1 Thursday, 7 May 1998
2 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.
3 (In open session)
4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Good morning, ladies and
5 gentlemen. Good morning, Professor Bianchini, good
6 morning interpreters. In the technical booth, are you
7 all prepared?
8 So we can continue with the testimony of
9 Professor Bianchini who shall continue to impart to us
10 information about Yugoslavia.
11 Mr. Niemann?
12 MR. NIEMANN: Did you wish to say anything,
13 Judge?
14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Yes, Mr. Niemann, you have
15 the floor.
16 MR. NIEMANN: Thank you, your Honour.
17 Stefano Bianchini (continued)
18 Examined by MR. NIEMANN:
19 Q. Professor, just to clear one matter that
20 arose yesterday. I showed you a document marked
21 Exhibit 126 J. Now, that document I think has a
22 document which has been mistakenly attached to it; is
23 that right?
24 A. Yes, it is.
25 Q. I think that the first document, the first
1 page that's the letter from Ambassador Sacirbey, dated
2 the of July, that is the document you had intended to
3 include among the exhibits?
4 A. Of course.
5 Q. And the document of the 9th of November --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- is not part of what you had intended to
8 include; is that right?
9 A. Yes, it is.
10 Q. The document is of some interest, though, I
11 think?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. But it's not directly related whereas it was
14 presented as if it were.
15 A. Exactly, exactly.
16 Q. Yes.
17 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, I don't think it
18 hurts for the attachment to stay with the document. It
19 may be of some interest, in fact, to Mr. Mikulicic and
20 he may wish it to stay as part of the exhibits
21 themselves, frankly, because it's something that I
22 would imagine the defence would have some use for. So
23 I won't seek to -- I won't seek to have it withdrawn.
24 I'll just leave it with the exhibits, if I may, and
25 Mr. Mikulicic could -- may have some benefit out of it
1 and use it himself.
2 Q. Thank you, Professor. Now, I think we were
3 approaching the end of the documents that have been
4 tendered, and we got to document 126 S.
5 A. Exactly.
6 Q. Okay. Now, perhaps you could put that on the
7 screen for us?
8 A. This is the last document of the series of
9 documents on international community reactions towards
10 the events that occurred in Bosnia between 1993 and
11 1994.
12 The document is the number 126 S, and it is a
13 letter, the date is the 3rd of March, 1994. It's a
14 letter signed by both the ambassadors representing
15 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to the United Nations,
16 and the document is particularly interesting because it
17 is informing the United Nations that an agreement was
18 joined between the federation and the confederation,
19 the federation in Bosnia between Bosniaks and Croat
20 population and a possible confederation with the
21 Republic of Croatia was joined thanks to the Washington
22 agreement in March 1994.
23 What is interesting again is that the
24 agreement that was imposed by the United States has
25 been signed not only by the representatives -- the two
1 parties in war in Bosnia, that is, in this case,
2 Kresimir Zubak and Mr. Silajdzic as the Prime Minister
3 of the Republic of Bosnia, and Zubak is head of the
4 Bosnian Croat delegation, but also by Mate Granic who
5 was the deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of
6 foreign affairs for the Republic of Croatia, so the
7 document is one confirmation more of the links
8 established between the Croats in Bosnia, Croatia, and
9 the pressure that the international community made on
10 both in order to join an agreement with the Muslims,
11 the Muslim side and the government of Bosnia.
12 Q. Thank you. Now, going to exhibit 126 T, the
13 next exhibit?
14 A. Yeah. This is just -- this is 126 T, it's an
15 article from one of the newspapers. The source is the Times of
16 London, it was published in January of 1994, and
17 informs us that Boban was removed from the talks in --
18 this was February 1994, so before the agreement, the
19 Washington agreement, was signed. So this is the
20 reason why I wanted to include this document just to
21 inform you that Mr. Boban was not involved because of
22 the pressures of the international community in the
23 negotiation in order to join the Washington agreement.
24 So Boban was removed at the time and then he came to
25 Croatia, and some months later, he was appointed by
1 Tudjman and he received very important role in the
2 petrol company INA in Croatia.
3 Q. Professor, would you now look at the document
4 that is being shown to you, and a copy to
5 Mr. Mikulicic, and might it be given the next exhibit
6 number in order? It's just one document.
7 What's the exhibit number?
8 THE REGISTRAR: 127.
9 MR. NIEMANN:
10 Q. Professor, have you seen this document
11 before?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. What is it?
14 A. This is a decision, an information of the
15 Secretary-General of the United Nations which, on the
16 basis of a series of convention, international
17 conventions, you see from point 1 described here, to
18 point 29, pages 1, 2, and 3, he informed the
19 permanent representative of the Republic of Croatia
20 that the United Nations confirmed to have -- to
21 consider that secessions from the former Yugoslavia
22 take place from October 8, 1991 the date that Croatia
23 assumed responsibility for its international relations,
24 this is written page at 3.
25 Q. Perhaps you might just put that on the --
1 that part, that paragraph, where it is said by the
2 Secretary-General. Could you just display that for a
3 moment?
4 A. Pardon?
5 Q. Could you display on the screen --
6 A. Oh, sorry.
7 Q. The part where the Secretary-General makes
8 the comment.
9 A. He says succession on October 8.
10 Q. I think, Professor there is attached to it
11 an opinion by Badinter who, as discussed in the course
12 of your evidence, and this is opinion number 11, is
13 that right?
14 A. Opinion number 11, yes, it is.
15 Q. Could you take us to paragraph 4?
16 A. Yeah. This is the paragraph. Even in the
17 case of the Badinter, you have a similar decision, he
18 has written that the same issue is the same as
19 regarding the Republic of Croatia and Slovenia, both of
20 which declared independence on June the 5th, 1991, and
21 suspended the declaration of independence for three
22 months on 7 July, 1991. It is because it was based on
23 the pressures of the so-called troika of the European
24 community, that asked Slovenia and Croatia to
25 suspend for three months, in order to join an
1 agreement. The agreement was not joined.
2 So,<unintelligble> in accordance with the declaration,
3 the suspension ceased to have effect on 8 October,
4 1991. This is the date on the basis of which the
5 Badinter Commission and the United Nations considered
6 that Croatia took over the responsibility for
7 international relations.
8 Q. And I think it goes on.
9 A. Yeah. Only then did these two Republics
10 definitely break all links with the organisations of
11 the federal Republic of Yugoslavia and begin as sovereign
12 states according to international law. 8 October, 1991, is the
13 date of state of succession.
14 MR. NIEMANN: I tender that, Your Honours.
15 Q. Also going back to something you had said
16 yesterday, Professor, in relation to the Vance-Owen
17 Plan, I think that you indicated to their Honours that
18 the Vance-Owen Plan that had been devised in late 1992
19 and the beginning of '93 more or less triggered events
20 because it coincided with the aspirations of both sides
21 of -- both the Serb and the Croatian side.
22 Just look at these two documents that I show
23 you which I might treat as one exhibit if Your Honours
24 please because they are linked together, but just
25 looking at both, one is an order and one is a decision,
1 Professor, and there are translations attached to both
2 of them. Perhaps they might be the next number in
3 order A and B, if that's convenient to the registrar.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, it will be marked A and
5 B, exhibit 128. The decision will be 128 A and the
6 order 128 B.
7 MR. NIEMANN:
8 Q. Professor, dealing firstly with the decision,
9 128 A, what's this decision? What does it relate to?
10 A. This is the decision made by Jadranko Prlic,
11 the president of HVO, the 15th of January, 1993.
12 Q. I think, Professor, we might be assisted if
13 we have the --
14 A. Sorry, the decision is here. Where on the
15 basis -- on the basis of the partition in ten cantons
16 of Bosnia by the Vance-Owen Plan, as you can see in the
17 point number 1, it is written that all units of the
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina army currently in regions 3, 8, 10,
19 that is the three cantons assigned to the Croats, which
20 were proclaimed Croatian in the Geneva agreements are
21 subordinated to the command of the main headquarters of
22 the HVO armed force.
23 Q. What's the significance of this? What does
24 this mean, in simple terms?
25 A. Yes. This means that the interpretation that
1 was given by the authorities of Herceg-Bosna was that
2 the three cantons considered the cantons with a
3 Croatian majority were Croatian areas. And so in this
4 sense the military, political and military authorities,
5 came from the Croatian structures, Croatian
6 institutions, so Herceg-Bosna and HVO were the right to
7 command and over, for instance, the units of Bosnia and
8 Herzegovina which were considered the units, the army
9 of the Bosnia-Herzegovina state. This means, in fact,
10 they had the idea that a step was made in order to
11 create three states within the Bosnia-Herzegovina
12 state, the Croatian state based on three cantons, a
13 Muslim state, and a Serb state. In this sense, they
14 made a decision and they ordered that all the
15 institutions in a way under the control of other ethnic
16 groups had to be submitted to the commands and the
17 orders and the pre dominance of the Croatian
18 institutions. This is the meaning, in fact,.
19 Q. And to the exclusion of the government of
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina --
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. -- in Sarajevo?
23 A. Yes, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina was
24 treated as one of the three parts, so just as the
25 representative of one ethnic group and not as the
1 government of whole Bosnia-Herzegovina.
2 Q. And the next document that's attached to it,
3 128 B, the order? I think that's linked, is it not?
4 A. It is linked and is the implementation, is
5 linked because, as you can see immediately is written
6 based on the decision of the HVO Croatian Defence
7 council of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna.
8 Q. Which is the previous order?
9 A. And the number is the number that you can see
10 on the first page, 01-I-32-93 is the same, so you see
11 this is the decision, the other is the order, coming
12 from the Defence department, and you can see again you
13 have quoted the regions 3, 8, 10.
14 Q. And it says ...
15 A. This was the three cantons, the three cantons
16 of -- considered as the three cantons of Croatia. You
17 see that in point 3 it is clarified that the HVO
18 main headquarters has authority over region 3, 8, 10 in
19 the municipalities of Croatia and Kiseljak, and the BiH
20 army staff has authority over regions 1, 5, 9, and the
21 city of Sarajevo which were the cantons considered with
22 a majority of Muslim population by the Vance-Owen Plan.
23 MR. NIEMANN: I tender that, Your Honours,
24 please.
25 Q. Just on that document that you have been
1 looking at, did that have a triggering effect in
2 relation to the hostilities or the tensions that had
3 been mounting in Bosnia at that particular period in
4 time?
5 A. Yes. I mentioned yesterday that this had a
6 great impact in worsening the relations between
7 the Croats and the Muslim parties immediately, and the
8 event that created a tragic outlet in this worsening of
9 tensions occurred in Travnik in April, between the 9th
10 and the 7th and the 8th of April, when the flags of
11 Herceg-Bosna were raised on the public buildings.
12 Q. And those flags being raised was really as a
13 consequence of those orders?
14 A. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. They wanted to
15 implement this and the reaction of the army was, of
16 course, was negative, and they opposed and they ask --
17 and they forced to leave out the flags. And around
18 this quarrel -- they are state symbols and you know
19 this is very important particularly in a context of
20 state building process, this has created clashes, armed
21 clashes in Travnik, and the situation immediately
22 was -- influenced all around the area, and a systematic
23 war started instead of remaining just an event -- an
24 event of tensions, as it was the case, for instance, in
25 September, October, November 1992.
1 Q. And you're not suggesting, are you, that
2 incidences and military activity on both sides had not
3 occurred prior to April 1993, are you? You're just
4 saying that that was when the main onset of the war --
5 A. Yeah, I wanted just to clarify -- the
6 political scientist's approach as identified, these
7 events related to the Vance-Owen Plan and the beginning
8 of a systematic war between Croats and Muslim units in
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina. But tensions were previously
10 acting. I can just remember the question of the
11 referendum, for the referendum prepared by HDZ in Livno
12 in 1992, in the beginning of 1992, and newspapers
13 reported armed clashes -- conflicts between the army of
14 Bosnia and HVO in the area, particularly in the area of
15 Travnik, Novi Travnik, Travnik, and Vitez, between
16 September and the beginning of November 1992. So there
17 were already -- even reported armed conflict between
18 the two but a systematic war with actions -- with
19 continuous actions had been considered starting from
20 April 1993.
21 Q. Now, also in your evidence yesterday you were
22 speaking extensively of the relationship between the
23 HVO and the HV and the linking of the two military
24 institutions. Would you look at the next documents
25 that are shown to you. Again, these are two documents
1 but might be treated as one, if they could?
2 The first is dated the 6th of October and the
3 second one is the 9th of October.
4 I think we've got the wrong documents.
5 THE REGISTRAR: The documents are marked
6 Prosecution exhibit 129, that is the one of October the
7 6th, that's 129 A; and the document dated 9th of
8 October, 1992, is 129 B.
9 MR. NIEMANN:
10 Q. Now, Professor, do you recognise both these
11 documents?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Firstly looking at the document dated the 6th
14 of October, 1992, what do you say to us about that?
15 A. This is a document -- this is a request for
16 information sent to a series of brigades on the
17 officers -- the Croatian army officers operating in the
18 framework of the HVO.
19 As you see, at the beginning it is written:
20 "Please submit the following information about
21 Croatian army officers in your units," and then the
22 first name, date, personnel numbers, and so on. And
23 then the document says --"inform all the officers that
24 are in the HVO that they can't leave present HVO units
25 without the order issued by the Republic of Croatia
1 Ministry of Defence".
2 Q. And who is it signed by? I'm sorry.
3 A. I'm sorry. I think this is an interesting
4 sentence that means that the officers operating in the
5 Croatian defence army were -- of Bosnia-Herzegovina had
6 the possibility to leave only -- only -- in the event
7 they received an order issued by the Minister of
8 Defence of the Croatian government, and it says: "If
9 they fail to follow this instructions,<unintelligble,
10 check document> should be forwarded immediately."
