Page 75

 1                           Tuesday, 16 October 2012

 2                           [Prosecution Opening Statement]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The accused entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.

 6             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Good morning to everyone in and around the

 7     courtroom.

 8             Mr. Registrar, can we -- can you call the case, please.

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Good morning, Your Honours.  This is case number

10     IT-04-75-T, the Prosecutor versus Goran Hadzic.  Thank you.

11             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.  May we have the appearances starting

12     with the Prosecution, please.

13             MR. STRINGER:  Good morning, Your Honours.  Douglas Stringer

14     appearing on behalf of the Prosecution with Laurel Baig, Sarah Clanton

15     and Colin Nawrot helping us here with the slides and the videos.

16             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

17             For Defence.

18             MR. ZIVANOVIC:  Good morning, Your Honours.  On behalf of

19     Mr. Goran Hadzic, Zoran Zivanovic, lead counsel; Christopher Gosnell,

20     co-counsel; and Toma Fila, legal consultant.  Thank you.

21             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.  So we will start the trial with the

22     Prosecution's opening statement.

23             Mr. Prosecutor.

24             MR. STRINGER:  Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours, may it

25     please the Court, Counsel.

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 1             At the outset I'd like to describe three incidents from the

 2     indictment against Goran Hadzic that demonstrate the violent nature of

 3     the crimes committed in this case and their impact on victims, their

 4     families, and entire communities.

 5             On the 9th of November, 1991, Franjo Pap and his family lived in

 6     the hilly countryside outside of a town called Erdut.  Erdut is situated

 7     on the western bank of the Danube River in the extreme eastern part of

 8     Croatia, a region called Eastern Slavonia.  On that will day, Mr. Pap was

 9     among a group of men, ethnic Croats and Hungarians, who were arrested and

10     taken to a military training centre in Erdut that was run by a person

11     named Zeljko Raznjatovic better known by his nickname, Arkan.

12             Arkan commanded a Serb military unit called the

13     Serbian Volunteer Guard, and they were based at this training centre.

14     Franjo Pap, together with at least 11 other prisoners arrested that day,

15     was brutally beaten and killed at the training centre.  The bodies of

16     most of these men were put in an a mass grave in the nearby town of

17     Celije.  Franjo Pap's remains were recovered from a well located outside

18     another town called Dalj.

19             This incident alone wiped out the male population of several

20     families.  Franjo Pap's son, Mihajlo, was among the 12 as well as were

21     three members of the Kalozi family, Antun, Nikola, and his son also named

22     Nikola.  Also killed were Josip, Stjepan Senasi - father and son - who by

23     marriage were relatives of the Kalozi family.  A few days later,

24     Franjo Pap's wife, Juliana, started going around the town looking for her

25     missing family members.  She asked too many questions.  She was soon

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 1     arrest in Erdut along with her other son, Franjo, and a 20-year-old woman

 2     named Natalija Rakin.  The three of them were executed and years later

 3     their bodies were exhumed from a well in the nearby town of Borovo Selo.

 4             The town of Ilok also sits on the Danube in eastern Croatia,

 5     south of Erdut.  It was a place where about 6.700 people lived, 92

 6     per cent of whom were Croats but ethnic Slovaks lived there as well.  By

 7     mid-October 1991, the entire region where Ilok was located had been taken

 8     over by Serb armed forces who were destroying the towns and expelling its

 9     non-Serb inhabitants.  Ilok was packed with those who had come from

10     another nearby towns, Tovarnik, Bapska, Sarengrad, Lovas.  The people in

11     Ilok tried to negotiate terms with the representative of the Yugoslav

12     People's Army, the JNA, so that they could stay.  But in an act that

13     demonstrates the complete hopelessness of their situation, the people

14     Ilok organised a referendum, a vote, on whether to leave their town

15     altogether.  The vote was held on the 13th of October, 1991.

16             There were two questions on the referendum.  Your Honours have it

17     on the screens in front of you, or you should.  The first was whether to

18     surrender their weapons and agree to the terms demanded by the JNA.  The

19     second question on the referendum was whether to collectively move away

20     altogether.  The referendum was held on the 13th of October, 1991, and

21     based on what they saw had happened in the neighbouring towns like

22     Tovarnik, Sarengrad, Lovas, the people in Ilok voted against accepting

23     the JNA's terms.  They voted to leave.  Some 8.000 people left Ilok in a

24     convoy that was organised by the JNA.

25             Four days after the referendum was held until Ilok, a group of

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 1     about 100 Croat men in the nearby town of Lovas were summoned to the

 2     Zadruga building which was part of a gated complex that severed as a

 3     community centre in Lovas.  The town was under the control of the Serb

 4     armed forces.  The men had been summoned there before and required to

 5     perform forced labour.  On this will occasion, a different form of forced

 6     labour awaited them.  After they arrived on October 17th, severe beatings

 7     took place in the courtyard of the Zadruga complex.  Some were singled

 8     out for special treatment, and they were stabbed and beaten with knives,

 9     metal bars, and electrical cables.

10             On the following morning, October 18th, about 50 of the prisoners

11     were called out by name and told to line up in pairs.  The group was then

12     marched out of the town to a clover field where mines had recently been

13     placed.  The mines had not been put there by Croatian fighters but,

14     rather, by the Serb armed forces themselves.  One of the prisoners,

15     Bosko Bodjanac, had already been beaten so badly that he was not able to

16     complete the march down to the clover field.  He was shot on the spot and

17     left along the side of the road.  When the prisoners reached the field,

18     they were directed at gunpoint to hold hands and walk across, sweeping

19     their legs from side to side in order to locate and disarm the mines that

20     had been placed there.  When the first mine exploded, several Serb

21     soldiers began firing at the prisoners in the field.  And when it was

22     over, 21 of the Croat men had been killed with more injured.  The dead

23     were buried in a mass grave at Lovas.

24             Your Honours, this is the last opening statement of the last

25     trial to be held in this Tribunal, but the crimes you'll hear about, such

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 1     as those I've just described, were among the very first to be committed

 2     during the long years of conflict and despair that witnessed the death of

 3     a culturally rich and diverse country called Yugoslavia.

 4             In October and November of 1991, when these crimes I've just

 5     described were committed, Goran Hadzic was the leader of the government

 6     of what was called the Serbian Autonomous District of Slavonia, Baranja

 7     and Western Srem, what we'll call the SAO SBWS.  It was Hadzic who had

 8     provided the training facility to Arkan where the Pap, Kalozi and Senasi

 9     men and many other victims in this case were beaten and killed.  Hadzic's

10     government offices were in the same compound as Arkan's training centre.

11     On Ilok, Hadzic was involved in the talks held there between the local

12     population and the JNA before the referendum on leaving was held, and,

13     after the town was empty, Goran Hadzic participated in discussions to

14     repopulate Ilok with Serbs from other places.  News of the massacre in

15     the Lovas minefield on 18 October 1991 soon became widely known and

16     documented across the SBWS and beyond, and Hadzic was certainly aware of

17     it.  He was in Lovas for a meeting shortly after the incident occurred.

18     Hadzic did nothing about this incident or the many other crimes he knew

19     were taking place.  He did nothing to protect the non-Serbs who lived in

20     this region of SAO SBWS.  He approved the crimes.

21             The crimes of violence and expulsion that the thousands of

22     victims in this case suffered were committed to further a goal shared by

23     the accused Goran Hadzic and others the Chamber will hear about to create

24     new territories inside Croatia that would be organised solely along

25     ethnic lines.

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 1             Your Honours, as we've learned from years of prosecuting and

 2     judging the many cases that have been preceded this one in this Tribunal,

 3     the creation of ethnically pure territories in regions that have for

 4     generations been ethnically mixed is accomplished through conflict,

 5     persecution, and violence:  What we now generically call ethnic

 6     cleansing, a term that was not yet a part of our nomenclature when the

 7     first waves of crime and expulsion drove thousands from their homes and

 8     villages throughout eastern Croatia in 1991.  The term "ethnic cleansing"

 9     is now of course tragically linked to the collapse of Yugoslavia itself

10     in the 1990s, as ethnic cleansing to create territories along ethnic

11     lines spread from Croatia to other places that are now well known to this

12     Tribunal and the world:  Sarajevo, Prijedor, Mostar, Srebrenica, Kosovo,

13     just to name a few.

14             But even if it didn't yet have a name at the time, what we call

15     ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia began here in Croatia in late

16     summer and autumn of 1991, in places that are not so well known, places

17     like Erdut, Ilok, and Lovas.

18             The evidence will show that in the pursuit of his ambition to

19     establish an ethnic Serbian state on the territory of Croatia,

20     Goran Hadzic presided over a breathtakingly vicious campaign of

21     persecution, murder, extermination, deportation forcible transfer,

22     destruction and plunder that was directed against thousands of innocents

23     whose sole crime was to find themselves as non-Serbs living inside the

24     areas controlled by Hadzic and the Serb forces that supported him.

25             The evidence will show that the crimes were all accepted and

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 1     employed as part of the joint criminal enterprise that serves as a basis

 2     for Goran Hadzic's individual criminal responsibility in this case.  I'll

 3     speak about the JCE, its membership, and how Hadzic contributed to it

 4     shortly.

 5             The evidence will show that Goran Hadzic is also responsible for

 6     these crimes based on his role in planning, ordering, and instigating

 7     them.  He aided and abetted the others who were committing these crimes.

 8     For many of the crimes, Hadzic had the ability to prevent them from

 9     happening or to bring about investigations and prosecutions of the

10     perpetrators.  Hadzic did not use his powers or influence to prevent

11     crimes or bring perpetrators to justice or even to speak out against what

12     was happening.  Given his high positions in the Croatian Serb leadership,

13     his acquiescence and acceptance of crimes was itself a form of

14     encouragement.

15             Your Honours, in the next few sections of my submissions, I will

16     describe a series of important political developments that provide the

17     context for the conflict and crimes that would be taking place by

18     August of 1991.  I will then describe some of the Serb military units

19     that figure prominently among those that committed the crimes in Croatia

20     during the conflict.  And then, before addressing the conflict and the

21     crimes themselves, I will identify several of the members of the

22     joint criminal enterprise and their links to Hadzic and the Serb forces

23     that perpetrated the crimes charged in this case.

