Page 6734
1 Tuesday, 26 October 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.16 p.m.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Good afternoon to everybody in the courtroom and
6 to those listening to our procedures. Before the next witness will be
7 brought in, we have to deal with one problem related to a document. This
8 is the transcript of the testimony of this witness in the Krstic case.
9 This is still under seal. We raised this problem last Thursday and I
10 take it that the Prosecution is moving for lifting the confidentiality.
11 If this is my -- the correct understanding, perhaps you can help me,
12 Mr. McCloskey, then we have to deal with that.
13 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. We will move that. That
14 will obviously make my summary easier. I can refer to his testifying and
15 as well as the whole process and it fits with everything we are trying to
16 do and this witness' desires.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Is the witness aware of the fact that the
18 previous testimony in the Krstic case will no longer be under seal but
19 that the confidentiality will be listed? Does the witness know that?
20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, we've spoken and basically told him that
21 with his new view of things, that now everything would likely become
22 public and that I'm not sure I gave him the details of where we were in
23 that, but I am confident he understands that it's all a public now and he
24 is fine with that.
25 JUDGE FLUEGGE: If I recall correctly, Mr. Gajic, you have
Page 6735
1 indicated last week that the Defence has no problem with lifting the
2 confidentiality of this exhibit; is that correct?
3 MR. GAJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, yes, you are right.
4 We support the motion. Actually, the Prosecutor pre-empted us with the
5 request to lift the protective measures. Even before the Prosecution
6 proposed that, we had already prepared a motion for the lifting of the
7 confidentiality from the Krstic transcript to be lifted.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. Further to the Chamber's
9 oral ruling of the 10th of September this year, in light of both parties'
10 submissions, the Chamber orders that the confidentiality of Rave's prior
11 testimony in the Krstic case will be lifted pursuant to Rule 75 (G)(ii).
12 The witness should be brought in now.
13 Mr. McCloskey.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, I believe we've estimated an hour
15 and a half for this witness, and I hope to take much less than that,
16 though I have made my summary a little bit longer than I sometimes
17 normally do, but I hope to be much less than an hour and so I hope we are
18 not going that far, but my outline suggests that to me right now.
19 [The witness entered court]
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: When you mentioned the time of one hour, you are
21 not referring to your summary but to the examination-in-chief, I suppose?
22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, yes.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
24 Good afternoon, sir, Mr. Rave. Welcome to the Tribunal. Would
25 you please read aloud the affirmation on the card which is shown it to
Page 6736
1 you now.
2 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
3 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
4 WITNESS: EVERT RAVE
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. Please sit down.
6 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: You know unlike your prior testimony in another
8 case, you are now testifying in open session without protective measures.
9 We have heard from the Prosecution that you gave your consent with this
10 variation of the previous protective measures. You are in agreement with
11 that?
12 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's correct.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. Mr. McCloskey will have
14 some questions for you.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President.
16 Examination by Mr. McCloskey:
17 Q. Can you fist tell us your name and spell your last?
18 A. My name is Evert Albert Rave. And Rave is R-a-v-e.
19 Q. All right. And can you recall testify in the Prosecution versus
20 General Krstic back in March of 2000?
21 A. Yeah, I do.
22 Q. And was that testimony true and correct?
23 A. Yes, it was.
24 Q. And if you were asked the same questions, would your answers be
25 the same?
Page 6737
1 A. Yeah, they would exactly be the same.
2 Q. And have you had a chance to review your transcript in that case?
3 A. Yeah, and it's still the same.
4 Q. And we all notice that you are speaking in English. You are
5 Dutch by nationality; is that correct?
6 A. Yes, I'm Dutch.
7 Q. And was it your choice to speak in English?
8 A. Yes. I did it in the Krstic case exactly the same, I think, and
9 shouldn't be a problem to do it again in English.
10 Q. All right. Thank you.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: And at this time, Mr. President, I would offer
12 P01004 which is the transcript from the Krstic case into evidence.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It will be received as a public exhibit.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: As well as the material noted that came in
15 through him in that case, P01005, a video still; P01006, another video
16 still of Lieutenant-Colonel Svetozar Kosoric. It may be PO as I'm
17 looking at this. PO 1107. Sorry, I'm told it is a zero. P01007 is the
18 video still of Colonel Radoslav Jankovic. And then we have the segment
19 P00991 of the Srebrenica trial video, and the transcript of the
20 Srebrenica trial video is P01008.
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: These documents will be received but I have to
22 note that P991 is already an exhibit.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, thank you. And the Court will remember
24 seeing the video in other formats before. All right. Now, I will read a
25 summary of your testimony before and then ask you a few questions.
Page 6738
1 In 1995, Evert Rave was a warrant officer 2nd class with the
2 Dutch army. And he was a member of the Dutch Battalion deployed to the
3 Srebrenica enclave on 3 January 1995. His rank was that of
4 sergeant-major. In July, 1995, Mr. Rave was assigned to the
5 Dutch Battalion base in Potocari and held the position of a liaison
6 officer and advisor of field security for the commander of the
7 Dutch Battalion, Colonel Karremans.
8 As liaison officer, Mr. Rave had regular contacts with the
9 civilian and military people from the Muslim community inside the enclave
10 and various officers of the VRS located outside the enclave. As field
11 security officer, Mr. Rave advised the commander on protective measures
12 relating to personnel, materiel, information, and other military issues.
13 As liaison officer for DutchBat, Mr. Rave had contact with the
14 commander of the Drina Corps, General Zivanovic, Major Momir Nikolic from
15 the Bratunac Brigade, a VRS interpreter known to him as "Petar" and
16 others. Major Nikolic was Mr. Rave's principal contact for issues
17 related to the enclave and the VRS.
18 On 31 May, Mr. Rave was at a meeting with Major Nikolic and a VRS
19 officer named Vukovic where the VRS officers told DutchBat that DutchBat
20 would have to leave OP-Echo or the VRS would take it by force.
21 On 3 June, the VRS attacked OP-Echo and the DutchBat soldiers
22 stationed there withdrew from the OP.
23 On 6 July, the VRS began attacking the enclave, targeting UN OPs
24 during the attack. The attack continued through 11 July. During that
25 time, VRS shells fell near the UN compound in Potocari and the UN
Page 6739
1 compound in Srebrenica. The OPs were targeted causing Dutch soldiers
2 inside the OPs to surrender to the Serb forces to avoid being targeted by
3 Muslim soldiers who were angered by the Dutch withdrawal from the OPs.
4 At times, Muslim soldiers would fire at the VRS forces from
5 around the area of the OPs in order to draw VRS fire on the OPs. In
6 Mr. Rave's view, this was done by the Muslim forces in an effort to get
7 the UN to fire on the VRS. According to Mr. Rave, the enclave was never
8 fully demilitarised.
9 On 9 July, the UNMOs had to leave Srebrenica because it was no
10 longer safe there. Also on 9 July, the roughly 4.000 Muslims living at
11 the Swedish Shelter Project south of Srebrenica began fleeing to the town
12 of Srebrenica.
13 On 10 July in the evening, DutchBat commander Colonel Karremans
14 and Mr. Rave met with civilian and military representatives of the Muslim
15 population in Srebrenica. At that meeting Colonel Karremans told the
16 Muslims that air-strikes would occur on the VRS forces if the VRS attacks
17 continued the next day.
18 Mr. Rave spent the night in the Srebrenica UN compound, known as
19 "Bravo Company." On the morning of 11 July, the VRS attack continued and
20 shells fell in and around Srebrenica town, including inside Bravo
21 compound, wounding several people. At 3.00 p.m., Major Boering, a
22 DutchBat officer, and Mr. Rave left Srebrenica to Potocari in a jeep
23 crowded with Muslim refugees. On the way to Potocari, shells fell along
24 the road and Rave felt the VRS were using their fire in an attempt to
25 move the crowd in the direction of Potocari. On that day there were
Page 6740
1 brief air-strikes but they had no significant effect on the assault and
2 did not last long.
3 At 5.00 p.m., Rave returned to the Potocari base and estimated
4 about 10- to 15.000 frightened Muslims were in the area around the UN
5 base. At 7.00 p.m., Colonel Karremans ordered Rave to go to a meeting
6 with Karremans and Major Boering, the Hotel Fontana in Bratunac. Rave
7 arrived at the Hotel Fontana at 8.00 p.m. with Colonel Karremans and
8 Major Boering. Upon entering the hotel, Mr. Rave saw several UN soldiers
9 who had left their OPs and surrendered to the VRS. In addition, Rave
10 identified the following people present and inside the hold:
11 General Mladic, General Zivanovic, Colonel Jankovic, an officer
12 introduced to him as Kosoric, and Major Nikolic and Petar, the
13 interpreter.
14 Mr. Rave testified that he remembered that General Mladic
15 personally yelled at both he and Major Boering, just as can be seen he
16 did to Colonel Karremans on a video of that meeting. However, Mr. Rave
17 stated that the tape did not contain the segments where Mladic yelled at
18 him and Boering.
19 Mr. Rave also testified that General Mladic told them if there
20 were more air-strikes, Mladic would shell the UN compound and the
21 refugees gathered in Potocari and would also target the UN soldiers held
22 at the Hotel Fontana. These comments by Mladic were also not on the film
23 segment that Rave watched.
24 At that time, Mr. Rave felt that it was possible that he,
25 Karremans, and Boering would be taken outside and shot.
Page 6741
1 General Mladic told Karremans to find a Muslim representative and
2 bring him back to the hotel at 11.00 p.m., among other things at the
3 meeting. Rave testified they went back to Potocari where they were able
4 to find Nesib Mandzic, who they knew as a teacher from the secondary
5 school in Srebrenica and brought him to the Hotel Fontana at 11.00 p.m.
6 as a civilian representative.
7 At the second meeting where they were taken in and sat down,
8 Mr. Rave was unable to follow much of what Mladic was saying because
9 Petar was translating for Colonel Karremans, and Rave was unable to hear
10 the complete translation because Colonel Karremans and Petar were seated
11 away from him. Mr. Rave described a pig being slaughtered just outside
12 the meeting room window and he felt this was done to intimidate DutchBat
13 and Mr. Mandzic.
14 Mr. Rave testified and described the continuing meeting as
15 sometimes, and I quote, "rather relaxed," and other times, and I quote,
16 "very mean" on Mladic's part.
17 On 12 July, Mr. Rave spent the morning at the compound in
18 Potocari. Rave described the VRS entering the compound at Potocari area
19 and the frightened reactions of the Muslim population. Rave witnessed
20 the separation of Muslim men from their families and the boarding of men
21 on buses. He described that he saw men hit and kicked on to the bus at
22 one point when they tried to get away.
23 On the morning of 13th July, Mr. Rave received a report that
24 DutchBat soldiers found nine Muslim bodies near the compound, who had
25 been shot in the back. Photos were taken of the bodies by DutchBat.
Page 6742
1 Mr. Rave saw Colonel Jankovic in and around the Potocari on both
2 the 12th and 13th of July. On 13 July, a VRS officer named Acamovic
3 arrived in Potocari and took part in organising the transport of the
4 Muslims. Acamovic was provided a list of local Muslims employed by
5 DutchBat and other international organisations in Srebrenica, such as
6 MSF. That list was provided to him by DutchBat. By 8.00 p.m. on 13
7 July, the Muslim population of the enclave had been transported out of
8 the enclave. On 21 July, DutchBat and local staff left the enclave and
9 travelled to Zagreb.
10 That concludes the summary of the Krstic testimony.
11 Q. And Mr. Rave, was there anything inaccurate that you recall in
12 the summary?
13 A. No, I think it's a correct summary from the statement.
14 Q. All right. And I notice you have a binder in front of you and I
15 can see there's some coloured books in there. Can you tell us what that
16 material is?
17 A. Yes, I brought my notebooks which I used during all the meeting
18 we had and with the Muslims and with the Serb soldiers we dealed with,
19 which I took my notes just when former commander or just to analyse what
20 was going on or just reminders for myself. And I brought my diary in
21 which I wrote every evening small part what happened that day and more or
22 less my own feelings.
23 Q. Did you have a chance to review that material as well as the
24 different statements you made prior to your testimony back in 2000 in the
25 Krstic case?
Page 6743
1 A. Yes, I had the possibility and I also did.
2 Q. All right. And have you had a chance to review that material
3 again before testifying here today?
4 A. Yes, the same answer, I had the possibility and I also did.
5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, all that material has been
6 provided to the Defence. Some of it for quite a long time, others of
7 which we had expanded the area of the diary a bit and it's all been
8 translated into B/C/S and provided with the Defence also. It's not my
9 intension to make it exhibits.
10 Q. But Mr. Rave, if you need to refer to that to help refresh your
11 recollection, I don't think that will be any problem, but if you could
12 let us know what you are referring to to do that so that we understand
13 what that is. All right?
14 Okay. You testified that, I believe it was on 11 July, a shell
15 fell in the Srebrenica compound injuring some people. Can you tell us
16 what people did you mean in the Krstic transcript?
17 A. On that morning, a lot of civilian people from Srebrenica were
18 gathered outside of the compound and would not be allowed to go into the
19 compound. At one time there were so many people and they broke through
20 the fences and went on the compound because they were looking for a safe
21 place to stay. In their point of view, the UN compound was safe for them
22 to go there. So a lot of Muslim, especially women and children, were
23 gathered on the compound of the Bravo Company and also elderly men, and
24 at a certain time a mortar shell, I think at least it was a mortar shell,
25 it was a shell, landed between two APCs on the compound, luckily between
Page 6744
1 two APCs so only a few people were wounded by that shell, so civilian
2 Muslim people were wounded by that shell and after that treated by the
3 medical personnel that was on the Bravo compound.
