I

17 saw -- probably got it the same day. I can't remember exactly. But I

18 know this letter, and of course this is an appreciation from

19 Ambassador Bondioli that we actually succeeded in arriving. And there was

20 a cease-fire, so we could get into Dubrovnik.

21 Q. Thank you. Let's -- on page, I'm sorry. On tab 18 we find the

22 same document as the second page of tab 19.

23 A. That is my own note of it. So I probably received it twice. This

24 has been the first thing. The details I cannot remember, but I certainly

25 wrote it down and I even passed -- noted the time, 11.25, yeah. So it --

1 that's it.

2 Q. Were you able to send this note from ECMM to General Strugar?

3 A. I at the time -- no. I -- we were on board the ship waiting to

4 leave, but I assumed that Mr. Bondioli has either the pass originally to

5 both the JNA headquarters, to the crisis committee in Dubrovnik, and to me

6 that they have tried to pass it through by other means, but I cannot prove

7 that it ended up where it was supposed to. I know now that.

8 Q. Thank you. Can we go to the last document on this matter,

9 Document Number 20. A very difficult one to read -- tab 20, please. It's

10 to Mr. Bondioli from the JNA. Is that correct?

11 A. Yes. And I have seen it before, but I find it very, very

12 difficult to read now. And I found it very difficult, I recall, to read

13 it at the time.

14 Q. The person whose name is on the bottom is?

15 A. General Strugar.

16 Q. Now, if I read -- actually the B/C/S copy is easier to read. But

17 if I can read just the first two lines. It says: "Our promises

18 fulfilled. Ferry Slavija sent off to Dubrovnik." And the next line is:

19 "Fire cease."

20 What is that about the cease-fire and the ferry leaving?

21 A. Well, this is all what we had fought for and asked for. What we

22 ended up with sort of having an approval, that they would cease fire, they

23 would not be shelling us or, most important, not Dubrovnik so we could

24 enter peacefully. And that is what it tells.

25 Q. In the next section of the letter it talks about a meeting to take

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1 place on November 14th. Did a meeting in fact take place on November

2 14th?

3 A. Yes. A meeting took place, but not a Cavtat, for various reasons.

4 Because the crisis committee, when I met them in Dubrovnik wanted me to go

5 down to Cavtat. But because of my experiences in Zelenika and the whole

6 situation, I denied, regretfully, to go. I said, I will not leave the

7 ship Slavija before we are back where we came from. But I succeeded later

8 on -- actually in the morning of the 14th, to have -- I think that was

9 from the ship's radio and the crisis committee who had contact with the

10 JNA, I succeeded in having arranged a meeting with three members of the

11 crisis committee in Zelenika on the 14th. And I got it approved from all

12 sides that these members of the crisis committee could go down back to

13 Zelenika where we now had to be inspected and promised to be inspected

14 again by the JNA, so they could see that we were not bringing out

15 criminals or people who were fighting people or whatever. So that was a

16 promise.

17 So we had to go back to Zelenika to be inspected again. Then I

18 found it would be quite good if we could bring the crisis committee

19 members down for a negotiation in Zelenika, as they wanted to negotiate

20 further cease-fire problems. That was accepted. But we also had to

21 promise to give-and-take every time, anyway the way I was brought up when

22 you discussed this sort of thing, to give-and-take. So we had to, of

23 course, accept some of the JNA ideas and wishes, and that was the ship

24 Slavija should not ever again -- or we should not on that ship enter

25 Dubrovnik again. So then we had to make an arrangement so a pilot boat or

1 some other vessel could come out in the open sea and pick up the three

2 members of the crisis committee when we returned after having been

3 Zelenika and when we were proceeding north, at that time, planned for

4 Split.

5 Q. Could we move to tab 21, which are some notes concerning that

6 meeting of November 14th.

7 A. Yeah.

8 Q. Are you familiar with this document, tab 21?

9 A. Yeah, because that is from the meeting in Zelenika we were just

10 talking about.

11 Q. Are these your notes or someone else's?

12 A. It's Mr. Haupt's notes. He was my colleague, and he was the

13 interpreter. He was a German diplomat.

14 Q. And you attended this meeting?

15 A. Yes, I did. Mr. Haupt and I and the other people who I mentioned

16 above, two navy officers, one which I knew, or who I knew, Captain

17 Jeremic.

18 Q. Now, could you turn to page 3 on your evaluation. If you look at

19 the first part on JNA, it says: "Makes clear that involvement of ECMM is

20 tolerated but not desired."

21 What's the basis of that statement?

22 A. The basis is that it was sort of actually said very clear that

23 they didn't like our presence, but we were tolerated.

24 Q. Well, did you have access to all the areas controlled by the

25 Croats? When I say "you," did the ECMM monitors have access to all of

1 those areas?

2 A. We never had problems going anywhere on the Croatian side, that is

3 so, never.

4 Q. What about the areas controlled by the JNA? Did the ECM monitors

5 have free access to those areas?

6 A. No. I'm not saying that it has not happened that ECMM monitors

7 have been moving a bit around, but to the best of my knowledge, not. And

8 in general, no, we were not wanted to move around. And, for example, this

9 is where I have been in JNA area before that time, it has been up in the

10 Knin area, while we was under heavy escort up to Knin, and no move around,

11 discussion, maybe sleeping up there, no chance of moving out of the place,

12 and I never really wished to, and then back again. No moving around. We

13 did not know like observers in a mission like that. Normally we did not

14 experience freedom of movement on that side.

15 Q. The fact that you did not have free access to the JNA areas, or

16 JNA-controlled areas, what effect did that have on your abilities, the

17 monitors' abilities to function?

18 A. In my way of thinking, it made life much more difficult and much

19 more difficult to carry out the task we had. From all the other places

20 I'd been, we might not have been wanted but we were also always accepted.

21 And we had freedom of movement. And when you are on both sides in a

22 conflict, when neutral people, you have a much better chance, as I

23 mentioned earlier, to get in contact and to get to know each other and to

24 solve problems before they escalate and end up in insane situations. We

25 had no really chance to interfere and drop in and talk to senior officers

1 when the situation was becoming serious on the JNA side. It had to be

2 this conference where we always had to meet, again if we wanted meetings,

3 on the JNA side and then go back again. That meant when that we were --

4 well, we had no -- if something happened, we had no way of doing something

5 here and now, possibility on that side.

6 Q. Did that affect your relationships between the side that didn't

7 give you free access?

8 A. Well, we were sorry about it and you can also say annoyed about

9 it. We only had the power of words and no force. We had to work on the

10 good will of both sides. So of course it had an effect, yes, on our way

11 of that we could not -- we felt that we could not do the job as we wanted

12 it.

13 Q. Thank you. Let us move to tab 22, please. Do you know what this

14 document is, sir?

15 A. Yes. It is an Italian monitor, Mr. Ghidi's report to

16 Mr. Bondioli -- well, we had a normal report from the team he belonged to.

17 But he was an Italian and Mr. Bondioli wanted a report from him

18 personally, which was very good. I think Mr. Ghidi was a very good and

19 excellent monitor, very serious and not scared of his life. He might be,

20 but he didn't behave like that.

21 Q. Now, this diary or log from the monitoring team, when is it

22 prepared? Is it prepared while they're there? They prepare notes each

23 day, or is it prepared upon completion? Or could you tell us how it's

24 drafted.

25 A. Well, Mr. Ghidi did like any monitor, to the best of my knowledge,

1 take notes when he was out on the job. And then he was asked to make this

2 report to Mr. Bondioli. So he was sitting down on the 18th of November in

3 Split and taking out his notes and make this report.

4 Q. And did you receive daily information from these monitors, other

5 than this information contained in this report?

6 A. We received daily information. We normally had twice a day what

7 you could call a radio schedule where they gave reports of the situation,

8 what had happened, up to that time from Dubrovnik and from other -- the

9 other places, Zadar, Sibenik. And whenever something important happened,

10 they would report immediately to our communications' group.

11 Q. Thank you. Could you turn to page 6 of that report, please, which

12 concerns November 10th and 11th.