11 Furthermore, every Croatian army officer who is
12 assigned to your units must have a written order
13 assigned him to the HVO. You are required to send
14 report and information on every Croatian army officer
15 who arrives in your units."
16 So this means that the flow was controlled --
17 evidently request of control was made, and then you
18 have copies of the document sent to several brigades or
19 units, military units.
20 Q. And I think the document 129 B is related?
21 A. Yes. You have seen the list here of the
22 first document, the document 129 A. You have
23 mentioned, for instance, the Eugen Kvaternik Brigade,
24 Bugjno, and this is the document, following B, is the
25 document received by the Eugen Kvaternik Brigade
1 command, the date is 9 October, this means three days
2 after the first document shown, and this is an order,
3 an order again asking to provide details on members of
4 the Croatian army officers. And as you can see, it's
5 reported more or less the same sentences of the
6 previous document: "Advise all officers they may not
7 leave the present HVO units without an order from the
8 Minister of Defence of the Republic of Croatia. They
9 need documents ..." So the second, the third, and the
10 fourth sentences were copied from the previous document.
11 What is also significant is that it is
12 followed by a series of other 14 units. So if you
13 compare the two documents, you have the idea of a kind
14 of network is coming from an order to a certain number
15 of units, from these units to other units. So in this
16 sense, you can have an idea what kind of network was in
17 the system of the HVO army when they received an order
18 about the topic -- and the flows of members of the
19 Croatian army and the acting in the HVO.
20 Q. What conclusions are you able to draw as a
21 consequence of looking at these two documents?
22 A. Looking at these two documents, it seems to
23 me that the conclusion that you can have is that every
24 contact between the two army was first under the
25 control of the Ministry of Defence of the Croatian
1 republic, the Minister responsible was Gojko Susak from
2 Herzegovina, so the elements are again confirmed. In a
3 sense you can find also that the relation, the map
4 shown by the OSCE is in a way confirmed, there was a
5 direct connection between the Croatian army and the
6 HVO, and you can see that the participation -- from
7 these documents you can understand that the
8 participation of officers of the Croatian army was
9 widespread indeed.
10 MR. NIEMANN: I tender those documents, your
11 Honour, Exhibit 129.
12 Q. Now, along a similar vein, would you look at
13 the next two documents that I show you, and again two
14 documents but may perhaps be given the one exhibit
15 number A and B.
16 And, Professor, I think very quickly you can
17 dispose of these documents because they are of a
18 similar nature. One, I think, the order of them is the
19 12th of April, '93, which is an order, and it's signed
20 by Colonel Blaskic, and the second one is also the 12th
21 of April, 1993, signed by Colonel Silajdic.
22 THE REGISTRAR: The document signed by
23 Colonel Blaskic bears the number 130 A and the
24 subsequent document signed by Colonel Silajdic 130 B.
25 MR. NIEMANN:
1 Q. Have you seen these documents before,
2 Professor?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Can you in summary form tell us what --
5 A. Yes, very quickly, the two documents are
6 coming -- the first one from Vitez, and this is the
7 document signed by Colonel Blaskic, and the other one
8 is a similar document coming from Tomislavgrad, the
9 date the same, April 12, 1993. So from these two
10 orders you can read -- interesting sentences because
11 they asked for information of the Croatian army
12 officers working in HVO, but they ask included the
13 number, the deadline of the order, and the rank, the
14 number of the soldiers, the first one, while the second
15 one is also asking for -- have a list of Croatian army
16 officers in their headquarters, so it's just -- these
17 are two documents related to what we told before.
18 I can just -- I would like just to turn your
19 attention to the second document because the signature
20 is Zegko Sileg, who signed also Exhibit 129 A we saw
21 previously. This person, Sileg, he was appointed by
22 Bobetko, if you look in the list you can find the name
23 of the persons appointed by him.
24 MR. NIEMANN: Thank you, Professor, I tender
25 that exhibit.
1 Q. Professor, in the course of your evidence
2 yesterday, you spoke of the situation whereby insignias
3 were either removed in relation to people coming from
4 Croatia and the like. And in connection with that,
5 would you please look at the next two related documents
6 which I now show you.
7 Again, if they could be given A and
8 B references, the first one being an order of the 26th
9 of November, 1992, and the second being an order of the
10 9th of December, 1992?
11 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution exhibit 131 A is
12 the order of the 26th of November, 1992, and the order
13 dated December the 9th, 1992, is number 131 B.
14 MR. NIEMANN:
15 Q. Do you recognise these documents, Professor?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Now, I think you would draw your attention,
18 would you not, to paragraph 3 of document 131 A?
19 A. Yes. This is again an order coming from
20 Zenica, dated the 26 of November, and in point 3 is
21 written: Croatian army members present in the region
22 and wearing Croatian army insignia must be warned to
23 take them off as they create trouble for the Croatian
24 Republic, the Republic of Croatia".
25 Q. Do you have any opinion as to what trouble
1 they may create?
2 A. Yes, I think that the documents we tendered
3 before about the concerns of international relations
4 can be immediately made in connection with this
5 sentence. So you can see also is -- in point 4 it is
6 added that if they don't have a sufficient quantity of
7 insignia and there is a shortage, the personnel are
8 allowed not to wear any insignia.
9 This is another of the questions that was
10 taken into consideration by the UNPROFOR officers,
11 personnel, when they sent information to the
12 Secretary-General informing him that, if you remember,
13 there were weapons and trucks and soldiers coming back
14 from Bosnia to Croatia with insignia -- or without
15 insignia or with insignia of the HVO which they were
16 supposed to, in fact, be soldiers of the Croatian army
17 coming back to Croatia. This was in 1994, this is
18 interesting because this is the period, November 1992,
19 the following document which is related is of 9
20 December is coming from another area. This is from
21 Mostar instead of Zenica, it is in the centre of Bosnia.
22 Mostar is near the Neretiva River in Herzegovina so
23 in two parts of Bosnia, and this document, as you can
24 see, is written -- first it's starting again about the
25 insignia and symbols of HVO uniforms worn as opposed to
1 the symbols stipulated by<unintelligble> which as such
2 compromised the reputation of HVO and Croatian army
3 members by implying ideas which the world media may
4 interpret as fascist. This is the order commanders --
5 commanders of the Croatian communities of the
6 Bosnia<unintelligble> To ensure that the unity members
7 were only having senior and removing all other emblems
8 and then as we can see point 2 wearing HVO insignia is
9 linked to an accusation against the Republic of Croatia
10 and the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna regarding a
11 direct deployment of Croatian army units in the
12 territory of the Croatian community Herceg-Bosna. "Ask
13 Croatian army members with explanation to wear HVO
14 insignia during their deployment in our area".
15 So this is another confirmation that in
16 another part of Bosnia, these orders were distributed
17 and this is in the period November and December '92.
18 In between the clashes -- the incidents, armed incident
19 that occurred between Croats and Muslims in Central
20 Bosnia and the submission of the Vance-Owen Plan and
21 the events that follow. So we are in between.
22 Q. Thank you. And finally -- I tender that,
23 your Honour, that exhibit.
24 And finally, would you look at this document
25 that I show you now? This is just one document so ...
1 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution exhibit 132.
2 MR. NIEMANN:
3 Q. Do you recognise that document, Professor?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And what's the significance of the document
6 so far as you're concerned?
7 A. The significance is related to the fact that
8 this is a letter certificate on the basis of which
9 Mr. Ivan Antunovic was given, as stated as in paragraph
10 2 the rank of Colonel and this certificate, this
11 letter, has been issued in order to regulate the
12 transfer from the HVO in Mostar to the Croatian army
13 and may not be used for other purposes. This is a
14 document that shows that it was possible on the basis
15 of this document to make a career in the HVO and then
16 to be -- to transfer into the Croatian army. So this
17 is another document that, from my point of view, shows
18 that HVO and the Croatian army were, in fact, the same
19 army.
20 MR. NIEMANN: I tender that exhibit, your
21 Honour.
22 Q. Professor, what did the HVO do to the
23 civilian population loyal to the government of
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina in late 1992 and during the course
25 of 1993 and onwards?
1 A. You know, generally the -- as we saw in the
2 documents tendered yesterday, the idea was generally to
3 establish a pre dominance -- a predominant control of
4 the Croatian institutions over certain territory, and
5 in this certain territory, all the population and --
6 the whole population and the institutions had to be
7 submitted to the control of Croatian -- Bosnian
8 Croatian authorities. So in this sense, for instance,
9 they started from the beginning to Croatise the
10 schools or to change topography or to make pressures in
11 order to make clear that the camp -- I would like to
12 use this term "camp," and there's a term in the Serbo
13 Croat or Bosnian languages "Tor", it means closed
14 camps where the peasants put the animals for pasture,
15 and this kind of Tor, closed camp, can give you the
16 idea what was going on in that area. They wanted to
17 create areas where the predominant role of an ethnic
18 group was dominating, so people was compelled to accept
19 these, and they were often forced to accept this
20 situation, sometimes through different actions. Not
21 only through cultural pressures coming from the media,
22 from the role exercised by the parties in this case,
23 the HDZ, or restructuring the system -- the educational
24 system and so on, but even through -- it happened
25 through kidnapping people. Sometimes there were some
1 of these events. And this -- the victims were not any
2 more -- only Serbs. Sometimes they are even Croats
3 too. And this was enough understandable if it means
4 that there were resistance reactions. Even in the
5 Croat population towards attempts at
6 homogenising the group. This is consistent with the
7 logic of the war. I don't know if you ever had the
8 opportunity to see a very interesting movie made by a
9 director -- Macedonian director Mancevski 'Before the
10 Rain' is the title of the movie. This is a movie which
11 explains in a very excellent way how is -- has been
12 prepared before the war the homogenisation in the
13 case of the Albanian and Macedonian groups but the
14 logic is the same, and when homogenisation is joined a
15 certain point in -- enough solid, in this moment you
16 need just an element of -- a political element in order
17 to open the fire and have the war.
18 So in this sense, this was a process that was
19 going on. The pressures against mediations as, for
20 instance, the case of Stjepan Kljujic is significant
21 enough. I can add that during the war, even during the
22 war, it happened this great pressure in order to create
23 conditions of homogenisation and clash of the groups.
24 One of these events occurred in Fojnica. I have
25 documents that show that the command of the HVO in
1 Fojnica, Mr. Stjepan Tuka, didn't want to implement
2 orders from the HVO general head quarter because he
3 had -- he explained these orders will provoke the war
4 in Fojnica between the Croat and the Muslim
5 community. And he was urged to implement the orders,
6 and the battalion, the HVO battalion. The Franciscan
7 Monastery in Fojnica and the Islamic community in
8 Fojnica signed letters and documents together in order
9 to support Mr. Stjepan Tuca and his position. He was
10 compelled to resign, another person came and
11 immediately after this event the war erupted in
12 Fojnica.
13 The OSCE confidential document I spoke about
14 in the last sessions also told the example of Vares
15 where the mayor was Croat and albeit because in Fojnica
16 there were a good majority community of Croats and a
17 great community of Muslims, and they received refugees
18 and displaced people, Croatian refugees and displaced
19 people, from the outside areas in 1993 when the war
20 already was -- erupted in Bosnia, and between the
21 Croats and the Muslims. But the mayor, Croatian mayor,
22 sought to maintain good relations with the Muslim
23 community and he succeed to manage this until HVO
24 armies arrived from the outside, enter in the city, and
25 they compelled the mayor to resign and then the war was
1 provoked. So in this sense you see that two streams
2 even clashed within the Croatian community in Bosnia,
3 and the pressure was made in order to homogenise and
4 create the conditions for a Croatian ethnic areas in
5 Bosnia.
6 Q. Professor, in the course of your research,
7 did you come across any documentation or illustrations,
8 proposals, to move ethnic populations about?
9 A. Yes. I found -- I found -- this was even --
10 if I can say proposal coming from a moderate stream of
11 the HDZ. In 1992 -- in 1991, I found a book published
12 in Vitez by Anto Valenta who was the vice -- the Deputy
13 President of the HVO later but not in 1991 when he
14 published the book, and he -- the book was about saving
15 the integrity of Bosnia through moving of population.
16 And he prepared maps.
17 Q. Perhaps you might look --
18 A. Yes, we can tender the exhibit.
19 Q. Exhibit 124 -- 124 and 5?
20 A. Four and five. I don't have the official.
21 Q. Perhaps I could mark -- 124 and 5. There's
22 two.
23 A. This is one here. They are related. They
24 were included in this interesting book. As you can
25 see, his proposal was to move a large part of the
1 population you see here, the Croatian from the eastern
2 side of Bosnia moving to the western, and an exact
3 number of Serbs moving from the eastern side to the
4 western side. The same you can see moving population
5 from Muslims and Croats from one side and Serbs and
6 Muslims from the other sides in order to have at least
7 the three parts with a clear majority of one ethnic
8 group, the western side the Croatian group, the centre
9 the Muslim, and the eastern the Serbs as it is even
10 clearer in exhibit 1, 2, 5, when you can see the three
11 colours, blue for the Croats, green for the Muslims,
12 and red for the Serbs, in order to save -- this was his
13 idea, to save the integrity of Bosnia through a moving
14 of population and the creation of three areas with a
15 predominant -- one predominant ethnic group in each of
16 these areas.
17 I wonder that -- the book was published in
18 1991, as I told you, and later, in 1993, Ante Valenta
19 suggested effectively in really a moving of population
20 in Zenica. The mayor published after the war his
21 memoirs, and through the memoirs it is interesting to
22 know many details in this sense, and he quoted this
23 event when he had this discussion with Ante Valenta who
24 proposed consistently with ideas to move population
25 from Zenica into the cantons or areas other Croatian
1 population -- to move Croatian population into cantons
2 and areas under the control of HVO, and with a Croatian
3 community, in order to avoid any armed conflict in
4 Zenica. The mayor was opposed because he wanted to save at
5 least the inter-ethnic characteristic of the community
6 of Zenica, which is predominantly Muslim, so this was
7 in effect the -- this moving thing was not agreed by
8 the two. But is just to give you also an idea of the
9 elements that were -- and the streams that were acting
10 into the Croatian community and in political circles
11 about the possible evolution of the events of Bosnia.