4 Q. Did you actually see the shell land or see the impact of the
5 shell as it landed or sometime afterward?
6 A. Just sometime afterward because I was not on the spot at that
7 moment. I heard that a shell landed and directly after that we were
8 confronted with the wounded.
9 Q. When you say you heard that the shell landed, did you hear that
10 from word of mouth that a shell had landed or did you actually hear the
11 sound of the shell?
12 A. I heard the blast of the shell.
13 Q. And how far away was that impact from you when you went out to
14 see it?
15 A. I think between 25 and 50 metres because the parking-lot of the
16 compound was just beside the buildings and we were in or just outside the
17 buildings.
18 Q. All right. You also testified explaining how you were trying to
19 get the Muslims to go in the direction of Potocari. Why did you and the
20 DutchBat do that?
21 A. There were so many people gathered on and around the compound of
22 the Bravo Company that we could not do anything with the people. The VRS
23 attack still continued, and in our opinion it was the best and the safest
24 place to go northwards to the bigger compound in Potocari. So we tried
25 to inform the people that it was better for them to go to Potocari, but
Page 6745
1 there was of course a problem. They had the idea that they were in a
2 safe haven at that moment and they didn't want to go there until, I
3 think, 2.00 in the afternoon. There were some air-strikes at that
4 moment, the people got a little bit trust that something was done to the
5 VRS in the southern part of the enclave, and don't know why, but at that
6 moment we were able to send them northward to the Potocari area.
7 Q. You described your ride in that jeep, the 5 kilometres to
8 Potocari, you described shells falling around. Can you describe that for
9 the Court, how -- where these shells were falling, how far away they were
10 from you as you were travelling?
11 A. The road from Srebrenica to Potocari is in a valley, and in my
12 impression all the time shells were falling between the 150 and more
13 metres on both sides of the road. And I had the idea that it was just to
14 keep the people on the road and to move them in the northern direction so
15 that the VRS could get all Srebrenica in their hands.
16 Q. Can you describe the road, clearly you are on the road, is
17 anybody else on the road?
18 A. The refugees from Srebrenica went up to the northern part to
19 Potocari and I think that the road was overcrowded with thousands of
20 people walking with all their luggage with them. Some UN vehicles from
21 the Bravo Company, especially trucks with also the wounded from the
22 hospital in Srebrenica were on the road, so the road was also
23 overcrowded, and driving on that road was just going step by step in a
24 vehicle over that road.
25 Q. Do you know what kind of shells were falling? Were they mortar
Page 6746
1 shells, artillery shells?
2 A. No, in my opinion, but I have to recollect it now, and it's 15
3 years ago, I think it were mortar shell. But I also did not write it
4 down in my diary, just that there were shells falling.
5 Q. Did you see any potential target for those shells, any
6 Muslim Army or any other target for these shells to be falling on either
7 side of the road as you have described, as this massive group of people
8 is walking along?
9 A. No, there were no military targets. In my impression it was the
10 only opportunity to steer people from Srebrenica in the northern
11 direction towards Potocari.
12 Q. Okay. We are now getting to -- I want to take you to the first
13 meeting at the Hotel Fontana.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Your Honours, you may remember, it was a long
15 time ago, we actually played this meeting with no witnesses, I believe we
16 had a video day where we just played it. I would like to play part of it
17 today so Mr. Rave can add a few details, but I don't intend to play all
18 of it. So if we could start with that video. It's Exhibit P00991, and
19 we are starting at 003649.9.
20 Q. Before we start the video, we recall from the summary, have you
21 had a chance to review the video that we showed you of that first
22 meeting?
23 A. Yes, I had.
24 Q. Was that a complete video of everything that you recall happening
25 at that meeting?
Page 6747
1 A. No, as you stated before, I missed some parts of the things that
2 happened over there, especially the part that when General Mladic
3 shouting to Colonel Karremans. After that he did the same to us, me and
4 Mr. Boering, well this, at least not on the video.
5 Q. All right. Let's, I would like to play the video and see if we
6 can tell what you were talking about.
7 [Video-clip played]
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Again we are at 36.56.7.
9 Q. And can you just -- let's go from left to right, and I think we
10 all recognise General Mladic on the far left. Were you introduced to the
11 person next to him?
12 A. Yes, that's the Colonel Jankovic. And after that, to the right
13 in the middle, you can see the Colonel Karremans and then myself.
14 Q. And so you are on the far right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Had you ever seen Colonel Jankovic before that?
17 A. No, I've never seen him before.
18 Q. And did you see him at the second Hotel Fontana meeting that
19 night at 11.00 p.m.?
20 A. Yes, he was also there.
21 Q. And did you see him in and around Potocari on the 12th and 13th
22 of July?
23 A. Yes. Colonel Jankovic was all the time around even to the last
24 day as we left the enclave near Yellow Bridge -- near the iron bridge in
25 Bratunac he was also there, so from that moment on we saw him the first
Page 6748
1 time until we left the enclave he was frequently there all the time.
2 Q. Okay. Let's -- well, as we see is there any translation going on
3 here or attempting to go on?
4 A. I missed the video now, but at that moment there was no
5 interpreter. Colonel Jankovic spoke English and acted at that moment as
6 a translator.
7 Q. Did that change at some point?
8 A. Yes, before the real interrogation or accusation by Mladic
9 started, the interpreter Petar came in.
10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. I think let's -- let's just watch this for
11 awhile and I'll just have a couple of questions.
12 [Video-clip played]
13 THE WITNESS: I have no video at this moment.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Do you have it now?
15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I've got it now.
16 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think we are okay.
17 [Video-clip played]
18 MR. McCLOSKEY:
19 Q. Here it appears we see Colonel Karremans saying he is not the one
20 that requested the air support. Was that true?
21 A. I think he requested the air support, fired in the normal chain
22 of command.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right. Let's continue.
24 [Video-clip played]
25 MR. McCLOSKEY: We are stopping at 50.22.6.
Page 6749
1 Q. We did see awhile back General Mladic had raised his voice quite
2 a bit. Is that what you were talking about when you say he raised his
3 voice at General Mladic -- excuse me, at Colonel Karremans?
4 A. Yes, he seemed to be very angry at Colonel Karremans because of
5 the loss of his soldiers in the attacks by the aeroplanes.
6 Q. We don't see as this tape continues any screaming at you or
7 Boering. Can you recall where that happened in this sequence of events?
8 A. Yeah, I think in my opinion it was also directly after the
9 screaming to Colonel Karremans that he also started screaming to me and
10 to Mr. Boering, so this, at least, part I'm missing in this tape.
11 Q. How about the threat as you described against the -- well, why
12 don't you in your own words tell us what the threat was that he made
13 against who?
14 A. The way he acted now against Colonel Karremans, he did the same
15 to Mr. Boering and to myself. The way he was looking, the way he was
16 shouting, the way he was acting, the way it was translated by the
17 interpreter was so threatening to us that I, in the first ten minutes I
18 think, and that's what I wrote down in my diary, the first ten minutes I
19 thought we will end up in the garden and he will shoot us.
20 Q. What particular threats did he make?
21 A. During the whole meeting, he gave us the impression that he is
22 the boss, we had shot at his soldiers so he would do the same to us,
23 that's the impression he gave us. And somewhere in the meeting, I think
24 it is a little bit further on, he gave the impression that if there
25 should be any air-strikes again, that he would target the compound, the
Page 6750
1 refugees and also the soldiers that were held hostage or POW in the
2 Hotel Fontana at that moment.
3 Q. Now, I don't think the tape shows any of those direct threats
4 towards the UN compound, the refugees, or the Dutch soldiers?
5 A. No, I have not seen that on the tape.
6 Q. And do you know in this sequence at the Hotel Fontana when he
7 made those threats?
8 A. In my opinion, it was also in the beginning of the meeting when
9 he was shouting and when he was threatening us because after those
10 threats it became a little more calm, and, well, at least at that moment,
11 we could hear the demands of General Mladic because there was no
12 negotiation going on, it was just hearing his demands.
13 Q. All right.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Unless the Court want to hear the rest of it, we
15 have our witness presents, I'm satisfied that the transcript is there,
16 and, of course, General Tolimir can play more on cross if he'd like. But
17 I think to save some time, I don't think we need to play the rest of it,
18 unless you'd like to see it.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think we are in agreement with your proposal.
20 Judge Nyambe has a question.
21 JUDGE NYAMBE: Just a clarification: Did I understand to mean
22 that this meeting was requested by General Karremans?
23 THE WITNESS: I don't know, that might be possible. The only
24 thing I know that at about 7.00 in the evening I got the order to join
25 Colonel Karremans to the meeting in the Hotel Fontana. And I don't know
Page 6751
1 if it was on the request of General Mladic or the Serb side, or it was on
2 the request of the Colonel Karremans. As it seems now on the tape, it
3 stated that it was on the request of Colonel Karremans. That might be
4 possible.
5 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Judge Mindua.
7 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Yes, I have a question.
8 Mr. McCloskey, you say that you are not going to continue playing the
9 video. Does this mean that today we are not going to see the passage
10 where there's the pig, the pig that was slaughtered? Is this what you
11 were saying?
12 MR. McCLOSKEY: What I meant by that is that this is still the
13 first Hotel Fontana meeting as we call it, and I thought that it wasn't
14 necessary to show any more of that. I have been going back and forth in
15 my head whether I should show the pig, and I think we can show that pig
16 part briefly and ask this witness about it. So I think, especially given
17 your question, it's probably a good idea to show that part and ask him
18 about it. That's at the second meeting and we'll get to that.
19 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Very well. So we'll come back to
20 this because I believe that it is very important for me, and you also
21 mentioned this in the summary of the statement that you read earlier, so
22 I would like to come back to this issue.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you. That helps me decide that point which
24 I've been going back and forth in my head. These 92 ter witnesses, we
25 try to give you what we think is most important and that helps me quite a
Page 6752
1 bit. All right. We'll let that be in the record. The transcript and
2 the video is something the Court should have, as you know we are
3 endeavouring to let you have good CDs of that.
4 Q. And we know from the summary that you were told to -- by Mladic
5 to go get civilian and military representatives and bring them back for
6 an 11.00 meeting. And did you do that?
7 A. Yes. At that moment I think we told already General Mladic that
8 it was very problematic for us to get in touch with the military
9 leadership in the enclave because we had no contact at that moment with
10 them. So we informed them already at that moment, but we were able to
11 find a civilian representative that we met before in the enclave and who
12 was willing to join us to the 11.00 meeting.
13 Q. And who was that?
14 A. It was director of the secondary school in Srebrenica,
15 Mr. Nesib Mandzic.
16 Q. All right. And what do you recall about the beginning of that
17 meeting and the pig?
18 A. In that meeting we came into the room again, sat down. At that
19 moment, I don't know if the window and the curtains were already open or
20 were opened at that moment, but the window at least was open and after
21 that the meeting started. I think the meeting, from my notes, the
22 meeting started 11.00, and five minutes later, I had the impression that
23 beneath the window that was opened and the curtains were open, that a pig
24 was slaughtered outside just to intimidate the people inside the briefing
25 room where we were sitting, and, of course, not the Serb side because at
Page 6753
1 least lieutenant, and seemed to be Lieutenant-Colonel Kosoric, started
2 smiling and also other people were grincing [phoen] when the pig were
3 slaughtered, at least when we heard him scream, and when it hardly ended
4 they closed the window and closed the curtains again, so at least the
5 meeting started with an intimidation towards us.
6 Q. So you said people were smiling and grinning?
7 A. Grincing I had the impression that it was all arranged in advance
8 and people knew what was happening or was going to happen.
9 Q. Can you describe what window you are talking about, where it was
10 in relation to where you were sitting and where General Mladic was
11 sitting?
12 A. It was the window behind General Mladic and to the right side of
13 myself. Most right corner of the window when you entered the room, the
14 main entrance and then you look towards the window, and on the most right
15 side there was a window that was opened and also the curtains were
16 opened.
17 Q. And you said you had the impression that a pig was being
18 slaughtered. Was that only an impression or what did you mean by when
19 you said you had the impression?
20 A. Well, I wrote also down in my diary that a pig was slaughtered.
21 Of course I did not see that it was slaughtered so it can also be treated
22 very bad, but I think that it was slaughtered, at least I have heard that
23 scream from a pig before when it's slaughtered and --
24 Q. Well, tell us about that. When, if ever, had you ever
25 experienced the slaughtering of a pig?
Page 6754
1 A. My grandfather was a farmer and I've seen slaughtering of a pig
2 over there, so I recognised, at least, that sound and that's the sound I
3 related to the sound I heard that evening.
4 Q. You also just said something about a pig makes a noise if you
5 treat it very badly. Can you tell us having had some farming experience
6 what is the difference, in your view, between a pig being slaughtered and
7 a pig being, you know, held up by it's legs or something like that?
8 A. Yeah, when you keep a pig with his legs or on his tail or on his
9 ears, then it starts screaming and stops when you stop. And in this
10 case, I had the impression that it faded away slowly, so maybe his throat
11 was cut or something like that. Because that's the impression I still
12 have and what I find in my diary that the pig was slaughtered, so I made
13 at that time directly the connection that the pig was slaughtered.
14 Q. Can you read -- can you go to your diary, if that is all right,
15 and just read specifically what you say about that? You've mentioned
16 that several times. And before you read it, can you tell us when you
17 wrote the notes in this diary?