13 A. Is that the one numbered 7266?

14 Q. Yes, it is. Thank you. Now, it talks about heavy shelling as

15 never seen continued by land, Zarnovica, and sea, four ships. And then a

16 little later it says at least five anti-tank rockets against the Old City

17 walls and the old port, going into the next page. Some shelling, as

18 reported touched the old inner city. We could not witness the damages,

19 not being able to leave the hotel.

20 Did you receive that type of information through the

21 communications system?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. So would you be able to say whether this report is consistent with

24 the daily messages you were receiving?

25 A. It was.

1 Q. And was this report filed?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And is this information also forwarded to Zagreb?

4 A. Yes -- sorry. I'm sure it was, but I can't sit here and confirm

5 it. I'm sure it was.

6 Q. But you filed reports like this --

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. -- within your system in Split?

9 A. Yes. That's why it's here.

10 Q. Thank you. Could we move now to tab Number 25, a document dated

11 November 20th?

12 A. 25?

13 Q. Yes, please. Would you look at the letter, please.

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. Have you ever seen this letter before?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Who was Mr. Bernard Kouchner?

18 A. He was the French minister of culture, as far as I recall, an

19 idealist who came down to help. I don't know why and how, but he came. I

20 have only passed him en route to -- when he was going south and we were

21 going north from Dubrovnik.

22 Q. Now, in the letter it says, in the second sentence: "I have told

23 you that your negotiating partner on the JNA side, Colonel Svicevic is not

24 an acceptable partner for negotiations in which ECMM monitors are engaged,

25 even as an eye witness. Colonel -- I'm sorry, Mr. Svicevic has threatened

1 to kill more than one team of monitors and this with so much conviction

2 that some monitors have since decided to leave Yugoslavia."

3 Were you aware of that situation with Colonel Svicevic?

4 A. Yes, and I have met the monitors who report this.

5 Q. Could you tell us what you know about that?

6 A. Well, I can only tell that when these people came back from

7 meeting this man, he actively threatened their lives. He said, I want to

8 kill you -- even said, I will kill you. So that's the sense of it. I

9 cannot quote the exact wording, but that -- the sort of words they brought

10 back to me.

11 Q. Now, in paragraph 2, there's a 1 and a 2, it says: "Negotiations

12 on your level should not be with a mere colonel, but with the commander in

13 charge, General Strugar."

14 What's your view on that?

15 A. Well, I agree with Ambassador Van Houten, because I think when you

16 discuss -- started discussing with the minister, it would be appropriate

17 that he was dealing with the highest-ranking and the commanding officer in

18 the area.

19 Q. And this letter was written by Mr. Van Houten?

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. And that was your eventual supervisor or boss?

22 A. He was the head of the EC monitor mission in Zagreb; that means he

23 was in my language the commander of all the EC monitors.

24 Q. Thank you. Could you look at the next tab, tab Number 26, please.

25 A. Yeah.

1 Q. Have you ever seen that letter before?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Who was that letter to?

4 A. Well, it's to the head of mission; that means, again, Ambassador

5 Van Houten in Zagreb.

6 Q. And that's from?

7 A. From Minister Kouch -- Kouchner, my French is not that good.

8 Kouchner I think he was called.

9 Q. And what is this letter about, just briefly?

10 A. Well, he is telling about that he has now started discussing the

11 situation with both parties and that he has changed from -- so it's the

12 situation in Dubrovnik that we are talking about, that he has changed

13 partners, so he's not talking to this colonel mentioned before but to a

14 general now and to Admiral Jokic.

15 Q. No it says on that line right there that you just mentioned:

16 "Negotiations are now on the federal side at the level of General

17 Damjanovic and Admiral Jokic."

18 A. That was apparently the sort of the good advice he got from

19 Mr. Van Houten.

20 Q. Had you ever dealt with this Damjanovic Mr. Damjanovic, or General

21 Damjanovic?

22 A. Well, yes -- unless there are two of the name. Because when the

23 colonel I dealt with in Zelenika who was called or named as the second in

24 command in General Strugar's outfit, he had the same name but he was a

25 colonel at the time, to the best of my knowledge. So if there are two, I

1 wouldn't know. It's the same name.

2 Q. Thank you. Could we move on to Document 27, please. Are you

3 familiar with this document?

4 A. Yes, I have read it before, a long time ago.

5 Q. In the third full paragraph which begins: "During the meeting,

6 the Croatian side," the last sentence says: "Either a separate agreement

7 is reached, which in essence will give Dubrovnik a status apart or

8 hostilities will resume and justify the fair accompli of a breech of

9 cease-fire and further destruction of the ancient city."

10 Did you agree, based on the circumstances which existed in this

11 state on the 24th of November, that without any cease-fire agreement, the

12 Old Town of Dubrovnik would be in danger, based on your knowledge of what

13 was happening at the time?

14 A. According to what I had seen and according to all the reports I

15 had got, yes, I found there was a great danger.

16 Q. And why would you say that?

17 A. Well, the shelling of the town up until the time, and not only the

18 town, but hotels with refugees and, et cetera, civilians in general, you

19 know, you could be very doubtful if somebody wanted to be more kind to

20 that town. I -- the situation was not pleasant by any chance, and I think

21 it could -- I had a feeling at the time, from what I had seen, what I

22 could see was happening, that there was a danger.

23 Q. Let's move on to the last document for November, which is tab

24 number 28.

25 A. I'm ready.

1 Q. And what is this document?

2 A. Well, this is a memorandum of agreement, as the heading says, made

3 in Dubrovnik apparently. I was not present, but that is what it says and

4 I have seen it before, where you had a meeting apparently with this

5 General Damjanovic, Admiral Jokic, and the mayor of Dubrovnik, and

6 Mr. Kouchner. What is important to me about this document is that it is

7 stated here that people who threaten monitors are not suitable partners in

8 negotiations and should be excluded from all negotiations while monitors

9 are present. Well, that was necessary. We were threatened and I was

10 threatened myself in Zelenika before when we were down there. And written

11 guarantees concerning the Churchill [phoen] monitors from both parties

12 should be given beforehand by parties involved and local commanders and

13 authorities. Under no circumstances are they or the locations where they

14 are staying or operating to be fired upon or otherwise threatened.

15 Well, this was signed by two officers, senior officers, from the

16 JNA on -- and in the French minister's presence and the mayor of

17 Dubrovnik's presence on the 25th of November. I wanted this time as a

18 witness to state that this was nothing, absolutely nothing worth, because

19 on the 6th of December the JNA were shelling the place where they knew we

20 were, some monitors, and free Croatian ministers. We had taken part in

21 the meeting in Cavtat on the 5th. On the 6th they were shelling us. They

22 knew we were there because we were going to have a meeting again on the

23 6th, and they were shelling us again. We had the meeting on the 7th.

24 So this they signed is nothing worth, not the paper it is written

25 on.

1 Q. So the agreement was not abided by?

2 A. Well, this applied to lots of other things. You might have noted

3 earlier that there was a note that this was the 13th cease-fire agreement.

4 I think that was a letter from Mr. Van Houten mentioned that the 13th --

5 this was incredible.

6 Q. You mentioned a meeting on December 5th. Why don't we move to tab

7 Number 29 which concerns that meeting. Just look at it first, and then

8 I'll ask you some questions about the meeting after we look at it.

9 A. Ready.

10 Q. Are you familiar with this document, first, sir?

11 A. I wrote it myself.

12 Q. Thank you. Now, could you tell us -- you don't have to read it

13 from memory, what happened on December 5th? Tell us about this meeting.

14 A. I hope you appreciate my handwriting this time. Well, the meeting

15 came into being because a couple of days earlier I was contacted by

16 Minister Rudolf whom I had taken -- well, had taken part in negotiations a

17 number of times before in Split with General Mladenic and other persons.