12 Q. Now, did the HV/HVO forces during the period
13 of the conflict in 1993 also utilise camps and
14 detention centres?
15 A. Yes. According to the OSCE document,
16 confidential document, I quoted several times, there
17 were at least 26 detention camps, different levels
18 in -- particularly in -- controlled by HVO. And the
19 most famous were Heliodrom, Dretelj, and Masinski
20 Fakultet in Mostar. These were the most known. So
21 they forced people to stay there in order to punish the
22 representatives of the other ethnic groups and in order
23 to encourage the ethnic cleansing of the areas.
24 Q. What, if anything, did the Bosnian Croats in
25 Croatia do with respect to public media facilities,
1 including television, radio, and press?
2 A. You know, before the war erupted in Bosnia,
3 there were particularly a proposal by Velimir Ostojic
4 who was Serb Minister of Information in the coalition
5 government of Bosnia in order to create three ethno
6 national channels of the Sarajevo television and to
7 give one channel to each ethnic group. This proposal
8 was submitted at the end of 1992 -- 1991, sorry, and in
9 January 1992 was supported even by HDZ, but because the
10 three parties could not agree as they are
11 particularly -- was uncertain on this topic. The
12 situation was not completely -- was not solved. And
13 then when the war erupted, war occurred even around the
14 transmitting stations of the media.
15 You know, before the war anyway, the Serbs
16 and the Croatian communities had the opportunity to
17 read amongst the whole Yugoslav newspapers, newspapers
18 and magazine coming from Zagreb and Belgrade. When the
19 war erupted, it was very important for the Serbs
20 particularly, because they started to control the
21 transmitting stations. So they were able to control
22 eight out of eleven of these transmitting stations.
23 Only one was controlled by HDZ, Croatian -- the
24 Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna, and eight of these
25 nine -- the tenth was destroyed, and the eleventh one
1 remained under the control of the Sarajevo television.
2 This was the situation in the first part of
3 the -- the first phase of the war. Herceg-Bosna later,
4 between December 1992 and August 1993, set up a system
5 of -- an information system, its own information
6 system. August 1993, it's an important date anyway
7 because in August 1993, the Croatian community of
8 Herceg-Bosna transformed itself and proclaimed itself a
9 Croatian republic, Croatian republic of Herceg-Bosna.
10 So in between this period, between December and April,
11 December '92 and April '93, television was created in
12 Siraj and Briec and according to journalists, in
13 particular to international journalists, the majority
14 of journalists working in ^ were coming from the
15 Croatian television, from Zagreb. Then they created
16 also a weekly and radio in Mostar and, (Croatian name)
17 a press agency, that was the name. In this period
18 they tried to prepare videotape cassette and they sent
19 even this cassette to -- on information what was going
20 on in the Herceg-Bosna to the Zagreb television hoping
21 that they would be broadcast by the Croatian television,
22 particularly in the most popular transmissions as, for
23 instance, Slikom Na Sliku which was very known and
24 followed by population in Croatia.
25 A very well known journalist was Mr. Sagol, he was
1 known particularly because he invented a lot of news
2 according to the journalists, invented the term
3 Sagolica in order to say news and invented news. This
4 is interesting enough because the situation changed
5 after the agreement, Washington agreement, in 1994, and
6 one of the most -- one of the authorities of the
7 Herceg-Bosna, Bozo<last name unintelligble>, accused
8 the journalists not to follow the new stream with the
9 agreement of the Muslim. He changed radically his
10 position and instead of being the partisan of the
11 Croatian Herceg-Bosna, he became immediately the
12 partisan of the agreement with the Muslims. So it's
13 just to give you a short story of what happened in the
14 media. However, you know, the media played a crucial
15 role in order to prepare, to a large extent, sectors of
16 the population to the war before the war erupted and
17 the responsibility, the first responsibility, was in
18 Serbia. Serbia manipulated radically the media in
19 Belgrade in this sense, and then the others followed.
20 And this is, I think, very interesting in order to
21 deepen a specific aspect of the organisation of the
22 consensus before the war erupted.
23 Yes.
24 MR. NIEMANN: I have no further questions,
25 your Honour.
1 JUDGE RODRIGUES: I think that it will be a
2 convenient time for us to take a break now. It is
3 10.10, so we will take a 20-minute break at this point
4 and then continue. Thank you.
5 --- Recess at 10.10 a.m.
6 --- Resumed at 10.33 a.m.
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Professor Bianchini, you
8 have now replied to the questions of the Prosecutor,
9 and perhaps now Mr. Mikulicic would like to ask you
10 some questions. Mr. Mikulicic, do you wish to
11 cross-examine the witness?
12 The accused has to be brought in.
13 (The accused entered court)
14 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
15 Cross-examined by.
16 Good morning, Professor Bianchini. My name
17 is Goran Mikulicic, I am defence counsel in this case,
18 and together with my colleague, Joka, I act on behalf
19 of the accused Mr. Aleksovski. The defence will ask
20 you some questions and ask you to give your comments on
21 some of the documents that you have used in your
22 exposition, and I would ask you to reply to these
23 questions to the best of your ability and conscience.
24 Professor Bianchini, needless to say, it is
25 with great attention that the Defence has heard your
1 testimony as well as -- in the month of February as
2 well as these last few days, and in every respect, it
3 has been a mostly informative and interesting
4 statement. But the Defence has to present, right at
5 the outset, some reservations in respect of some of
6 your conclusions and also its opposition to some of
7 your conclusions, so that the Defence, invoking the
8 documents which you have used in your ex position, will
9 be asking you for some additional questions,
10 clarifications, and comments. But to follow a certain
11 order.
12 Q. Professor Bianchini, just briefly, the
13 subject of this case, events which took place in the
14 Lasva River Valley, more specifically in the territory
15 of the Municipality of Busovaca, where was situated the
16 facility of Kaonic in which place Mr. Aleksovski
17 performed his functions. The events which the
18 indictment refers covers the period from the end of the
19 month of February to the end of the month of May in
20 1993, thus that is the period which is of interest to
21 the defence. Of course, it is not possible to exclude
22 that period without previous knowledge of the previous
23 events as well as of partially knowledge of subsequent
24 events. So having said this, the Defence will kindly
25 ask you to clarify for the benefit of us all and, of
1 course, the Trial Chamber, how come that in the areas
2 of the former Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we
3 are speaking about a particular locality, how come that
4 in those areas there are persons of Muslim -- of the
5 Muslim faith and what does this represent actually a
6 national entity or a religion, a faith, in Bosnia?
7 A. You know, when you speak about Bosnia and
8 about the role of the Slavs with a Muslim name,
9 surname, and we can say, Muslim religious
10 characteristic which is a little bit disputed in the
11 sense that you can have people claim for themselves to be
12 Muslim but not believing in any god. So this is a very
13 specific situation. Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina are
14 Slavs, generally, they share the same language with the
15 other Slavs of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
16 According to the historians, they were generally
17 persons who shared a different religion, Christian
18 religion in the Middle Ages. They were neither Catholic
19 nor Orthodox, they followed a heretical sect, so-called
20 Bogomil. When the Ottoman Empire arrived, many of
21 them, because they were constantly under pressure both from
22 Catholic side and Orthodox side, they accepted the
23 Islamic religion. And then they evolved, they remained
24 as a population, particularly in the towns and the
25 centres, the cities, instead of the countryside.
1 This was until the 20th century when it
2 started a discussion about the Muslims. Are the
3 Muslims Croats who believe in the Muslim religion? Are
4 the Muslims Serbs who became Muslim because they share
5 more or less the same language? And so you have often
6 publications and books claiming that the Muslims in Bosnia
7 are, in fact, Croat of Muslim religion or Serbs of
8 Muslim religions.
9 And Muslims themselves proclaimed something
10 separate, and they claimed this during the Kingdom of
11 Yugoslavia in the twenties and the thirties and then
12 during the Tito's period. So that they were recognised
13 as a specific community in the context of the
14 resistance movement in Bosnia, the Stavno documents
15 show this very clearly, this was disputed on the
16 Yugoslavia level since they were accepted as a
17 separated community in the '60s. But if your question
18 is who are they originally? This is against one of the
19 questions connected to the idea of nations. Is an
20 ethnic group coming from a conscious decision because
21 they share voluntary certain sects or are they connected
22 through biological origins? You can't find a
23 scientific answer. This is a question of how people
24 understand the question of nations.
25 So if you recognise the right of a group
1 to -- of every group to define themselves as a nation
2 because they share voluntarily a certain set of values,
3 they are a nation, so in this sense, we can consider
4 also the free choice of the person who claims
5 themselves as Muslim. Then, just to make clear, then
6 when the Yugoslav federation collapsed, they made the
7 choice not to be called Muslims but Bosniaks, but
8 that doesn't mean Bosnians, because that means all the
9 citizens living in Bosnia-Herzegovina while in the --
10 the Bosniaks are those who are not Croats or Serbs or
11 other ethnic groups.
12 Q. Professor Bianchini, observing things through
13 the prism of history, and you mentioned the Second
14 World War, when do we find the first elements of a
15 description of the Muslims as a nation and how was this
16 resolved in the former Yugoslavia through the
17 constitutional arrangements?
18 A. About the -- I mentioned the document of
19 Stavno, and they included Muslim as a nation in
20 the resistance movement of the Trieste party
21 movement. They are -- you can find also now, you have
22 particularly in Bosnia, a new way of discovering when
23 this nation arose, when the word was used, the
24 existence of the language, of the Bosnian language, as
25 a different language than the Serb and Croat languages,
1 you have publishing of books. As an expert, I don't
2 find this kind of quarrel particularly interesting
3 because I don't think that it's crucial to understanding
4 when a nation starts to exist because I don't share
5 this kind of continuity in the idea of nation.
6 You know, it's true that in the Middle Ages
7 we had a Bulgarian empire, but this Bulgarian empire
8 was not a Bulgarian state in the ethno national sense.
9 The empire was empire, this is crucial. The name was
10 of secondary importance. And so I think this is very
11 important to understand. This is a question of our
12 time, not having, in my opinion, so strong connection
13 with the long-term continuity. It's related to the
14 modern idea of nation and how the modern idea of nation
15 evolved.
16 So in this sense, I think that it -- we can
17 discuss about the Muslims and they are requested to be
18 recognised in -- during the Second World War because we
19 are speaking about the former Yugoslavia, albeit you
20 know that a Muslim organisation, political
21 organisation, existed during the twenties and the
22 thirties in Bosnia and then the Muslim community was
23 not in the beginning recognised as a Muslim ethno
24 nation. In the constitution you can find, particularly
25 in the constitution of 1974, they were recognised after
1 a period of making pressures. So the middle of the
2 '60s was the time when the Yugoslav context recognised
3 the existence of -- recognised the existence of a
4 Muslim community as a nation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5 Q. So we could say that, looking at the legal,
6 the legislative, and the constitutional regulations of
7 an ordered society of a state, and here I'm referring
8 to the former Yugoslavia, that the Muslims appearing in
9 Yugoslavia in that particular framework in the 1974
10 constitution; is that correct?
11 A. In the constitution? I have the
12 constitution. We can -- if I can -- the constitution
13 of '74, I have. May I just ...
14 I'm just looking at the beginning of the
15 first articles of the constitution, the first part, and
16 it is interesting to see that, for instance,
17 article II speaks about the republics and
18 autonomous regions but is not listing a series of
19 titular nations so you can't have the Muslims, neither
20 the Croats or the Serbs. You have here the republics.
21 I should see if in the articles connected to -- but
22 even in the first principles you have listed the
23 peoples of Yugoslavia and peoples were considered the
24 so-called titular nations but you have no list of these
25 peoples in these basic principles as I'm looking for.
1 You know, it was understandable, the first
2 interest of the socialism was self management, labour,
3 the working class, so you see in the constitution, even
4 in the Bosnian constitution, I have the Bosnian
5 constitution with me, you have first they pointed out
6 the role of the working class and then of the peoples.
7 So in the constitution of Bosnia, you have quoted the
8 three peoples. Here you have not the list, the
9 Yugoslav '74 constitution.
10 Q. Yes, but however, that notwithstanding, we
11 have encountered and you also used in your statement in
12 exhibit 37 -- I should like to ask the usher to give
13 that particular document to the Professor -- so when
14 one looks at this table, which represents the ethnic
15 population in Yugoslavia, one can see that there is a
16 percentage showing the number of Muslims from 1981 till
17 1990 -- which grew from 1981 to 1991. So we can see
18 that this population features in official statistical
19 data as a population?
20 A. These were as a result of the census, and
21 when the census had to be prepared several times there
22 were discussion whether to introduce the possibility to
23 the term Muslim or not. But in 1991 -- in 1981-1991,
24 there were not discussion about the introduction -- the
25 use of the term "Muslims" in the list so ...
1 Q. Yes, but is it true that at that time the
2 people, the citizens of the former Yugoslavia, stated
3 their national affiliation in this particular way? And
4 predominantly what areas of the former Yugoslavia did
5 the Muslims live?
6 A. In, sorry, I understand that your question
7 is, we are speaking about when you use the term
8 Muslimani, you're speaking about the Muslim population,
9 because otherwise --
10 Q. Yes, you're right.
11 A. I just wanted to make it clear that you were
12 speaking about Bosnia in this sense, or Kiseljak you
13 have some such, but predominantly in Bosnia.