18 A. These notes were written down during the meeting, so when we
19 started the meeting, I started to wrote down the meeting I saw in the
20 meeting. We started it was three people DutchBat, on the 11th of July at
21 2300 hours. The people who were there. And then the first note I made
22 2305 pig slaughtering on film, sound, window, curtain open, smile, men
23 with cigar pipe and moustache and tank, I know now that was
24 Lieutenant Kosoric, I refer to in this one.
25 Q. What does the tank have to do with Colonel Kosoric?
Page 6755
1 A. In my recollection, he has the tattoo of a tank on his arm --
2 yeah, tattoo on a tank -- tank tattoo on his arm.
3 Q. All right. And you read out your notes in English. Are they in
4 English or in Dutch?
5 A. No, they are in Dutch. I can read them in Dutch, if you like.
6 Q. Why don't you do that just for the record, in case it's an issue.
7 It's all right. We hear a lot of Dutch around. It's only a few words so
8 if you could just say it.
9 A. [Dutch spoken]
10 [In English] That is on Kosoric.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: We'll get a translation of that for the record,
12 Mr. President. I don't normally like doing that, but I just, as I'm
13 concentrating through this, I thought that was a good thing to get down
14 so it's been so interested by the Court.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It's, of course, not on the record, but it was
16 taped and perhaps we have the chance to get a proper translation of that.
17 MR. McCLOSKEY: I'm sorry about that, just seemed like something
18 we should get.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Judge Nyambe has a question.
20 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes, I have no further questions, so I turn you
21 over to the witness. Thank you.
22 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Yes, I thank Judge Nyambe for
23 letting me put my questions first. Witness, as you probably know, I went
24 to Sarajevo and I also went to Hotel Fontana, I saw the briefing room.
25 Now, this is my question: Are you sure that the pig was slaughtered in
Page 6756
1 the street or was he slaughtered -- or was this pig slaughtered in the
2 kitchen of the hotel? That's my first question. Okay. You gave us your
3 impression of the situation. I thank you for that. You told us what
4 your impression was when it comes to the slaughtering of the pig, but
5 this is what I would like to know, I'd like to know whether after the
6 fact you actually discussed with the Muslims to see what they felt about
7 what had occurred and whether you discussed also this incident with the
8 Serbs? Thank you.
9 THE WITNESS: Well, I think you are asking me three questions
10 now. I think that the kitchen of the Hotel Fontana, in my opinion, was
11 not at the outside of the window where the window was open and the
12 curtains were open. I think that's somewhere outside the hotel and I
13 don't know exactly if the window has a view on the street or in a garden
14 or something else, but at least not in a kitchen.
15 It just happened and I think we might have spoken about it
16 afterwards, but not at that moment during the session we had in the
17 briefing room over there, and I also don't think that we spoke with the
18 Serbs afterwards about the incident. It was just one of the things that
19 happened, and, well, it was just one of the intimidating things. That's
20 it and I think we had a lot of more important problems to solve than this
21 at the moment.
22 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Thank you.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: I did mean to play that segment which may be
24 helpful for any future questions so that we can see the area and get an
25 idea what we are talking about.
Page 6757
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think that would be helpful, but before that
2 Judge Nyambe has a question.
3 JUDGE NYAMBE: Yes, like Judge Mindua before me I've had the
4 opportunity to visit Hotel Fontana and being in the actual meeting room
5 that you referred to. My question is: Having stated yourself that you
6 are a farmer and you've dealt with pigs, and you are familiar with what
7 happens to pigs when they were being slaughtered, what is it about the
8 slaughter of this pig that you perceive as an intimidation towards you?
9 THE WITNESS: I think first I have to take away a little mistake,
10 I think. I'm not a farmer, my grandfather was farmer and there I heard
11 and saw the slaughtering of a pig. And because I knew the sound of the
12 slaughtering of a pig and heard that sound the same evening we were in
13 the Hotel Fontana, that's why I made the connection of a slaughtering of
14 a pig. Because when you slaughter a pig, it starts screaming and yelling
15 in a terrible way, at least for normal people, I think. In my opinion,
16 it gave the impression: What we can do to the pig, we can also do to the
17 Muslims. That's what the impression what I got at that moment. It was
18 pure intimidating.
19 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
21 MR. McCLOSKEY:
22 Q. Were you aware of any special or significance of a pig or a pork
23 in the Islamic religion?
24 A. Yes, of course. Of course in the Islamic religion it's not
25 allowed to eat pork or -- and normally they also don't have pigs,
Page 6758
1 although in the enclave we were, there were also Muslims who had pigs and
2 who slaughtered pigs. Sometime when we had no fuel anymore, we had to
3 close down our cooling facilities, we had a lot of pork meat and also a
4 lot of other meat, we asked the Muslim leadership in the enclave if it
5 was allowed for us to give the pork meat to the Muslims in the enclave.
6 They refused because they said it doesn't fit into our religion. So we
7 don't accept it. So we gave it to the Serbs to deal with both sides.
8 Q. Do you know if you considered this the religious tradition when
9 you were thinking whether -- this issue about intimidation or not?
10 A. No, I don't think I connected it to a religious thing. Just more
11 intimidation of slaughtering, in this case a pig, but it also could have
12 been a dog or something else.
13 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. Let's play the segment. And we are at
14 01.16.10.0. And this is the beginning of the meeting.
15 [Video-clip played]
16 MR. McCLOSKEY:
17 Q. Now we are at 01.16.23.1. We can see Colonel Jankovic and we can
18 see the left hand, do you know who that is sitting next to
19 Colonel Jankovic who we can't quite see, do you remember?
20 A. Yes, was sitting there, that's Petar the interpreter next to
21 Jankovic, then the Colonel Karremans and then Nesib Mandzic. And the guy
22 who is standing over there is the man who I frequently saw near the
23 General Mladic and I think he was a body-guard of General Mladic.
24 Q. And do you know who is sitting next to Jankovic who we can't see,
25 all we can see his left hand?
Page 6759
1 A. Left to Jankovic is General Mladic.
2 Q. Can you tell from this video where the window might be that you
3 are talking about?
4 A. The man who is standing over there is standing in the open, I
5 don't know if it's open, standing there near the window. I think it's
6 open at that moment.
7 Q. All right. And could you tell where the sound of the pig was
8 coming from?
9 A. From the direction the man is looking toward now.
10 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right. And let's play the rest of it and see
11 if there's any questions.
12 [Video-clip played]
13 MR. McCLOSKEY:
14 Q. Okay. We are now at 01.18.22.8. And I think we'll all agree for
15 several seconds before this we heard a very loud screeching sound. Was
16 that what you are talking about?
17 A. Yes, that's, in my opinion, the slaughtering of the pig.
18 Q. And you said that Kosoric was smiling. Where was Kosoric sitting
19 when you noticed him smiling?
20 A. He was sitting opposite me.
21 Q. So opposite across the table from you?
22 A. Yes, yes.
23 Q. Was he smiling before that terrible noise?
24 A. No, he was just making note of -- taking notes. And when this
25 happened, he started smiling and grincing in a way, so nice trick isn't
Page 6760
1 it, that's the way he looked.
2 Q. We all noticed Colonel Karremans didn't look up, didn't appear to
3 make -- have any reaction at all. Do you have any explanation for that?
4 A. No, I think it's amazing that he doesn't react at all. I think
5 he is so into his own mind, busy with in dealing things, that he want to
6 bring across the table to the General Mladic that I don't even know if he
7 recognised it.
8 Q. Later on in this video we see General Mladic speaking to
9 Mr. Mandzic and says something to the effect that, Nesib, the future of
10 your people is in your hands, whether they survive or disappear. Have
11 you seen this on this video?
12 A. Yes, I've seen that part of the video.
13 Q. Do you remember it happening in the room or was that something
14 that you couldn't catch the translation of because, as you've described,
15 the translator was not right there?
16 A. In my notes, I can't find it. I can read in my notes that about
17 2315 he shows us a shield from the opstina, tells a story, and then makes
18 a show about that he found nothing in the hospital, medicines, and after
19 that he had a real, in my opinion, a relaxed discussion with Mr. Mandzic.
20 After that Mladic gave a statement it was about 20 minutes after 11.00,
21 and directly after the statement of Mladic -- statement of Mandzic,
22 Mr. Mladic gave a statement towards Mandzic again and he was accusing him
23 and had a mean look in his eyes that it was all their fault, and I think
24 in that part he also told that the future of his people were in his
25 hands.
Page 6761
1 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right. I have nothing further.
2 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Is that the end of your examination-in-chief?
3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President.
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
5 Mr. Tolimir, do you have cross-examination with this witness?
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I
7 would like to welcome the witness. May God's peace reign in this
8 courthouse and may his will be done and not necessarily mine.
9 Cross-examination by Mr. Tolimir:
10 Q. [Interpretation] Witness, let's start with the scene that we saw
11 last, with the last video-clip that we saw and what you said on page 27
12 of today's transcript from line 10 onwards, when you spoke about your
13 feelings and impressions. Kindly listen and see the video-clip again.
14 You say that you heard a pig. Could you please try and reflect whether
15 you heard -- whether that was indeed a pig or some sort of poultry.
16 Thank you. After that, we will continue our conversation. Thank you.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the Prosecutor please play
18 that part of the video-clip if the witness wants to listen to it again.
19 Thank you.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, of course, Ms. Stewart will endeavour to
22 find that spot where it starts. And maybe I can, just for the record,
23 state where it starts. We are starting at --
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. The sound starts at
25 01.17.30, thank you, on the video. Thank you.
Page 6762
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No, this is not correct. This is 01.17.00.8.
2 [Video-clip played]
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would like to thank you,
4 Mr. President.
5 [Video-clip played]
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
7 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Since you mentioned your grandfather having been a farmer, would
9 you say that this is the screeching of a pig or of some other animal?
10 A. In my opinion, this is the screaming of a pig.
11 Q. Are you sure of that, of what you are saying?
12 A. Of course I'm sure. And that in my opinion, this is the
13 screaming of a pig. If any other animal that is slaughtered makes the
14 same noise, that could be possible of course. But in my opinion, this is
15 a slaughtering of a pig. And that's what I think now, but that's what I
16 also felt in the evening we were sitting there and that's what I also
17 find in my notes so that's the only recollection I've got.
18 Q. Thank you. Since nobody reacted, Karremans didn't, Mladic
19 didn't, Petar the interpreter didn't react, how do you account for that,
20 how come nobody reacted to the sound?
21 A. I think I can only give my impression and what I think. Because
22 if you want to know why they don't react, I think you should ask them.
23 As I said, I think it was all preset. It was arranged in advance and
24 maybe before we entered the room, as DutchBat representatives, the rest
25 of the people might have been already informed that this was happen. In
Page 6763
1 my opinion, it's amazing for me to see that Colonel Karremans does not
2 react at all, and I think he might be so intense with his notes and with
3 the way he brings it up to the General Mladic that that might be the
4 reason that he doesn't react. But I don't know, I think you should ask
5 Colonel Karremans in showing him this why he doesn't react.
6 Q. Thank you. Could you tell me whether there were any people who
7 did not know and they didn't react? Karremans didn't react, and we can
8 see on your face that you didn't react either. We can replay the video
9 again. Mandzic, for example, he didn't react either.
10 A. I didn't see on the video during the slaughtering of the pig the
11 face of Mandzic or myself because I was not sitting next to Mandzic.
12 There was another person sitting next to Mandzic. I did not see myself
13 and I did not see any other reactions and only the face of Petar and
14 Colonel Karremans. Maybe we can try the video again and see if there's
15 anybody else not reacting.
16 Q. And before we ask the Prosecutor to play the video again, would
17 you say that Muslims would be intimidated by the slaughtering of the pigs
18 if they, themselves, were eating pigs? You said it yourself that there
19 were Muslims who kept pigs and ate pigs. It was not uncustomary in
20 Bosnia for Muslims to eat pigs. There were those who were religious and
21 didn't eat pig, and on the other hands there were those who did. So once
22 again were there Muslims in Bosnia who did keep pigs and who also ate
23 pigs?
24 A. I know that in the enclave there were Muslims that kept pigs and
25 were eating pigs. But the intimidation, I think, is very clear. After
Page 6764
1 having been in a real war situation for several days, being shelled for
2 several days, more than 15.000 people running and fleeing because they
3 are threatened to death, I think, gathered around the compounds with no
4 idea what is going on, what is happening with them, then especially
5 Mr. Mandzic picked up as a representative from the refugees going with us
6 to meeting where we did not know what to expect again after the first
7 meeting, we only got a lot of orders from the General Mladic what he
8 wanted. After that, we went there with a frightened civilian with us who
9 was not allowed to go out of the enclave for several years, was going out
10 now for the first time to the Serb side, did not know what he could
11 expect. So he was frightened already, and I think at that moment
12 slaughtering a pig beneath the window, it was enough intimidating and not
13 only normal slaughtering of a pig that happened when people want to eat
14 the pigs they raise themselves.
15 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell us whether the scared civilian
16 was a soldier, and do you know that that person ventured as far as 15
17 kilometres into the Serbian territory and killed every person to the last
18 in Kravica? Do you know that or perhaps not?
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Objection. That kind of vulgar misstatement and
21 accusation is uncalled for. It should not be allowed on the record and I
22 would ask that General Tolimir never repeats such vulgarities again.
23 Unless he has evidence, if he has proof of something, he can say -- or
24 evidence of something he can put that in a question, but there's no
25 evidence of any murders by Mr. Mandzic.