18 He wanted us or he wanted me to go down with him because he said he had

19 arranged through his means a meeting in Cavtat with the JNA. And it was

20 obvious that when he put in a request like that and had it arranged, that

21 of course I should go because that was why we were there, we were, let's

22 say, the monitors were there as sort of mid-wives, if possible, at the --

23 any discussions taking part between the two parties. And general -- so

24 the philosophy of the mission was so that they should try to negotiate

25 between themselves and we were there to try to make the situation calm and

1 that we were not starting every situation -- discussion from the Ottomans

2 Empire's time and what have you. So that was why he asked me. So, I said

3 Yes, and then of course I needed an interpreter, so I had an interpreter.

4 And then I knew from previous experience it's nice to have another

5 colleague, so I took one of my trusted staff officers along. And we said

6 yes and then showed up. There was three ministers going.

7 So we went down first on the 4th of December to Dubrovnik. It was

8 reasonably peaceful. There was only one rifle shot coming through the

9 restaurant window while we had dinner. But, we went down to Cavtat, as

10 arranged, the next day. And then we were requested by the JNA, we were

11 met by Admiral Jokic and my friend Captain Jeremic. And they asked that

12 we should not be present at the meeting. And the Croatian ministers

13 accepted that, so we enjoyed the beauty of the nature outside.

14 After the meeting, the ministers and Admiral Jokic came out. And

15 we were informed that they had not completed -- had not ended up with a

16 final result, but the Minister Rudolf informed clearly that the meeting

17 had taken place in a good and friendly, positive, atmosphere. Now, that

18 was the word, so that could only indicate that everything was all right.

19 Nothing, as I mentioned here, had been written down, but they were going

20 to resume the meeting the next day and hopefully -- and they were

21 absolutely convinced, the three ministers, they pressed that clearly, that

22 they would end up with a result.

23 And as you can see it's listed there, the meeting was to take

24 place on the 6th in the morning, at 1000 hours in Cavtat again. Again

25 this was typical to me that it always had to be on the JNA territory.

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1 Q. Now, let me ask you a question. What was the feelings of the

2 parties. Was it -- after this meeting?

3 A. I say again that the ministers expressed optimism and hope.

4 Admiral Jokic was smiling and friendly. And so according to the clear

5 information, the way people behaved, it seemed like the situation was

6 positive and there was hope for a good result.

7 Q. Did you anticipate an agreement on the following day?

8 A. The following day --

9 Q. Did you anticipate it, not what happened on the following day,

10 based on the positive --

11 A. Well, yes, I felt like that. And when we returned to Dubrovnik

12 and we had completed our fancy reports and what have you informing our

13 superiors and our headquarters, we were having dinner, not sitting at the

14 same table, but the EC monitors I had along with and I had a pleasant

15 evening -- we were helpful, and it seemed like the Croatian ministers and

16 people from the crisis committee or whoever from the Croat side who were

17 also there were in a good mood and helpful.

18 Q. Now, you brought the Croatian -- you escorted the Croatian

19 ministers there. Who did you expect to be there from the JNA side?

20 A. Well, I had expected that it would be the commander. I had

21 expected it would be Admiral Strugar, but it was Admiral Jokic -- sorry,

22 General Strugar. It was Admiral Jokic that was there. And so I assumed

23 that he was the representative of General Strugar; however, I was not the

24 man who was -- had asked for and was taking part in the discussions. And

25 I can admit that I don't know if Mr. Rudolf actually -- what he expected.

1 I wouldn't know that.

2 Q. Okay. Now, based on your own anticipation of an agreement on the

3 following day and the fact that everyone was so positive on December 5th,

4 did you expect shelling on December 7th -- I'm sorry, December 6th?

5 A. No chance. Actually, I went to bed and read a book and I was

6 quite happy. You say, well, there's hope now. I had no idea what -- I

7 knew I had to be down for that meeting the next day. And I was prepared

8 for work. That was it. I had no thought whatsoever of when you --

9 sending and accepting -- three ministers from Croatia accepting to have a

10 meeting, starting the meeting the day before, that it was not going to

11 continue. To meet with -- meet with -- I didn't have a thought. And when

12 the whole situation changed, I was really, honestly, very, very surprised.

13 Q. You just mentioned three ministers from Croatia. The fact that

14 ministers had taken part in this meeting as opposed to Crisis Staff

15 members, the local civilian officials in the past, did that have any

16 significance for you?

17 A. Well, it indicated to me that now we were working on a high level,

18 so it was very important from -- anyway, from the Croatian side. It was

19 something which was now a very serious and important matter to them.

20 Q. Okay. Let's move on to December 6th. Can you first tell us where

21 you were on the -- in the early morning of December 6th?

22 A. In my bed, in my room, facing the sea, with a bathtub full of

23 salty water for drinking and brushing teeth.

24 Q. Now, in -- could you tell us where, which hotel, or which house or

25 room?

1 A. The hotel was Hotel Argentina. Room number, I cannot remember. I

2 did not keep the receipt.

3 Q. That's okay. Did you -- why did you stay in Dubrovnik that night?

4 You didn't go back to Split?

5 A. Well, it would be a bit like going to Oslo to have a meeting in

6 London the next day or something like that. We were down there. We --

7 you could take a whole day to go back to Split. And when you're having a

8 meeting, you're finishing off in the afternoon in the 5th, having a

9 meeting at 10.00 in the morning on the 6th, it was obvious we had to stay

10 in Dubrovnik.

11 Q. So you were there for negotiations on December 6th?

12 A. I was there ready for negotiations.

13 Q. Okay. And were you to accompany the three Croatian ministers?

14 A. We were going to have exactly the same setup as we had on the 5th.

15 We were three monitors going down with three ministers.

16 Q. Now, did something happen in the early morning hours?

17 A. Well, I woke up because of certain noise which was -- is a bit too

18 familiar for me. But I woke up because I could hear impact shelling and

19 what have you, just about -- before 6.00. And I got organised. And as

20 you can imagine at the time, there were not that many guests at Hotel

21 Argentina. There were lots of refugees in other hotels, but not here.

22 So I had to find people. You had people coming out and shaking their

23 heads. And then I could -- before I actually went down, I could see out

24 of the window from my hotel room, when I pulled the curtain away, I could

25 see wire-guiding missiles going towards the Old City walls, Argosy --

1 yeah, Argosy Harbour, it's called, the old harbour in Dubrovnik. So then

2 we got -- tried to get down, get communication, and find out what was

3 going on. And as soon as I had possibilities, I sent a complaint down for

4 those we had now been negotiating with Admiral Jokic the day before. As

5 far as I recall I sent -- addressed the message to him, complained about

6 the shelling of Dubrovnik, which from that time on was increasing.

7 Q. Okay. Let's -- we'll get to that in a second. But prior to that

8 shelling which woke you up around 6.00 a.m., did you hear any other

9 gunfire prior to that, anywhere from 2.00 a.m. to -- to that time when you

10 first heard the shelling?

11 A. No, I did not. And my two colleagues did not. And I heard of

12 nobody who had heard anything before that.

13 Q. Prior to that initial shelling that you heard at 6.00 a.m., did

14 you receive any protests or did the ECMM monitors receive any protests of

15 any military action, breaking the cease-fire?

16 A. From who?

17 Q. By any party? Did anyone notify the ECMM prior to hearing the

18 shelling of any cease-fire violation or any military action of any kind?

19 A. No.

20 Q. Now, did you maintain a log of the day's events of December 6th?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. I'd ask you to turn to tab 30, please. Could you look at that

23 document and tell us what it is.

24 A. Well, this is my log sheet. To be honest, I had not expected I

25 had to use paper on that sort of stuff, but this is -- I started

1 immediately, and I can see -- shelling from land and sea, the first mark

2 0600 hours. It started a bit before 6.00, but I'm not going to give you

3 the exact minute of the time, but it was for sure in progress at 6.00 in

4 the morning. And as you can see, of course, I reported immediately to

5 Split and Zagreb by the means I had available.

6 Q. Now, based on your observations, two impacts hit the old centre at

7 about 7.20?

8 A. Yeah, I saw them myself, yes.

9 Q. And then over the next 12 minutes there were numerous impacts into

10 the Old Town?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Now, the last line, 9.45 to 10.00, you have: "Between 10 and 15

13 heavy explosions per minute."