14 Q. Let us now take a look at another ethnic
15 population group which is involved in the events
16 covered by the indictment. These are the Croats.
17 Looking again at the statistical table, it derives that
18 in these census of the population there were a certain
19 number of the population which declared itself as
20 Croats which was your<?>, but can you tell me in what
21 parts of the former Yugoslavia did the Croats
22 predominately live?
23 A. They predominantly lived in Croatia. I can
24 be more clear. They were predominantly in Slovenian,
25 in Croatia proper, in Istria in Dalmatia, and in one
1 part of Bosnia-Herzegovina that is in Herzegovina
2 particularly.
3 Q. That is the part that I'm particularly
4 interested in. So you said that at the time of the
5 former Yugoslavia, in a part of the former socialist
6 republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there also lived
7 Croats?
8 A. In one part, yes. As I told before, the same
9 was for the Muslims living in, for instance, in Sanjak,
10 so population was distributed in other way, there were
11 also Serbs in Croatia, this was not linked to the
12 territorial -- the administrative territorials. The
13 population lived -- Croatian population lived in one
14 part of Bosnia, yes, exactly.
15 Q. While it existed, the former Yugoslavia, you
16 partly broached this subject right now, what were the
17 republican borders in the former Yugoslavia, what was
18 the character of those borders?
19 A. They were -- they have -- they have an
20 administrative meaning from the international point of
21 view. They were areas that were a part of the -- of a
22 single state with a unique economic system, with a
23 unique currency, with a unique foreign policy, with a
24 unique defence policy, while -- with characteristic --
25 different characteristics within. For instance, each
1 of these republics had their own constitutions. The
2 constitution had to be made in accordance with the
3 federal constitution but they had a constitution. They
4 had a different system for education, for instance, or
5 they had their own control on the police through the
6 Minister of the Interior of each of the republics.
7 So they were different -- the borders were
8 administrative borders in a context, in a related
9 context, but each republic had their own peculiarities,
10 their own system, their own legal system and own
11 constitutional system.
12 Q. Were there any administrative barriers in the
13 communication of Croats in Bosnia and Croats living in
14 Croatia and the bordering areas?
15 A. You mean difficulties in administration plan?
16 Q. Were there any barriers in the sense of state
17 of -- frontier, border controls, in the system?
18 A. The free flow of persons was guaranteed as
19 well as all the population in Bosnia went, if you want,
20 to Dalmatia during the holidays, some holidays.
21 Croatian people had the same -- it was for the Serbs or
22 the Bosnians or the Slovenians, people moved freely all
23 around Yugoslavia, for job, for tourism, for different
24 reasons.
25 Q. You have explained, Professor, that due to
1 the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, new states have
2 emerged on these territories on the basis also of the
3 conclusions of the Badinter commission. Now,
4 considering this area where the Croats lived prior to
5 the collapse of the former Yugoslavia of Croatians in
6 Bosnia, what has happened now?
7 A. This is very important question. The answer
8 is what happened? It happened that the recognition was
9 for the republics belonging to Yugoslavia. So
10 republics were recognised on the basis of their
11 administrative borders. This means, if you want, for
12 the Croatian population living in Yugoslavia, that the
13 majority of them were in the Republic of Croatia, the
14 large overwhelming majority. Part of the Croatian
15 population was living in other countries, for instance,
16 Bosnia or Serbia, if you want to take into account, for
17 instance Vienna, and the significant presence of Croats
18 in Srebernica. So this happened to -- for all the
19 ethnic groups of Yugoslavia, the same was for the
20 Serbs. The Serbs became in Croatia part of the
21 population, part of the population of the Croatian
22 state. It was same for the Serbs in Bosnia and you can
23 see the same was for the Albanians and for the Muslims
24 because the Muslims were in the -- in Bosnia but even
25 in Sanjac, that is between Montenegro and Serbia. So
1 this was a common fate of the different ethnic groups
2 in former Yugoslavia when recognition was implemented.
3 Q. And after the recognition of the former
4 Yugoslav republics, I'm thinking of Bosnia-Herzegovina
5 on the one hand and Croatia on the other hand, and what
6 were the relations now. So prior there were no
7 administrative barriers and limitations; however, in
8 this new geo-political conditions, what were the
9 relations now?
10 A. When the recognition was implemented by the
11 European union was achieved by the Croatia, it was a
12 situation of war. So it was not a normal civilian
13 context when you establish borders, as it was the case,
14 for instance -- in this case, a little bit different
15 was the case when Slovenia establish its own borders on
16 the Slovene Croat borders because the war erupted
17 two days later. But they were already prepared to
18 establish their control on the Croat-Slovene
19 borders, and it was a shock for the Croatian population
20 living there because particularly in Istria they were
21 used to move from one side to another, for job.
22 Suddenly, from one day to another, they became
23 foreigners of this country. And, of course, from the
24 legal point of view, it was the same for the population
25 in Bosnia and the population in Croatia. However, you
1 can't forget that Croatia was involved in the war. One
2 part of the huge territory was under the control of the
3 Serbs irregular units, I mean Krajina, and part of
4 Slovenia, and communication was radically difficult,
5 and Bosnia in that time, I mean between the beginning
6 of the war in 1991 and the recognition of Bosnia, April
7 1992, lived in a context which was in between the -- to
8 become sovereign state and to be part of the still
9 existing socialist Yugoslav federation because the
10 socialist Yugoslav federation disappeared. In fact,
11 when -- from the political point of view, Ante Markovic
12 gave his resignation in 1991. From the legal point of
13 view, I think it was when Serbia and Montenegro
14 declared on April 27, 1992, their federation.
15 So this was the end of this process of
16 dismemberment of whole Yugoslavia, so in this sense I
17 think that the situation of the population had to be
18 considered in the framework of this difficult and
19 specific situation and not peaceful situation.
20 Q. In this light, would it be possible to
21 conclude that in the course of 1992 and 1993, the
22 process of adjustment and the creation was still in
23 course, that not all of those structures have been set
24 up which exist in a stable state?
25 A. If you speak about -- about a real context, a
1 real situation, of course it was the situation. It was
2 a war, and you had -- and you had people going --
3 coming from one party to another because there were
4 claims for change in territories, of former
5 Yugoslavia. But from the international point of view,
6 the recognition was very clear and was related to the
7 administrative borders of the republics of Yugoslavia
8 which were considered international borders, and in
9 this sense, in this sense, international community all
10 the times interpreted the recognition.
11 Q. Understandably so. But with the
12 international act of recognition, that day itself, it
13 was the 6th of April in 1993, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a
14 sovereign state, did it have the possibility to control
15 all its borders?
16 A. I think that generally speaking, in a context
17 where the sovereignty of Bosnia was not threatened by
18 Serb side, Bosnia had the possibility to control in
19 a few days its borders. The problem was that it was
20 made difficult this because of the -- because of the
21 claims coming from -- immediately coming from the
22 Serb side. We have to take into account that in
23 this sense, Bosnia could rely on the help of the
24 international community taking into account that the
25 recognition happened after the deployment of UN
1 armies in Krajina, the peacekeepers, so in this sense
2 even the borders between Krajina and Bosnia was, in a
3 sense, under the control and the protection of the UN
4 peacekeepers who arrived at the beginning of April,
5 just in the moment when the recognition was made.
6 Q. Professor, considering this problem,
7 throughout history we were faced with similar
8 situations. I am referring to a situation where due to
9 certain administrative solutions, as a consequence of
10 bilateral accords or as a consequence of certain world
11 or international conferences, the Versailles
12 conference, for example, when you have a new state and
13 territorial division, it is usual that for a population
14 which remains "enslaved" in some other country, that
15 the mother country maintains relations with that
16 population remaining outside its borders? You
17 mentioned Istria, in Istria an important Italian
18 minority lives. We know about the annexation of
19 Istria, the First World War and so on and so forth. I
20 won't go into that. It is true that the republic of
21 Italy today maintains the contacts with this Italian
22 minority living in the Istrian region, both of Slovenia
23 and Croatia? Is it also true that in Trieste, an
24 Italian city, there is an important Slovene minority
25 with its cultural organisation which has close contact,
1 has close links with the mother country, Slovenia.
2 Would you comment that in connection with Herzegovina,
3 the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia,
4 and the national entities living on these territories?
5 A. This is a very interesting question. And
6 it's a good comparison, in a sense. In a sense that
7 you see we have to take into consideration what is the
8 role of minorities in this context. It is true that
9 Italy takes care of its own<?> but this happened today
10 in this context through bilateral agreements. Italy
11 and Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, have a certain kind of
12 agreement in order to protect each other their
13 minorities, and when one minority is not being
14 protected is a matter of negotiations.
15 When this didn't happen -- it was the case,
16 for instance, Istria -- Italy not Istria -- we can add
17 Dalmatia, Italy, for instance, as I said in February,
18 Dalmatia was used, manipulated, by Italian policymakers
19 in order to dismember Yugoslavia or to take one part of
20 the territory which was <indescernable> at the time as
21 today an overwhelming majority of Slavic population.
22 So this is the question. It depends on the nature of
23 the attitude of each state when considering the role of
24 the minorities. In principle, each state has a right
25 of helping, giving protection, sending economic support
1 for certain activities, but this is only a matter of
2 negotiation, bilateral agreement, in order to guarantee
3 the other state that this is not against him, is just
4 for protecting a minority in a sense to helping a
5 minority to maintain contact with the so-called mother
6 nation, if you want.
7 So it depends how you use the question of the
8 minorities. You know that this was also for Istria a
9 subject of many tensions between Italy and Yugoslavia
10 even after the Second World War. At least until 1954
11 when the so-called territory, free territory of Trieste
12 was divided, definitely in a zone A and zone B; zone
13 A assigned to Italy and zone B assigned to Yugoslavia.
14 And it started again a difficult process of
15 re-establishing confidence measures and negotiation in
16 order to -- so this is a matter under these conditions
17 that can be considered.
18 Q. I do understand. By interpreting this answer
19 of yours, we may conclude, and if I err, please correct
20 me. We are speaking here of a long-term process, and
21 when speaking of history in other cases, when we have a
22 peaceful context, here, on the other hand, in
23 connection with this indictment, we have a short period
24 of time and a period of war. Could you explain that?
25 A. It depends if -- these matters can be even to
1 a certain extent very rapidly be negotiated. The
2 problem is, if the state has or not -- and the
3 policymakers have or not a peculiar attraction toward
4 nationalism, if they have a peculiar attraction toward
5 nationalism, this process will take a long time. If
6 they don't have, it should be immediately created a
7 fundamental prerequisite for a rapid solution of the
8 question. So it depends. We have to consider the
9 different period. Italy had a very strong nationalist
10 approach, but take into consideration the -- even
11 difficult -- recently, difficult relation for a certain
12 period with Slovenia because of the question of Bosnia
13 Slovenia. One government of Italy was nationalisticly
14 oriented and this created a lot of problems with
15 Slovenia. When this government was removed and another
16 one took over the power, the negotiations and the
17 solution was found in a few months. So this is the
18 reaction that you can have if the ideology of
19 reference, if I can say, of the policymakers of a state
20 is related or not with the idea of nationalism.
21 Q. So linking this question, let us now focus on
22 the question of political organisations of the
23 population in both of the two countries. I am thinking
24 of the predominant party in Croatia and in that part of
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina, I am speaking of HDZ. May I ask
1 you: Do you know, Sir, that the party links in some
2 cases exceed the state borders and parties establish
3 common links on a different level of the same identical
4 programs, political -- identical political ideas,
5 political procedures. Tell me, do you know of such a
6 case in contemporary Europe and history of that?
7 A. If you want to take into consideration, for
8 instance, the social democrat relations of the parties
9 or the Christian democracy parties, they had their own
10 different parties coming from different countries with
11 meetings, international meetings, different -- sometime
12 different, sometime close programs, but in a
13 multi-international environment. There were not two --
14 there were 10, 15, 20 organisations that they found.
15 Sometimes there was one party trying to establish his
16 own control over the others. This was the case, for
17 instance, of the Communist International. But this is
18 a specific case. Specific case because Communism, as
19 it was the Soviet Union, let's say Stalin, was to
20 create the conditions for a revolution in the world.
21 They wanted Lenin, Trotsky, in 1917-1918 -- when
22 communism was created, they wanted to provoke the war,
23 and they hoped to have the revolution, the world
24 revolution, in the sense in Germany, in Great Britain,
25 in France, and they interpreted the Soviet revolution
1 in Hungary, the so-called<Italian term used> in Italy,
2 the Red Vienna, the Sparticista<?> Revolution in Berlin
3 as the signs of this, and this is one thing. Then
4 arrived Stalin. Stalin interpreted a different sense
5 this. He had the idea that Soviet Union was besieged,
6 that the Soviet Union had to be protected by the other
7 communists, and he manipulated the Comintern in order
8 to transform it as a tool for dominating the other
9 parties. What was the outcome of this attempt? That
10 step by step all these parties clashed with Soviet
11 Union and Comintern<?> was closed, dismembered, in 1943,
12 the attempts to create a new organisation failed in a
13 few months because the clash between Tito and Stalin
14 showed that this was impossible. So in this case, you
15 don't have this. It's very peculiar. You have --
16 these organisation -- this is also interesting -- are a
17 political organisation of political parties sharing
18 similar -- similar -- political ideas. They are not
19 related to each other for ethno-national reasons, and--
20 these are very important questions. Then they failed,
21 they were unable to find a strong organisation. This
22 is other matter. This is related to the relations
23 between -- amongst these parties.
24 Q. Now, Professor Bianchini, I would kindly ask
25 you to go through the exhibit and every time that I
1 quote one of the exhibits, I will ask the usher to
2 present that to you so that you can show it to -- on
3 the ELMO.