24             The widespread lawlessness and brutality that the Chamber will

25     hear about in this case occurred in the context of profound political

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 1     change that took place in the former Yugoslavia during 1990 and 1991.  I

 2     would like to mention some of these developments now, those which bear

 3     directly on the case, and, in particular, which led to the emergence of

 4     Goran Hadzic as the political leader of Serbs in Croatia during 1991 to

 5     1993.

 6             As Your Honours know, in 1990, Croatia was one of six republics

 7     of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the SFRY which had been

 8     governed by a single party, the Communist Party, since World War II.  In

 9     1990, the Communist system gave way as individual republics held

10     multi-party elections.

11             The first of these multi-party elections were held in April and

12     May of 1990 in Croatia and Slovenia.  In Croatia, the Croatian

13     Democratic Union, the HDZ, won more than 41 per cent of the vote which

14     gave it a majority in the Croatian parliament.  At the end of May 1990,

15     that parliament elected Franjo Tudjman to be the president of the

16     Presidency of what was still at the time the Socialist Republic

17     of Croatia, a part of the SFRY.

18             These events caused unease among ethnic Serbs living in Croatia.

19     Although present in various parts of Croatia in significant numbers, the

20     Croatian Serbs comprised about 12 per cent of the total population of

21     Croatia compared to about 78 per cent of Croats.  The remaining members

22     of the population consisted of other ethnic groups.  Croatian Serbs were

23     concerned that in this new post-Communist Croatia they could be subject

24     to discrimination or lose political rights that they had enjoyed under

25     the Yugoslav system.

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 1             During the latter half of 1990, the Socialist Republic of Croatia

 2     embarked on a path intended to secure its independence from Yugoslavia

 3     altogether.

 4             On the 22nd of December, 1990, the Croatian parliament

 5     promulgated a new constitution for the Republic of Croatia.

 6             Your Honours, I should add we've -- all the timeline, the dates

 7     that you're seeing should have been compiled onto a single sheet of paper

 8     which you should have, and if you don't have it, we can make sure that

 9     you do, but there is a time frame that we can -- it's in the court binder

10     I'm informed.

11             On the 22nd of December, 1990, the Croatian parliament

12     promulgated a new constitution for the Republic of Croatia.  Under the

13     SFRY Constitution, Croats, Serbs, Muslims were among the six constituent

14     nations or peoples of Yugoslavia.  The Croatian Constitution of

15     December 1990 changed that to define Croatia the national state of the

16     Croat nation and as the state of members of other nations and minorities.

17     Serbs and other ethnic groups were guaranteed equality with citizens of

18     Croat nationality, but in the eyes of some Croatian Serbs, the language

19     of the new constitution demoted them from their previous status as a

20     constituent people to a national minority.

21             On the 21st of February, 1991, Croatia's parliament passed a

22     resolution initiating its disassociation from the SFRY.  And on the

23     19th of May, 1991, a referendum was held in Croatia on independence, and

24     a little over one month later, on the 25th of June, 1991, Croatia

25     officially declared its independence from the SFRY.

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 1             The Croatian Serbs did not remain idle during this period of

 2     profound change in Croatia and Yugoslavia.

 3             Going back to the spring of 1990, Goran Hadzic was at that time

 4     living in the town of Pacetin, located in Vukovar municipality in eastern

 5     Croatia, working as a warehouseman.

 6             Your Honours, this map shows entire -- the entirety of Croatia,

 7     and the box that you see in the upper right-hand corner is around the

 8     area that's of primary interest to us in this case, certainly during the

 9     period of 1991.

10             And then the next map actually shows that area that was within

11     the box we've just seen.  Your Honour, I'm going to take the mouse here

12     and try to point to a couple of the areas.  I don't know if you'll be

13     able to see them or not.  I hope you do.

14             I've mentioned Vukovar, and Vukovar is the town here, located on

15     the Danube River, which in fact forms the boundary between Croatia here

16     and Serbia here.  This is the town of Vukovar, and Mr. Hadzic was from

17     this region.

18             The region -- I've mentioned the SBWS, Slavonia, Baranja and

19     Western Srem, and this map indicates each of those areas.

20             The Vukovar area is, in general terms here, known as Slavonia or

21     more correctly Eastern Slavonia because as we'll hear there's also a

22     different region to the west that's called Western Slavonia.  To the

23     north is the region here called Baranja, and to the south is the region

24     called Srijem, or Srem.  And these are the three regions, if you will,

25     that form the SAO SBWS that we'll be discussing in this case.

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 1             I should mention also Srem is an ancient administrative unit that

 2     is now divided into Western Srem, which is the part in Croatia, and then

 3     the eastern part which is now in Serbia, and we'll talk later about

 4     Sremska Mitrovica, but that -- the reference there to Srem is an

 5     indication that this part of Serbia was at one time known as

 6     Eastern Srem.

 7             In the multi-party elections held in the spring of 1990, Hadzic

 8     won a seat on the Vukovar Municipal Assembly running as a member of the

 9     SDP party or the democratic -- Party for Democratic Change.  However, he

10     soon abandoned the SDP and became active in establishing a different

11     party, the Serbian Democratic Party, or SDS, for the Vukovar region, and

12     that was formed on the 10th of June, 1990.  On that day, Mr. Hadzic was

13     elected president of the Municipal Committee for the SDS in Vukovar.

14     Over time, he became active in the SDS leadership for Croatia.

15             While Hadzic and the Serbs in the Vukovar region of

16     Eastern Slavonia were organising themselves, important developments were

17     taking place among Serbs located in the Knin Krajina region to the west

18     and south.  This is important because the developments in the

19     Knin Krajina were to serve as a precursor and model for the Hadzic-led

20     move for Serb autonomy in his own region of Eastern Slavonia.  Later, the

21     different Serb autonomous areas or districts served as the genesis for

22     what's called the Republic of the Serbian Krajina, the RSK, which Hadzic

23     would become president of in 1992.

24             Your Honours, this map indicates the area generally of what was

25     to become the SAO Krajina, with the blue borders being an indication of

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 1     what was the territory declared, and then this will be evidence of one of

 2     the upcoming witnesses, the red generally referring to the areas that

 3     were under Serb control.  So the areas as declared did not totally match

 4     with the areas that fell under military control and essentially the red

 5     would indicate the area of confrontation lines.

 6             This is the SAO Krajina here, and we'll talk more about this area

 7     throughout these submissions.

 8             The Knin Krajina Serbs were led by Milan Babic, who on the

 9     31st of July, 1990, became the president of a body called the

10     Serbian National Council, SNC, and this was to operate as the executive

11     branch of a Serbian Assembly which had been established in the Knin

12     region one week earlier.

13             This Assembly had declared sovereignty and autonomy of the Serb

14     people in Croatia one week earlier on the 25th of July, 1990.  The

15     Knin Krajina SAO declared itself as a sovereign autonomous region in

16     Croatia.

17             Within about five weeks' time, by the 2nd of September, 1990, the

18     SNC had called for and held a referendum for Serbs on autonomy of Serbs

19     inside Croatia, and the Serbs voted overwhelmingly in favour of autonomy,

20     about 97 per cent in favour.

21             On the 21st of December, 1990, the Knin Municipal Assembly

22     adopted a decision establishing what was called the autonomous Serbian

23     district, or SAO for Krajina.  This decision provided that the

24     institutions of the SAO Krajina would be responsible for the district's

25     proper functioning and that it, the SAO Krajina, would implement the laws

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 1     of Croatia within that territory.

 2             One day after the decision declaring the SAO Krajina, on the 22nd

 3     of December, 1990, as I've already mentioned, the Croatian parliament

 4     promulgated the new constitution.

 5             Under Milan Babic, the SAO Krajina moved rapidly to establish

 6     complete autonomy within Croatia.  Separate parallel institutions such as

 7     the police were set up to replace the same Croatian institutions.  On the

 8     5th of January, 1991, the Executive Council of the SAO Krajina revoked

 9     the authority of the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the MUP, or

10     the police, to operate inside its territory.  All remaining links with

11     Croatia were severed on the 1st of April, 1991.  When the SAO

12     Krajina Executive Council voted to secede from Croatia.  It issued a

13     decision on accession of the SAO Krajina to the Republic of Serbia.

14             In early 1991, Hadzic and the Serbs in the region of Slavonia,

15     Baranja and Western Srem began taking similar steps to establish their

16     own separate parallel Serb structures, and ultimately a wholly autonomous

17     Serb territory there.

18             A few moments ago I mentioned the Serbs of the Knin Krajina had

19     formed a Serb National Council, or SNC, on the 31st of July, 1990, that

20     served as an executive body for a Serb Assembly.  On the 7th of January,

21     1991, a group of Serbs including Goran Hadzic formed the same body, the

22     SNC, for the SBWS region.  A separate Serb police force was later

23     established in Borovo Selo, a town we'll see on the map soon.  This was a

24     majority Serb town located about 10 kilometres north of Vukovar.

25     Goran Hadzic appointed a Serb to be in charge of the new Serb police

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 1     force in Borovo Selo.

 2             The creation of separate Serb and Croat police and security

 3     forces both in the Knin region and the Vukovar area is an extremely

 4     important development.  As we will see, the first armed conflicts that

 5     occurred in the war between the Serbs and the Croats in Croatia involved

 6     police units.  Second, the evidence will show that these newly created

 7     Serb police and security units were financed and equipped by the

 8     Republic of Serbia.

 9             On the 26th of February, 1991, the SBWS Serb National Council,

10     the SNC executive body, issued a declaration on the sovereign autonomy of

11     the Serb Nation of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.  This provided

12     that the Serb people in that area would exercise sovereign autonomy

13     through supreme legislative and executive power in relation to specified

14     issues of autonomy, including the protection of peace and security.

15             The SBWS government structures came into being on the 25th of

16     June, 1991.  This is a day of tremendous importance.  As we've already

17     noted, it was on this day that the Croatian parliament declared Croatia

18     to be independent from Yugoslavia.  International recognition of Croatia

19     was not to come for another six months, but the lack of official

20     recognition from outside does not appear to have had any effect on the

21     events that were now taking place inside Croatia.

22             On the same day that Croatia declared its independence from

23     Yugoslavia, Serbs from the region of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem

24     met at a place called Backa Palanka located on the Serbian side of the

25     Danube River not far from Vukovar.  There the Serbs of the SBWS voted to

Page 89

 1     secede from Croatia.  They created a legislative body called the Grand or

 2     the Great National Assembly which then issued a decision on the position

 3     of the person people from SBWS essentially declaring that the Serbs in

 4     that territory had decided to remain within a single country along with

 5     the other parts populated by Serbs and other Yugoslav nations which want

 6     to live in a united Yugoslav state.  It declared that the Yugoslav

 7     constitution would continue to apply in this territory.