Page 6765
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, if you want to know something from
2 this witness, you should rephrase your question.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, a witness stated
4 before this Trial Chamber that he was in Kravica. Another witness stated
5 that everything was torched and everybody killed there. If this is not
6 proof, what is proof? I can't bring you people who were killed and
7 that's why I asked him that, that's why I said what I did.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No, this is not true, Mr. Tolimir. You were
9 directly referring to Mr. Mandzic in two sections. Please rephrase your
10 question and then put it to the witness.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
12 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Sir, do you know that Mr. Mandzic participated in sabotage and
14 assault actions during which Serbian villages were torched and Serbian
15 population killed together with everybody else who was in those villages?
16 Thank you.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, you should rephrase your question.
18 You have heard the objection of Mr. McCloskey.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I heard the objection, but I don't
20 know what you want from me. The witness said that that person was
21 scared, that he never left the enclave. I'm asking him whether he knows
22 that he actually did participate in fightings and that he participated in
23 sabotage actions. I hope you can allow me to put that question to the
24 witness. If not, then that's a different matter.
25 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Rave, may I ask you, do you know anything
Page 6766
1 about Mr. Mandzic participation in combat activities?
2 THE WITNESS: No, the only thing from Mr. Mandzic I know that he
3 was a teacher before the war, and he was a teacher during the war. And I
4 have no information that Mr. Mandzic played a role as a soldier or
5 anything else and went out of the enclave to do whatever is suggested.
6 So I have no information about that at all.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, please carry on.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, thank you.
9 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Mr. Rave, you are not a protected witness, I may as well call you
11 by your name. Mr. Rave, could you please tell us whether your
12 impressions and your feelings, and so on and so forth, is something that
13 you shared with any of the participants in that meeting that had been
14 called on Karremans' request that evening in order to discuss the
15 evacuation of the Muslims from the enclave?
16 A. I don't understand the question. Do you want to know if we later
17 on discussed the information we got on that meeting? Yes, of course,
18 after we came back to the compound we had a meeting and we discussed what
19 was said during the meeting and what were the first important steps we
20 had to deal with, and that was put on paper by Colonel Karremans, and on
21 that we acted further. I think that he sent the information also in his
22 chain of command upwards.
23 Q. And did you discuss the intimidation with anybody on the Serb
24 side, the intimidation that you have just described for us?
25 A. No, because after we -- it was not discussed during the meeting
Page 6767
1 and not directly after the meeting. That were the only moments we were
2 in contact with the Serbs, and for us this was just one of the incidents
3 that at that moment happened and we had to deal with more important
4 things because we had 15- or 20.000 refugees without any food, water, or
5 sanitary things. So it was just an incident that happened at that moment
6 and we had to deal with more important things than only slaughtering of a
7 pig.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I think it's the right time for our
9 first break of today's hearing. We will adjourn and resume quarter past
10 4.00.
11 --- Recess taken at 3.47 p.m.
12 --- On resuming at 4.17 p.m.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, Mr. Tolimir, please carry on.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
15 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Witness, would you please tell us, had you been to Fontana Hotel
17 before these events, before the conflict broke out?
18 A. Yes, I've been there several times before. The first time was in
19 the, I think the 6th of January, 1995 when we had our hand-over meeting
20 with the previous battalion, and we also did it in Hotel Fontana over
21 there.
22 Q. Thank you. Were you able to observe if this Fontana Hotel had an
23 economic section, some courtyards, something like that?
24 A. No, the only thing I've seen from the hotel that when we were
25 brought there most of the time we were accompanied by one of the soldiers
Page 6768
1 who brought us over there was that we entered in the hotel, were brought
2 to one of the briefing rooms and because I think there were more and I
3 can't recollect especially, but I think there were more briefing rooms.
4 And we were seated in the briefing room, and the first meeting we had
5 over there they preferred -- they prepared the food for us and all the
6 time they were serving drinks and small food, so ...
7 Q. Thank you. Do you remember that on that footage the body-guard
8 of General Mladic stood by the open window? My question is: Would he
9 have observed or seen or heard something going on outside the hotel and
10 would he have maybe opened the window to see if there was some threat to
11 the person he was guarding? Why would he have opened that window?
12 A. As I said, in my opinion it was all pre-arranged. I don't know
13 if he opened the window by himself or that he got a sign from somebody to
14 open the window at that moment. The same for closing the window. I
15 don't know if he decided it for himself when to close the window or that
16 he got a sign that he could close the window at that moment. At that
17 moment I have not seen him before afterwards I seen him several times
18 accompanying General Mladic and I've not seen that he took decisions by
19 himself, only when he was ordered by the general or just doing the normal
20 protective thing, normal protective measures for the general.
21 Q. Thank you. Since you were in charge of security in the field,
22 would you able to tell us whether a body-guard in war time can take any
23 security measure without the approval of the person he is guarding?
24 A. I'm not a specialist in body-guard measures, but I think that a
25 body-guard is always able to take protective measures, also in war time
Page 6769
1 because there are, of course, lots of threats he has to be aware of, and
2 I think that they should be trained in protecting the man who he is in
3 charge for.
4 Q. Thank you. Could you tell us if the Fontana Hotel, which you had
5 visited in January and at other times, was privately owned and did it
6 operate normally under the circumstances because it was not directly on
7 the front line?
8 A. I have no idea if the hotel was really in use as a hotel because
9 I only visited for the meetings we had with the Serbs over there. I know
10 that one of our logistic NCOs went there to trade with the owner of the
11 hotel, and I think it was the owner because that's what the my opinion
12 was told all the time for buying some beer or refreshments to use for us
13 inside the enclave because we had nothing and we had the possibility and
14 were able to go to the Hotel Fontana and deal over there.
15 Q. Thank you.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we now show to the witness
17 D37.
18 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
19 Q. It's a document dated 10 July 1995. The title is "Approval to
20 slaughter and distribute livestock."
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: While this will be appear on the screen, I have a
22 question for the witness. Sir, Mr. Rave, could you perhaps -- are you
23 able to recall, I am not referring to this document, I'm still dealing
24 with the video of the Hotel Fontana meeting. Do you recall what the
25 body-guard at the window did later? Was he remaining at this position or
Page 6770
1 what did he do? Do you remember that?
2 THE WITNESS: No, the only thing I can tell you is that on the
3 video I see that he is walking behind Colonel Karremans and so I don't
4 think that he was standing at the window, but I can't recall what he did
5 and even if he stayed in the room or might have gone outside. In my
6 opinion, he was one of the guys who stayed all time in the briefing room,
7 but not on the place where he was -- when the window was opened, but near
8 the door.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: You just said that you saw on the video that he
10 was leaving his position at the window behind Colonel Karremans?
11 THE WITNESS: Yeah, I saw somebody walking. In my opinion it was
12 the body-guard who was walking from the window back to the door where I
13 think he stayed.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: At which point in time did that happen, do you
15 recall?
16 THE WITNESS: I don't know exactly then. We should see the video
17 again, but ...
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Okay. That's fine for the moment.
19 Mr. Tolimir, please carry on.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
21 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Now, please, Mr. Rave, could you look at this document, the
23 English version is on the left, and see that it's a document from the
24 Drina Corps command dated 10 July 1995, that's the day before the event.
25 They did not know that Colonel Karremans would be asking to meet Mladic
Page 6771
1 in the hotel, and it says:
2 "To be sent to the Bratunac army-operated farm,
3 Captain Mirko Blagojevic. So they sent this permission to slaughter and
4 distribute livestock."
5 And it says, paragraph 2:
6 "It is hereby approved that for the purposes of the UN soldiers
7 billeted in the hotel in Bratunac, you may slaughter and deliver one hog
8 up to 80 kilos."
9 From this we see that UN soldiers who were billeted, were staying
10 at the hotel in Bratunac and they were ordering certain foodstuffs that
11 they needed; is that correct?
12 A. This is very interesting. As I told you, and you might know,
13 that the soldiers that were in the Hotel Fontana, were, in my opinion,
14 hostages or POWs as you might call them during that time because I think
15 there was a war going on at that time. I have not the impression that
16 the soldiers were free to do what they wanted, and of course they could
17 demands for a pig or whatever they wanted, but I think that there was
18 only one person who granted their demands and that was Colonel Mladic. I
19 think they were not -- well, they might be billeted in the hotel, but not
20 as we see it now as billeted in the hotel, and also myself, free to go
21 and free to order what I want.
22 So I don't think that the soldiers were able to order a pig for a
23 barbecue or whatever.
24 Q. Since you don't seem to believe me, I'll read this whole thing
25 once again:
Page 6772
1 "It is hereby approved that for the purposes of the UN soldiers
2 staying in the hotel in Bratunac, you may slaughter and deliver the
3 following: One hog weighing up to 80 kilos. The hog shall be delivered
4 through the hotel in Bratunac on orders from the commander of the
5 Drina Corps. In selecting the livestock for slaughter, make sure that
6 these animals are not suitable for fattening and breeding."
7 And this is dated a whole day before that meeting.
8 Now, could this assistant commander for logistics who signed this
9 have known that Colonel Karremans would be asking to meet General Mladic
10 in the Fontana Hotel precisely on the 18th [as interpreted] when you came
11 there for the second time.
12 A. As I told you before, I don't know who arranged the meeting. I
13 don't know if Colonel Karremans asked for the meeting or if
14 General Mladic or somebody else asked for the meeting. And of course, I
15 also can't tell you what happened before we had a meeting over there. So
16 I don't know who filled out this form, where it was sent to and I've
17 never seen it before, so I have no idea about the logistics at that
18 moment in and around the Hotel Fontana because the 10th we were not
19 there, and the 10th I think I was in Srebrenica myself. And we didn't
20 even know that on the 10th in the evening we had to go there. At least I
21 didn't know that.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: It may be a translation issue, but it says he
24 went there on the 18th. Just alert that.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
Page 6773
1 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Said 11th, not 18th, and here in the telegram it says the
3 telegram was sent on the 10th of July at 1210 hours, and it was
4 transmitted at 1300 hours. My question is: The owner of the hotel or
5 General Mladic, could they have known a day before at 12.00 or 1.00 p.m.
6 that Colonel Karremans would be asking for a meeting at the hotel the
7 next day?
8 A. Sorry, sir, I won't be rude but I can't get in the mind of the
9 hotel owner or General Mladic on the 10th of July. Sorry.
10 Q. Thank you. Can you see from this document that a whole day of
11 preparation is needed to slaughter a pig and that an order is necessary
12 from the person who issues approvals normally to distribute animals to
13 the UN, for instance?
14 A. I'm not aware of the internal logistic lines of communication
15 within the VRS or within the town of Bratunac, so, well, if it's stated
16 over here and it takes that time, well, it will be so. I don't know.
17 Q. Do you know whether there were UNPROFOR soldiers in the Bratunac
18 hotel, soldiers to whom this document refers, people who ordered a pig to
19 be slaughtered?
20 A. When we came in the meeting at 8.00, the soldiers from our OPs in
21 the southern part of the enclave were brought to Bratunac were assembled
22 in one of the briefing rooms in the hotel. Mr. Boering went in with
23 Colonel Karremans and myself and visited in advance of the meeting the
24 soldiers just for a short time. After the 8.00 meeting, we had all the
25 possibility to go into that room, shake hands with the guys. I do not
Page 6774
1 know if they were living in the hotel or somewhere else, but they were in
2 Bratunac.
3 Q. Thank you. Can you tell us whether it's obvious from this
4 document that the slaughtering of one hog weighing up to 80 kilos was
5 approved for them?
6 A. Again, I don't know the logistic rules of the VRS at that time.
7 And I think that a young pig and a hog is ordered over there, that
8 doesn't say anything to me.
9 Q. In the Fontana Hotel, were there any other UN soldiers apart from
10 Dutch men, and did you see Dutch men in the Hotel Fontana, Dutch
11 soldiers?
12 A. The only Dutch soldiers that were in the hotel were our people
13 who were made POW on the OPs on the southern part of the enclave, and the
14 three of us who were attending the meeting, so Mr. Karremans, Mr. Boering
15 and myself. That were the only people that I know that were there. So
16 no United Nations military service or anybody else, only the people from
17 the battalion including the three I just mentioned.
18 Q. [No interpretation]
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No interpretation.
20 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Can you tell us how long had the soldiers been in the
22 Fontana Hotel before that meeting?
23 A. I don't know how long they were in the Fontana Hotel. I didn't
24 ask it myself to them. I know and I should look into my notes when the
25 OPs were taking over by the Serbs and when they surrendered to the Serbs
Page 6775
1 and after that were taken to the Hotel Fontana. I think it was on the
2 10th of July that they moved forward because they were not able to go
3 backwards because they were stopped by the Bosnia -- the BiH soldiers
4 over there, so they had to go forward then were captured and then were
5 brought to Bratunac, and I don't know if they directly were brought to
6 the hotel or were somewhere else.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we show P994 to the witness
9 in e-court. Page 5, paragraph 5. Thank you.
10 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
11 Q. You see paragraph 5, and I will now quote from your statement
12 written in July 1995 just after the events:
13 "We arrived at the Hotel Fontana about 2000 hours. As we
14 entered, we noticed that in a separate room, some Dutch soldiers who had
15 been manning the OPs were held under guard by the VRS soldiers. We were
16 initially not permitted to see them. The hostages appeared relaxed and
17 in no immediate danger. I understand that Major Boering did, in fact,
18 manage to get access to them for a few minutes before the meeting
19 started."