4 Exhibit 38, please. You can see again a
5 statistical table which compares the ethnic population
6 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, so the Muslim population is the
7 predominant population in that territory. The Serb
8 population is represented with -- the Croat population
9 is represented with some 18 percent, approximately.
10 That is twice less than Muslim population. Would it be
11 therefore correct to conclude that the Croatian
12 population compared to the Muslim one was a small
13 minority?
14 A. I think it would be more exact to say that
15 demographically, the Croat population had an inferior
16 number than the Muslim population.
17 Q. Is this statistical piece of information
18 important?
19 A. It depends on the use that you want to -- not
20 you personally, policymakers, wanted to have. This can
21 be, you know, just knowledge, in this sense. I would
22 like to stress -- let me say -- this is very important
23 question. Sometimes the rights of the groups, of
24 ethnic groups, are related to have more rights or less
25 right to the number of a group. But I think this is
1 not correct. Right is right. You can be ten, you can
2 be 10 million. A right is a right. If a group has a
3 right to be protected, this right does not depend on
4 the number of persons in a group. Unfortunately this
5 is used now even in the Kosovo question. So the
6 Albanians are claiming -- or Macedonia, they are 20
7 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, but if there is right
8 of the Albanians to be protected as a collective, it
9 doesn't matter whether they are 20 percent or 40
10 percent. So significant or not, it depends on the use
11 that policymakers make in this sense, you know, because
12 otherwise this is -- can be just to know the structure
13 of the population as well as, you know, for instance,
14 when you receive the figures of the birth rates, of the
15 death rates, they are figures. It depends on the use
16 you make.
17 Q. I agree with you, Professor. I would kindly
18 ask the usher to present the exhibit number 39.
19 Professor Bianchini, could you just explain the source
20 of this map for us?
21 A. This is a map that I suggested to be prepared
22 by the officers here, the Tribunal, under my control,
23 taking into consideration generally the census results,
24 and other maps that I collected from different books
25 and sources, they were published, and there are
1 different ...
2 Q. So the map is based on data collected from
3 the 1991 census?
4 A. According to the census of 1991, yeah.
5 Q. Professor, the area covered also in the
6 indictment covers the area of municipality of Vitez and
7 Busovaca, it's somewhere in the centre of the map, you
8 can look at them there. Could you comment, Sir, in
9 view of the logic of this map, what is the composition
10 of the population here, particularly in view of the
11 surrounding areas, namely, the municipalities which
12 surround municipality Vitez and Busovaca, particularly
13 Busovaca?
14 A. Another atlas I have, because I can give
15 better ...
16 This is a very good atlas published in
17 Croatia, and this is one of my sources. And here in
18 the atlas there are the lists of the municipalities of
19 Bosnia and Croatia with the results of the census in
20 this area. So you ask me about Vitez and Busovaca.
21 Q. Professor, let us focus on this map which has
22 been presented as an exhibit.
23 A. When you have a context, you see the colour
24 is showing that the percentage of a certain number of
25 ethnic groups is more or less than the 50 percent of
1 each area, and in this sense, you see, as, for
2 instance, for Vitez, that population was below Croatian
3 population, below the 50 percent, this means that the
4 other parts were shared by Muslims and Serbs.
5 I would like to stress anyway that all these
6 maps, all these maps -- I had the opportunity to see a
7 lot of these maps -- can give you or to all of you just
8 a general picture, very general picture, and I will
9 explain why. Because if you consider the most red
10 part, Livno, Duvno here, Tomislavgrad, Prozor, this
11 area, you can have the idea that the Croatian
12 population was overwhelmingly concentrated in this
13 area, which is only to a certain extent true because in
14 the balance of the ethnic -- of the demographic
15 proportion, there were much more Croats in other areas,
16 for instance in Sarajevo, in Central Bosnia, than
17 here. But here there were less population so you have
18 the 90 percent of Croats but the impact of this 90
19 percent is less important than the impact in the other
20 parts because the population was much more higher in
21 terms of hundreds of thousands of people living in one
22 area than in the other.
23 So in this case, I used this map just to give
24 a general picture, but this general picture can offer
25 to persons the exact context. So that's why, in the
1 end, when you see the map, the map then, you have to
2 refer to the tables or the census if you want to have
3 the real structure of one district, for instance.
4 Otherwise, you can't have from the maps.
5 Q. I understand what you are trying to say,
6 Professor, but let us go back to this exhibit which has
7 been tendered as evidence. This map which you say was
8 made on the basis of your instructions, according to
9 the 1991 census. May we conclude, looking at this map,
10 that the municipality of Busovaca is predominantly
11 surrounded by a Muslim population?
12 A. Only to certain extent because you see that
13 Kiseljak and other areas have predominant Croatian
14 population, so -- and Fojnica has not so predominant
15 population, they were in position in Fojnica, they were
16 above 50 percent, but this is giving only the colour of
17 the ethnic group who had the relative majority in this
18 part, this means that the difference can be from the
19 first to the second on the only 100 persons, you know,
20 sometimes. So in this sense -- that's why, I repeat,
21 the map can offer just a general picture but can't be
22 considered in this sense -- only to certain extent you
23 can conclude in this way.
24 Q. I see. I should like to ask the usher for
25 exhibit number 42. This is yet another statistical
1 table which depicts the composition of the
2 Bosnia-Herzegovinan parliament in 1990 after the
3 democratic elections. Can you tell us, Professor,
4 whether this composition, and I'm referring
5 particularly to the three dominant groups in
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbs, the Muslims, and the
7 Croats, whether this composition of representation in
8 parliament actually reflects the picture of the
9 representation of these national entities in the
10 population of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
11 A. Yes, because SDR, SDS, and HDZ were voted
12 predominantly by their own relevant ethnic group, that
13 is Muslims, Serbs and Croats. That is one of the
14 reasons why concerns immediately increased in Bosnia
15 because this was considered by many of the scholars as
16 a vote based not predominantly on difference of ideas
17 but only on ethnic reasons. And, you know, this vote
18 radically overthrown the polls who were published by
19 the newspapers before the elections were taken, they
20 were opinion polls generally and they asked, and all
21 the opinion polls generally predicted the victory of
22 the Ante Markovic party which had, in fact, a great
23 defeat in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So in a sense the
24 result -- the outcome of the election were surprisingly
25 enough for the population and for the public opinion.
1 Q. Does this percentage of members of parliament
2 reflect the political clout that they had in
3 parliament?
4 A. I don't know what exactly you mean with this
5 sentence in the sense that you have -- you can see --
6 if you refer to the percent of seats or you refer to
7 the exact ability to influence the government and the
8 decision-making in the presidency and --
9 Q. I'm talking about the seats in parliament?
10 A. You have a percentage -- if you can make a
11 comparison, the percentage of SDR is 37.8 percent, the
12 Muslims generally were around 43 percent, so a little
13 bit less, but the great majority is there. The SDS
14 received the 26.5 percent, and the Serbs were 34
15 percent, and the Croats 14.7 percent, they were a
16 little bit less than 18. And so in this sense more or
17 less they reflected.
18 Q. Perhaps just to clarify one point. In what
19 way were decisions taken in the Bosnian and
20 Herzegovinian parliament at the time, what was the
21 system of decision making, was it out voting by the
22 majority or by a consensus?
23 A. That was one of the quarrels all the time,
24 that's why the government and the parliament were not
25 effective in their decisions, because on the one side,
1 particularly from the Serb point of view, there were
2 claimed consensus. Very interesting question because
3 the Serbs were against the consensus in the Yugoslav
4 federation but they claimed consensus in the Bosnian
5 context. So the approach of the ethnic policy was that
6 very pragmatically they used the tools, the instruments
7 in order to protect themselves so the Serbs were for
8 the proportion of voting in Yugoslavia on the basis of
9 the fact that they were the 36 percent of the
10 population. While in Bosnia, when they understood that
11 SDR and HDZ had the possibility to vote together, in
12 main opportunity it happened and they had the majority,
13 the SDS didn't participate in the vote in the assembly,
14 they didn't boycott the vote and then declare the vote
15 was not correct and fair, and claimed the consensus.
16 So in this sense, we can see that the parliament and
17 the government were unable to do effective policies in
18 the period between 1990 and 1992, and even the passing
19 of the law was extremely difficult when it happened for
20 this reason.
21 Q. Tell us, Professor, for how long did the
22 Bosnian parliament actually and substantially function,
23 this particular one that we're talking about?
24 A. I can say that generally, if we speak about
25 the majority, we can -- the majority of the members
1 taking part today -- to the parliament, it -- this
2 parliament had the opportunity to work until the
3 beginning of the war, that is the period until April
4 1992, and then it was of course impossible because the
5 clashes in Sarajevo start immediately and the city was
6 surrounded and besieged.
7 Q. So what we are talking about right now, the
8 functioning of the parliament, was discontinued, we can
9 take it, with the besieging of Sarajevo?
10 A. Yes, the fact, however, is it has to be
11 considered that this was the legal parliament. It was
12 the condition, the external condition, hindered to
13 work, but this was at least recognised as a legal
14 parliament, so only new elections can change this one,
15 and this follow the reason why the international
16 community claimed immediately after the Dayton
17 agreement, new elections.
18 Q. I see. I should like to ask the usher for
19 exhibit number 108.
20 These are the results of the referendum in
21 Bosnia. Would you just briefly, Professor, remind us
22 of what kind of referendum that was?
23 A. I already spoke in the previous session about
24 the referendum, and I explained that the referendum was
25 on a -- based on a question approved by the parliament
1 of Bosnia in January 1992 where the Serb, SDS, didn't
2 take part, and the question was -- we can reread, but
3 you have evidence in this sense, that people was asked
4 if they wanted to stay in a sovereign independent state
5 of citizens and peoples while, I repeat, the HDZ
6 submitted from Livno another proposal which created
7 concern and tensions in relations with SDA in which the
8 terms citizens were completely erased and remained as a
9 sovereign state of the three titular nations in their
10 own cantons. This was the -- so even the question
11 remained that voted by the parliament, as far as I
12 know, I don't know if some other question was more or
13 less really written in other areas proposed, but this
14 remained. It's clear that from the mentality -- if you
15 take into consideration the mentality of the
16 policymakers who suggested to vote for independence,
17 moved from two different point of view at least to a
18 large extent, particularly because in HDZ, Kljujic was
19 overthrown in February 1992, that is in the same month
20 when the Livno question was submitted by HDZ.
21 Q. Generally speaking, was this a referendum for
22 a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina?
23 A. Yes, but it's not -- we can't restrict this
24 question only on these terms. This was a referendum on
25 the independence -- on a sovereign independent state of
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina of citizens and peoples, and I would
2 like to emphasise particularly this question, the
3 citizenship, because this is a very important element.
4 In order to balance the influence of the collective
5 rights which have not to be denied. But in order to
6 not to have a only predominant role of the collective
7 rights over the individual rights, so in this sense I
8 think that we can restrict the question as you ask.
9 Q. But was there -- were there consequences of
10 this referendum also in the state and legal field the
11 proclamation of sovereign state of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
12 Now if we look at the percentage of voters in the
13 referendum in your statement, you say that the Serb
14 population did not turn out, the majority of the
15 Serb population did not turn out at the referendum?
16 A. Journalists, scientists, scholars, and
17 policymakers, this is the --
18 Q. So if we take into consideration the fact
19 that apart from the Serb population, apart from some
20 minor groups, there also lived the Muslim and Croatian
21 populations in Bosnia, the result of the voting from
22 the existing electorate are 63.5 percent, what does
23 that percentage cover in your interpretation?
24 A. This 63.95 percent of, yes, of eligible
25 voters, means that was a large part of population --
1 the overwhelming population belonging to the Croatian
2 and Muslim community plus -- plus other persons,
3 maybe -- probably Yugoslavs, other minorities, Jews,
4 and other minorities who had a peculiar role in the
5 Bosnian context.
6 Q. If now we go back to the statistical result
7 of the ethnic representation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
8 see that in 1991 -- that is exhibit number 38.
9 A. Just to follow you. Sorry.
10 Q. Yes, of course.
11 A. Thank you.
12 Q. So if we look at the percentage of the Muslim
13 population, which is 43.7, and 17.3 being the
14 percentage of the Croatian population which, taken
15 together, is 61 percent? Can we derive from that the
16 conclusion that actually the 63.95 percent of the total
17 electorate of Bosnia-Herzegovina in it, it was mostly
18 or perhaps exclusively the Muslims and the Croatians
19 that voted in favour of a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina?
20 A. Muslims and Croatian population take part in
21 this, but it's impossible to conclude exactly in this
22 sense because the ballot was secret and because we
23 don't know how voted the Yugoslavs as well as you see
24 the 5.5 percent, the others are the 1.1 percent. So
25 they had also an influence in this vote, and I think
1 that one part of them -- of this -- a large part of
2 this ethnic groups are national declarations, as you
3 can include, I don't know, the Yugoslavs participate in
4 the vote.
5 So generally yes, not exactly -- not making a
6 direct amount of the -- just the Muslim and the Croats
7 and just a group of the others because we can't -- we
8 can't exclude that the other -- the other minorities
9 also participate and the ballot was secret, so we can
10 conclude that the overwhelming majority of Serbs voted
11 against the overwhelming majority of the Muslims and
12 the Croats opted for <?>.
13 Q. I should like to ask for exhibit number 109.
14 Professor, Sir, in your exposition you also showed this
15 table and you did say that as a reservation that there
16 were no exact data and that you also quoted some of the
17 sources because of that. Can you just, observing this
18 table only very generally say what was the ratio
19 between the forces, the numerical ratio between the
20 forces of the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims in
21 relation to these elections -- to these sources,<the
22 interpreter corrects herself>?