 8             Also, Your Honours, it was on the 25th of June, 1991, that

 9     Goran Hadzic was designated to be the president of the government of the

10     SBWS, its prime minister, if you will, or chief executive.  Goran Hadzic

11     was officially appointed to that position, president of the government,

12     three months later on the 25th of September, 1991.  But the evidence will

13     show that, as Prime Minister-designate, Hadzic exercised his authority

14     well in advance of his formal appointment on the 25th of September.

15             Your Honours, this slide is Article 4 -- shows Article 4 of the

16     25th of June, 1991, decision on the position of the Serb people of the

17     SBWS that I just referred to:

18              "Citizens who live on the territory of Slavonia, Baranja and

19     Western Srem are equal in their rights and duties and they have the same

20     protection before state and other bodies, regardless of their race,

21     language, sex, nationality, religion ...," et cetera.

22             Your Honours, the evidence is going to show that this was

23     absolutely tragically not true.  Within a few short months after the

24     adoption of this declaration, certain citizens found that they not only

25     had no protection before official bodies of the SBWS but that they, in

Page 90

 1     fact, were the target of this so-called state of SBWS.  It soon became

 2     open season in Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem on anyone who wasn't a

 3     Serb.  Croats, Hungarians, Slovaks who lived in the region were targeted

 4     for persecution, violence, forcible eviction, and were murdered in large

 5     numbers as the SBWS was cleansed of its non-Serb population.  Even Serbs

 6     who protested against the persecution of their non-Serb neighbours were

 7     driven out.

 8             The evidence will show that in the months and years that followed

 9     the 25th of June, 1991, Goran Hadzic used his positions of leadership in

10     the Serb-held territories of Croatia to facilitate and encourage the

11     violent persecution and forcible transfer -- forcible removal of Croats

12     and other non-Serbs from the SBWS territory.  This was a goal that he

13     shared with others in the joint criminal enterprise that is charged in

14     the indictment.

15             Your Honours, coming back now to this map.  This shows the

16     locations of the SAO Krajina, as I previously mentioned, and now the

17     location of the SBWS SAO, again with the blue being the are declared, red

18     being, the evidence will show, the area actually held.

19             A third SAO, which I have not yet mentioned is the SAO

20     Western Slavonia, which was declared in August of 1991.  That's in this

21     area.  In the middle of the northern section of Croatia.

22             Goran Hadzic did not play a significant role in establishing the

23     SAO Western Slavonia, but Your Honours will hear evidence regarding

24     relevant events and developments that took place there during the latter

25     part of 1991 and after.

Page 91

 1             These three SAOs existed separately in Croatia for only a fairly

 2     short period.  On December 19th of 1991, the SAO Krajina, which was --

 3     which just nine months earlier had voted to secede from Croatia,

 4     purporting to join Serbia, now declared itself to be a fully independent

 5     state, the Republic of the Serbian Krajina or RSK.  On the 26th of

 6     February, 1992, the other two SAOs that we've seen, SBWS and Western

 7     Slavonia, joined the RSK, and on the same day, 26th of February, 1992,

 8     Goran Hadzic became the president of the republic, the president of the

 9     RSK.  He would remain in that position to the end of 1993.

10             The establishment of the three SAOs by the summer of 1991 claimed

11     territory in Croatia that was to be autonomous Serb territory.  But at

12     that time, not everyone shared the same vision of what life would be like

13     inside the SAOs for the people, Serbs and non-Serbs alike, who lived

14     there.  The evidence will show that for some, the establishment of SAOs

15     was an attempt to preserve Serbian identity, culture, language, such as

16     the Cyrillic script, within the framework of a new Croatia.  For others,

17     however, the vision was much different, much more extreme.  They saw the

18     SAOs as largely mono-ethnic territories for which there would be no place

19     for non-Serbs.  In order to achieve this vision, populations would have

20     to move.  People would have to be driven out, others brought in.

21     Ultimately, this was the vision that prevailed.  This brings us to the

22     common criminal purpose of the joint criminal enterprise charged in this

23     case.

24             Your Honours, the evidence will show that a group of people among

25     whom is this accused, Goran Hadzic, intended to make the SAOs in Croatia

Page 92

 1     as mono-ethnic - as Serbian - as possible.  They knew and accepted that

 2     to achieve this goal, the non-Serb populations would have to be removed

 3     and that this could only be done by force and by making life so difficult

 4     and miserable for those not yet forcibly removed that they would have no

 5     choice but to leave.

 6             The evidence will show that for Goran Hadzic, the focus was on

 7     securing the removal of the non-Serb population from the territory of the

 8     SAO SBWS during roughly the months of August through December 1991.

 9     Hadzic continued to contribute to this goal throughout the combined

10     territory now of the RSK as its president during 1992 and 1993.  Through

11     his high-level positions in the Croatian Serb leadership and through his

12     close association with the leadership of the Republic of Serbia, Hadzic

13     made multiple contributions to the JCE.

14             I'd like to identify a few of those now.  I'll return to this in

15     greater detail later as we discuss specific events after the conflict

16     began.

17             First, Hadzic was a formulator and implementing of discriminatory

18     policies.  Goran Hadzic established and led government bodies which

19     formulated and implemented policies that discriminated against non-Serbs,

20     ensuring that they would -- they were expelled from the area and would

21     not return.  Discriminatory measures enacted by the governments under

22     Hadzic's authority included the appropriation of Croatian state assets as

23     well as "abandoned" private property, that is property left behind by the

24     people who no longer live there, enabling his government to seize the

25     property of non-Serbs.  Under his authority, the RSK enacted legislation

Page 93

 1     permitting the resettlement of only those people who had a clean war

 2     record and had not collaborated with the "enemy."  Legislation intended

 3     to restore the pre-World War II ethnic composition of certain areas was

 4     also passed in order to promote the return of Serbs who had left these

 5     areas during the World War II area.  There was also a decision banning

 6     all Croatian citizens from entering the RSK.  These measures were

 7     discriminatory and were intended to ensure non-Serbs would leave and that

 8     those who had already left or been expelled would not return.

 9             Hadzic was a co-ordinator.  Using his position of authority,

10     Goran Hadzic contributed and facilitated the work of the local Serbs and

11     militias with that of military units arriving from Serbia and ensured

12     that his government ministers did so as well.  I will talk about the

13     various Serb forces that committed the many crimes charged in this case.

14     Goran Hadzic was the civilian leader of the SBWS government, and later

15     the RSK, and in those capacities, he served as an important connection

16     between civilian authority and the various Serb armed forces.  He was

17     fully engaged in military discussions, planning and operations.  As I'll

18     mention later, the evidence will show that certain Serb forces or units

19     and their military commanders were integrated within Hadzic's civilian

20     government.

21             Goran Hadzic was a supplier.  The evidence will show that Hadzic

22     contributed to the JCE by using his position of authority to ensure that

23     the Serb forces operating in Croatia had the resources, materials, and

24     weapons they needed to take control over the territory they claimed for

25     the SAO SBWS.  For materials, weapons, and money, the SBWS was completely

Page 94

 1     dependent on Serbia and the continued support of its leadership.  The

 2     evidence will show that Goran Hadzic was frequently in Belgrade meeting

 3     with Serbian leaders and working to procure weapons for the Serb forces

 4     operating in the SBWS.  The few assets available locally, whether

 5     privately owned or former property of the Croatian republic, those were

 6     also appointed and used to the same end.

 7             Hadzic was an implementer of Serbian policy.  Hadzic's trips to

 8     Belgrade weren't just about obtaining money and weapons.  He also went

 9     there to receive instructions and guidance and to consult with key

10     figures in Serbia's leadership who not only shared his goal of creating

11     ethnic Serb territory in Croatia by violence, but also who had the money

12     and the power to make it happen.

13             Hadzic needed them precisely because they had the money, power,

14     and know-how to make the plan a reality.  They needed Hadzic because he

15     was a Serb from Croatia whom they could influence or control to ensure

16     that their policies in Croatia would be implemented.  First, in the

17     SAO SBWS, and then in the RSK, Goran Hadzic was Slobodan Milosevic's man

18     on the ground in Croatia.

19             President Milosevic and the Serb leadership needed Hadzic not

20     only to implement their policies on the ground in Croatia, but also to

21     ensure that their policies and decisions would be carried out in dealings

22     with the international community.  From the very earliest days of the

23     conflict, Hadzic was the face of the SAO SBWS, and later the RSK, in

24     international meetings and negotiations concerning the conflict in

25     Croatia.

Page 95

 1             The evidence will show that as early as September 1991,

 2     Goran Hadzic was involved in negotiations with the EU which was trying to

 3     broker a cease-fire.  The Dutch ambassador to France, Henry Wynaendts,

 4     led negotiations and met with Hadzic in the town of Borovo Selo.  After

 5     consulting with Slobodan Milosevic, Hadzic signed the cease-fire

 6     agreement on behalf of Croatian Serbs.  That's an agreed fact,

 7     Your Honours.

 8             The following month, October 1991, Hadzic travelled here to

 9     The Hague for more talks, and the Trial Chamber will have evidence of

10     that.

11             We'd now like to put up a short video-clip from early 1993.  This

12     is taken just shortly before Goran Hadzic flew out to New York for talks

13     there on the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.  Here he expresses the view that the

14     only solution is for there to be a border between the Serbian and

15     Croatian people.  In this footage, Mr. Hadzic is accompanied by

16     Mile Paspalj, who at the time was president of the RSK Assembly.

17                           [Video-clip played]

18             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] Journalist:  What are your

19     expectations regarding the dialogue in New York in the upcoming days?

20              "Goran Hadzic:  I expect a constructive dialogue but I also

21     expect we will be put under some pressure.  We are prepared for that and

22     we are also ready to tell to the co-chairman and to the whole world the

23     truth about the Serbian people and the only possible solution and that is

24     the border between the Serbia and the Croatian people which would secure

25     a lasting peace in this area."

Page 96

 1             MR. STRINGER:  The Trial Chamber will have evidence of many

 2     meetings and negotiations that Hadzic had with members of the

 3     international community from 1991 through 1993.