20 Now, my question is: Did members of your delegation in the
21 Hotel Fontana, like Major Boering, see the hostages? Did they really
22 look relaxed and did they tell you that they had voluntarily moved to the
23 territory controlled by the VRS because the Muslims did not let them
24 cross their territory and one soldier was even killed while attempting to
25 do so, and because also they were asked to shoot at members of the VRS?
Page 6776
1 A. I think you've got a lot of questions at this moment. And I
2 think I will answer them and try to answer them one by one.
3 Major Boering, when we entered the hotel, just bluffed and went into the
4 room where our soldiers were, so they got -- he got access to them for a
5 few minutes before the meeting. So, yes he saw the hostages.
6 And what he told them and what I later on saw that they looked
7 rather relaxed because they really didn't know what was going on.
8 They voluntarily moved forward, and I think then Mr. Tolimir is
9 mixing up some things, that one of the soldiers was killed, this has
10 nothing to do with going forward from the other OPs. When the OPs in the
11 south were attacked by the VRS, they tried to do their normal military
12 job, that means as the General will know, going backwards, finding a new
13 position to do your job, maybe to shoot at your attackers.
14 The Bosnian army was there, was standing behind our APCs and was
15 not allowing them going backwards to do their job in the way they learned
16 and then they should do the job. The Bosnians -- the Muslims had only
17 one idea, your enemy is in front of you so you have to go forward and if
18 you go backward, we'll shoot you in one way or another. So there was
19 only one way for the manning on the OPs, that was going forward and
20 surrender to the VRS. So that's what they did.
21 Q. Thank you. Could you tell the Trial Chamber, if you know, who
22 killed one of your soldiers during your withdrawal through the Muslim
23 territory to the base in Potocari?
24 A. When they returned from the OP, and I don't know exactly, I
25 should look in my notes from which OP returned, a lot of people on a dirt
Page 6777
1 road tried to stop the APC because they had the same intention, they had
2 to go forward. At that moment, the commander of the APC took the
3 decision to drive through something, people, I think, put on the road.
4 At that moment, and I still don't know either there was a hand-grenade
5 thrown or there was a shot from a gun that hit one of our soldiers and
6 later on the day he died. But that was a civilian population near the
7 OP.
8 Q. Thank you. Do you know if those civilians were Serbs or Muslims?
9 A. The civilians were Muslims.
10 Q. Thank you. Were those civilians armed or not?
11 A. Well, as I say, that they either --
12 THE INTERPRETER: Give a pause.
13 THE WITNESS: -- shoot or threw a hand-grenade and that implicates
14 in my opinion that they were armed.
15 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Thank you. Did DutchBat soldiers who were at the Fontana Hotel
17 complain in any way of anything that was provided to them at the hotel,
18 either food or something else? Did they complain to those who were in
19 contact with them, those from the Dutch Battalion?
20 A. At the moment we spoke to them, that was on the end of the 8.00
21 meeting, I got no complaints from them. They only wanted to know what
22 was going on and when they were able to return to the battalion.
23 Afterwards, I have not spoken to them what happened in the hotel and if
24 they had any complaints. I even don't know exactly when they returned to
25 the battalion.
Page 6778
1 Q. Thank you. In your answer you just said that they didn't know
2 anything and they were relaxed. They didn't know what was going on. A
3 relaxed person, would you say that that person is relaxed because he
4 doesn't know what is going on or whether he is just confused?
5 A. I think that they didn't know what was going on, they were in a
6 situation that they were hostages or POWs and just were waiting what was
7 going on, then you can do -- can do several things. You can get very
8 nervous and do all strange kind of things, but you can also be relaxed
9 and hope that the problems will be solved, and when you see your
10 battalion commander passing by, then I think you get some hope and hope
11 that your problems will be solved, because, in my opinion, it's the most
12 important thing for them, their security and their return to the
13 battalion to go back to their own jobs.
14 Q. Thank you. Those soldiers or those prisoners or hostages as you
15 call them, had they voluntarily surrendered to the VRS? Could they have
16 done it to the Muslim army or could they have returned to their base
17 across the Muslim-held territory?
18 A. No, as I stated before, they were not able to do their military
19 job in a way they are trained to do their job because they were
20 threatened by the Muslim Army to go forward and fight to the VRS. So
21 they voluntarily surrendered to the VRS.
22 Q. Thank you. Could you please answer the following question:
23 Prisoners of war and hostages, are they allowed to order anything from
24 the hotel restaurant, for example, a pig weighing 80 kilos, as we have
25 seen in the document?
Page 6779
1 A. Of course I can write in a document whatever I want when I'm in a
2 situation that I'm a hostage or a POW. I can ask, of course, as much as
3 I want and I will ask as much as I can, but if it is allowed and you get
4 your demands, depends on the hostage-takers, so.
5 Q. Thank you for your answers about this issue. We'll come back to
6 that issue later. On page 823, lines 13 through 18 of the Krstic case
7 transcript, you were asked by the Prosecution to describe the
8 peacekeeping mission. You answered, and I quote:
9 "We were supposed to protect people within the enclave. We were
10 supposed to provide assistance to NGOs, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the
11 NHCR, and we're also supposed to assist them with the supplies of food
12 and other things in the enclave for the civilian population. We had men
13 at observation posts and we possibly also could avert attacks."
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: For the record, this is P1004. Please continue.
15 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
16 Q. My question based on what I've just quoted is this: The role of
17 the Dutch Battalion in Srebrenica, was it based on what you described or
18 was it rather the demilitarisation of the area?
19 A. I think it was both. We had to demilitarise the Bosnian army,
20 the Muslim army in the enclave, and further on protect as much as
21 possible and help as much as possible the civilian population and the
22 NGOs in the enclave.
23 Q. Thank you. Did the Dutch Battalion demilitarise the population
24 in the enclave?
25 A. We demilitarised as much as possible in the enclave, and that
Page 6780
1 already started some years before when the Canadian army was in the
2 enclave, they started to collect the weapons and demilitarise the
3 enclave, that went on with the first and the second Dutch Battalion in
4 the enclave. We collected lots of weapons. We took care that there were
5 no military activities in the enclave. And, of course, at the end we
6 discovered that although we did our utmost to especially disarm most of
7 the people, we did not completely succeed in disarming them all because
8 there still remained a lot of weapons hidden in the civilian population.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the Court please produce D20.
10 This is a report based on the debriefing about Srebrenica. Page 12,
11 paragraph 22 and 23. Thank you. I apologise, it is not page 12, but
12 page 10. Thank you.
13 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
14 Q. This report says:
15 "The Dutch Battalion has been provided with the aforementioned
16 tasks which were based on the agreement on cease-fire. Firstly, to
17 monitor compliance with the cease-fire. Secondly, to disarm the BiH
18 army. Thirdly, to assist with the delivery of humanitarian aid."
19 And then in paragraph 2.30 which we are going to see in a
20 minute --
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can it be displayed, 2.30?
22 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Where you can see it serves as the last paragraph on the page, it
24 says:
25 "The mission of DutchBat. The military task was to maintain the
Page 6781
1 status quo. As a result of the UN presence, the VRS was to be deterred
2 from launching an offensive on the enclave and the BiH was to respect the
3 demilitarised status of the enclaves. Several heavy weapons and a large
4 number of hand-held weapons surrendered by BiH personnel were held in the
5 weapon collection point controlled by DutchBat, located at the compounds
6 in Srebrenica."
7 Thank you, end of quote. My question, based on what I've just
8 read, in practice was one of the tasks of the DutchBat to disarm the BiH
9 army?
10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Could the General tell the witness and, well, for
12 the rest of us, what report this is? There's many, many, reports. If we
13 could have the first page just so we know which one you are talking
14 about. That's all. And if you have a list of cross documents,
15 Ms. Stewart would gladly accept it.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I was going to request the same so that we know
17 who wrote the report and the date of the report.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is D20, and I said that it is a
19 report based on a debriefing about Srebrenica. Page 10, paragraph 223,
20 and this report was published in Assen on the 4th of October, 1995, and
21 now you can see the title page of the debriefing. We can see it on the
22 screen.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. I'll repeat the
25 question for the benefit of the witness.
Page 6782
1 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
2 Q. In practice, was one of the tasks of the Dutch Battalions to
3 demilitarise Srebrenica, rather to disarm the BiH army? Thank you.
4 A. Yes, it was one of the tasks. And as I said, it started with the
5 Canadian company who was there, and after that, the first and the second
6 Dutch Battalion we went on with trying to demilitarise the whole enclave
7 by collecting as much weapons as we saw. We were in a rather good
8 contact with the civilians and the military leaders in the enclave, and
9 we spoke to them several times and that people were not allowed to carry
10 weapons that they were ordered to deliver the weapons to the patrols or
11 to DutchBat. And the other way, all the time we saw people armed in the
12 enclave we tried to disarm them, collect the weapons and store them in
13 the weapon collection points.
14 Q. In paragraph 27, you say -- and the mike is on, I believe, yes.
15 You saw in paragraph 27, can you please show it to the witness, 27 to 30,
16 where it says, you can see it now, where it says that the BiH Army was
17 supposed to honour the demilitarised status of the enclave. My
18 question --
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Just for the sake of the record, Mr. Tolimir, are
20 you referring to 2.27 or to another paragraph?
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Paragraph 27, 2.30
22 which we see in front of us.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: In front of us we have 2.27.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I apologise. 2.30 is what we need.
25 I misspoke when I said 27. 2.30. I apologise, Mr. President. Thank
Page 6783
1 you.
2 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
3 Q. It says here that the BiH army was supposed to honour the
4 demilitarised status of the enclave. You can see it in line 4. It says:
5 "The demilitarised status of the enclave."
6 Thank you. My question based on this, could you explain to us
7 the meaning of these words: Demilitarised status of the enclave, what
8 does that mean?
9 A. That at that moment the status was demilitarised. At least I
10 think that's what you want to hear. And that that status should be
11 respected. Well, I think that that status was not -- not reached yet and
12 so we went on with the demilitarisation of the enclave.
13 Q. Thank you. During the DutchBat mandate, did any of the weaponry
14 that you had taken from BiH army members arrive in your weapon collection
15 point, do you know that?
16 A. Yeah, it happened several times that weaponry that was taken not
17 from BiH army members, but from people in the enclave, and I don't know
18 if it were army members, but it were armed people in the enclave, the
19 weapons were taken and storaged in the weapon collection site.
20 Q. Thank you. I asked you whether you know if the number of barrels
21 of 300 at the beginning was increased by a single barrel during mandate
22 of the Dutch Battalion? That's what I asked you.
23 A. I can't tell you the exact number of barrels in the weapon
24 collection point, the only thing I can tell you that is that during the
25 DutchBat III period, and that's what I'm talking, not over the DutchBat I
Page 6784
1 or II periods, but in the DutchBat III period, I know for sure that we
2 took several weapon from people inside the enclave and stored them in the
3 weapon collection point. I don't know the exact numbers that were there
4 when we got into the enclave, and I don't know the exact number of
5 weapons that were there at the end.
6 Q. Thank you. Did you know that Muslims were being armed with
7 additional weapons in the enclave? And you already answered those
8 questions during the cross-examination. Thank you.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: If you have already received an answer, you
10 should move to the next question.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I did move on to a different topic
12 and I asked the witness whether he knows that Muslims were additionally
13 armed in the enclave and how were they armed. He only touched upon that
14 subject in the cross-examination.
15 THE WITNESS: Well, I can give you an answer again, I don't have
16 any information that Muslims were additionally armed during the period
17 that DutchBat III was in charge over there, so that weapons came into the
18 enclave. We have no information that that they additionally got armed
19 again.
20 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Thank you. Please, could you tell us if you heard from your
22 predecessors or was it conveyed to you if the Muslims in the enclave were
23 being additionally armed and if so, how was that done, which routes were
24 used to additionally arm Muslims with weaponry?
25 A. I have also no information from the previous battalions that they
Page 6785
1 were additionally armed in one way or another. So the only information I
2 can give you is that we all as the first and the second in the Serb
3 battalion did the utmost to disarm people in the enclave and to take care
4 that all the weapons were stored in the weapon collection points.
5 Q. Do you know anything about Muslims being armed from helicopters
6 from Zepa to Tuzla, or rather from Tuzla to Zepa and then a land route
7 which was taken to transport those weapons from Zepa to Srebrenica?
8 A. As I stated before, I have no information that Muslims having
9 been armed during the period that we were there in charge of neither by
10 foot, neither by donkeys, neither by helicopters, neither by fixed
11 aeroplanes. In no way or another I've got information that they got
12 armed additionally.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the witness please be shown
14 D67. Thank you.
15 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Look at the document, sir. The Trial Chamber already knows it,
17 Prosecution knows it, so I won't be reading it, I'm just going to have
18 questions for you once you have looked at the document. And I
19 particularly ask you to look at bullet point 2, as well as bullet point
20 4, starting with the words:
21 "Preparations for future operations to merge the enclaves for
22 brigade commanders and the Chief of Staff of the 28th Division."
23 Thank you. Were you able to look at the two bullet points that I
24 asked you to look at?
25 A. Yeah, but I would like to start on the top. I don't know when
Page 6786
1 this should have happened, it's a report from the 13th of July. I don't
2 know what period we are talking about. When we could go back to the
3 first page it's a document stated -- the date is 13th of July, 1500
4 hours. I don't know about which period that we are talking about 17
5 helicopter flights are carried out. Is that on the 13th of July, is that
6 before? I don't see any dates.