23 A. You can see very clearly on the map when you
24 see that, for instance, the Bosnian Muslims, according
25 to different sources, were between 100,000 and two
1 hundred, so more than 200,000, while Croatian army was
2 reduced (?) by something between 30 and 65,000, so --
3 the number is different but the weapons that the army
4 had was different --
5 Q. These are not data --
6 A. (Missed answer).
7 Q. May we then conclude that these racial forces
8 ranged between 1 to 2 to 1 to 3 1/2 to 4 in favour of
9 the Muslims? Will the usher please bring exhibit
10 number 114, 114.
11 Professor, this is a map of the Yugoslav
12 state from 1918. In giving evidence yesterday, you
13 said that the geographical maps and borders of
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina which is shown in the centre of the
15 map since that time to the unfortunate events in the
16 former Yugoslavia has not changed.
17 A. Yes, the borders that you can see here --
18 Q. The republican border of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
19 A. Bosnia-Herzegovina was not a republic, it was
20 just an area in 1918, so they are today more or less
21 international borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, more or
22 less these are more or less the same, yes, yes.
23 Q. Here in this map we can see that
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina has access to the sea, the Boca
25 Korduska bay to the south of Dubrovnik?
1 A. Never. You can see this is -- this is not a
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina, yes, yes. This was the only --
3 only -- only connection with the seaside was here with
4 Nieljna, the other is just ...
5 Q. But tell us then what is this outlet, this
6 access to the sea drawn in the Boca Korduska bay, is
7 that a mistake or should one interpret it differently?
8 A. I think this is mistake. I don't have
9 evidence about a Bosnia-Herzegovina that had in that
10 area a sea connection, the sea in that area. I don't
11 have this kind of evidence.
12 Q. May we then conclude that this is not a
13 correct datum that has been drawn in this map?
14 A. If you want, yes.
15 Q. I should like to ask the usher for exhibit
16 number 116.
17 Exhibit 116 -- there are several, A to E, I
18 believe. We shall now confine ourselves to 116 A, this
19 first map, drawn on that paper. The title is the
20 ethnic division of Bosnia agreed by the three national
21 parties in the Villa Konak. Would you just briefly
22 remind us what kind of a meeting that was and who took
23 part in the meeting?
24 A. This was a meeting that was organised
25 immediately after the referendum in order to -- before
1 the -- sorry, it was -- yes, yes, immediately after the
2 referendum, and it was an attempt at finding a solution
3 before erupting the war, so the representative of the
4 three national parties, SDS, HDZ, and SDA took part in
5 preparing this agreement which was an agreement that in
6 the end didn't -- was -- didn't work. So it was one of
7 the last attempts, generally speaking, I don't think
8 that it was particularly important.
9 Q. Professor, Sir, do you perhaps remember the
10 participants in the meeting? Who was there? Who
11 attended the meeting?
12 A. I don't remember.
13 Q. Can you perhaps remember, if I remind you
14 that Mr. Mate Boban, Mr. Izetbegovic, and Mr. Radovan
15 Karadzic were there?
16 A. I can check if you want.
17 Q. Do you recall whether any international
18 organisation had any sort of a patronage over that
19 meeting?
20 A. It seems to me that the European union was
21 even urging, particularly in connection with the
22 attempt of Cutilieo, it was connected to the Cutiliero
23 proposal of cantonisation of Bosnia which was submitted
24 in February 1992 to the authorities of Bosnia.
25 Q. Can you tell us, in respect of this map that
1 we have before us, can you comment on that map in
2 relation to the plans which were made subsequent to it
3 with the objective of calming tensions in Bosnia and
4 Herzegovina and its division into cantons, that of the
5 republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is?
6 A. I don't know what can I add of what I already
7 said in this sense. This was an ethnic division that
8 was not the only claim of -- for the organisation of
9 Bosnia. Then the other question was, what can be the
10 organisation -- the political organisation of -- within
11 these cantons and how can the cantons related to each
12 other, so there were many other questions, it was not
13 just a question of maps. The question of maps was
14 important, but this was only one of the disputed issues
15 between the parties.
16 Q. You made reference in the beginning to the
17 fact that at this meeting under the patronage of the
18 European community, Mr. Cutiliero in cooperation with
19 the representatives of the three dominant nations in
20 Bosnia, tried to resolve the situation on the basis of
21 an ethnic division in Bosnia. That is what is written
22 on this map?
23 A. No, there are three national parties, yes, on
24 the basis of the three national parties.
25 Q. Ethnic division.
1 A. In fact, my personal opinion is, and this is
2 one of the reasons why the international community
3 shared responsibilities in the war in
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina, is that the international
5 community, particularly at that moment the European
6 community, supported to a certain extent the idea of
7 creating ethnic areas in Bosnia. This was one of the
8 reasons why this created concern, because this is
9 important to take into consideration. While Serb and
10 Croat parties, SDS and HDZ, at that moment agreed in a
11 sense to have ethnic cantons, this was not so clear for
12 the Muslims and the others. There were fundamentalists
13 and there were extremes as they are thinking about the
14 possibility to accept these ideas, and this has
15 remained for all the time in Bosnia, until today, while
16 another stream of the SDA plus those that were not
17 included in the let me say three ethno-national parties,
18 belonging to other parties were against this partition,
19 they opposed, and they opposed for this reason, because
20 they didn't want to have cantons on the basis of ethnic
21 regions. They could accept ideas and there were
22 projects of areas, cantons, with an economic, cultural,
23 common -- economic, cultural basis, but not ethnic
24 basis, but not predominant ethnic basis. This
25 explained why. Because of the war, for a long period,
1 SDR, has received a positive stereotype, generally, of
2 defending the integrity of Bosnia because he was
3 supported by these democrats because of the wars or
4 against the Serbs then during 1993-94 against HVO and
5 the Croats but, but, this is now, after the war, more
6 became clear that it was not so evident this alliance
7 between the two because they was a part in the
8 SDA which opposed and which was ready to accept the
9 idea of the so-called Muslimania, that is a restricted
10 state where the Muslim live together without Serbs and
11 Croats and the problem again was the map, because this
12 Muslimania will have an outlet toward the river, toward
13 the Adriatic sea, toward both areas or not, this was an
14 open question, and this was an extreme within the SDA.
15 So you know that even recently many disputed issues
16 were opened in Sarajevo and even Izetbegovic was
17 charged because of what happened in Sarajevo in
18 1992-'93 because of the Saso case or I can mention here
19 the rethinking of the war by Causevic, for instance, or
20 the charge of the General<?> against Izetbegovic. What
21 does it mean, all this? Now, after the war, it is
22 becoming clear that even in the SDR, there was this
23 extreme pressing for accepting this kind of partition
24 where another part was against, and for this reason it
25 was possible a cooperation with the democrats.
1 Otherwise, this was -- now it is appearing clear that
2 this relation was a disputed relation in many
3 respects. So this is -- the question, the future of
4 Bosnia has to be considering this -- in this complex
5 context where the SDA had often a very unbalanced
6 position and changed often its opinion because of the
7 relations of the extremes within the party.
8 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Mikulicic, I'm sorry to
9 be interrupting you now, but I propose a break. I also
10 apologise to Professor Bianchini, but we will have a
11 recess of 15 minutes. Thank you.
12 ---Recess taken at 11..57 a.m.
13 --- Resumed at 12.17 p.m.
14 (The accused entered court)
15 (Proceedings begin - no translation)
16 THE DETAINEE: Yes, sir, everything's all
17 right. I just didn't feel well for a moment.
18 JUDGE RODRIGUES: I have noticed that you
19 don't seem to feel very well, but I believe we may
20 resume.
21 MR. MIKULICIC:
22 Q. Professor, shall we now return to the map we
23 have on the ELMO. May we conclude that this map is a
24 consequence of the negotiations held in Vijakonic
25 between Mr. Boban, Mr. Izetbegovic, and Mr. Karadzic
1 under the patronage of the European Union and that
2 resulted in this solution based on the ethnic division
3 of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
4 A. To a certain extent, yes. To certain extent,
5 yes.
6 Q. I would kindly ask the usher to submit -- to
7 tender as evidence exhibit 119. Please leave the
8 exhibit 116, leave it so that we can draw a
9 comparison. I would kindly ask the usher to return
10 exhibit number 116 in order to be able to draw a
11 comparison. But we will also go through the other
12 exhibits 116.
13 Professor, we have the exhibit 119. Could
14 you give us an explanation, what is it about?
15 A. ... Partition of -- proposal of distribution
16 of the cantons in Bosnia.
17 Q. The Vance-Owen Plan, as a result of the plan,
18 we have this map. And it goes between January and --
19 yes, it was submitted January -- 2nd of January 1993.
20 The Vance-Owen Plan represents an attempt of the
21 international community to resolve the situation in
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina; true?
23 If we compare the two maps, can we conclude
24 that also the Vance-Owen Plan gives an indication of a
25 solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina on the basis of an
1 ethnic division?
2 A. To a large extent, yes.
3 Q. Can we say, at least as far as these
4 documents are concerned that have been tendered as
5 evidence, that there is an observable trend in the
6 international community to resolve -- to wish to
7 address the question in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the
8 ethnic principle at that time?
9 A. In a sense, yes. In a sense, yes. In a
10 sense, yes. This is why I think that the international
11 community shared responsibilities for the war in this
12 area for a certain period, yes. It's true that -- it's
13 true that in any case this must be added, that when the
14 international community try -- because the position of
15 the international community was ambiguous enough, as
16 often the policymakers are, ambiguous enough in order
17 to support, on one side, a redistribution of the
18 cantons in the area given a particular importance to
19 the ethnic majority group in this area and the
20 protection -- because this was all the times confirmed
21 that Bosnia was a sovereign state within its own -- its
22 internationally recognised border and had to remain in
23 a sense a state within these international recognised
24 border.
25 So this is important, also to stress, in
1 order to understand the ambiguity of the position of
2 the international community.
3 Q. So this ethnic principle is always there. It
4 is just a question of the technique of the division of
5 the cantons between the three dominant populations in
6 Bosnia and Herzegovina; is that not so?
7 A. To a large extent exact while this was -- I
8 would like to insist on this aspect. I'm sorry. You
9 see, I have the impression that if we insist only on
10 the aspect of the-- as the international community did
11 to resettle Bosnia on the basis of ethnic principles
12 and to establish the map as a map of -- based on these
13 principles, we have the clear impression that the war
14 in Bosnia anyway was a war amongst three ethnic groups
15 with their own army, with their own flags, symbols, the
16 Croat Muslim and the Serbs.
17 I would like to stress that this is true but
18 only partially true. Only partially true. This
19 approach, which was, to a large extent, supported by
20 international community, and this is why, I repeat,
21 they share responsibility, it's only partially true
22 because there happened a second war simultaneously
23 during that period, and this was the war against
24 civilian populations, no nationalists,
25 anti-nationalists, living in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those
1 who didn't want to accept the ethnic predominant role
2 in the organisation of the state. This is not a case
3 that the war started symbolically with the Serb
4 snipers shooting against pacifist people demonstrating
5 in Sarajevo for a united Bosnia. And if you think all
6 the evolution of the war, ethnic cleansing, the cases
7 of rapes, offensive against civilian populations was
8 very clear the sign. I mentioned today even the
9 attempt at creating homogenised group in order to
10 establish a prerequisite for war. Because this was a
11 prerequisite, it had to be implemented during the war,
12 and the war was an instrument, a tool for joining this
13 result.
14 So the war between the three ethnic groups
15 was a war for -- between -- or amongst three
16 nationalist conceptions that they shared the same
17 mentality, the same mechanism of evaluating the maps in
18 Bosnia, you know. And they couldn't agree on the
19 borders. While all of them had their own internal war
20 against a part of the population of their own group in
21 order to impose this ethnic organisation. So I think
22 this can also be stressed in order to understand the
23 tragic situation of Bosnia and the reason why a lot of
24 people fled the country and this was not only displaced
25 poor people but particularly who fled the country in
1 Bosnia; as well as in Croatia and in Serbia, there were
2 people with a medium or high knowledge.
3 Q. Professor, Sir, just for the sake of
4 clarification, would you please be so kind as to take
5 another look at exhibit 116, the maps under letters
6 B to E. Can you explain to us what the maps are these
7 and what is the source of the data?
8 A. It is a comparative study made by --
9 Q. The sources --
10 A. -- in a book published in Spain. And they
11 prepared these maps and they published the study in
12 Valencia in 1992 or 1993-- 1993 1993 after a conference
13 that was held there, so immediately after the erupting
14 of the war in Bosnia.
15 So this is the result of a group of scholars
16 coming from different countries, United States, Spain,
17 Serbia, and other countries. And they made this --
18 they published these maps in order to make clear which
19 was the position of the three -- of the three groups
20 when -- what about the areas that they were interested
21 in.
22 Q. I understand. Yes, we can put away exhibit
23 number 116. Will the usher please present exhibit
24 number 117 to Professor Bianchini?
25 This chart shown on document number 117, you
1 said was published in the magazine Dani. Can you say
2 to us where is this magazine published, who is it
3 published by, and what is the credibility of this
4 magazine generally speaking?
5 A. ... Dani September 1997, so you can easily
6 find the document. The magazine is published in
7 Sarajevo, it's a magazine which has generally
8 attracting attention of people. About this document, I
9 had the opportunity to read the documentation and the
10 original and I can say that what was published by Dani
11 was the document effectively.
12 So, you know, sometimes I'm not so --
13 particularly me, when I'm finding the sources, I am
14 interested to know if the sources are correct -- yes,
15 available, but I don't see if the magazine is
16 popular -- sometimes I found excellent things also
17 reading books that can be, for instance, with a
18 cultural, ideological ideas far from mine. Generally
19 I don't look at these, but I try to see if the document
20 is a document that is reported accurately or not.
21 Q. But do you know where the Dani magazine got
22 this chart from?