 4             Hadzic's recognised role on the international stage undoubtedly

 5     gave him tremendous influence and provided him with a real opportunity to

 6     contribute to the restoration of order and the prevention of ethnic-based

 7     crimes.  The evidence will show that during the course of his many

 8     meetings and negotiations with members of the international community,

 9     Hadzic was repeatedly confronted with the allegations and evidence of

10     ethnic cleansing and expulsion of non-Serbs.  He did not use his

11     influence to stop these crimes or even attempt to do so.  The evidence

12     will show that Goran Hadzic had no regard for the plight of non-Serbs

13     living within the Serb-controlled areas under his authority.

14             Hadzic was a direct participant in crimes.  Goran Hadzic was not

15     merely a bystander observing or turning a blind eye to the crimes

16     occurring around him.  The evidence will show that he directly

17     participated in and facilitated crimes against non-Serbs.  Together with

18     other JCE members, he planned the mass expulsion of non-Serbs from the

19     area under his authority to Croat-controlled territory.  He personally

20     ordered the unlawful detention of non-Serbs and released detainees into

21     Arkan's custody.  As I will discuss in further detail, following the fall

22     of Vukovar, he personally ensured that at least 200 Croat prisoners

23     remained in the SBWS and were not moved out to Serbia, and shortly, I

24     will describe what happened to those prisoners.

25             Hadzic was a fueler of persecutory environment and a creator of

Page 97

 1     an environment of impunity.  Finally, throughout the indictment period,

 2     Goran Hadzic repeatedly and publicly proclaimed that Serbs and Croats

 3     could not live together, fuelling the persecutory and coercive atmosphere

 4     that encouraged or forced non-Serbs to flee.  He remained mute in the

 5     face of certain knowledge of persistent, ethnic-based crimes that was

 6     occurring on his doorstep, creating an environment in which those

 7     committing the crimes in the area under his authority knew that they

 8     could do so with impunity and were encouraged to commit more crimes.

 9             The evidence will show that by all his acts and his omissions,

10     Goran Hadzic contributed to the criminal purpose which he shared with his

11     fellow JCE members.  That purpose was the violent removal of non-Serbs

12     from the areas of Croatia perceived to be Serb territory.

13             Now a few words about the Serb forces that I've been referring

14     to.  The evidence will show that the dirty work was done by a number of

15     different military units and organisations.  Some of these were local

16     units, others came from Serbia.  Sometimes these units worked separately,

17     other times they worked together.  But at all times the Serb forces, as

18     they're defined in paragraph 11 of the indictment, were fulfilling the

19     task of riding the SAO of its non-Serb population.  I'd like to briefly

20     describe here just a few of the non-Serb -- of the Serb forces that the

21     Chamber will have evidence about in this case.  After that, I'll talk

22     more about the individuals, other members of the JCE who are most closely

23     associated with these Serb forces.

24             The Yugoslav People's Army, the JNA, was at the outset the army

25     for all of Yugoslavia.  That was its constitutional role.  As Yugoslavia

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 1     began to fall apart, however, the JNA's role changed.  The evidence will

 2     show that after the Serbs in Croatia declared their independence, the JNA

 3     was gradually transformed.  By mid-1991, the evidence will show that the

 4     JNA was essentially a Serb army whose mission was to protect Serbs

 5     outside Serbia.  The evidence will show that for the JNA, the protection

 6     of Serbs in Croatia meant intervening militarily to remove Croatian

 7     institutions, authorities, and armed forces from Serb majority areas, but

 8     it soon went beyond that.  The evidence will show that the JNA was among

 9     those Serb forces that directly participated in the cleansing of large

10     numbers of non-Serb civilians all across the SBWS, including areas where

11     Croats, not Serbs, were far and away the largest ethnic group.  The role

12     played by the JNA in Ilok, which we mentioned at the beginning of our

13     submissions, this is an example of this.  The transformation of the JNA

14     from a Yugoslav People's Army to a Serb army involved in ethnic cleansing

15     of non-Serbs in Croatia was carried out by JCE members who were in the

16     JNA and Serbian leadership such as Generals Kadijevic and Adzic, and with

17     the support of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

18             The Serbian Volunteer Guard, SDG, was led by Arkan,

19     Zeljko Raznjatovic.  The SDG were also called the Arkanovci, Arkan's Men,

20     or Arkan's Tigers.  Arkan and the SDG were sent to Dalj in the SBWS by

21     Jovica Stanisic, who was chief of the Serbian State Security Department

22     or the DB.  Serbia's state security and Ministry of Defence continued to

23     sponsor this unit, the SDG, ensuring that it was well equipped with

24     weapons and ammunition.  By August of 1991, Arkan's Men were installed at

25     the training centre facility in Erdut made available to them by

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 1     Goran Hadzic.  This was the training centre where the men of the Pap,

 2     Kalozi, and Senasi families were taken in November 1991, beaten and

 3     killed.  The training centre was within the same gated compound as the

 4     seat and offices of Goran Hadzic's SBWS government.  After 1991,

 5     Arkan's Men moved to the Knin Krajina region of the RSK, and they fought

 6     there in 1992, before moving south to participate in the conflict after

 7     it spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 8             The evidence will show that local Serbs within the SAOs in

 9     Croatia organised themselves into militias, or Territorial Defence

10     forces, that participated in the expulsion of non-Serbs from the areas

11     that they controlled.  In this they worked in tandem with units from the

12     JNA that were not from the area, and they participated in many crimes and

13     expulsions.  The commander of the local Territorial Defence for the SBWS

14     was not a local.  Radovan Stojicic, shown as Badza, was sent from Serbia

15     to take command of the SBWS TO, Territorial Defence.

16             Later, when Hadzic was president of the RSK, RSK units of

17     Territorial Defence were transformed into Special Police Units, and these

18     RSK police units played a key role in crimes committed during 1992 and

19     1993.

20             The Serbian National Security, or SNB, was a Special Police Unit

21     that provided personal security for Goran Hadzic and his SBWS government.

22     The evidence will show that the members of the SNB committed numerous

23     crimes and killings of non-Serbs in the SBWS, and they frequently

24     collaborated with Arkan and his men in this.

25             Serb forces that were active and committing crimes in the SBWS in

Page 100

 1     1991 also included many volunteers who were sent from Serbia.  Several

 2     nationalist political parties in Serbia formed volunteer units and

 3     dispatched them to Croatia.  Among these, Vojislav Seselj organised his

 4     own volunteers, commonly referred to as Chetniks or Seselj's Men.

 5     Seselj, who is here at this Tribunal awaiting the judgement in his own

 6     case, was the leader of the Serbian Chetnik Movement and the

 7     Serbian Radical Party, the SRS.  Seselj held extremist views on ethnic

 8     separation and restoration of a Greater Serbia that would encompass

 9     substantial parts of Croatia as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The Serbian

10     Ministry of Defence - excuse me - was heavily involved in the

11     organisation of volunteers and in their training, equipping, arming for

12     deployment to Croatia.  The JNA incorporated volunteers from Serbia in

13     its operations in Croatia.

14             The Red Berets were a special unit that was formed, financed,

15     equipped and deployed by the Serbian state security, the DB.  This unit

16     also participated in crimes against non-Serbs.  This unit was known also

17     as Frenki's men for its commander, JCE member Franko Simatovic.  This

18     unit had bases in Tikves and Ilok and was active in the SBWS and in other

19     parts of Croatia.  This unit participated in the takeover of Vukovar and

20     killed five non-Serbs in Grabovac, which is one of the incidents in this

21     indictment charged in paragraph 37.

22             Your Honours, here I'd like to speak about a few of the more

23     prominent JCE members that are charged in the indictment as being part of

24     the common criminal purpose with Goran Hadzic.

25             Slobodan Milosevic was the president of the Republic of Serbia

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 1     and the most powerful figure in the JCE.  During the relevant times in

 2     this case, Milosevic controlled all major decisions and institutions of

 3     the Serbian government.  Through his position, he was able to exercise

 4     control over and influence Serbian forces such as its MUP and the JNA.

 5     This made him in all likelihood the most powerful person in the former

 6     Yugoslavia during the indictment period, 1990 to 1993.  His dominance was

 7     built on manipulation of Serbian nationalist policies, the essence of

 8     which was that Serbs must live in a territory controlled by Serbs.  He

 9     surrounded himself with loyal supports.  Hadzic and other JCE members

10     rallied around Milosevic and shared his nationalistic sentiments of

11     Serbian unity and ethnic separation.

12             Jovica Stanisic was the chief of the State Security Department,

13     the SDB, for the Republic of Serbia.  This was a part of the Serbian MUP,

14     Ministry of Internal Affairs.  He was formally appointed to this position

15     in December of 1991, but he exercised de facto authority over the DB in

16     the months preceding his formal appointment.  Franko Simatovic, also

17     known as Frenki, was his deputy.  As Your Honours know, the trial of

18     Messrs. Stanisic and Simatovic in this Tribunal is in its final stages.

19             Stanisic and Simatovic controlled and co-ordinated the arming,

20     training and deployment of volunteer formations in the SBWS, SAO Krajina,

21     and later in the RSK.  Arkan's Tigers and the Red Berets were among

22     these.

23             In my first remarks, I mentioned the people of Ilok who'd voted

24     to leave rather than stay and the involvement of Goran Hadzic in

25     discussions about resettling Serbs there.  The discussions were held in

Page 102

 1     Stanisic's hometown of Backa Palanka, which is located on the other side

 2     of the Danube River, directly opposite Ilok.  Jovica Stanisic was present

 3     with Hadzic when this was discussed in late October or early November of

 4     1991.

 5             Mihalj Kertes was another Belgrade-based member of the JCE.  He

 6     was a member of the Serbian Presidency in 1989 and 1990 and was

 7     president -- sorry, deputy federal minister for foreign affairs in Serbia

 8     in 1992.

 9             The evidence will show that Kertes provided weapons, logistical

10     and financial support to Serbian police and paramilitary units that were

11     operating in Croatia.  His sphere of responsibility involved looking

12     after the interests of Serbs outside Serbia, especially in Slavonia and

13     in the Krajinas.  Kertes was closely associated with Stanisic, Simatovic,

14     and Milosevic.

15             I've mentioned Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan.  He was the commander

16     of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, also known as Arkan's Tigers.  The

17     evidence will show that Arkan was dispatched to the SBWS by

18     Jovica Stanisic, who, as I mentioned, was the head of Serbia's DB, state

19     security.

20             Arkan is one of the core JCE members with whom Goran Hadzic

21     collaborated in this case.