7 Q. You were wondering who drafted the document. The document was
8 drafted by the BiH army. It was dispatched on the 13th of July, 1995, as
9 you can see at the top, and it was sent to the
10 Brigadier-General Hajrulahovic to be forwarded to the president of the
11 Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mr. Alija Izetbegovic. And you will
12 see later that the document was signed by Rasim Delic. And in this
13 document, he informs the president of the Presidency as to what he had
14 done in order to strengthen Srebrenica in military terms. I quoted from
15 bullet point 4 where it explains in the last sentence why the division
16 commander did not come back. The division commander who was meant to go
17 on the next helicopter flight did not return. After the final flight
18 ended tragically, Naser stayed behind.
19 My question is this: Do you know if Naser was in Srebrenica
20 during the time of the events about which you are testifying in this
21 courtroom? Thank you.
22 A. I think that I can state that Naser was in the enclave, and I
23 have to look in my notes until when. I think until March or April when
24 we could negotiate with him. After that he disappeared. Nobody will
25 tell us where he was and I have not seen Naser after March/April in the
Page 6787
1 enclave anymore.
2 Q. Thank you. Does this report then relate to the time during which
3 you also were in the enclave? It says that the helicopters were flying
4 and Naser did not come back because the penultimate helicopter had been
5 brought down. And it all happened in the year 1995.
6 A. As I can state, I don't know if Naser was in a helicopter that
7 was brought down. I only know that I didn't see Naser after March/April
8 any more. Maybe I can say that there was a rumour that the second in
9 command from the BiH army in the enclave was told that he went down with
10 a helicopter. I don't know exactly where because that was a topic that
11 could not be discussed with the BiH because nobody would tell us
12 something about it and we had no information that there was a really
13 helicopter crashed or helicopters came into the enclave.
14 Q. Did you know that before the VRS attack started in order to
15 demilitarise Srebrenica, that the Muslims launched attacks from the
16 enclave in the depth of the Serbian-held territory?
17 A. There were a lot of rumours, especially coming from Major Nikolic
18 when we dealed with him as liaison officers, that he was telling us that
19 people were going in and out the enclave and doing attacks on Serbian
20 targets. We have never been able to prove it. We were also not able to
21 patrol and to check the whole enclave. The biggest problem from us was
22 that I think in February we got our convoy with fuel, so from that time
23 on it got less and less and we were not able to patrol with vehicles,
24 just only go around by foot. So we were not able to do our job very
25 properly, and all the time we asked Mr. Nikolic that if he was
Page 6788
1 complaining that Muslims were going out of the enclave, we told him that
2 he had to allow fuel to get into the enclave so we could do our job
3 properly. He had never shown us the proof that Muslims went out of the
4 enclave, so it was for us no more than a rumour. And, of course, when we
5 got the information that in a specific area, the VRS told us that Muslims
6 were going out of the area, we tried to patrol over there as much as
7 possible. But we have never been able to prove that Muslims went out of
8 the area to attack VRS targets. And, of course, if we had known it, we
9 would have taken actions to prevent it.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we now see P994 page --
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, for the sake of the record, you were
12 referring to the earlier to a part of the Krstic transcript. This is on
13 page 44 -- 45, sorry. You said on page 823, lines 13 through 18 of the
14 Krstic case, transcript, but the testimony of this witness starts only at
15 page 830. So for the sake of the record it would be helpful if you can
16 provide us with the correct quotation. Mr. Gajic.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. It could be a mistake.
18 I should have said 832 instead of 823.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the Court kindly show P994,
21 page 3, paragraph 5. That's the last paragraph we see here on the screen
22 from your statement.
23 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
24 Q. You say:
25 "The 31st May meeting was held at Observation Post Echo. The
Page 6789
1 Serbian side was represented by Colonel Vukovic and Major Nikolic.
2 Captain Melchers and myself attended from the Dutch Battalion side. At
3 the meeting Colonel Vukovic made several main points concerning
4 activities inside the enclave. First, he explained that Muslims were
5 leaving the enclave and were killing Serbs as they were leaving. He said
6 that the situation was deteriorating around the location of OP-Echo, as
7 the Muslims were attacking Serbian positions through the timber factory
8 in river Jadar. As a result of this, he said the Serbian troops needed
9 to move in to occupy the area around the observation point."
10 Now, my question: At this meeting in May, did the VRS announce
11 to you that Muslims were making incursions from the enclave into
12 Republika Srpska, that they were killing Serbs and that because of that
13 an intervention was needed to prevent it?
14 A. I have my notebook over here, and in that meeting I think that it
15 was Colonel Vukovic, because I think he did the speaking at that moment,
16 told us that five men were killed and two were killed short time ago. He
17 told us that, as stated also in my statement over there, that they went
18 through the factory to the wood factory, and that he would not attack but
19 that he had positions in the southern part of south of the enclave. It's
20 the same as what Major Nikolic told us several times, that BiH soldiers
21 or civilians don't know at least Muslims from the enclave went out of the
22 enclave and killed people outside. In this case, he directly told us
23 that people were going out via the wood factory in the southern part near
24 OP-Echo and I don't know if you know the situation over there, but I
25 think that the factory and the observation post I think there might be
Page 6790
1 100, 150 metres between, so if it was possible for the Muslims to go
2 through the factory, then I think that most the time, of course, people
3 from the OP-Echo had seen it and had stopped him.
4 I don't know -- of course this is a statement of the
5 Colonel Vukovic and I can't imagine why he is telling us this and why he
6 has concrete to the point telling us that they are going through the
7 factory, because I think it all fits in the plan that they already had
8 made. So the point of view from which you are looking at it, for me it's
9 just one of the statements from the VRS that Muslims are going out of the
10 enclave, one side. We should protect the Serbs by keeping the Muslims
11 inside the enclave. The VRS is taking all the measures to that care that
12 we can't do our job properly and we are not able and were not provided
13 with the things we needed to build new OPs to do our jobs mobile, by
14 vehicles, because we had no fuel. So it's a circle that is going around
15 and around, and the only thing I can see also in this one is that we are
16 making a lot of excuses why things are going wrong. And at the same time
17 I think that we find a lot of possibilities to show what is wrong and to
18 create a situation that they have to attack us because we are not able to
19 protect them.
20 Q. Thank you. Now, if all that is preplanned and designed, as you
21 say, is it also predesigned that these Serbs were to be killed in the
22 territory under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska?
23 A. I don't know if it's preplanned. I only know that there were
24 lots of rumours in that Muslims went out of the enclave to kill Serbs.
25 Outside the enclave I have seen some results from attacks inside the
Page 6791
1 enclave where people were killed that we found, the one that was guilty
2 for that. I only know that the feeling at the moment I was in that
3 meeting, that was that Colonel Vukovic was looking for possibilities to
4 show us that we did not want to do our job properly, and he told us that
5 he needed the road south of the OP-Echo, we had to withdraw and if he
6 would stay on the OP-Echo, we had to take the consequences.
7 And also, and that he stated in advance in one of the previous
8 meetings that of course we showed him that also VRS people came into the
9 enclave to kill Muslims. At that moment he told us, Well, you are free
10 to kill every BSA soldier or every Serb [sic] man in the enclave. In the
11 meeting of the 31st, he told us that he can no longer stay, to his point
12 of view, that all BSA men in the enclave may be killed.
13 So it's a game from one part to the other and, yeah ...
14 Q. Thank you, I did not stop you.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we now see D53 in e-court.
16 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
17 Q. It's a document of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina dated 17th
18 June, 1995. It was written by the General Staff of the ABH, and it was
19 sent to the command of the 28th Division of their land forces that were
20 in Srebrenica. It's called: "Preparation for offensive combat
21 operations. Order." You can see it now. It was signed by
22 Sulejman Budakovic. It's not Vukovic. In fact, you will see whether
23 Vukovic had any influence on the writing of this. It says:
24 "Pursuant to a verbal order issued by the commander of the
25 General Staff of the BH army, Army General Rasim Delic, and on the
Page 6792
1 occasion of the great success achieved by units of the BH army in the
2 wide area around Sarajevo and Gorazde, as well as on the basis of
3 intelligence that the Serbian army command of the protection regiment in
4 Han Pijesak is holding parts of its units in reserve so that they can
5 intervene in case we attack from Zepa, I here by issue the following
6 order:"
7 Now, I'm reading paragraph 1:
8 "Execute all preparations in the command of the 28th Land Army
9 Division to execute offensive combat operations."
10 Paragraph 2:
11 "Plan realistic tasks which will assure certain success on the
12 basis of an accurate assessment, and the potential of our forces in
13 Srebrenica and Zepa."
14 And 3:
15 "The General Staff of the BH Army will regulate, by an order to
16 follow, the commencement of offensive combat activities in the zone of
17 responsibility of the 28th Army Division."
18 And it was signed by Brigadier Sulejman Budakovic. Now, my
19 question is: Is this a preparatory order written based on offensive
20 operations by the VRS or based on offensives by the BH Army against the
21 VRS and certain attacks originating from the enclave in which they had
22 certain success?
23 A. I think in my opinion this is just a preparation order for the
24 command of the 28th Division and that's it.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Now, could the e-court show D52,
Page 6793
1 which is a document created on the basis of this preparatory order, which
2 is not the end of the story. Thank you, now we have the document.
3 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
4 Q. And in line 1 you see:
5 "The soldiers of the 28th Ground Forces Division located in
6 Srebrenica and Zepa," so this division is in Srebrenica, "although
7 completely encircled and facing major problems relating to survival and
8 the obligation to protect free territory, decided to contribute as much
9 as possible to the fight against the aggressor ...," and so on and so on.
10 Now the first bullet point says:
11 "60 Chetniks were liquidated, and according to unconfirmed
12 reports, the aggressor suffered even greater losses and had many
13 wounded."
14 Then they enumerate all the things that were burned, seised, and
15 what livestock was stolen.
16 And then it says:
17 "In the village of Visnjica large quantities of ammunition were
18 seised, but the soldiers were exhausted and could not remove it, so the
19 ammunition was destroyed, as were all the facilities that the aggressor
20 could use for military purposes."
21 This was written on the 8th of July, 1995, at the command of the
22 28th Division of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and they talk about the
23 successes they have scored. Now, my question is: Was that preparatory
24 order something that was followed up? Did it have certain consequences
25 on the activities originating from the enclave, activities that you see
Page 6794
1 referred to in the first line?
2 A. As I told you, we have no information about military activities
3 or preparations in what military form ever. So I did not know the
4 existence of this order because one of the problems, of course, was that
5 although one of my specialties was military security, the people from the
6 BiH army had a very good military security and were very keen not telling
7 what happened, so we were not aware of this. And, of course, again we
8 face now in this document we can see now that 60 Chetniks were liquidated
9 and all those kind of things.
10 I only can refer to all the stories we heard when we were in the
11 enclave speaking to either the Colonel Vukovic or Major Nikolic asking
12 them to provide us with all the things we needed to do our job properly,
13 I'm for sure that also the UNMOs asked several times to go with, for
14 example, Major Nikolic outside the enclave to the spots where those kind
15 of things happened and I don't deny that they might have happened, but we
16 were never able to go there to check all those things.
17 And of course, this is in a document of the Muslim Army when they
18 stated that they have done this and seised all those material. Inside
19 the enclave we don't have -- at least I didn't have the information that
20 this was going on outside the enclave because we did not get those
21 reports from our OPs, as far as I know.
22 Q. Thank you. Why then didn't you believe Vukovic and Nikolic and
23 other Serbs when they were telling you that Muslims were launching
24 activities from the protected area?
25 A. I don't say that we didn't believe them. Of course we believed
Page 6795
1 them, but when we got to the point and wanted more information or wanted
2 to check on the spot what happened, even where it exactly was, just to go
3 there, even with an unarmed military observer who should have their
4 freedom of movement to go out there and check all those stories they were
5 telling us, we could do it for a big part inside the enclave because we
6 were able to go there, but also in the enclave, they played the same
7 game. We also had not in the whole enclave, the freedom of movement to
8 go wherever we wanted.
9 Q. Thank you. You said a moment ago that the Muslims had good
10 security training, good security protection, or good security culture,
11 whichever you call it, and they did not discuss their actions. Now, what
12 else do you imply? What else do you mean by that?
13 A. I mean nothing else. The problem was that there was no standing
14 army in the enclave. We had representatives from the Muslim Army who
15 told us what they were, what their -- in some cases what their ranks
16 were, but the way they acted at the moment we were there was not as a
17 standing army. So we did not get any information about how their army
18 was organised, and it was very difficult to get the information because
19 they did no military training. We saw no military activities and they
20 had no military headquarters or anything else. They were just
21 representatives. And as you know, we had representatives, civilians and
22 military, but at the end when the enclave fell, it was just mixed up and
23 we saw that as well the civilians, as the military, all wore uniforms and
24 had weapons, although we did our utmost to disarm them, they were there.
25 Q. Thank you. Are you familiar with the statement made by
Page 6796
1 Naser Oric that there were 4.000 rifles in Srebrenica during the
2 withdrawal and the break-out of men from the Srebrenica enclave, of the
3 Srebrenica troops from the enclave?
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Can we get a citation to a statement of Mr. Oric
6 on this point, or at least give us an idea of where you are getting it
7 from.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Indeed that would be helpful for everybody.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We will
10 provide a reference and the quotation tomorrow in e-court because it's a
11 statement made by Naser Oric to the press after the fall of Srebrenica
12 where he mentions both the break-out and the number of weapons. We'll
13 find it tomorrow among the documents if we don't have to do it now.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY: I have no problem with such a simple prospect as
16 he heard such a statement, but I would like to know what the point of all
17 this is. What is its relevance? I think at this point the General must
18 know that the Prosecution actually has presented most of the guts of what
19 he is talking about, the Muslim attacks and their policies and what was
20 going on. It doesn't appear he is doing it for the credibility of this
21 witness. So what really is the point? We have some six, seven-hour
22 estimate here. I don't see any point to this. At some point time has to
23 be compared to the point of the -- of what the Defence is doing, and I
24 don't see the point. It's not contested. Fundamentally, these issues
25 are not contested. In fact, they are, as we've stated, part of the
Page 6797
1 adjudicated facts, part of the Prosecution's case. How many hours are we
2 spending on non-contested issues that don't relate to the credibility of
3 the witness on documents that this witness has never seen? At some
4 point, if he could tell us, then I might be able to understand it, but I
5 can't understand it at this point because he has not made any particular
6 showing of what the point is.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir. Mr. Tolimir, are you able to help
8 us, the Chamber and the Prosecution and especially the witness about the
9 position of Mr. McCloskey?