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Do you time these or what do you do?

16 A. I had various things to do down in the basement of the Hotel

17 Argentina. And these are -- at the time, well, of course, I could hear

18 the noise all the time, but I was also taking -- getting information from

19 my two colleagues, whereas we always at least had one out observing what

20 was going on. So this is a report of observation coming from my

21 colleagues.

22 Q. Thank you. Now, at 9.20, let's move up a couple. "Our boat," it

23 looks like something Cavtat, or at Cavtat, "for Cavtat, Argus 2, mounted

24 with the EC flag hit directly and inflames along with Argus 1."

25 Could you tell us about that, please.

1 A. Well, it was a very precise hit, I must say, very efficient, no

2 boat, lots of smoke. There was a huge EC flag, a huge big one with a

3 circle of yellow stars. It was a wonderful target, very good for an

4 artillery observer to look at.

5 Q. Had you been using that boat?

6 A. Yes, that was the boat we were sailing down to Cavtat with.

7 Q. Let's go to page 2, if we could. At 11.00 it says:

8 "Frequency," -- I'm sorry, 10.45 to 11.00, "Frequency is now 15 heavy

9 shells per minute with some minutes' interval."

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Can you tell us about that.

12 A. Well, there's not much more to tell. That was what was a fact and

13 what, as I say -- some of it I might have been out looking and I was out

14 looking, yes. And one of my colleagues or maybe both of them were

15 observing this.

16 Q. Thank you. Now, at 11.10 it says: "Minister Rudolf talking to

17 Zagreb. Message from Boka Kotorska Naval Base. JNA will cease fire at

18 1115 hours. A meeting in Cavtat is planned for 1330 hours," and something

19 after that.

20 A. "Inch Alla" is Arabic and means "God willing".

21 Q. God willing. Okay. Where was Minister Rudolf at the time?

22 A. He was in the same basement, or most of the time in the same room

23 as I was at the bottom of Hotel Argentina. And actually, the message is

24 from Boka Kotorska as far as I know. It's called the naval base that --

25 well, he has on his means, he was operating on another phone. Now and

1 then we were operating on the same. We had problems with the

2 communication, but he apparently had had this contact and managed to get

3 hold of Zagreb through some telephone line. That's what it is about. And

4 I'm sorry about my remark, but anyway it's a good remark, God willing.

5 Q. Did the firing stop at 11.15?

6 A. Not really. As you can see, you have a few minutes later.

7 Frequency dropped considerably, that means they were still firing but not

8 with the same intensity as before. There might have been a stop exactly

9 at 11.15, but it certainly was resumed immediately after.

10 Q. Okay. Could you go to the next page to 1430 hours, which is 2.30,

11 2.30 p.m.

12 A. Yeah.

13 Q. It says: "Minister Rudolf receives message from Admiral Jokic who

14 apologises for the shelling and informs that it is out of JNA control.

15 Shelling sporadic. Still in progress. Jokic informs that he had to be in

16 Belgrade at 1400 hours. Admiral Jokic suggests a meeting tomorrow at

17 12.00."

18 Now -- actually, after it says shelling is out of JNA control, you

19 wrote "unbelievable." Could you tell us what that is all about.

20 A. Okay. We actually -- I also received a copy of a message from

21 Admiral Jokic, who apologised -- I think there might be a copy around,

22 anyway I had a copy of it -- where he apologies for what happened or what

23 had happened during that day until now. And my remark "unbelievable" a

24 soldier's remark, because it was my opinion that the Yugoslav army was a

25 professional, well-organised army. And to me, in an area like that it

1 sounds unbelievable that you can go on with a shelling for so long because

2 something is out of hand. It seemed to me that they, between themselves,

3 had good communication. I could understand if a single rifle man in the

4 first line had not got a message or got scared of something, and a single

5 rifle shot can now and then start a war -- a minor war in the area. But

6 this was a constant ongoing fire by heavy weapons. And that it -- you can

7 use the remark "something got out of hand," it -- so it's really

8 unbelievable that a high-ranking officer could say so or write so.

9 I never expected, of course, that this was -- this was a private

10 note, let's say, to my headquarters, but I really felt it was

11 unbelievable.

12 Q. Now, let's continue on the next page. By the way, did shelling

13 stop at that point?

14 A. No -- sorry, are you saying next page now?

15 Q. Yes, next page. 1610, which is 4.10 p.m. "Only a few impacts

16 since 1600 hours. Minister Rudolf informs me that General Strugar has now

17 ordered immediate CF," - cease-fire - "however the" --

18 A. Odd.

19 Q. "Odd grenade still arrives."

20 Could you tell me about that, please.

21 A. Yes. Through his means, Minister Rudolf got in contact with the

22 JNA. And according to the information he gave with General Strugar. So

23 the general was back in the area on the scene somehow. And so it was a

24 promise, again of a cease-fire. And I can easily understand, reference to

25 what I said before, that that might be difficult that it just ends at that

1 specific time. So I was not too surprised if the cease-fire was really

2 ordered, that the odd grenade still arrived in our area.

3 Q. Was there much shelling after General Strugar ordered a cease-fire

4 at 4.15 or 1615?

5 A. No, not much, so it appeared everything was in hand more or less.

6 Q. Sorry, I should have been 1610 or 1600.

7 What time did all shelling, even the sporadic shelling, finally

8 end, according to your notes?

9 A. Well, I was -- the absolute last part of the show was for sure at

10 1915, but it was not much. It was like Christmas.

11 Q. Now, let's move to a set of three documents relating to December

12 6th, Documents 31, 32, and 34. Let us start with Document 31. The

13 English part is from the middle to the bottom. Are you familiar with

14 that?

15 A. I wrote it myself. I got somebody to type it for me.

16 Q. And could you tell us about that.

17 A. Well, as you can see, I have in my handwriting noted that it was

18 passed on by the means I had, fax I think, at the time, at 06, that means

19 the 6th of December, at 7.14. The whole thing when I got out of bed at

20 06.00. Well, it took a bit of time to get things organised and working,

21 communications through, et cetera. So it was -- the best thing I could do

22 was immediately -- as fast as I could to protest against this thing,

23 starting at the very same morning as we were going to have a meeting. And

24 as apparently the person in charge of the meeting were two -- three

25 ministers, was Admiral Jokic, and he was the person we were going to meet

1 again that day, I found that it was relevant to send this message to him,

2 and he was the addressee then. And the message itself I think talks for

3 itself -- I hope so.

4 Q. Now, you said that "the attack on Dubrovnik stands in complete

5 opposition to the good will you expressed yesterday."

6 Is that a reference to the positive feelings after the meeting?

7 A. Absolutely.

8 MR. WEINER: Now, for the Court, Your Honour, on Sunday the

9 witness brought a small piece of paper with him which is barely legible,

10 and it is like a fax transmission notice of a fax machine. You need a

11 magnifying glass to read it, but it does indicate that it was sent. Would

12 the Court like this? We've tried to make a copy; it can't be read. But

13 he does have this in his notes. Would the Court like to examine it? He

14 has it in his personal notes. If the Court would like to examine it, or

15 the counsel, or anyone else.

16 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, if Defence counsel could see it and then

17 pass it to us.

18 MR. WEINER:

19 Q. Sir, do you have that small sheet of paper that's the ...

20 A. Are you talking about this lousy copy?

21 Q. Yes.

22 A. This. I've got that, and --

23 Q. Could the --

24 A. I'm just checking something. Because I was using a magnifying

25 glass to try to read this again. And I'm just checking if I actually have

1 got that. Anyway, this is the paper.

2 MR. WEINER: It's on the small strip of paper. It's hard to read,

3 but it can be read.

4 JUDGE PARKER: Are you saying, Mr. Weiner, that Mr. Hvalkof has

5 been able to read this?