23 A. This -- I don't know why and how they
24 received it. I know that the document they published
25 and there were polemics in dispute-- disputation in
1 Bosnia when they published this document, and I think
2 that it's better maybe to ask directly to the
3 journalists. This I don't know.
4 Q. As far as I can gather, so we are talking
5 about a document which was just carried by the magazine
6 Dani and we do not know the sources of the magazine?
7 A. ... The document was published that the
8 source is OSCE. I can't -- I can't say who the persons
9 or who gave personally, but as stated in Dani and as is
10 written, if you look at the document published -- they
11 published and translated only certain parts, not
12 completely the document, but they made a kind of
13 opening page where it is written that the source is
14 OSCE, as reported here, Mission for Bosnia. This is
15 original in central Mostar, so this was prepared
16 evidently in Mostar.
17 Q. Have you, as you've said, this document was
18 prepared by the OEC. Was it also published in the
19 official documents of the OEC in their report?
20 A. ( No audible answer).
21 Q. I would kindly ask the usher to bring to the
22 professor exhibit number 118.
23 JUDGE VOHRAH: I don't think the last
24 question of counsel's was answered. The question was:
25 Have you, as you've said, this document was prepared by
1 the OEC, was it also published in the official
2 documents of the OEC in their report.
3 A. As far as I know, no.
4 MR. MIKULICIC: I thank you, Your Honour, for
5 intervening on this point.
6 Q. So now we have in front of us document 118
7 representing the conclusions adopted in Grude on the
8 12th of November, 1992. The conclusions of a meeting.
9 How would you describe that meeting? What kind of a
10 meeting was it?
11 A. This was a meeting as reported in the
12 document between representative of the regional
13 community of Herzegovina and the Regional Community of
14 Travnik. The persons who participate in the meeting
15 are listed in the last page.
16 Q. So that's not disputed. I would like to
17 focus on the original and the heading and also the
18 translation, the upper part, left-hand corner. And
19 this heading represents the heading of a political
20 party, the Croatian Democratic Union?
21 A. Yes, it is written here.
22 Q. Can we say therefore that this document
23 resulted from a party meeting of the Croatian
24 Democratic Union?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. Professor, you've already commented, this
2 document I would like to ask you to comment on
3 something else. Please go to page 2, item 3. Point 3,
4 sub point (a). Could you comment on this part of the
5 text, please?
6 A. This is the sentence where it is written
7 clearly defined to the party policy of HDZ in
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina strengthen the party with new staff
9 and select those people who will be able to carry out
10 these tasks completely.
11 In my opinion, this has to be taken into
12 account that as a strong criticism at the time
13 president of HDZ, Stjepan Kljujic. This was -- so on
14 the basis of the conclusion, they, evidently, thought
15 that Kljujic was not able to carry out these tasks
16 completely, at least completely.
17 So this is my conclusion considering what
18 happened later, of course.
19 Q. Of course. But I'm really interested in the
20 fact whether such a conclusion, does it lead us to the
21 conclusion concerning the organisation of -- the
22 internal organisation of a political party?
23 A. The political party already existed, so this
24 was an evident claim to reorient in a sense or better
25 implement party policy in order to achieve the goals
1 described before.
2 Q. So political goals through a political
3 party.
4 Item (b), point (b), would you comment on
5 that, please?
6 A. Initiate political and legal actions in the
7 country and abroad.
8 Q. Does that lead us in the same direction of
9 political proclamation of the political goals of HDZ?
10 A. It can be in a sense because both parties,
11 particularly because you have to take into account the
12 culture of the -- if I well understand your question,
13 the culture of the time was conditioned and influenced
14 by a specific culture, which was the culture of the
15 Communist time when the difference between institutions
16 and party were not so clear and evident as it was or is
17 in Western Europe, for instance. So I can imagine that
18 people thinking on a party and a party -- because HDZ
19 as well as SDS, as well as in a sense SDA, were the
20 peculiar party. They were not only organisations of
21 ideas, they were organisation for protecting an ethnic
22 group, they were an organisation trying to protect this
23 group through political and military tools.
24 So the bonds between these aspects were not
25 so evident and clear as we can imagine.
1 Q. We will remind you of the period when this
2 meeting was held and that was November 1991. It was
3 the period when the Biaac parliament was operating;
4 isn't that so?
5 A. May I add that this day is the day when the
6 first Croatian community of Posavina was proclaimed,
7 November 12th, interesting enough.
8 Q. Professor, Sir, I believe you have exhibit
9 number 119 or, if not, you will be receiving it
10 shortly.
11 So this refers to the Vance-Owen Plan.
12 Could you briefly give us a chronology how
13 this plan was being drawn up, how did it end, by whom
14 it was signed, and how did the situation evolve? Give
15 a picture to the trial chamber of the situation on the
16 territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
17 A. ... Prepared, submitted by the two
18 international mediators Owen and Vance, and it was
19 generally supported immediately by the Croatian side.
20 The Muslim side and the SDR, it was uncertain but in
21 the end accepted and what is interesting is it was
22 accepted by the Serb side, by Karadzic and Milosevic
23 while -- and this is very interesting -- in the end
24 when Karadzic went to the parliament of the SDS in the
25 area under the control of the Serb side, the
1 majority was against. In order to help and to define
2 the positive reactions, Milosevic, with Prime Minister
3 Mitsotakis from Greece, went to Bosnia in order to ask
4 the representative of SDS to approve the parliament,
5 while the patriarch of Serbia, Pavle, supported the
6 rejection of the plan and the plan was rejected.
7 Then they organised a referendum, if I
8 well remember, in the Serb part of -- controlled part
9 of Bosnia. And the referendum of course rejected
10 the plan. So in this case, the Serb -- this
11 happened in May, however. If I well remember, the
12 meeting with Mitsotakis was at the beginning of May
13 1993, just to give you -- so the discussion was -- and
14 then rejected and then they started again to rediscuss
15 the problem. And in July Owen and Stoltenberg
16 submitted another proposal while Vance resigned. This
17 was the story.
18 Q. Professor, Sir, do you remember who were the
19 negotiators in Geneva when discussing, under the
20 auspices of Mr. Owen and Vance, who were the
21 negotiators of the national entities of Bosnia and
22 Herzegovina?
23 A. It's interesting that if I well remember,
24 there was not only a discussion among the
25 representatives of SDS, HDZ, SDA, Radic, Izetbegovic,
1 and if I well remember, Mate Bobin but also there were
2 the representatives of Croatia and Serbia, Tudjman and
3 Milosevic who took part in these discussions for the
4 Vance Owen as well for the Owen Stoltenberg plan, so
5 they were invited and participated in discussions, both
6 of the presidents.
7 Q. So the majority populations from Bosnia and
8 Herzegovina, there were Boban, Izetbegovic, and
9 Karadzic, those that participated in the drafting of
10 the Cutiliero plan in Villa Konic true? What
11 conclusion can we draw in this continuity? What kind
12 of continuity of the negotiators from Bosnia and the
13 idea from abroad, the first plan, the Konic plan, and
14 Mr. Cutiliero, and the second plan, the Vance-Owen
15 plan, where the international community tried to
16 resolve the problem?
17 A. Two different points of view. Two different
18 point of view. The internal point of view was that
19 HDZ, SDR, and SDS claimed to be the only
20 representatives of each group, and they participated to
21 these maps and to this discussion as the representatives
22 of these three parts in conflict. While from the
23 international community point of view, the approach was
24 much more -- was different and again ambiguous. They
25 don't -- they supported the integrity of Bosnia, and
1 this is clear. All the time they repeated this. At
2 the same time, they were a stream, I may say at the
3 time a main stream in the international community that
4 was of the opinion that in a way we have to find a
5 compromise amongst the three parts, so Karadzic, the
6 SDS, HDZ, in order to stop the war. And for this
7 reason, they tried to think of a compromise.
8 This was, in my opinion, a great political
9 mistake, but thinking that it was possible to find a
10 mediation and a solution on the basis of the
11 territorial, political, historical, cultural,
12 economical claim of these three parties, but saving at
13 the same time the integrity, the independence and the
14 integrity of Bosnia. This was the different approach.
15 I want to stress this because albeit I
16 insisted on the responsibility of the international
17 community in their internal -- in the war in the former
18 Yugoslavia and, in this case, in Bosnia, I'm insisting
19 that even Vance Owen share this responsibility.
20 However, the last choice, the last decisions were --
21 became from inside, and it was the inner situation of
22 these three political parties that created the
23 condition, and they use manipulating interpreting only
24 the part that was interesting for them in this kind of
25 mediation, forgetting completely the aspect connected
1 to the sovereignty, independent state within the
2 international recognised border.
3 This was a question not not in evidence.
4 Sometimes they reported the sentence because it was
5 obliged from the international context, but the
6 interest was particularly to turn attention to this, to
7 implement this aspect, so they used this part of the
8 international relation approach for their own war goals
9 while the international community thought, in my
10 opinion making mistake, but this is my opinion, of
11 course -- thought that it was possible to combine a
12 mediation amongst the three parties by saving the
13 integrity of whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, integrity
14 and the integrity for reasons, international reasons
15 that they had, the integrity and independence of Bosnia
16 in its internationally recognised borders.
17 Q. Professor, Sir, let us remind of the
18 chronology of the Vance-Owen plan. First it was signed
19 by the party headed by Mate Boban on the 4th of
20 January, 1992 --
21 A. The support was in immediate --
22 Q. -- that the Muslim representatives signed on
23 the 21st of March and that Karadzic signed it later on,
24 but he had a reservation that it had to be approved by
25 the parliament and then the referendum was held which
1 turned down and rejected the Vance-Owen Plan; true?
2 A. Even the parliament, the Serb parliament
3 rejected, not only the referendum. The referendum was
4 made after, anyway, but even the -- the assembly,
5 Serb assembly, rejected it.
6 Q. Professor, considering this map in front of
7 you, exhibit 119, could you tell us, Sir, in accordance
8 and in line with the Vance-Owen Plan which is a
9 continuation of the Villa Konic plan, under whose
10 authority are Vitez and Busovaca in this cantonal
11 division?
12 Q. If I'm looking well, they are in the canton
13 number 10?
14 A. Canton number 10? And canton number 10 ...
15 A. Was one of the three cantons it considered
16 connected to the Croatian majority.
17 Q. I would ask the usher to present exhibit
18 number 121.
19 Generally speaking, Professor, for
20 familiarisation purposes, do you know when the HVO was
21 founded?
22 A. Yes, formally 8 April, 1993.
23 Q. Do you know when the army of BiH was formally
24 established?
25 A. Halilovic became the head of the army of
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina on the end of May, May 25th, 1992,
2 so later.
3 Q. So approximately a month and a half later?
4 A. Army of Bosnia was created through different
5 groups that were connected so this was a process that
6 was -- that takes more or less around one month and a
7 half.
8 Q. So at any rate, we are speaking about the
9 period from -- somewhere around the half of 1992 when
10 that period of time is transferred from Bosnia to
11 Croatia. What do we have in Croatia in that particular
12 period? What is the state of affairs in Croatia?
13 A. We have tensions and a situation of tensions,
14 but not a situation of open war. We are in 1992, we
15 have already the peacekeepers, UN peacekeepers in
16 Krajina, and we have the cease-fire, and particularly a
17 concern of the Croatian authorities about the future
18 and the protections of southern Dalmatia, that means
19 particularly Dubrovnik and the area of Dalmatia, in
20 this sense.
21 Q. At the time -- I withdraw the question. I
22 shall rephrase my question.
23 When did the war in Croatia begin?
24 A. The war started -- it's important to --
25 sorry. The war started on June 27th in Slovenia, and
1 then it was -- this is the same war --
2 Q. What year?
3 A. So it's the same war. From Slovenia, this
4 war involved Croatia, so I think it is more correct to
5 say it involved parts of Croatia in the war, this
6 happened between -- in August-September 1991, and this
7 war -- this part of the war, the conflict lasted until
8 the cease-fire was complied with and the peacekeepers
9 of the UN took their -- were deployed in Krajina.
10 But this is one phase because, as you know, there were
11 other actions in order -- organised by the army of
12 Croatia in order to free areas considered part of
13 Croatia. This was -- the first was the question of
14 the -- of Peruca, then Maslenica, then Slavonia, then
15 Krajina. This was western Slavonia and Krajina, yes.
16 This was just a part, we can say a more tragic and
17 more dramatic part. The worst period for Croatia was
18 particularly between August and January-February,
19 August of 1991, January-February of 1992.
20 Q. Professor, we are aware of the fact that in
21 the very least, one needs two parties to have a war.
22 Can you tell us what parties were involved in the war
23 in Croatia?
24 A. JNA, still at that time called the JNA, i.e.
25 the army, the Yugoslav army, which was under a process
1 of transformation. But the process of transformation
2 didn't end at the time, and the organised members of
3 the Croatian army, Territorial Defence, several groups
4 that were connected with the so-called Zbor Narodne
5 Garde and then became the Croatian army. So they were
6 even in Croatia preparing themselves.
7 Q. So we have on the one hand the war in Croatia
8 with the JNA attacking and then we have attempts at
9 creating, establishing the Croatian army through this
10 Zbor Narodne Garde National Garde Corps; can you tell
11 us at that period in Bosnia Herzegovina the end of 1991
12 and the beginning of 1992, whether there were any
13 indications, any hints in Bosnia-Herzegovina of future
14 war?
15 A. ... I have spoken about that when I was here. A series
16 of tensions, of events that created concerns and
17 difficulties. I remember the mobilisation of JNA in
18 Bosnian Krajina in September. In October there was the attack
19 on Ravno by JNA --
20 Q. Which year?
21 A. I'm speaking the fall of 1991, fall of 1991. In
22 November the bridges on the Sava river were mined and
23 other clashes took place between February-March 1992.