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Certainly. This witness denied any
11 military activity originating from the demilitarised zone. I pointed out
12 a part of his statement in which Colonel Vukovic told him about it, then
13 I pointed out a passage where the Muslims themselves talked about these
14 activities. I showed him a preparatory order made by their
15 General Staff. He says it's just a preparatory order. I was trying to
16 tell him that it's common knowledge among everyone, except perhaps the
17 Dutch Battalion. I want to see if he knows or perhaps he justifies the
18 activities of the Muslims and the lack of activity on the part of the
19 Dutch Battalion, and I want to find out what the command of the
20 Dutch Battalion thought about it because this witness was an advisor to
21 the command of the Dutch Battalion.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: And I appreciate that, but of course he is
24 misstating the witness's testimony. The witness denied not that it
25 happened, but denied having knowledge of it. Now, of course he can bring
Page 6798
1 up these things to show it happened, but that is -- is he really
2 challenging the credibility of the witness? If so, it's been challenged,
3 how many more documents does he want to bring up on this point. There
4 needs to be some limit because we are fighting the war all over again
5 here and I think the point has been made, and if he is really going after
6 his credibility like he says, let him do it. Do it. I have no problem
7 with that. But let the witness know what he is doing as opposed to just
8 having the witness read documents and quiz the witness on what is in the
9 documents.
10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Indeed that was my understanding of the answers
11 of the witness as well, that he denied having knowledge of these
12 activities. This is indeed a difference to -- that he, as you said, that
13 he denied these activities. This is indeed the difference.
14 I think it's a good point in time for the second break and you
15 should consider the objection of Mr. McCloskey, or indeed not the
16 objection, but the request of Mr. McCloskey to focus on that what this
17 witness can provide. We adjourn and resume ten minutes past 6.00.
18 --- Recess taken at 5.44 p.m.
19 --- On resuming at 6.09 p.m.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, Mr. Tolimir. I hope you considered with
21 your legal advisor during the break how to speed up the examination, and
22 now please carry on.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We will
24 finish as we planned. It was necessary to ask those questions in order
25 to present the witness with a view of the general situation in which the
Page 6799
1 attack on enclave took place. Thank you.
2 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
3 Q. You spoke about the freedom of movement, that's where we left it
4 off before the break. When it comes to the freedom of movement of the
5 Dutch Battalion within the enclave, can you tell us something about that?
6 A. Yes. We had freedom of movement in the enclave until a certain
7 moment and I don't know exactly when, one of our OPs was not manned and
8 we tried to man it, the military people from the BiH in the enclave did
9 not agree with the location of the OP because they thought they had much
10 better places to put an OP over there in the western part of the enclave,
11 and at a certain moment, they denied us access to a triangle in the
12 western part of the enclave, so we had no freedom of movement over there.
13 Q. Were you a member of the battalion when the movement or the
14 freedom of movement was restricted, and can you remember the month when
15 that happened?
16 A. I have to check in my notes, but I think it was in the
17 beginning -- I think it was in February or March, just from my head now
18 but I don't know the exact date now. But I can find it out.
19 Q. Thank you. We don't need a date, we just need to know whether
20 you were in Srebrenica when that happened, and if you say that that
21 happened in March, that means that you were there; right?
22 A. Yes, I was there. I was in the enclave.
23 Q. You also said that in your statement. You stated that you
24 arrived on the 4th or 5th of January, 1993. My next question is this --
25 A. Maybe I can interrupt. I think there is a little mistake. I
Page 6800
1 arrived on the 3rd of January, 1995.
2 Q. Yes, you arrived -- I must have misspoken. I'm reading from your
3 statement where it says that you arrived on the 4th or 5th January, 1995,
4 so I must have misspoken and we have to have a straight record. You
5 arrived in 1995 and the events that you are describing for us happened
6 later.
7 Did you call the sector the Bandera Triangle?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Were you allowed to move within that Bandera Triangle? If not,
10 could you tell us why?
11 A. Well, I've got a problem to remind exactly why not. We were from
12 the moment on that we had the problem over there with the Muslim army or
13 the local Muslims over there, it wasn't really the army, it was the local
14 Muslims over there denied us the access in the area. And I don't know
15 exactly why it was. I know that we tried to create a new OP over there,
16 the former OP-Bravo was over there, was removed. We wanted to create a
17 new OP over there, and were not allowed to do it in the way we wanted it.
18 After that we started patrolling in that triangle, in the Bandera
19 Triangle, and also in the places where we tried to create a new OP, but
20 in a certain moment, the access was denied and we had not the freedom of
21 movement to go in there.
22 Q. Why were you not allowed access into that area?
23 A. I'm just looking in my notes, I don't know exactly what the
24 reason was that we were not allowed to go in that area.
25 Q. While you are looking at your notes, could you please tell us
Page 6801
1 whether you ever attended meetings which discussed the problem of the
2 freedom of movement in the so-called Bandera Triangle?
3 A. Yeah, I have some information for you just after a quick look,
4 here the 28th of February that we are trying -- we are talking about the
5 Bandera Triangle with the UNMOs. The UNMOs were also not allowed to go
6 into the Bandera Triangle, so that was at least in February that problem
7 arose.
8 Q. Will you allow me to jog your memory and maybe you will be able
9 to provide us with some details.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the Court please produce D66.
11 Thank you.
12 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
13 Q. It is not my goal to contradict you. I am talking about some
14 documents that you may not have seen and that's why I would like to show
15 them to you. We can now see a document, or Exhibit D66, which was
16 drafted by the BiH army. The document hails from the command of the
17 8th OG in Srebrenica and the date is 28th January, 1995. And the OG sent
18 that to the General Staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well
19 as to the command of the 2nd Corps. It was signed by Naser Oric. The
20 document speaks about the situation in the sector of Podgaj village, as
21 it was on the 9th of January, 1995, and the restriction of movement of
22 the UNPROFOR forces in the wider region of Suceska and Podgaj. And in
23 the second paragraph it says that there will be a restriction of movement
24 in the area for UNPROFOR troops.
25 Have I been able to jog your memory of the events?
Page 6802
1 A. Yes. Well, we are talking about the same and I'm also looking in
2 my notes. I have not read this specifically before, so it's just from my
3 memory or I have to take some time and look in my diary or in my notes
4 about those periods. Yeah, just from my memory, I can recall that indeed
5 they wanted to speak, but that happened several times, with the commander
6 of UNPROFOR. And from my memory, I think that even commander UNPROFOR
7 visited the enclave and I don't know exactly when, and I also don't know
8 if he spoke to Naser Oric at that moment. But that rings a bell, but I
9 don't know exactly how or when.
10 Q. Thank you. Can you tell us whether you were the UNPROFOR liaison
11 officer at the time, in January, that is?
12 A. As stated in the beginning of the session, I had a double task.
13 I was the responsible for the field security and advice commander of the
14 Dutch Battalion on the field security. That was my main task. And after
15 that, and parallel to that, I was the liaison officer. So all the time I
16 played a double role being liaison officer, talking to civilian and
17 military people and advising commander on the field security issues. So
18 although you ask me a lot of questions up until now, I also have the
19 impression that I was a kind of operation officer and know exactly all
20 the military operations that were going on. Of course, I knew a lot of
21 them, but some of the things I was not involved in, so also in my notes
22 I've got not everything about what happened within the battalion, within
23 the several companies in the area. And, of course, when you've got
24 particular questions, I can try to check in my diary and in my notebooks
25 if I got information about it, but you have to be a little bit specific
Page 6803
1 and tell me what you want to know so I can check because I provided
2 the -- Mr. McCloskey with big parts of my diary and from my notebooks,
3 but I don't think that we went back until February with the copying of
4 the notebooks. And if you're interested, it's no problem for me to make
5 a copy and provide you with the information.
6 At this moment, maybe you can feel from my answers, I've got a
7 problem, I have facts that are in my notes and in my diary, and I've got
8 memories, and the problem is that now and then I've got a memory who
9 don't fits into my notebooks and I think the notebook should be leading
10 because those are the facts, and in 15 years' time memories change.
11 Q. Thank you for the offer, we will be grateful to have it. The
12 document that is before you, could you please look at its second
13 paragraph or rather, the third line in that paragraph. It says here:
14 "The commander of the 281st Eastern Bosnia Light Brigade, in
15 co-operation with the commander of the 2nd Corps after a warning that
16 UNPROFOR troops should not move within a certain area, has enclosed the
17 area."
18 That's from lines 3 to 5. Are you the liaison officer which is
19 mentioned here as having reached an agreement with the commander of the
20 281st Brigade? Are you that liaison officer? Were you that liaison
21 officer or not?
22 A. I don't even know the existence of the 281st Eastern Bosnian
23 Light Brigade. The only people we dealed with were from the
24 8th Operational Group which was called later on, I think, the
25 28th Operational Group and not specifically the 281st Light Brigade.
Page 6804
1 There were several commanders in that part and I think that in that area
2 one of the commanders was Zuzo Tuzanovic [phoen]. I don't know exactly
3 what area his responsibility was but when we are talking about the
4 Bandera Triangle, I think that Zuzo Tuzanovic was responsible over there.
5 And I never dealed with him because he was not available for us to do
6 business with.
7 Q. Thank you. Did you meet with any officer, if you did not meet
8 with the commander, as you say, in respect of the problems that arose in
9 this sector of Suceska and Podgaj villages, and did you take any
10 positions with regard to that situation?
11 A. No, as I remember now, the only officers we dealed with were
12 Naser Oric and his second in command, Ramiz, at that time, and not with
13 the other commanders in the field. Most of the time, the company
14 commanders from the Bravo Company and the Charlie Company, the
15 Bravo Company was stationed in Srebrenica town and the Charlie Company
16 was stationed in the compound in Potocari, they also had divided the
17 whole enclave. And I don't know if commander of the Bravo Company or the
18 commander of the Charlie Company maybe dealed with this commanders. I
19 really don't know. The only people we dealed with were the top of the
20 HOG.
21 Q. Did you have any contacts with those men from the top echelons of
22 the Srebrenica enclave command to discuss the problems that we are
23 talking about right now, and that's the restriction of movement in the
24 sector of Suceska and Podgaj?
25 A. In my memory, we talk about this with Naser Oric and with Ramiz,
Page 6805
1 his second in command.
2 Q. Thank you. Could you please tell the Trial Chamber what was it
3 that you discussed with Naser Oric and his second in command, Ramiz?
4 A. I have to do this from my memory because I don't have the facts
5 so at this moment. But of course, we tried to get the freedom of
6 movement again in that area and they denied so that was a problem. And
7 as we dealed with the VRS who did not allow UNPROFOR to do what he had to
8 do, it was the same with the Bosnians, the Bosnian army in the enclave in
9 this case, in the Bandera Triangle. And I think, but that's also just
10 from my memory, that commander DutchBat didn't want to create a big
11 problem in the enclave because we also had a lack of everything, so not a
12 possibility to go in there in a military way and just take over the area.
13 Not only because we had no -- not the means, but also not the personnel
14 to do it.
15 Q. And when it comes to the agreement, were representatives of the
16 Army of the Republika Srpska duty-bound to ensure your unrestricted
17 movement wherever you wanted in their territory at your request?
18 A. I think the agreement for the freedom of movement from the VRS
19 was very clear. It started for me on the 3rd of January when we went
20 into the enclave. We were not free as UNPROFOR to go freely into the
21 enclave, to take over from our predecessors the enclave, and just go and
22 do our job over there. We had to stop on several check-points. We were
23 checked and were not allowed to bring in all the things we needed. It
24 was already seen with the 1st and 2nd Battalion that they were not
25 allowed to bring in all the ammunition and all the other things they
Page 6806
1 needed in the enclave, so that part of the freedom of movement was not
2 there at all. And that stayed all the time because we were not allowed
3 to act outside of the enclave, out of the red line as we drew it on the
4 map, because the VRS did not agree that we went out of the enclave to go
5 anywhere.
6 Q. Thank you. Since you are drawing a parallel between the freedom
7 of movement within the Bandera Triangle and the freedom of movement
8 across the entire Republika Srpska, could you tell us, is the
9 Republika Srpska to be blamed for your restricted movement in the area
10 known as Bandera Triangle that you were supposed to supervise according
11 to the agreement?
12 A. I think we are getting now to a political part of the whole
13 story. When you send as UN a battalion to a certain area, I think as UN
14 you have the responsibility to arrange that they go in there as a
15 battalion being able to do a military job if needed. If you accept from
16 in this case the VRS, that you sent in a battalion partly demilitarised,
17 having not enough weapons, having not enough ammunition, having not
18 enough other logistic means to do the job in a proper way, then I think
19 we should blame the UN, and of course the VRS did it in their way but had
20 a possibility to do it in their way. And that's of course the same for
21 the Muslims in the enclave because when you don't have, for example,
22 enough diesel to travel around in your vehicles, then you give them the
23 possibility to play with you.