6 MR. WEINER: Yes, it's legible. It can be read. It indicates

7 that it was sent at 7.12 a.m., and I just wanted the Court to know it's

8 a -- it comes off of the fax machine --

9 JUDGE PARKER: It's a fax transmission --

10 MR. WEINER: Confirmation.

11 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, this, as far as I can

12 see, is a confirmation. The time is 1535 --

13 MR. WEINER: We're not receiving any translation --

14 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] So that --

15 MR. WEINER: Sorry.

16 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] There is a confirmation with this fax,

17 and the time is 1535. If I look at the content, I don't think this is the

18 same fax that my learned friend and colleague has spoken about. It may be

19 an error. Perhaps a different document has been given instead of the one

20 that we are talking about.

21 THE WITNESS: That's the wrong one. I'm sorry. Thank you. Wait

22 a minute. I'm sorry about all these old papers. I've got the right one.

23 I do apologise for the mess in my papers. Here you are.

24 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, if I may.

25 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Petrovic.

1 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Before this reaches you, I can tell

2 you what we are able to see on this slip of paper. It says the 6th of

3 December up there, 12 minutes past 7.00. That's what it says. That's

4 when it was sent, apparently. But what is noteworthy about this document

5 is that the section which refers to remote ID, or rather, where the

6 recipient should be, this portion is the portion missing. It has been

7 torn off apparently, so we can't see who received this fax. You will see

8 this in a short while. You can see parts of the numbers 8 and 5, but you

9 can't see the entire number, really. So this bit is missing, and you can

10 have a look for yourselves.

11 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you for that help, Mr. Petrovic.

12 Are you wanting the document back, Mr. Weiner?

13 MR. WEINER: It was the witness's document. I was just going to

14 put it on the record.

15 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.

16 MR. WEINER: Can I see it for a moment.

17 JUDGE PARKER: It would be helpful if all numerals and words which

18 the witness can identify are recorded.

19 MR. WEINER: All right. Let me read it into the record, and then

20 I'll hand it to him. It says: "Report, December 06, 1991, 07:12," and

21 then under it has certain words: "Mode, duration, page, result." Under

22 duration it has five something, appears to be minutes. And then it says:

23 "Transmit," it looks like G3, N something. And on the left it says:

24 "December 6th -- or December 06, 07." It has a date. A start time which

25 just has a 707, and you can't see the rest, for the record.

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1 JUDGE PARKER: I take it you agree with the observation of

2 Mr. Petrovic that the number of the recipient cannot be identified?

3 MR. WEINER: That's correct. That's why the witness is here.

4 Q. Sir, what happened to the rest of that sheet of paper, if you

5 know?

6 A. I wouldn't know. It's a -- at the time it was of no importance.

7 When I got this piece from the fellow who was sending the fax message, it

8 was just to prove to me, because normally when you get a fax message, then

9 it was proved to me that it was sent. And you get an information to say

10 okay or whatever that the line was sent. And it was sent on a fax machine

11 from the basement of the Hotel Argentina, and by one of my colleagues. And

12 I said, Well, just put this on a -- because that was sort of my

13 confirmation and then I noted down. It has been sent. So I was

14 absolutely sure at the time - sorry - that it had been received by Admiral

15 Jokic or his headquarters, whatever.

16 Q. Now, is that little strip of confirmation sheet stapled to another

17 document?

18 A. Whenever -- when I did this sort of thing, sit in a situation like

19 this, I had a staple machine, I would do it this way.

20 Q. And the document which it's stapled to, which is your personal

21 document, is that the same document as tab Number 31?

22 A. Yes, this is the original.

23 Q. Thank you. And on your original -- on your tab 31 it says to the

24 right of your name, on the English, on the bottom, could you read that and

25 explain.

1 A. "Sent 0607, 14, alpha November 1991." That means sent at the 6th

2 of November, which is wrong. It should, of course, be December. I was

3 old and tired on the day. Sent on the 6th of December on 7.14, so --

4 1991. And as you can see up at the top, it is Dubrovnik, December 6th,

5 1991. So it's just because I had been busy, I made the same mistake as

6 Mr. Bondioli as the previous mentioned document --

7 JUDGE PARKER: Are you able to assist us, Mr. Hvalkof -- I'm

8 sorry, are you able to assist us, Mr. Hvalkof, with the -- how you sent

9 it, to what number was it transmitted?

10 THE WITNESS: I cannot assist you with the number, Your Honour. I

11 can only -- I only know -- the number is out. But it was sent to the fax

12 number with the JNA down in whatever, Zelenika, Boka, wherever it was. I

13 don't know where the place was, but we had a fax number.

14 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Petrovic.

15 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, by your leave, it is

16 obvious that the original of this document is still with the witness, the

17 one that we had been looking at. However, at tab 31 the document is

18 there. But unlike all the other faxes under this tab, there is no

19 photocopy at the top of the page of this small slip of paper that we

20 looked at a while ago. The issue of the authenticity of this document

21 requires further clarification as to why, if this indeed is a document,

22 the original of which the witness is in possession of, why is this bit

23 missing then? Perhaps we can clarify this on cross-examination, or

24 perhaps we can receive an answer now, especially in the light of the fact

25 that at tab 30 on page 1, there is no indication whatsoever that this

1 witness ever sent this document to begin with. If you look at tab 30,

2 there's nothing about it there. 7.00, 10 past 7.00, quarter past 7.00,

3 some of his other activities were written down at the time, but there's

4 nothing about this. This is the only thing I wish to draw your attention

5 to for the time being, and we will continue to probe this matter on

6 cross-examination. Thank you, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, they certainly are issues you would want to

8 pursue in cross-examination, Mr. Petrovic.

9 MR. WEINER: And the other thing, Your Honour, I've tried several

10 times to photocopy that. If the Registry has any access to anything,

11 either photocopying or any special machine that could photocopy that, we

12 would have no objection.

13 JUDGE PARKER: It appears from my relatively unskilled eye to be

14 unable to be reduced satisfactorily by photocopy. It would require

15 ordinary photography, I think, to have any prospect of producing some sort

16 of legible result. I take it you are wishing to tender the original, are

17 you?

18 MR. WEINER: I left it in the hands of the witness; it's his

19 document. We have a copy. Would you mind --

20 THE WITNESS: Be my guest.

21 MR. WEINER: Thank you.

22 JUDGE PARKER: What you have passed to the Court, Mr. Hvalkof, you

23 say is the original of the document at tab 31. Is that correct?

24 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.

25 JUDGE PARKER: With the transmission slip stapled to it?

1 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE PARKER: In that form, it will be received as a separate

3 document.

4 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution Exhibit P62.

5 MR. WEINER: Thank you.

6 Q. And thank you, Mr. Hvalkof.

7 Now, let's move to the next document also dated December 6th, tab

8 number 32. And the second page is typed; it's a little bit more legible.

9 Could you tell us about this document, sir.

10 A. Well, this is a complaint to the JNA at Boka from the crisis

11 committee, and it's sent as an info, information message, to us, the ECMM

12 people, at that time in Dubrovnik. So it is again a protest of the same

13 nature as mine about the shelling. And I don't think there is much more

14 to say about it, that they just informed us that they had sent this

15 through their means.

16 Q. And this is also dated December 6th?

17 A. Yes, it is.

18 Q. Thank you. And then another document, Document 34.

19 A. Yeah.

20 Q. Now, are you familiar with this document, sir?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And could you tell us how you came about this document.

23 A. Well, it was also passed on to us as an info. I cannot tell you

24 exactly who gave it to us, but it was passed to us down there in

25 Dubrovnik. It is again an info message by this information centre of

1 Dubrovnik. I have previously stated that I am not fully aware of the --

2 actually, the various parts of the Dubrovnik administration organisation,

3 but this information centre was no doubt or was connected with the crisis

4 committee and the town council.

5 Q. And in this letter, it also, or this fax or information sheet,

6 let's call it a document, it also discusses the damage in the Old Town at

7 both 10.00 as well as 1445, which is 2.45 p.m.?

8 A. Yeah. Well, the first thing here they said -- well, this is how

9 they saw it, their version of what happened.

10 Q. Okay. So you received and maintained documents from various

11 sources?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Now, could we move to a set of letters, 35, 36, and 33.

14 JUDGE PARKER: Perhaps, Mr. Weiner, it might be convenient to

15 break now before you go into that group of documents.