22             Arkan was a known criminal even before 1991, and is a notorious

23     perpetrator of crimes committed in this case.  By August of 1991, SBWS

24     Prime Minister-designate Goran Hadzic had installed the SAO SBWS

25     government at a winery facility in Erdut.  Inside the compound was

Page 103

 1     Arkan's training centre, which I've already referred to.  Many prisoners

 2     were brought to the training centre for interrogations and beatings

 3     before being killed.

 4             As indicated here, when the conflict spread to Bosnia from

 5     Croatia, Arkan and his unit fought in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  He was

 6     indicted by this Tribunal, but he was never tried.  He was assassinated

 7     in Belgrade in January of 2000.

 8             Arkan and his men also participated in joint actions with the JNA

 9     authority the SBWS.  JNA General Andrija Biorcevic was commander of the

10     12th JNA Novi Sad Corps in November of 1991, and that unit directly

11     participated in the JNA's operations, was a part of the JNA's operations

12     in the SBWS.  We're going to play a short video-clip that was taken in

13     1992 in which Biorcevic is speaking.  And after referring to the

14     destruction of Vukovar, which we'll be getting to shortly, Biorcevic

15     praised Arkan and the tactics they employed together in their joint

16     operations.

17                           [Video-clip played]

18             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] And of our own initiative, we did

19     what we did, but we would not have destroyed it to the extent that we did

20     had they decided to surrender, but they didn't want to surrender; and,

21     secondly:  The men did not want to charge, you know.  You can go about

22     attacking, using equipment to no end, but if you don't have a man who

23     will seize it ... that's the greatest merit of Arkan's volunteers.  Some

24     are imputing, however, that I am acting in collusion with paramilitary

25     formations.  Those are not paramilitary formations here.  Those are men

Page 104

 1     who have come voluntarily to fight for the Serb people; we encircle a

 2     village, he storms in, and whoever doesn't want to surrender - he kills

 3     off and we move on."

 4             MR. STRINGER:  Your Honours, the other gentleman shown in the

 5     video on the other side of the woman is Arkan.  We'll have more images of

 6     him soon.

 7             In this video, General Biorcevic describes the general role of

 8     the JNA during its operations in the SBWS.  With its superior military

 9     capability, the JNA would first attack and break the defence of the

10     targeted town or village or surround it.  It would then step back while

11     units such as Arkan's Men, local TOs or volunteers stepped in to do the

12     mopping up.  This alone tells us much about how different Serb forces

13     worked together.

14             But Arkan did not just kill enemy soldiers who refused to

15     surrender.  In this video an interview that Arkan gave in English in late

16     1991, probably in September, to French television, Arkan describes his

17     policy on the treatment of prisoners generally.

18                           [Video-clip played]

19             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] Reporter:  Don't be shy.

20             "Zeljko Raznjatovic:  We don't take any more prisoners.  We're

21     gonna kill every fascist soldier we catch.  They have to know that.  No

22     prisoners because they took two prisoners, our prisoners.  This is a

23     19-years, 19-years-old soldier who was captured by the fascist

24     Croatian Army - the Ustashi.  And he was tortured till death.  We can't

25     forget about past when 33 members of my family were killed in the

Page 105

 1     Second World War, tortured like my soldier was tortured; like this."

 2             MR. STRINGER:  The evidence will show that when Arkan -- what

 3     Arkan said, when he said that he doesn't take prisoners, it wasn't just

 4     soldierly bravado for the camera here.  He was telling the truth.  And

 5     this is not just limited to Croat soldiers.  Arkan did not distinguish

 6     between soldiers, prisoners, or civilians.  They were all treated the

 7     same.  The only distinction he made was between Serbs and non-Serbs.

 8             In next slide is from a JNA report about Arkan's training

 9     programme.  This is a report from the 25th of October, 1991:

10              "Through the training process of each volunteer, they learn,

11     when raiding into a Croatian house, to kill whom they find in the house,

12     no matter if those are children, old and frail people, women and similar.

13     They train them to open fire from left to right when engaged in the

14     killings."

15             The evidence will show that after Arkan arrived in Erdut in

16     August of 1991, he became a close associate of Goran Hadzic.  They were

17     frequently together.

18             This is a still photograph taken from a video from the early part

19     of November 1991, at the funeral of General Mladen Bratic.  He had been

20     the commander of the JNA Novi Sad Corps.  He was killed in combat

21     operations near Vukovar.

22             The incident charged in paragraph 24 of the indictment is an

23     example of the close collaboration, the criminal collaboration, between

24     Hadzic and Arkan.

25             The evidence will show that on the 21st of September, 1991,

Page 106

 1     Hadzic and Arkan together, accompanied by 12 [sic] of Arkan's men, went

 2     to the Dalj police station where a group of prisoners was being held.

 3     Hadzic had ordered that these prisoners be brought to the police

 4     headquarters about one week earlier on the pretense they were to stand

 5     trial.  Hadzic and Arkan released two of the men.  Eleven others were

 6     taken away by Arkan.  We know his policy on prisoners.  They were

 7     executed.  And in 1998, the remains of nine of those 11 were exhumed from

 8     the village of Celije and from a well in Dalj.

 9             Another member of the joint criminal enterprise in this case is

10     Radovan Stojicic, also known as Badza.  Like Arkan, he was not a local

11     but, rather, was from Serbia, where he was a high-level official of the

12     Serbian MUP or Interior Ministry.  He arrived in Erdut around August 1991

13     and took command of the local TO, Territorial Defence units.  The

14     evidence will show that Stojicic was in regular contact with Hadzic and

15     Arkan.  Also, Stojicic was in frequent virtually daily contact with the

16     command of the JNA Novi Sad Corps, and he co-ordinated joint actions of

17     the JNA with the TO units that he commanded.

18             Also, Stojicic, Badza, attended certain meetings of the SAO SBWS

19     government, and he briefed its members on the military situation on the

20     ground.

21             Milan Martic was a police officer from Knin who severed as its

22     chief of police.  During 1991, he was appointed to various high positions

23     in the SAO Krajina such as secretary of internal affairs, minister of

24     defence, minister of interior.  In August of that year, 1991, he was also

25     named deputy commander of the TO, the SAO Krajina.  After the SAO SBWS

Page 107

 1     and Western Slavonia joined the RSK in February of 1992, Martic served as

 2     the minister of interior while Goran Hadzic was RSK president.  Martic

 3     was in charge of the police which included not only regular police units

 4     but also heavily armed Special Police militias that were involved in many

 5     crimes committed against non-Serbs during 1992 and 1993.

 6             In 1994, Mr. Martic became president of the RSK.  Based in part

 7     on his role in crimes committed against non-Serbs in the SAO Krajina and

 8     RSK, Milan Martic was indicted by this Tribunal in 2003.  In 2008, he was

 9     convicted and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment.

10             Although he's not identified as a JCE member in the indictment, I

11     would like to mention Stevo Bogic, as known as Jajo.  Bogic was a Serb

12     from Vukovar appointed by Goran Hadzic to head a unit called the

13     Serbian National Security, the SNB.  The SNB is among the Serbs forces

14     that are identified in paragraph 11 of the indictment.  The SNB was a

15     Special Police Unit that provided personal security for Goran Hadzic and

16     his SBWS government.  Stevo Bogic's office was located in the centre at

17     the Erdut Winery complex some 10 metres away from Goran Hadzic's office.

18     He reported directly to Hadzic.  The evidence will show that members of

19     the SNB committed numerous crimes and killings of non-Serbs in the SBWS,

20     and they frequently collaborated with Arkan and his men.  Bogic provided

21     Arkan's men with SNB identification cards to ensure their free movement

22     in the area.  Bogic was also a minister in the SBWS government and later

23     was a minister in the RSK government.

24             Your Honours, I would note here that with Arkan and his training

25     centre -- with Arkan and his training centre based in the same physical

Page 108

 1     location as Hadzic's SBWS government, with Stevo Bogic of the SNB working

 2     just down the hall, and with Radovan Stojicic briefing Hadzic's SBWS

 3     government on the actions of the various JNA and TO formations, Hadzic

 4     had ensured that civilian government structures of the SBWS would be well

 5     integrated with the military structures operating there.

 6             Your Honours, we've now described the establishment of the SAOs,

 7     the Serbian autonomous districts or regions in Croatia, the common

 8     criminal purpose of the JCE and Hadzic's contribution to it, as well as

 9     some of the more prominent Serb forces and JCE members.

10             I would now like to address the armed conflict and the various

11     crimes about which the Trial Chamber will hear during the trial.

12             First, I would like to mention the beginning of the armed

13     conflict.  Your Honours, the evidence will show that the armed conflict

14     began during the period of late March to early May 1991, when units of

15     the newly created Serb MUP or police clashed with their counterparts on

16     the Croatian side.

17             A significant conflict took place on the 31st of March, 1991, at

18     a place called Plitvice in Central Croatia.

19             And here Your Honours see a map of Croatia with the location of

20     the Plitvice National Park indicated.

21             Hundreds of armed Croatian MUP personnel were brought into the

22     area in late March of 1991 to restore Croatian control there.  That's

23     because the park was in - excuse me - within the territory of what had

24     been declared to be the SAO Krajina.  The Croatian MUP personnel there

25     encountered armed police units of the SAO Krajina.  The JNA was also

Page 109

 1     present and intervened.  A cease-fire was agreed.  Several police

 2     personnel were wounded in the incident.

 3             The evidence will show that at the time of the incident at

 4     Plitvice, Goran Hadzic was one of the SDS leaders for the areas of Knin

 5     and Vukovar.  He and other members of the SDS leadership had come for a

 6     conference in Benkovac to the south.  While travelling back to the

 7     Vukovar area, Hadzic and another Serb political figure, Borivoje Savic,

 8     were arrested by the Croatian authorities and they were detained.  Hadzic

 9     was beaten and mistreated while he was in the custody of the Croatian

10     authorities.  He was released after several days.

11             There will be evidence that after his arrest and mistreatment at

12     Plitvice, Hadzic became more extreme in his politics and in his views

13     about relations between Serbs and Croats in Croatia.  If there had been

14     two visions for the SAOs in Croatia, preservation of Serbian culture and

15     identity within Croatia versus complete separation and establishment of

16     autonomous, ethnic Serb territory in Croatia, Hadzic was definitely in

17     the latter camp after Plitvice.  His orientation shifted to Belgrade, and

18     by June of 1991, Hadzic would inform one of his more moderate colleagues

19     in the SDS that he, Hadzic, was going to war.