24 Q. Thank you. And now could you please answer the following
25 question: Why were you not allowed to move around in the
Page 6807
1 Bandera Triangle, although you had every right to do so according to the
2 agreement? Do you know it now and did you know it at the time when the
3 ban was imposed?
4 A. No, I have to take a look in my notes. I can't scan them now as
5 quick as I would like, but I can't give you an answer right now. And I
6 don't know if it's in my notes because it's an operational question and I
7 should find something from one of the meetings with the leaders of
8 operational group, but I can't find it at this moment.
9 Q. Thank you. Maybe you can tell us tomorrow when you find the
10 notes. And now, please tell me this: The restriction of movement in the
11 so-called Bandera Triangle, was that imposed upon you because the Muslims
12 were preparing to join up the enclaves of Zepa and Srebrenica of the sort
13 described in the document that I had showed you just awhile ago?
14 A. Again, I have to do it from my mind now and seeing the map in my
15 mind. The Bandera Triangle was in the middle of the enclave. So in the
16 southern part we were able to patrol and to be in our OPs and when you
17 want to connect Zepa and Srebrenica, then it should be the southern part
18 that you deny UNPROFOR the access and not in the middle of the enclave.
19 Q. Thank you. I asked you whether that was one of the reasons, and
20 I pointed to it in document D52 where it says literally joining up the
21 enclaves.
22 And in that document, Rasim Delic reports to Alija Izetbegovic
23 about the joining up of the enclaves. Was that a possible reason or one
24 of the possible reasons? You will remember that that is a document I was
25 reading from just before the break. Thank you.
Page 6808
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Could we have the document on the screen, if he
3 is going to be asking specific questions about it so the witness can have
4 a chance to review it.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: That would be helpful.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. The
7 document was displayed just a minute ago and that's one of the bullet
8 points that I wanted the witness to read. And in that bullet point
9 Mr. Delic reported to Alija Izetbegovic about what had been done with
10 helicopter sorties and then you protested because I was showing the
11 document. Can we again see D67, the document which talks about
12 helicopter sorties.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I must confess that I'm confused now. You were
14 first referring to the document D52, then Mr. McCloskey asked that we can
15 see that and now you are referring to another, D67. What are you talking
16 about, Mr. Tolimir?
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I'm
18 talking about D67. I may have switched the numbers in my previous
19 request. Can we please look at D67 again, page 1, bullet point 4. Thank
20 you. And in English it's on page 2, bullet point 2. Thank you.
21 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Let's not waste time, I'll read from bullet point 4 in the
23 Serbian and you should look at bullet point 2:
24 "In preparations for a future operation to link up the enclaves,
25 we brought in and took back four brigade commanders, two brigade Chiefs
Page 6809
1 of Staff, and the 26th Division Chief of Staff. The division commander
2 who was meant to go on the next helicopter flight did not return. After
3 the final flight ended tragically, Naser remained."
4 You said that for awhile Naser was not in the enclave, that he
5 was replaced by Becirovic. Does this document speak about the linking up
6 of the enclaves, and was your restriction of movement in the
7 Bandera Triangle perhaps related to the process to link up the enclaves,
8 or the preparations to do so? Thank you.
9 A. I'm now acting on the strategic level from the BiH command, I
10 think. Of course, there might be a possibility, but from my point of
11 view, the Bandera Triangle was in the middle of the enclave, from the
12 middle of the enclave going a little bit to the west and then opens up as
13 a triangle. The only direction I can face in this case is the direction
14 of Sarajevo, but there is so many territory between the western part of
15 the enclave and Sarajevo that is for me no logical explanation that this
16 should be a link to another enclave and especially not to Zepa because
17 Zepa was in the southern part of the enclave.
18 Q. Thank you.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we now see D65. Can this be
20 blown up and can the blown-up version be shown to the witness, please.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Do you see the triangle with numbers 1, 2, and then a letter X
24 and then arrow?
25 A. Yes, I see them.
Page 6810
1 Q. Thank you. Was that perhaps the area where it was forbidden to
2 you to move around?
3 A. In my first opinion I say, yes, this is the area. This is the
4 Bandera Triangle.
5 Q. Thank you. Is it in the centre or on the outskirts of the
6 enclave?
7 A. You see the smallest part of the triangle is in the middle of the
8 enclave and then it's going westwards and opens because I can't see
9 exactly. But I think that the red line is the enclave -- is marking
10 enclave, maybe the black line, I don't know exactly, but from the middle
11 of the enclave westwards.
12 Q. The black line denotes parties to the conflict. The red line
13 also and in between them is the interval, the no-man's land. Does that
14 mean anything to you? Were you able to move within this triangle, you,
15 the UN force?
16 A. I think you explain now that there's a red line and a black line
17 and no-man's land in between. What I can recall in my memory is that we
18 only had one red line that was a circle around the enclave and there was
19 no space and no doubt about it. And of course, Muslims and Serbs were
20 angry and about where the line should be and which tree was Serb or
21 Muslim tree, but we never used a map like this. And as I stated, the
22 blue triangle, as you can see it over there, is, in my opinion, so the
23 Bandera Triangle.
24 Q. Thank you. In your tenure in Srebrenica from January to July
25 1995, was the UNPROFOR allowed to move within this blue triangle?
Page 6811
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
2 MR. McCLOSKEY: That has been asked and answered several times.
3 I would also like to know the relevance at this point. The
4 Bandera Triangle and the fact that UNPROFOR did not have movement there
5 is not a contested issue. That the Muslims intended to join the enclaves
6 is not a contested issue. These don't appear to be going to credibility.
7 Can we have some idea of where this is going? What the relevance of this
8 is? I still don't understand.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, can you help us?
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Yes, I can respond. We
11 are talking about the reasons for the attack against the enclave and we
12 are still going in circles about the questions I asked and never got an
13 answer to. And I'm asking again, who approved for the Muslims to set up
14 complete control over the Bandera Triangle.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I think this is not correct. The
16 witness answered several times that the UNPROFOR had no access to this
17 triangle.
18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Perhaps --
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
20 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- it would be helpful but one of stated reasons
21 in the attack plan of the Serbs to attack Srebrenica was to separate the
22 two enclaves, Zepa and Srebrenica. It's the position of the Prosecution
23 that that was a legitimate concern and a legitimate objective of the VRS
24 because of the -- what was going on inside the enclaves. We agree with
25 that. That is a part of our case. That's part of our expert report. So
Page 6812
1 I agree with -- if that's Mr. Tolimir is trying to justify that part of
2 the attack, I agree that that was legitimate. But when there are more
3 than one reasons for an attack and other reasons are illegitimate, that
4 is the part we are focusing on and that was the -- our position that the
5 attack was also to remove the civilian population which is a crime. But
6 I agree that General Tolimir, if that's what he is trying to do, that the
7 Muslims caused trouble, as this witness has talked about, and one of the
8 reasons for the attack was to stop that trouble. We agree with that.
9 That's part of our case. It's in our reports. If that's where he is
10 going, maybe we can save some time. But it's his case, but it's nice to
11 know that is where he going because he just said that, but for whatever
12 it's worth that's the Prosecution's position on that direction.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I refer you to page 76, line 11 and
14 12, and again you asked, I quote:
15 "In your tenure in Srebrenica from January to July 11, 1995 was
16 the UNPROFOR allowed to move within this blue triangle."
17 And this was the trigger of the concern of Mr. McCloskey and
18 we've received a lot of information from this witness. Please use your
19 time of cross-examination in the best way and carry on.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, I would like correction
21 to the record. I asked: Do you know whether it is the case that from
22 January until July 1995 the UNPROFOR was not allowed to move within the
23 Bandera Triangle.
24 Perhaps it was not interpreted fully or accurately because we
25 were speaking very fast and that's possible.
Page 6813
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It's exactly the same formulation of the question
2 again. And the witness said they had no access to that triangle. Please
3 go ahead.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I did not ask a question. I just
5 said the transcript needed to be corrected. What I said was from January
6 to July, not just July.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: That is exactly what is recorded. Indeed I see
8 now on page 78, line 3, this is the wrong quotation of your words in July
9 11, 1995. There must be a mistake, but carry on, I think we all know
10 what you are talking about.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
12 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Please, be so kind as to tell us, the activities that the BH army
14 carried out in the area called the Bandera Triangle, were they known or
15 unknown to the UNPROFOR?
16 A. As you know, from the moment on the Bandera Triangle existed we
17 were not allowed to go in, and I can't recall at this moment and I have
18 no all the reports, of course, if we discovered any military activity and
19 if we acted against it. I think I can state that if we saw any military
20 activity in the enclave, I would have known it and I would have brought
21 it up in a meeting with Ramiz or with Naser Oric.
22 Q. Thank you. In another answer you said the UNPROFOR commander
23 dealt with the Bandera Triangle problem. Can you tell us how exactly he
24 dealt with it and what orders were you given as a result?
25 A. No, I don't know exactly at this moment. It's just I'm still
Page 6814
1 looking in my diary what exactly happened and what was the reason of the
2 existence of the Bandera Triangle. And I also don't know what the orders
3 of the commander DutchBat were.
4 Q. Is it true that you said a moment ago that it was the UNPROFOR
5 commander who dealt with and resolved this, or did I mishear you?
6 A. I think when we are talking about the UNPROFOR commander, I think
7 I'm talking about commander DutchBat because that was the commander I'm
8 talking about all the time. I had no connections or information --
9 Q. Thank you. Do you have information whatsoever about so-called
10 Carter Agreement?
11 A. It doesn't ring a bell at this moment. What do you mean with the
12 Carter Agreement and what information should I have about it?
13 Q. Thank you. Some of the information available to military
14 observers who are present at the meetings where the problem of the
15 Bandera Triangle was dealt with, there are entries referring to the
16 Carter Agreement. You can look it up tomorrow and you can answer
17 tomorrow, if you wish, because you say you are not prepared to do so now.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think you should help the witness and explain
19 why -- what do you mean by Carter Agreement. The witness doesn't know
20 that and you should put the question in an appropriate way to him.
21 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
22 Q. If you want to answer now, then tell us if you know anything,
23 anything at all about the Carter Agreement that has to do with
24 Srebrenica?
25 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The witness answered this question already with a
Page 6815
1 word:
2 "It doesn't ring a bell at this moment. What do you mean with
3 the Carter Agreement and what information should I have about it."
4 That was page 79, line 23 and 4. He asked you to explain what do
5 you mean by the Carter Agreement. You should help him.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
7 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
8 Q. I explained that one of the participants in the meetings where
9 this was discussed said that a decision had been made in keeping with the
10 Carter Agreement, and I asked this question without meaning any offence
11 or without meaning to test your credibility, but you were present at the
12 meetings where the UNPROFOR commander dealt with this issue. If you
13 don't know, then we can move on. I don't mind.
14 A. I don't know at this moment. As I said, it doesn't ring a bell
15 and I don't have information about a meeting at this moment where the
16 Carter Agreement was discussed or referred to.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think then, indeed, you should move on.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
19 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Could you please tell us whether the DutchBat had information
21 that there would be an attack against the enclave?
22 A. No, we had not the information that an attack was planned against
23 the enclave. But planning on this session, I read my diaries from I
24 think April or May up until July, and what I analyse now is seeing what
25 happened in whole Bosnia, seeing what was happening in and around the
Page 6816
1 enclave, it's amazing that we didn't see it before and not only we,
2 because we were only a part of the whole thing, of course, we sent our
3 information to north-east command and from there to BH command. I think
4 that from my point of view when we get all the information that we face
5 now and when I see if from my diaries, what I write and the information
6 what I get is that it was clear from me that it is not strange that an
7 attack should take place.
8 But we had not specific information that an attack would take
9 place on the enclave. Of course, we got several signs that commanders
10 told us and that started on the 3rd or 6th of January, where
11 General Zivanovic told us that the enclave of Srebrenica was his, at
12 least the southern part of the enclave was his, not from Mladic, not from
13 Karadzic, not from anybody but it was his.
14 So on the 6th of January, in my opinion, he announced already
15 that he wanted back his part of the enclave. And I think that was one of
16 the things that was in our mind when finally the enclave -- when indeed
17 the attack on the enclave started, the words of the General Zivanovic,
18 which we thought of course was responsible for the attack because it was
19 in his area of responsibility in our point of view, that he would take
20 the southern part of the enclave because it was his enclave or his
21 territory.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: We have to adjourn now. We just passed 7.00 and
23 we will resume tomorrow in the morning at 9.00 in this courtroom. Please
24 be reminded that you are no allowed to have contact about the content of
25 your evidence to either party.
Page 6817
1 Mr. McCloskey.
2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Could we get an estimate of the remaining cross
3 just for everyone's planning purposes.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I've
5 stressed already, we will finish within the time we were given.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The time you have given, you have given, six
7 hours. But after the experience of today, perhaps you can indicate if it
8 is possible to finish during the first session of tomorrow's hearing or
9 at a later stage, that will be really helpful for the Chamber and for the
10 parties.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We announced six to seven hours and
12 I don't think we have used up that time, and we cannot use it up even if
13 we continue the whole day tomorrow. I will do my best to finish
14 tomorrow, if that is helpful to the Prosecution.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think we don't receive any indication today.
16 We will see what happens tomorrow. We adjourn and resume tomorrow
17 morning.
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.05 p.m.
19 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 27th day of
20 October, 2010, at 9.00 a.m.
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