24 So until September 1991, the situation was, in a sense,
25 managed, and then there started a series of tensions that
1 were to increase in the months to come.
2 Q. Professor, Sir, so at the time of these
3 events, do you, as a historian and an expert on the
4 area, recall the statement of Mr. Izetbegovic who was
5 commenting on the war in Croatia said, "That is not our
6 war."
7 A. A lot of statements were made in this sense by
8 different policymakers. I remember very well --
9 Q. Comment on that.
10 A. Yes, yes. The sentence was clear because at
11 that moment Izetbegovic was -- I repeat, in a very
12 uncertain position. I mention even his intention to
13 consider the possibility of Bosnia remaining in the
14 Yugoslav federation and whether Serbia and Croatia together
15 would join this federation. But this was a statement very
16 clear disputed on other occasions. I remember very
17 clearly when the war started in Slovenia, the Slovene
18 policymakers were deeply offended by the attitude of
19 the Bosnia-Herzegovinan policymakers because they more
20 or less still used this term. It's quite
21 understandable. I think that they know very well that
22 the dismemberment of Yugoslavia meant the dismemberment
23 of Bosnia and the war in Bosnia.
24 . So they try with this statement to outline
25 a different context and different fate for Bosnia when
1 Bosnia was, in fact, the focus of the war and it was
2 evidently clear in 1990, 1989-1990, that if Yugoslavia were
3 dismember the war would be particularly hard and bloody
4 in Bosnia.
5 Q. Yes. That was the generally held opinion but
6 it was not correct, unfortunately. As for the
7 representatives of the dominant Muslim population in
8 Bosnia and Herzegovina in relation to the coming war,
9 you said yesterday that the JNA, in pulling out, had
10 given orders, even before, that the weapons were to be
11 taken out of the depots of the arms and armaments?
12 A. The -- was signed by Borisav Jovic as
13 president of the presidency of Yugoslavia on May the
14 23rd, 1990, at the request of Izetbegovic.
15 Q. This order to take out of the Territorial
16 Defence depots was implemented in
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina ... That JNA managed to take other
18 weapons from the Territorial Defence storehouses?
19 A. (Answered interrupted).
20 Q. Actually, apart from the ordinance, the
21 weapons of the JNA, there were no other weapons in
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina (TALKING SIMULTANEOUSLY) apart from
23 personal weaponry, of course. I'm talking about
24 organised weaponry, legal arms --
25 A. In 1990 or 1991, in between these two years,
1 no. Organisation and army organisation didn't exist in
2 this period, in between 1990 and 1991, no. This was --
3 I remember that -- I stressed, emphasised that this was
4 even a charge against Milosevic -- against Izetbegovic,
5 sorry, later when the war ended on the basis of the
6 fact that accepting this decision of the presidency, he
7 dismantled the possibility of Bosnia to defend itself.
8 But, you know, ex-post you can make a lot of
9 considerations. It is interesting to say the
10 consideration that arose in Bosnia after the war in
11 1995,'96,'7 when they started to ask, maybe it was a
12 mistake to ask the -- to become sovereign independent
13 state and it was better to establish a particular
14 relation with the Serb side, as it was originally
15 suggested. For instance, by a Muslim policy maker,
16 Adil Zulfikarpasic, as you remember, and the answer was
17 that instead of having immediately the war with the
18 Serb side, as it happened in Bosnia in April 1992,
19 we had the war with the Croat side which would never
20 have accepted staying in a federation with Serbia.
21 So you can have a lot of speculation ex post
22 on this situation. It was, in fact, very difficult
23 because of the context, of the Yugoslav context.
24 Q. Earlier you said that in March 1992, there
25 was held a referendum which was preceded by the
1 proclamation, promulgation of the constitution of the
2 Serb republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that so?
3 A. If you want, I can obtain an exact date
4 because I have the constitutions. You asked me the
5 Serb constitution in Bosnia.
6 Q. In Bosnia.
7 A. It was -- here it's written in 1992. It was
8 amended in September 1992, the constitution, so --
9 Q. But do you know when the Serb deputies in
10 Sarajevo promulgated the constitution of the Serb
11 republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
12 A. Unfortunately it's written that the
13 constitution of the republic was approved in 1992 but
14 not the month, so I can't tell you.
15 Q. Okay. Will you tell us, Professor, to sum
16 up. So at that time the JNA emptied the warehouses of
17 the Territorial Defence, and on the 8th of April, 1992,
18 the HVO was established a bit later, the army of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina was established. Why were these
20 armies founded? We assume, although that has not been
21 said, that the third party, the Serbs, were also
22 undertaking certain steps. Can you describe in brief
23 that so that we can have an impression of the
24 situation?
25 A. The recognition on April 6th, 1992, the JNA
1 started operation activities, so this was an evident
2 responsibility that started from this side. And in
3 this sense, they were operating, in a sense, that they
4 wanted to move from the eastern and western side in
5 order to isolate the line from Mostar to Sarajevo
6 (TALKING SIMULTANEOUSLY).
7 Q. That was the strategic objective. Who
8 opposed that strategic objective in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
9 A. You had on the one side different position in
10 this situation of confusion. Most unprepared were the
11 Muslims and the anti-nationalists, the pacifists. They
12 wanted and they organised the demonstrations in
13 Sarajevo in order to save the integrity of Bosnia, so
14 this was their strategy of Bosnia. While, if your
15 question is connected particularly on the area of
16 Herceg-Bosna, when HVO was created. The HVO was created
17 first to protect the Croat people in the area, where
18 Croats were living.
19 Q. In relation to whom?
20 A. (No answer).
21 Q. A while ago, you said that they were prepared
22 for the imminent war of which fact many were not aware
23 at the time were the Muslims and the
24 anti-nationalists. Were any measures, any military
25 actions, being taken at that time vis-à-vis the attacks
1 which were coming from the JNA and the Serb
2 paramilitaries?
3 A. ... They reacted on the basis of what they
4 had. For instance, it existed already some group,
5 even group connected to the Territorial Defence with
6 some weapons or groups connected with the so-called
7 Zelene Beretke, the Green Berets. It's a group --
8 Q. In the --
9 A. And other organisations that in the end were
10 organised in the so-called army of Bosnia. And the
11 same HVO started in Italy when it was created to resist
12 the action. But there is no doubt that the fact that
13 the JNA backed irregular Serbs in that period made
14 possible for the Serbs to control the 70 percent of the
15 territory of Bosnia by the end of the year, 1992.
16 Q. Professor, will you please tell us what were
17 the legal possibilities for purchasing and procuring
18 arms for that particular area in that particular
19 period?
20 A. Difficult to say.
21 Q. Let me just remind you, in September 1991,
22 the United Nations imposed an arms embargo for the area
23 of the former Yugoslavia?
24 A. As I already explained, the only possibility
25 to obtain the weapons was for the Serb declaration
1 side to receive the weapons from Serbia and Croatia
2 respectively; while for the others they were in a
3 situation -- in a kind of pocket, and so they had less
4 opportunities -- evidently less opportunity in order to
5 have this --
6 Q. Under such circumstances, who was actually --
7 who actually had available, could use the weapons which
8 were available in the area?
9 A. To a large extent all the
10 republics, republics" means in this case Serbia, these
11 areas.
12 Q. Do you recall when Mr. Izetbegovic proclaimed
13 a state of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was that on the
14 22nd of June in 1992, do you remember that date? Is it
15 right that it was proclaimed, the state of war?
16 A. Yes. I don't know when, but the situation --
17 Q. It was proclaimed. Can you comment on that.
18 Why did Mr. Izetbegovic proclaim a state of war?
19 A. ... This is evident because a war was
20 dismembering the country.
21 Q. War. Who were the warring parties? Keep
22 reverting to that but --
23 A. ... There were different situations. There
24 were not only, only the Serbs against the Croats -- the
25 Muslims and the Croats were in a, we can say, uneasy
1 alliance but they were in alliance against the Serbs,
2 but there was also a war against civilian populations.
3 And this is very important because generally when we
4 are thinking about the army, we think that the army was
5 moving with -- as a normal war as, for instance, the
6 Second World War or, you know, you have the -- an army
7 against the other army and they are facing each other.
8 This was not the case of Bosnia and of Yugoslavia
9 generally, it was not only a war between two opposite
10 forces. And it's not the case that the number of
11 injured and victims is much more higher in -- with the
12 civilians instead of the members of the army, the
13 soldiers.
14 So I think that it's important to understand
15 that the war was a simultaneous war, which included the
16 civilian population as a victim, but a victim which was
17 in the political goals of the war situation, because the
18 civilian population had to take part and to establish
19 its own relation with one side, one ethnic side.
20 Otherwise, they were displaced or refugees abroad,
21 particularly abroad. Many people fled the country for
22 this reason, and this is why -- is one of the reasons
23 why refugees from outside former Yugoslavia have such
24 difficulties to think of coming back again to
25 their homes.
1 Q. Can you comment on or perhaps give your
2 conclusion or your interpretation of this: Who was it
3 really in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the area of the former
4 Yugoslavia that was the most affected by UN arms
5 embargo?
6 A. According to international opinions shared by
7 the government of the United States, the Muslims were
8 the more -- those who paid, who were more in
9 difficulties for this, for this embargo.
10 Q. Professor, Sir, you have before you document
11 121A. That is the order appointing General Janko
12 Bobetko commander of the southern front. Can you, for
13 the benefit of the Chamber, so that they could know
14 what person we're talking about, give us a few facts
15 about his previous life?
16 A. I can repeat what I already said.
17 Q. His political views, his orientation, his
18 participation in previous historic events in the
19 previous Yugoslavia?
20 A. I already explained and stated about Bobetko
21 during the exhibit of the documents, so I explained
22 that Bobetko was Tito's general. He was charged in
23 Belgrade. He came back to Zagreb in the second half of
24 the sixties. He participated in the nationalist
25 movement in Croatia in 1970- '71. For this reason, he
1 was, as all the leaders, policymakers of the
2 Croat -- Croat League of Communists, he was
3 expelled from political life, and he became in 1991
4 military advisor of the Croatian government when
5 communism collapsed. And first he published some
6 opinions on what was in Croatia in 1970-71. Then he
7 was military advisor and then he was appointed by
8 Tudjman as -- he was close to Tudjman. They knew each other very
9 well -- very well since the '60s or '70s because of
10 their common Communist past and because they shared the
11 same political opinion during the Croatian crisis of
12 1970- '71.
13 Q. And now let's go back to the history back,
14 Mr. Tudjman and General Bobetko took part in the Second
15 World War fighting in the partisan ranks against the
16 fascist occupying forces and anti-fascist orientation.
17 That's what I'm speaking about?
18 A. (No answer heard by reporter).
19 Q. Professor, Sir, you have analysed all these
20 documents which were as exhibit 121 of these documents,
21 refer to the period from April to the second half 1992,
22 approximately. Is that true?
23 A. Sorry. Between April --
24 Q. Between April and the first half of 1992?
25 A. Yes. Generally, yes. First half, yes, until
1 July.
2 Q. Could you tell us at the time, Sir, what war
3 operations, military operations, were being carried out
4 in Bosnia and Herzegovina or a colloquial question:
5 Who was fighting against whom at the time?
6 A. In that period, you had the Croatian and
7 Muslim alliance against the Serb side.
8 Q. Professor, document 121F please, could you
9 look at it?
10 Here, at the beginning of the text of this
11 document, under item number 1, we see the word
12 "enemy." Who is the enemy here? To whom does this
13 word apply?
14 A. To the Serb side, JNA.
15 Q. Does the same -- can the same be said also
16 for the document 121M?
17 A. Yes, the area of Blaga Nevesinoe was
18 subsequently on the Serb side.
19 Q. And now document 121N, does that also apply
20 to the Serb side? Professor, Sir, in all these
21 documents presented under exhibit number 121, have you
22 found in your research work a document containing a
23 command and order to act against the Muslims, the
24 Muslim army, at that period?
25 A. (No answer heard by reporter).
1 Q. Can we say that at the time, that period,
2 when these documents were produced amongst Croats and
3 Muslims, there were no tensions and no military
4 conflicts?
5 JUDGE VOHRAH: The answer given by the
6 professor to the question put to you has not been heard
7 or reported. The question is: Have you found in your
8 research work a document containing an order to act
9 against the Muslims, the Muslim army, at that period?
10 There is no answer recorded.
11 A. No. The answer was "No."
12 MR. MIKULICIC:
13 Q. My next question. As we were focusing on
14 that period, when speaking of these orders and the
15 exhibit number 121, what were the relations between
16 Croatian and Muslim population? Were there any hostile
17 military operations between the two entities?
18 A. On the military point of view, there were not
19 tensions in this sense.
20 Q. I'm thinking only of the military aspect.
21 A. Yes, yes. Sorry let me say, however, some
22 tensions were growing in the Bosnian government, so if
23 you speak about military, it's okay, but we have to
24 take into account that there were concerns later and
25 there were polemics between the Croatian and the Muslim
1 side, particularly about the operation when Mostar was
2 freed because Mostar was freed with contribution of the
3 Croatian army and this has created concern in the
4 government. So there were in this sense -- so this
5 caused tensions under the skin.
6 Q. Without military operations.
7 A. Yes.
8 MR. MIKULICIC: Your Honour, it's almost
9 1.30. I'd like to pass on to another series of
10 questions, so the Defence would propose that we begin
11 our hearing tomorrow with that series of questions, if
12 you agree, your Honour.
13 JUDGE RODRIGUES: I believe that this is a
14 good proposal of Mr. Mikulicic. We will adjourn for
15 today and we will resume our deliberations tomorrow.
16 We will see you tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
17 --- Whereupon proceedings adjourned at
18 1.28 p.m. to be resumed on, May 8, 1998
19 at 9:00 a.m.
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