20             The evidence will show that Goran Hadzic held the view that Serbs

21     and Croats could not co-exist.  This wasn't just his personal opinion.

22     This was to become the policy of his government.  Croats were to be

23     driven out and not permitted to return.

24             Your Honour, I can address one more incident and then -- just

25     another page of my outline and then it would be a good time for a break,

Page 110

 1     if you're --

 2             JUDGE DELVOIE:  It's okay.

 3             MR. STRINGER:  After Plitvice, a significant armed conflict

 4     between Croats and Serbs occurred much closer to home.  I've already

 5     mentioned Borovo Selo, a Serb town located a short distance north of

 6     Vukovar.

 7             This map, Your Honours, indicates the location of Borovo Selo in

 8     Eastern Slavonia.  Again, with the mouse - we've already got the arrow

 9     there - Your Honours can see Vukovar here and then the town of Borovo

10     just to the north.  Here is Dalj.  Here is Erdut.

11             By May of 1991, the Serbs in Borovo Selo, like many Serbs in many

12     parts of Croatia at the time, had erected barricades to isolate the town

13     and prevent Croatian personnel, such as the police, from entering.

14     Here's a photo that gives an idea of what barricades looked like at the

15     time.

16             On the 2nd of May, 1991, the Croatian authorities sent five buses

17     of Croatian police into Borovo Selo.  This was in response to the arrest

18     of two Croatian police officers the previous evening.  The result was a

19     battle between the Croat police on one side and local Serbs, together

20     with volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party, the SRS, Seselj's people,

21     who were also present in Borovo at the time.  Twelve Croatian policemen

22     and three Serbs were killed at Borovo Selo during that incident on the

23     2nd of May, and more were wounded.

24             Your Honour, if this is a good time for a break.  I see we're at

25     about 10.30.

Page 111

 1             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you, Mr. Prosecutor.

 2             So we will break now and come back at 11.00.

 3                           --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

 4                           --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.

 5             JUDGE DELVOIE:  You may continue, Mr. Stringer.  Thank you.

 6             MR. STRINGER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

 7             Your Honours, before the break, we described the incidents, first

 8     at Plitvice in March of 1991 and then the incident in Borovo Selo, on --

 9     in early May of 1991, and I'd like now to move to August of 1991.

10             The conflict continued to escalate during the summer months of

11     1991.  During June, July, and August of that year, the JNA forces began

12     sporadically shelling parts of Vukovar.  The intensity grew as the summer

13     went on.

14             On the 1st of August, 1991, the town of Dalj was taken by local

15     Serbs and the JNA which, on that day, crossed over from Serbia and

16     deployed extensive heavy weaponry into the area.  Some 50 JNA tanks were

17     in the area of Erdut and Dalj, shelling Erdut as they moved through the

18     area.  The evidence will show that a JNA tank fired on the police station

19     at Dalj and the building was destroyed.  A number of Croat policemen were

20     killed there.

21             This map shows the location of the town of Dalj, a short distance

22     north of Vukovar just below Erdut, on the Danube.

23             And, again, the arrow indicates Dalj, with Vukovar to the south,

24     and Erdut just to the north, all sitting along the banks of the Danube.

25             The Chamber will have evidence that Goran Hadzic was present with

Page 112

 1     the JNA at the Dalj police station on the 1st of August after the town

 2     had been taken.

 3             Once the Serb forces captured Dalj, they had a foothold inside

 4     Croatia from which they extended their military and political control

 5     throughout the territory declared by the SAO SBWS.  By late August of

 6     1991, the JNA and other Serb forces had overrun the entire district of

 7     Baranja to the north of Dalj, this area on the map that I'm indicating

 8     with the map.  Even though the area overall had a relatively small Serb

 9     population of about 20 to 25 per cent.

10             During September and October of 1991, Serb forces, principally

11     the JNA, took towns in Western Srem to the south and east of Vukovar,

12     such as Ilok, Sarengrad, Bapska, Lovas, and Tovarnik.  And, Your Honour,

13     this map then shows the general area of those towns.  With the mouse

14     again, I'll just indicate Ilok in the far eastern edge of Western Srem,

15     Sarengrad, Lovas - the location of the minefield incident that was

16     earlier described - Bapska, Tovarnik.

17             As Your Honours can see from this map, taking control of

18     Western Srem secured the eastern edge of the SBWS along the Danube River

19     and effectively eliminated the Croatian border that had separated the

20     SBWS from its sponsor state, Serbia.

21             The pattern in taking Western Srem was to combine shelling

22     attacks with ultimatums directed to local residents.  To illustrate this,

23     I'd like to describe what happened in the town of Bapska.

24             By late September of 1991, as the JNA and other Serb forces took

25     control over the Western Srem area, the residents of Bapska were, like

Page 113

 1     virtually all the other Croats in the area, either fleeing or negotiating

 2     terms with the Serb forces to allow them to remain.  In Bapska, the

 3     negotiations were between the president of the local commune and a JNA

 4     commander.  The JNA commander issued an ultimatum directing that,

 5     although the residents of Bapska had been peaceful so far, they must

 6     nonetheless, by 1600 hours on the 28th of September, 1991, surrender any

 7     weapons they had to the JNA.

 8             This next slide, Your Honours, is from Exhibit 65 ter 0418.  This

 9     is from the ultimatum that was issued on at that day.  And as Your

10     Honours will see in item 2, the JNA added this incentive to the residents

11     of Bapska:

12             "If this is not done by this time, you can count on your village

13     ceasing to exist on the geographical map."

14             Many people of Bapska fled to nearby Ilok where they met

15     residents of the towns of Tovarnik, Lovas, and Sarengrad, who had also

16     fled to Ilok because of the threats and the attacks of the Serb forces in

17     their own towns.  Ilok is the place I mentioned in my introductory

18     comments.  It's the place where the conditions were so bad that the

19     people held a referendum on October 13th 1991 and decided to leave of

20     town altogether.

21             By emptying Ilok, the Serb forces had effectively emptied much of

22     Western Srem of its non-Serb inhabitants.  They'd been systematically

23     pushed eastward toward Ilok, the Danube River, and the Serbian border.

24     And now they were gone.

25             We're now in mid-October of 1991, Your Honours.  Before

Page 114

 1     continuing, I'd like to focus for a moment on Goran Hadzic and the level

 2     of his own involvement and knowledge about all that's happened so far.

 3             In the first video-clip that we saw of Mr. Hadzic, he was flying

 4     to New York in early 1993 for negotiations.  This video is from Erdut.

 5     He's uniformed and appears to be carrying a sidearm.  He describes

 6     military developments and events taking place throughout the SBWS.  His

 7     references to the liberation of Western Srem, events in Ilok and the

 8     ongoing battle for Vukovar tell us that this interview would have

 9     occurred around mid-October 1991.

10                           [Video-clip played]

11             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] Anchor:  We are moving to Slavonia

12     and Western Srem.

13              "Reporter:  Dear viewers, following the press conference held in

14     Erdut today, we asked Goran Hadzic, president of the Serb region of

15     Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem, to answer some questions for viewers

16     of the Belgrade Television.

17             "Mr. Hadzic, to what extent is fierce fighting going on, if we

18     can put it that way, in this theatre of war?  What are the prospects of

19     this war?

20              "Goran Hadzic:  Fights are intense.  This first action, first

21     part, meaning liberation of Western Srem, is in its final stage.  As I

22     said, fights for Vukovar are ongoing.  We can say that our units control

23     nearly 50 per cent of the city.  We have secure positions and are

24     advancing house by house.  The action of mopping up Ustasha villages was

25     also carried out in the last two days.  Following mopping up of

Page 115

 1     Sid-Vinkovci section, couple of Ustasha villages in this section of the

 2     central part of our region were mopped up three days ago, so Bogdanovci

 3     and the villages down there.  Some villages surrender.  In Ilok,

 4     specifically, one wing offers to surrender while the other, extreme wing,

 5     will not allow it.  I will have talks regarding this issue today, so they

 6     can surrender their weapons and perpetrators can be held responsible

 7     before law and the innocent and stay and live with us.

 8              "Reporter:  This territorial army, defenders of the villages,

 9     Yugoslav People's Army, going to launch a stronger offensive since, as

10     you yourself are aware, there is talk about great -- a great number of

11     complaints with regard to intense war activities especially by the

12     Yugoslav People's Army?

13     "Goran Hadzic:  Well there are complaints these are, I could say,

14   relatively justified given the attitude and possibilities. Our primary goal

15   is not the mass killing of Croats, but punishing criminals in their midst.

16     This means we have tried everything through democratic and other peaceful

17     means to prevent this.  However, even after our signing the truce,

18     agreements and negotiations, the Ustasha continue disregarding the

19     signatures.  It means that everyone with this ... I do not trust them at

20     all.  This is clear to me - there can be no negotiations with them, and

21     the situation has to be resolved militarily.  The communique of the

22     Supreme Command speaks to this effect, but we have to be aware that the

23     army cannot carry this out without the people.  So we will have to have

24     some co-ordinated action, a real co-ordinated action between the people

25     and the army."

Page 116

 1             MR. STRINGER:  So what does this tell us?  This tells us that a

 2     uniformed president of the government, Goran Hadzic, was fully informed

 3     on the JNA's cleansing of towns in Western Srem such as Tovarnik, Bapska,

 4     Lovas.  He also knew that closer to home, "our units," as he calls them,

 5     were moving house to house in Vukovar and were "mopping up" Ustasha

 6     villages, as he describes them, in the region around Vukovar.

 7             As Your Honours will know, "Ustasha" is a term linked to what was

 8     called the Independent State of Croatian from World War II.  This was a

 9     fascist regime that exterminated large numbers of Serbs and Jews while

10     allied with Nazi Germany.  Referring to Croats as Ustashas was guaranteed

11     to ratchet up fear and tension among Hadzic's listens.  The evidence will

12     show that Goran Hadzic frequently used the term Ustasha as a way of

13     referring to all Croats as here in referring to "Ustasha villages."  This

14     not only contributed to fear and division but also served to demonise the

15     Croat population itself, signally that it was acceptable to target them.

16             This video also tells us that Hadzic knew about the negotiations

17     between Croats and the JNA that were taking place down in Ilok, saying

18     that he would be directly involved in talks about that.  Hadzic knew

19     about complaints about the intense war activities as they're described of

20     local Serbs, Territorial Defence, and the JNA, but Hadzic brushed off

21     complaints as "relatively justified."  Hadzic believed that "we have to

22     have a co-ordinated action between the people and the army."