16 MR. WEINER: Thank you.

17 --- Recess taken at 12.19 p.m.

18 --- On resuming at 12.47 p.m.

19 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Weiner.

20 MR. WEINER: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Hvalkof. Before we left, I asked you to look

22 at a group of three documents, tabs 35, 36, and 33. Let's start with tab

23 35. Do you know who sent this?

24 A. Well, it is a message from JNA headquarters in Boka sent to

25 Minister Rudolf by Vice-Admiral Jokic.

1 Q. And it's a letter of apology, isn't it?

2 A. Yes, as far as I can read it.

3 Q. Thank you. Now, in the letter in the first paragraph it says that

4 General Kadijevic has sent a message to you and the ECMM in Dubrovnik on

5 undertaking an energetic investigation on our responsibility and the

6 guilt -- the guilty ones for this event.

7 Were you ever aware of any investigation that was undertaken?

8 A. Not at that time, no.

9 Q. Did anyone from --

10 A. Except, sorry, except for the information here, but I have not

11 received anything of this nature myself addressed to me as an ECM member

12 in Dubrovnik.

13 Q. Well, was anyone from your staff or any ECMM monitors ever

14 questioned by members of the JNA?

15 A. In respect of what?

16 Q. To an investigation on what happened on December 6th?

17 A. Not to an investigation. The only thing I remember in that

18 connection was that it was arranged that two JNA officers were coming to

19 make an inspection and having a trip for sight seeing of the beauties of

20 Dubrovnik after the whole story. But I had -- I was -- I know nothing

21 else about this investigation, that what is mentioned here.

22 Q. Other than that inspection of Dubrovnik, and we'll get to that

23 shortly, did anyone ever question or ask to interview either yourself or

24 and members of your monitoring staff concerning the incident of December

25 6th?

1 A. Now you are meaning the JNA?

2 Q. The JNA, the Yugoslav People's Army.

3 A. No.

4 Q. Were you ever advised of the results of the energetic

5 investigation, as described by General Kadijevic?

6 A. I read that much later. I had a copy I believe from our

7 headquarters in Zagreb. That I can't remember. But I can remember that I

8 read a paper where they were listing all the damages they saw or the way

9 they saw them.

10 Q. Did you ever learn of anyone being punished?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Let us move to tab number 36. Now, are you familiar with this

13 document?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And who is it from?

16 A. It's from Colonel General Pavle Strugar to Minister Rudolf.

17 Q. And what does General Strugar indicate in his letter -- actually,

18 could you read it?

19 A. Well: "This morning JNA, Yugoslav People's Army forces were fired

20 upon with mortars and machine guns from S-r-d" - Srdj, I think it's

21 pronounced - "and Babin Kuk without provocation, our forces returned fire

22 in response to this action; however, on my orders, the units ceased fire

23 at 1115 hours, though your forces did not respect the cease-fire. And it

24 can therefore be concluded that the buildings in the old heart of

25 Dubrovnik are being damaged by the fire your forces are laying down."

1 Q. What was your reaction to General Strugar's letter?

2 A. I was surprised because I received that later than I had received

3 previous apology we had just talked about by Admiral Jokic. I was also

4 surprised in the way that the -- to the best of what I observed, fire

5 didn't cease at the time mentioned here, 1115 hours. It ceased much

6 later, finally, after 1800 hours in the evening. 1915 I think was the

7 last time we noted something or when I was sure nothing was happening.

8 And to me it is double Dutch or Chinese the last part of it that this

9 could then be concluded that the Croats were shelling themselves. I just

10 don't understand it, and I didn't understand it at the time.

11 Q. Now, in that letter, just back to the middle part of the letter,

12 General Strugar states: "On my orders, the units ceased fire on 1115

13 hours."

14 If you go back to Exhibit 30, just for one moment back to Exhibit

15 30, to the second page. Does not that correspond to 1110, Minister Rudolf

16 talking to Zagreb message, JNA will cease fire at 1115 hours?

17 A. It does.

18 Q. Thank you. Any other comments on this letter from

19 General Strugar?

20 A. My comments?

21 Q. Yeah, any others?

22 A. No, I think I have made myself clear.

23 Q. Thank you. Now, prior to this statement in General Strugar's

24 letter that the JNA forces were fired on, had you received any

25 communication from the JNA indicating that from midnight until 6.00 a.m

1 when -- approximately 6.00 a.m. when you were awoken -- awaken, that there

2 was any fire in violation of the cease-fire from the JNA or from any

3 party?

4 A. No, and I didn't hear anything myself.

5 Q. Could we now move on to Exhibit Number 33, just back a few. Now,

6 could you tell us about this fax, sir. When I say "Exhibit 33," tab 33.

7 Could you tell us about this letter or fax.

8 A. I'm not exactly sure what you want me to tell you, but it is a

9 letter from -- to General Pavle Strugar from Minister Davorin Rudolf

10 concerning the situation in Dubrovnik at the time.

11 Q. Now, in the letter it says that Minister Rudolf -- in the letter

12 Minister Rudolf invites General Strugar to visit the Old Town and see the

13 damage. Do you know whether General Strugar did, in fact, visit the town

14 and observe the damage?

15 A. The general did not visit the town when I was there. I didn't see

16 him anyway.

17 Q. Now -- and did you maintain this letter in your ECMM records?

18 A. Yes, because we were given copies, as I mentioned before, down

19 there. Whatever information the Croats were sending out or receiving,

20 they also informed us about it.

21 Q. Okay. Now, could we now move to tab 37, please. Could you tell

22 us what this is.

23 A. Well, this is again one of my log sheets. And that is from the

24 7th of December, 1991, referring to what happened -- what we did that day.

25 And it's sent as -- whenever I had a chance, it was sent on fax to a

1 headquarters -- our regional headquarters in Split.

2 Q. And whose handwriting is that?

3 A. It's mine, one of mine.

4 Q. Now, there's an indication of a visit to the Old Town at 9.15.

5 Did you visit the Old Town on that day?

6 A. Yes. The monitors and I walked around, as far as I know, along

7 with the crisis committee and the ministers to have an idea of what had

8 happened to the Old Town.

9 Q. Now, when you said you were with monitors, who were you with on

10 that date?

11 A. That was with Hans van Beek, and a Dutchman and a Dane.

12 Q. When had you previously visited the Old Town prior to December

13 7th?

14 A. On the 4th and also on the 5th.

15 Q. Did the Old Town look the same as it had looked on December 5th or

16 December 4th and 5th?

17 A. Certainly not.

18 Q. What was the difference?

19 A. Well, we had burning houses, ruined houses, impacts -- shelling

20 impacts of -- shells all over the place. It looks like a missile garbage

21 lot.

22 Q. Now, when you visited on the 5th, do you recall who you were with

23 from your team?

24 A. I was along on the 5th with my two colleagues and a part of it was

25 a member of the crisis committee. But in general, we walked around by

1 ourselves.

2 Q. Now, you said previously when you went to the meeting on the 5th,

3 you were with a trusted colleague or a trusted associate or associates.

4 Who were you referring to?

5 A. Which --

6 Q. On the early -- on the 5th, when you went to the meeting on the

7 5th, you said you brought a trusted associate and that's before you walked

8 [phoen] him.

9 A. Well, that was again Hans van Beek and Lars Brolund.

10 Q. And can you tell us how long had you worked with Lars Brolund?

11 A. Well, since I came to Split.

12 Q. And where was he, could you tell us, on December 6th while the

13 shelling was going on.

14 A. He was -- he was with me.

15 Q. And how did he act during the shelling?

16 A. Fine.

17 Q. And could you tell us your opinion as to his effectiveness as a

18 monitor or employee?

19 A. He was a good monitor. He was efficient and very nice to deal

20 with, professional, with a good sense of humour, which is very important

21 in cases like that.

22 Q. Now, was he -- he was also with you on this walk around of the Old

23 Town on the 7th?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Now, after the walk around or the inspection or the observation of

1 the Old Town, what did you do?