23             Your Honours, earlier I said the evidence would show that

24     Goran Hadzic was a co-ordinator.  He tells us that himself in this clip.

25     His contribution was to ensure close co-ordination between, as he said,

Page 117

 1     the people and the army.

 2             So far in these submissions, Your Honours, I have referred to

 3     several of the extermination and murder incidents that are charged in

 4     paragraphs 23 to 38 of the indictment, Counts 2 through 4.  Time does not

 5     permit me to go into great detail on each of the remaining incidents.

 6     However, I would like to briefly mention them now.  Considered altogether

 7     these show the pattern and the widespread and systematic nature of the

 8     attack on non-Serbs that was happening all across the region.

 9             I've spoken already about the 21st of September, 1991, incident

10     when Goran Hadzic and Arkan came to the Dalj police station.  Eleven

11     non-Serb detainees were taken away and killed.  Most of the bodies were

12     later exhumed from Celije.  The incident is charged in paragraph 24 of

13     the indictment.

14             About two weeks later, on the night of the 4th of October, Arkan

15     and his men along with members of the local SBWS TO returned to the

16     police station, interrogated and murdered approximately 28 non-Serb

17     detainees from Baranja who had been brought to the detention facility by

18     the Serb Special Police a few days earlier.  Arkan and the other

19     perpetrators then dumped the victims' bodies into the Danube River.  When

20     local residents of Dalj complained that their children could see the

21     corpses floating down the river, Arkan publicly admitted to participating

22     in the killing and promised that next time he would bury the bodies of

23     the victims instead.

24             That incident is charged in indictment paragraph 25.

25             October 18th is the day of the Lovas minefield incident which I

Page 118

 1     described earlier in my submissions.  That is charged in paragraph 26.

 2             And then on the 9th of November, 1991, we've described the arrest

 3     and killing of the Pap, Kalozi, and Senasi men, and also then the

 4     killings that followed of Juliana Pap, her son, and Natalija Rakin after

 5     Juliana Pap went looking for her missing family members.  Those incidents

 6     are charged in paragraphs 27 and 28 of the indictment.

 7             On the 11th of November, 1991, Arkan's Men came to the village of

 8     Klisa, east of Dalj, and arrested non-Serb employees of the DP Dalj

 9     company which was an agricultural enterprise for the region.  Those

10     non-Serbs had gathered there at the farm to receive their pay cheques.

11     After enduring a night of brutal interrogations, Arkan's Men brought the

12     detainees to the training centre at the government compound in Erdut.

13     Two were released but the other five were executed.  One other employee

14     of the DP Dalj complained to Goran Hadzic about these arrests and the

15     accused responded that it was none of his business and he refused to

16     discuss the matter further.  That's indictment paragraph 29.

17             Your Honours, you've heard me refer several times now to the

18     Erdut training centre and its proximity to the Hadzic government offices.

19     This was without doubt the command centre for the crimes committed

20     against the local non-Serb population.

21             On the 10th of December, 1991, in addition to -- in addition to

22     the incidents I've already described, on the 10th of December, the local

23     police and TO, along with Arkan's Men, arrested five non-Serbs from Erdut

24     and took them to the training centre and subsequently executed them.

25     That's indictment paragraph 34.

Page 119

 1             The scenario was repeated with grim familiarity on the

 2     26th of December with regard to seven ethnic Hungarians and Croats.

 3     That's on page 35.  Excuse me, indictment paragraph 35.

 4             And then again on the 21st of February, 1992, four members of the

 5     Albert family, Djuro, Helena, Viktorija, and mother-in-law Ana Terzic,

 6     age 76, they were killed after being taken to the training centre.

 7     That's charged in indictment paragraph 36.

 8             On the 4th of May, 1992, in the small village of Grabovac in the

 9     Baranja region of the SBWS, members of the Red Berets arrested five Croat

10     and Hungarian civilians, including two women, Ruza Grofec and

11     Andja Vlahovic and killed them.  Their bodies were found in the Tikves

12     Park in Beli Manastir near where the Red Berets were based.  This is

13     charged in indictment paragraph 37.

14             Finally, Your Honours, you'll recall that at the beginning of my

15     presentation I described the 9 November 1991 incident in which a number

16     of the men from the Pap, Kalozi and Senasi families why killed.  On the

17     3rd of June, 1992, Marija Senasi, the wife, mother, or mother-in-law of

18     three of those men who had been killed earlier in 1991, she was executed

19     by members of Goran Hadzic's security unit, the SNB, who were working

20     with Arkan's Men.  Her offence was the same as Juliana Pap's.  She'd

21     asked too many questions about the fate of her missing family members.

22             Altogether, the incident of murder and extermination as charged

23     in the indictment span September 1991 to June of 1992.  The indictment

24     lists 348 victims of murder and extermination during that period, but

25     there are still some murder and extermination incidents charged in the

Page 120

 1     indictment that I've not yet mentioned, and those are linked to Vukovar.

 2             During 1991, Croatian armed forces such as the

 3     Croatian National Guard had blockaded JNA barracks in different parts of

 4     Croatia, including the JNA barracks in Vukovar.  After an earlier attempt

 5     to lift the blockade had failed, the JNA succeeded in deblocking its

 6     Vukovar barracks in early October 1991.  After the Vukovar JNA barracks

 7     was de-blocked, the JNA demanded that the Croatian fighters in Vukovar

 8     lay down their arms.  The Croats refused to surrender.  This then gave

 9     rise to one of the most brutal and destructive battles that occurred in

10     the wars of the former Yugoslavia, the battle for Vukovar.  After the

11     Croats refused to surrender, the JNA laid siege to the town, cutting off

12     water and power while pounding the city with artillery and even aerial

13     bombing.  The population of Vukovar went underground, holing up in

14     basement during what would be a seven-week siege.  As Hadzic himself

15     indicated in the video-clip played earlier, the battle for Vukovar was

16     fought street by street, house by house.  When it was over, the town and

17     its structures were completely destroyed.

18             Before it all started, the municipality of Vukovar was populated

19     by 84.000 people, 43 per cent Croats, 38 per cent Serbs, with the

20     remainder declaring themselves to be Hungarians, Muslims, and other

21     groups or nationalities.  Despite the fact that Croats were the largest

22     ethnic group, Vukovar was nonetheless slated to be the capital of the

23     SAO SBWS.  Vukovar was to be taken so it could be a Serb town.

24             The 18th of November, 1991, marks the fall of the city of Vukovar

25     with the surrender of the last pockets of Croatian resistance.  The siege

Page 121

 1     and battle for Vukovar, its fall to Serb forces on the 18th and the

 2     terror and the violence that reigned in the days that follow have all

 3     been closely examined in previous cases in this Tribunal going all the

 4     way back to the trial of Slavko Dokmanovic that ended in June of 1998.

 5     When Vukovar fell, he was the minister of agriculture in Hadzic's SBWS

 6     government.  Dokmanovic committed suicide here shortly before his

 7     judgement was announced.

 8             Your Honours, I'd like to run a short video-clip now that gives

 9     the Chamber an idea, an impression of what the town of Vukovar looked

10     like after the battle was over.  This footage is from late 1991 after

11     Vukovar fell, so this would be within a month or so after the fall of the

12     town.

13                           [Video-clip played]

14             MR. STRINGER:  In the final days before Vukovar fell, hundreds of

15     civilians and Croatian combatants who had laid down their arms sought

16     refuge at the Vukovar Hospital, as rumours circulated that an evacuation

17     supervised by the international community would take place from the

18     hospital.  The JNA took control of the hospital on the 19th, despite an

19     agreement reached between the JNA and the Croatian government which

20     placed the hospital under the protection of the ICRC and the -- during

21     the -- for the duration of the evacuation.  The JNA and the Croatian

22     government also agreed that the ECMM would monitor the entire operation,

23     the ECMM being the European Community Monitoring Mission.

24             This is a photograph of the Vukovar Hospital from this period.

25             The evacuation or removal of the Croat population from Vukovar

Page 122

 1     was to take place on November 20.  That morning, the JNA ordered men and

 2     women out of the hospital.  Men were separated from women and children.

 3     The scene in Vukovar was chaos as the Serb forces, including volunteers

 4     and Chetniks, some of them drunk, moved through the town rounding up the

 5     non-Serb population as they emerged from their cellars.

 6             These are photos of the women and children from the day.

 7             After the Croat men were separated from the women and children,

 8     about 200 of them, men, were loaded onto five buses lined up outside the

 9     hospital.  Representatives of the ICRC and the ECMM were trying -- were

10     in Vukovar trying desperately to get to the hospital so they could

11     monitor the treatment of the Croats being removed.  However, they were

12     prevented by the JNA from reaching the hospital before the five busloads

13     of prisoners had left.

14             The buses drove to the JNA barracks in Vukovar and remained

15     parked there for several hours with the detained men on board.  Serb TO

16     members and paramilitaries milled around the buses and started to

17     threaten and verbally abuse the men on the buses.  A sixth bus arrived

18     shortly thereafter.  Beatings began.

19             While the buses were being held at the JNA barracks, a meeting

20     was held at another place called Velepromet outside of Vukovar between

21     members of the SAO SBWS government and members of the JNA.

22             We see the location of the hospital, the JNA barracks, and the

23     Velepromet facility on this slide.

24             This meeting at Velepromet was to decide the fate of the 200 men

25     being held at the JNA barracks.  Goran Hadzic, as president of the

Page 123

 1     government of the SAO SBWS, attended the meeting.  He came to the meeting

 2     with Arkan.  Hadzic and other government members insisted that the Croat

 3     prisoners must remain in Vukovar, claiming that they would be prosecuted

 4     before local courts.  Shortly after Vukovar fell, a first group of about

 5     200 prisoners had already been transported down to the prison at

 6     Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia.  The evidence will show that Goran Hadzic

 7     was firmly opposed to any more prisoners leaving the SBWS.

 8             Your Honour, this slide relates to the incident -- one of the

 9     additional murder and extermination incidents here charged in

10     paragraph 31.

11             The Velepromet facility where the meeting was held on the 20th of

12     November was itself a detention facility where hundreds of Croats were

13     being detained and beaten on the 19th, 20th, and 21st of November, 1991.