2 A. After the walk about?

3 Q. Yes.

4 A. We went to this hospital to look at wounded people and dead bodies

5 and that sort of stuff.

6 Q. In the afternoon, what did you do?

7 A. Well, we had at that time arranged for a new meeting in Cavtat, or

8 we had, again that was minister Rudolf and we and his people. So there

9 was arranged a meeting so -- in Cavtat -- well, actually that was the

10 meeting that was supposed to have taken place the day before. So we went

11 down there again.

12 Q. And who did you see at this meeting?

13 A. Admiral Jokic and Captain Jeremic.

14 Q. And was there any conversation?

15 A. Well, we were met in a decent and proper way. And then

16 immediately after we met on a boat in the harbour, and there was -- then

17 the discussions started again with the ministers and the Admiral Jokic and

18 his -- Captain Jeremic. There might have been another from the JNA. I

19 cannot remember that. It started on the boat. But what was remarkable is

20 the day before, or two days before, the JNA did not want our presence.

21 There was nothing of that nature this time. We were present all the time.

22 Q. And did you offer any suggestions to the negotiation?

23 A. Yeah. I remember I offered some suggestions very -- you know, as

24 I have said before, we were sort of there trying to help the negotiations

25 just to move on in a decent way. But we could add -- give remarks, of

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1 course if you wanted to or if we were asked to. So yes, I did so.

2 Q. Now, could we move to the next document, number 38. Now, are you

3 familiar with this document?

4 A. Sorry, 38 --

5 Q. Tab 38, please.

6 A. Yeah.

7 Q. Was an agreement reached during that meeting on December 7th?

8 A. Yes. This is the agreement. It was all made except for my

9 remark -- it was all made by the two involved parties. They were talking

10 in decent language and the atmosphere was, I would say, pretty good when

11 you had in mind what had happened the day before. The behaved like

12 gentlemen and fine.

13 Q. Were you present for the signatures?

14 A. I was there the whole time. And I was signing the agreement

15 myself as a witness, you could say.

16 Q. Now, on the third page there's an Article 9. "The implementation

17 of this agreement will be monitored by the ECMM. To the ECMM, both sides

18 guarantee insights in all situations, including their personal security

19 and movement in the whole area."

20 Who suggested that that article be included in this agreement?

21 A. Well, I knew and I know that Minister Rudolf was mentioning it,

22 but I also know that I had given remarks in connection with the talks that

23 that was essential, as I have said before, if anything like that has to

24 work, you must have neutral people on both sides. And I had put in

25 remarks in that connection at the end of these talks, before this document

1 was actually written in an office in the harbour area, wherever. So that

2 is correct.

3 Q. Could we go to the next document, document 39. Are you familiar

4 with this document?

5 A. Yes, I am.

6 Q. Is this the walk through or notes about the walk through that you

7 discussed with the JNA inspectors?

8 A. It must be, because I mentioned before I saw this document quite

9 some time later. It's -- I can't say, but I certainly didn't see it

10 before -- maybe in the middle of December or something. It was much later

11 I saw it.

12 Q. And who signed the, and who was it sent to. Who's it from?

13 A. It's from Vice-Admiral Jokic -- actually, I don't know how and

14 where it was sent to. And anyway, I've seen it before.

15 Q. Well, in this document it describes certain damage in the Old

16 Town. Do you agree with this characterisation of the damage to the Old

17 Town?

18 A. No, I don't. Anyway, it may be a matter of understanding of

19 words. And my understanding, if you look at the para 1 saying there were

20 visible traces of damage on some houses caused by small-calibre shells.

21 My translation of what I saw would not be small-calibre shells; it would

22 be heavier shells, heavier weapons. I don't deny that there might have

23 been small-calibre shells as well, but in general the damage was made by

24 more severe weapons. And it also looked very much like that when the

25 impacts came.

1 Q. Do you have any other disagreements with the characterisation?

2 A. Well, the words like "slight," and that sort of thing, of course

3 there were places where there was slight damage. In general, the town of

4 Dubrovnik looked very horrible and very badly damaged. I think this is a

5 very, very, very mild interpretation of the facts of life.

6 Q. Could we move to the next tab, number 40, please.

7 A. Yeah.

8 Q. Are you familiar with this document?

9 A. Yeah, I've seen this before, too.

10 Q. What is this document?

11 A. Well, these are just notes. I cannot tell you who they are made

12 by, but of course when you had moved out to a place, an area, you needed

13 to know who you were dealing with. So we would also -- a monitor would

14 always take notes, try to find out, who am I dealing with, and note it

15 down so you knew the names, also a question of decent politeness when you

16 met people, you knew who you were dealing with and writing to, et cetera.

17 So this is -- I've seen the same names listed up in, let's say, a more

18 official way in Split, for example. So here you have a list of the people

19 you're dealing with on the JNA side and a list of people you are dealing

20 with on the crisis committee. And this is absolutely quite normal. You

21 took those type of notes down whenever you started business somewhere.

22 You wanted to know, who am I dealing with?

23 Q. Let's look at the JNA offices. Who had you dealt with or had you

24 had communication with on the JNA side, the top part of the ladder?

25 A. As it states: First, General Strugar, Admiral Jokic, liaison

1 officer, as we called him, Jeremic, we talked about him before. And then

2 the interpreter, I can't remember, I never met that man. And then the

3 political officer I -- it's apparently the one -- I'm not too sure if that

4 is the one that was referred to earlier as the one the head of mission

5 didn't want us to talk to. But anyway they are -- I haven't met the last

6 people. I met the three first. And the other ones in general, I met them

7 in Dubrovnik.

8 Q. When you said "the other ones," are you referring to the crisis

9 committee?

10 A. The crisis committee, yes.

11 Q. So the president of the crisis commit you met with a Mr. Sikic?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And this doctor, Poljanic.

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. The mayor? What about the deputy mayor?

16 A. I met him too.

17 Q. Now did you actually meet Admiral Strugar or just correspond --

18 speak to him by telephone?

19 A. I have never had the honour of meeting General Strugar before in

20 this room, if that is meeting.

21 Q. Could we move to document 41. We're on the last two -- actually,

22 if you go to the second page, it's in B/C/S but the names are legible.

23 It's easier to read. Have you ever seen this type of chart before at ECMM

24 meetings?

25 A. I have not seen this particular one, but when you found out what

1 an organisation was about, you would make something similar, because it's

2 a quite typical military way of doing it. I have not seen this one

3 before, as I recall. But this is a typical thing to make. I do not know

4 who made it -- well, probably it's maybe listed at the back, but I'm not

5 familiar as such with this. And I have not seen it this particular one

6 while I was in the area.

7 Q. Who in ECMM made these types of charts?

8 A. When you do -- that would be in the operational staff normally as

9 you do it. So that would be one of the operations officers.

10 Q. And where are the operations officers in ECMM get the information

11 to produce these types of charts?

12 A. Well, I wouldn't know but -- where this is coming from. But for

13 example, if you go down to Dubrovnik and you try to start up a mission

14 there and try to work, you try to find out who are you dealing with. So

15 you get the names of these people. And for example, the list we showed

16 before, then you had the names of the JNA part. So then you would find

17 some officers and -- not all people in the mission were officers, go back

18 and say, now we know that they inform us that this man is the

19 commander-in-chief here, this is his deputy, this is his ADC, or whatever.

20 It would be normal for most officers to go down and try and say, can you

21 make it like this, this type of thing.

22 Q. Now, based on the information you had -- or actually, this chart

23 places General Strugar at the top of a hierarchy. Based on the

24 information you had, who was the commander of the JNA forces in the area

25 of Dubrovnik?

1 A. According to the best of my knowledge all the time, it was General

2 Strugar.

3 Q. This chart indicates a General Damjanovic on the second level.

4 What was the name of the person that you were told was the second in

5 command or his deputy?

6 A. Well, when I was in Zelenika the first time, I was informed that

7 that was -- when he showed up, I was informed in advance that that would

8 be Colonel Damjanovic who came, that would be wrong, but then that was

9 only way the person apparently - that's what he said he was called - when

10 he showed up. And I have -- the only information I have or I had at that

11 time personally was what I got from the JNA, that it was General Strugar's

12 second in command who was showing up.

13 Q. Now, could we go to the last document, tab number 42.

14 MR. WEINER: Your Honour, before we discuss this, I just want to

15 note for the record, this is an article that was in Danish. It was sent

16 out to be translated. Somehow a page was not translated. The witness has

17 agreed to send us another copy of the article. I've talked to the

18 Defence. They have no objection to having it admitted and as soon as we

19 receive the newly-translated article, we would just replace it with that.

20 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Weiner.

21 MR. WEINER:

22 Q. Could you just tell us what that document is, sir.

23 A. Yeah. I come from a -- graduated from the oldest boarding school

24 back home. And we -- every month we received a very nice -- what would

25 you call, monthly, weekly. And then the editor asked me, as an old

1 student from that school, to write about the experience. And I said, Yes,

2 well, okay. I'll do so. So it was put up in two articles. I tried to

3 describe my experience in ex-Yugoslavia. At the time -- as I saw it and

4 from my notes. It was split up in two articles. The first two pages are

5 from the first and then there was something. So they wanted the rest to

6 come the next volume. And then they somehow, when I handed this over to

7 the investigators who were visiting me on the 6th, 7th, 8th, April, 2002,

8 the second page looked very much -- my nasty photo was on that one, too.

9 So they must have thought the same, as their Danish was not very good. So

10 they were probably only taking a copy of one page because my picture was

11 on the -- forgotten the second -- the start of the second article, second

12 part of the article, as it was split-up by the editor.

13 I am -- the way -- what I had written was the way I saw it, the

14 way I believe it was, the way felt it was, and my opinion about the -- my

15 experience down there.

16 Q. And when you say "down there," you mean the area of Dubrovnik?

17 A. I mean in the whole ECMM mission, because I'm starting telling

18 about evacuation of Borongaj barracks in Zagreb and on the trip down and

19 what have you. But the main part of it concerns my experience in Split

20 area and Dubrovnik.

21 Q. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to ask you some general questions to

22 finish off here. On December 6th, did you witness any outgoing fire from

23 the Old Town?

24 A. No.

25 Q. Did any of the monitors witness or notify you that they witnessed

1 any outgoing fire from the Old Town on December 6th?

2 A. No.

3 Q. Did either you or any of the monitors observe any outgoing fire at

4 any time in October, November, or December from the Old Town?

5 A. That is a tough question because mentioning pretty much. And I am

6 sure that there must have been some outgoing, but that in general would

7 have been small-arms fire. There was a war going on and of course the

8 Croats had been shooting. But if you ask me now, I have no exact

9 information about it, of course there has been firing. But not -- I have

10 not observed it myself during my stay down there and my two colleagues

11 have not observed it.

12 Q. And had you ever seen any monitoring reports where anyone, any

13 monitor, had observed outgoing fire from the Old Town?

14 A. I can't recall it.

15 Q. Now, had you or any of your colleagues ever observed any mortars

16 in the Old Town?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Was the Old Town suitable for mortars?

19 A. No.

20 Q. Why is that?

21 A. Well, a mortar needs to be placed on earth, not too soft ground,

22 too much, but it sort of -- is constructed so it has to -- when you fire

23 the first shot is never going to be very good. But the first -- then the

24 mortar settles in the ground. And then you can start doing your proper

25 job. But if you make a visit to Dubrovnik, there's not very many places

1 in the Old City to place a mortar. It would be jumping around more

2 dangerous to yourself than anybody else. But I -- anyway, I have no

3 reports from any of my people and I have not seen anything like that in

4 the town. I can add that mortars are a different option. You might have

5 tiny, small 60-millimetre ones which are -- only more or less as useful as

6 a hand grenade. So there would be another [indiscernible] to anybody

7 outside the town. You have 81 or 80, those different calibers around

8 80-millimetre mortars which can jump along, but they were not there. We

9 have not seen them. And you have 120-millimetre or even bigger mortars,

10 and that -- not -- in my opinion not very suitable. I would not use in

11 general a mortar from that area, and I didn't see it.

12 Q. Had you ever heard of any artillery --

13 A. No.

14 Q. -- Being placed in the Old Town?

15 A. No.

16 Q. Had any of the ECMM monitors ever noted any artillery?

17 A. Nobody reported that to me while I was there. They would have

18 done if they had.

19 Q. Well, that's my -- that would have been my next question. If an

20 ECMM monitor, one of your monitors which you supervised, had observed

21 something like that, would that have been a matter for reporting up the

22 line?

23 A. Absolutely.

24 Q. Why was that?

25 A. Because we tried to keep control of what was happening and we are

1 trying to be neutral people. So it is important -- so what we know what

2 people are dealing with. And in case something happens that you sort of

3 confirm, these people had actually these weapons and be able to sort of

4 find out if they're using them. It's a normal part of being a neutral man

5 observing a cease-fire, just a routine job.

6 Q. And finally: Did you see any sort of military constructions, if

7 you want to call them, in the Old Town?

8 A. No.

9 Q. And that would include trenches, bunkers, anything like that?

10 A. Sorry. It would be very difficult to dig a trench in there, but

11 no, I didn't.

12 Q. And finally: Any sign, did you or your monitors see any sign of

13 any heavy weaponry in the Old Town?

14 A. No.

15 Q. Thank you.

16 MR. WEINER: Your Honour, that completes the Prosecution's

17 examination-in-chief.

18 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

19 Mr. Rodic.

20 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, in view of the time and

21 since our examination-in-chief [as interpreted] is likely to be quite

22 comprehensive, as was that by my colleague, I am not sure it's a good idea

23 to start now with only 15 minutes to go, or perhaps we should start

24 tomorrow to get more continuity.

25 JUDGE PARKER: We think that may be a practical proposal, in view

1 of the extent and nature of the evidence which you are to deal with. So

2 we will adjourn now until tomorrow, Mr. Rodic, to enable you to better

3 prepare --

4 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE PARKER: [Previous translation continues]... For what you

6 want to deal with.

7 Mr. Weiner.

8 MR. WEINER: No objection to closing earlier. But just one

9 housekeeping matter. Counsel has requested copies of the Kaiser [phoen]

10 exhibits and we will produce them as soon as we finish here, as soon as we

11 adjourn.

12 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

13 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, may I ask a question?

14 JUDGE PARKER: Indeed, Mr. Hvalkof.

15 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour. My horses and dogs are

16 waiting for me. When can I go back home?

17 JUDGE PARKER: I would like to be able to give you an answer,

18 Mr. Hvalkof. Perhaps Mr. Rodic can offer some assistance.

19 How long do you expect to be, Mr. Rodic?

20 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, it's very difficult to

21 say at this point with any degree of precision whatsoever, but I do have a

22 rough idea. It will take the whole day today [as interpretd] to complete

23 my cross-examination, in view of the number of documents that have been

24 introduced, in view of the importance of this witness for our case. Of

25 course my learned friend from the OTP went through the documents as he saw

1 fit, but we for our part must work through these documents in quite some

2 detail.

3 JUDGE PARKER: If that's the case, Mr. Rodic, I think it ambitious

4 of you to suggest that you would finish in one day. Am I being too

5 pessimistic?

6 MR. RODIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I will certainly do my

7 best, that's what I can say for sure. I will certainly be using up the

8 whole day tomorrow, but I really can't say whether I will be able to

9 complete my cross-examination tomorrow or not. Perhaps I will need some

10 more time, briefly I hope, on the day after.

11 JUDGE PARKER: We will live in hope that your first expression

12 proves to be correct, Mr. Rodic.

13 Well, you've heard all of that, Mr. Hvalkof. I wouldn't make a

14 booking tomorrow evening.

15 THE WITNESS: I'm anyway not doing that, Your Honours. Your

16 organisation is doing it. It's not the first time I've been detained like

17 that.

18 JUDGE PARKER: Well, I hope your animals can wait in patience.

19 We will adjourn until 9.00 tomorrow.

20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

21 at 1.33 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,

22 the 11th day of February, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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