14     Paragraph 31 of the indictment refers to the 17 prisoners who were killed

15     there.  Some prisoners refer to the room of death at Velepromet, a room

16     where prisoners were kept before they were killed.

17             Many of the prisoners at Velepromet were later transferred to the

18     Sremska Mitrovica prison in Serbia, and I will speak about that shortly.

19             Your Honours, this clip is also from the 20th of November, 1991.

20     Here we see Hadzic, Arkan and other members of Hadzic's government and

21     the JNA at the Velepromet facility.  The parties have agreed that Arkan

22     had accompanied Hadzic to the Velepromet meeting.  In this footage, we

23     see Hadzic giving an interview, and in close proximity we see Arkan along

24     with others.

25             I should say that we don't need translation or interpretation for

Page 124

 1     this.  It's just the images we'd like to see.

 2                           [Video-clip played]

 3             MR. STRINGER:  I'm going to pause briefly here, Your Honours.

 4     Your Honours will see this is Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan, and Your Honours

 5     will also be able to identify Mr. Hadzic in the background.

 6             The next video-clip is from an interview that Goran Hadzic gave

 7     later, shortly after the Velepromet meeting.

 8                           [Video-clip played]

 9             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] Goran Hadzic:  This is the first

10     session of the government held in the future capital of our Serb region

11     of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.  As for the conclusions, apart

12     from the ones relating to normalisation of life and creation of a more or

13     less normal situation, the main conclusion is that the prisoners, the

14     Ustashas with blood on their hands must not leave the territory of the

15     Serbian district of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem and cannot go to

16     Serbia, cannot be taken there because Serbia is not a country at war.

17     Also, the troops that helped capture them, they ... the captured persons

18     are not soldiers.  They are members of paramilitary formations.  They can

19     only be put on trial by the people here, that is to say the people of our

20     Serbian district which has been recognised, has its court, even a court

21     of second instance.  The third instance might possibly be at the federal

22     level, at Yugoslav level.  And we have our District Court and our

23     Municipal Court.  Consequently, we have agreed with the military

24     authorities that these Ustasha remain in some of our camps here in the

25     vicinity of Vukovar.  Since one group was already taken to

Page 125

 1     Sremska Mitrovica, I undertook the task of bringing these people back, if

 2     we can call them people.  We shall bring them back, put them on trial,

 3     those who are guilty.  Those who are not guilty will of course be

 4     released so they can join us in the reconstruction of our town."

 5             MR. STRINGER:  Your Honours, in this video-clip, Goran Hadzic

 6     himself tells us the central role that he played in keeping those

 7     prisoners in the SBWS and preventing their removal to Serbia.  As he

 8     says, "we have agreed with the military authorities that those Ustasha

 9     remain in some of our camps here in the vicinity of Vukovar."

10             Since one group was already taken to Sremska Mitrovica," he says,

11     "I undertook the task to return those people, if they can be called

12     people," and "to put them on trial."

13             With these words, Hadzic tells us that he has taken

14     responsibility for these prisoners.  He and his civilian authorities have

15     assumed custody of them from the military authorities.  The fact that

16     Hadzic questions whether they can be called people signals the quality of

17     justice that they can expect to receive in the SBWS.

18             Your Honours, the evidence will show that once Hadzic succeeded

19     in persuading the JNA to turn those 200 men over to him and his people,

20     despite his promises of trials and justice, their fate was never in

21     doubt.  We've already heard what Arkan's policy was in respect of

22     prisoners.

23             The buses with the 200 or so Vukovar prisoners left the JNA

24     barracks between 1.00 and 2.00 in the afternoon on the 20th of November

25     and were escorted by military police of the JNA Operative Group South

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 1     headed to the farming village of Ovcara located 5 or 6 kilometres from

 2     Vukovar.

 3             The buses arrived at a large hangar facility used to store farm

 4     equipment.  The detained men were ordered into the hangar.  While making

 5     their way in from the buses, they had to pass through a gauntlet composed

 6     of TO soldiers and members of paramilitary formations who kicked and

 7     punched the Croat prisoners as they passed through.

 8             A local farmer was ordered to take his front-end loader and dig a

 9     pit in a field that was less than 2 kilometres away from the hangar.

10             Severe beatings continued inside the hangar facility for the rest

11     of the afternoon and into the evening of the 20th.  At least two

12     prisoners died there.  In the evening, they started transporting the

13     prisoners in groups of 10 and 20 in a small truck out to the site where

14     the pit had been dug.

15             The killings took place over several hours extending beyond

16     midnight into the early morning hours of November 21st, 1991.  The men

17     were lined up at the pit and executed.  Altogether, 260 were killed or

18     executed.  The remains of 194 victims were recovered from the mass grave

19     in 1996.  That incident is charged in paragraph 32 of the indictment.

20             Other Vukovar prisoners were transported towards Dalj on the

21     19th, 20, and 21st of November.  When they reached Borovo Selo, two buses

22     were stopped by members of the local TO and redirected to an enterprise

23     called Lovas farms which actually is located near Dalj, not Lovas.

24     Several of the detainees were killed at this Lovas farms facility.  Other

25     Vukovar prisoners were taken to Dalj and held in hangars belonging to the

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 1     DPK Dalj company where they were mistreated and beaten.  Some of them

 2     were killed.  In total at least 35 of these detainees were executed and

 3     dumped into mass graves at Lovas farms and in Dalj.  This is charged in

 4     paragraph 33 of the indictment.

 5             Your Honour -- Your Honours, I would now like to address the

 6     detention facilities and describe some of the detention crimes that are

 7     charged in Counts 5 through 9 of the indictment.

 8             These counts, Your Honours, charge Hadzic with crimes based on

 9     the mistreatment of non-Serbs who were arrested in the SBWS and detained

10     in various detention facilities located not only in the SBWS but in

11     Serbia also.  The detention sites are listed in paragraph 41 of the

12     indictment.

13             The evidence will be that the prisoners were held and mistreated

14     not only at detention facilities set up close to their own homes or

15     places where they were arrested; for example, the training centre in

16     Erdut or the Zadruga building in Lovas that I've already mentioned, but

17     also these -- these facilities in Serbia.  A number of these sites were

18     the last known locations of the victims of murder and extermination that

19     we've already mentioned.

20             This first series of slides will indicate the locations of the

21     detention facilities in the territory of the SBWS.  There were police

22     buildings and hangar in Dalj.  The Erdut training centre that I've

23     mentioned now repeatedly.  And then some sites, detention sites located

24     to -- or linked to the fall of Vukovar, the hospital, the JNA barracks,

25     the Ovcara farm where the beatings occurred in the hangar before the

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 1     prisoners were executed, and also the Velepromet facility where the

 2     meeting was held on the 20th of November, 1991, or -- and where prisoners

 3     were beaten and killed as well.  There was the detention site in the town

 4     of Opatovac, and also in Borovo Selo, a workshop or a stable that was

 5     used.  And finally, as I've mentioned, the Zadruga building in Lovas.

 6             Beatings and mistreatment occurred in all of these places.

 7             We now move to the detention facilities that were located in

 8     Serbia.  These are the Stajicevo farm, the agricultural complex in

 9     Begejci, the military barracks in Zrenjanin, the military prison at

10     Sremska Mitrovica that Hadzic refers to in the video-clip we just saw.

11     He went to this prison.  And also the military prison at Sid, across the

12     river in Serbia.

13             Some of these prisons had hundreds of detainees, others had

14     smaller numbers.  The non-Serb detainees in all of these facilities

15     arrived in different ways.

16             As we've heard, several of these places are associated with the

17     fall of Vukovar.  One other place that the Chamber will hear evidence

18     about is the Borovo commerce shelter where around 1.500 Vukovar

19     residents, including women and children, were taken prisoner.  After the

20     shelter was set on fire, many of these detainees, including the women and

21     children, were transferred to the Borovo primary school where they were

22     interrogated and mistreated before being expelled from the SBWS.  The

23     Chamber will hear evidence that Goran Hadzic dressed in a military

24     uniform came to the Borovo primary school looking for a particular

25     prisoner.

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 1             Others were arrested and held in these places for interrogations,

 2     often before being killed.  Many of the prisoners were people arrested

 3     and imprisoned by the Serb forces as they took control of their towns and

 4     villages across the SBWS during the late summer and autumn of 1991.

 5     People who couldn't flee or who simply had no where else to go were

 6     eventually rounded up and shipped off to these places.

 7             The prisoners were not just men of military age.  Civilians,

 8     elderly, and women were victims of murder as we've seen.  They were also

 9     victims of this unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment.  Many of them

10     were moved around between multiple centres over the course of days,

11     weeks, and months.  From day to day they didn't know where they -- excuse

12     me.  They did not know when and where they would be taken or what would

13     await them when they arrived.  Simply being moved from one detention

14     centre to another posed a risk of death or injury.  Prisoners were beaten

15     during transfers by guards and were even tormented by locals on the road

16     who had been told on the radio that the Ustashas would be passing

17     through.  They rocked the buses at threw stones at the terrified

18     prisoners.  To be transferred to a new detention facility meant being

19     subjected to new beatings and other forms of mistreatment.

20             In these prisons the detainees suffered every form of

21     mistreatment and abuse.  Prisoners were tortured by JNA officers and

22     military police.  Women suffered sexual violence.  Prisoners were forced

23     to beat other prisoners.  Some were tormented by mock executions or

24     forced to dig large holes which, they were told, would be their own

25     graves.  When prisoners died from their injuries, nothing was done.

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 1             Apart from the beatings and mistreatment, the conditions in these

 2     places were horrible.  There was overcrowding and outbreaks of lice.

 3     Prisoners were only permitted to shower right before the arrival of TV

 4     crews or the ICRC.  They suffered from malnutrition and inadequate

 5     medical care.  Doctors who were held prisoner themselves made requests

 6     for medical supplies but these were ignored as the conditions of the

 7     prisoners deteriorated further.

 8             Goran Hadzic went to Sremska Mitrovica prison, and he would have

 9     seen the conditions there.

10             The survivors of these detention crimes, those who lived to be

11     exchanged or released, still suffer permanent impairment due to the

12     physical and psychological trauma they endured.  Many were held for

13     months only to be released in such poor condition that they spent years

14     trying to recover from their injuries.  Your Honours will hear the

15     evidence of men and women who still live with debilitating conditions and

16     serious disabilities resulting from their imprisonment in these

17     facilities.

18             Your Honour, I would now like to briefly address Counts 12 to 14,

19     which charge Goran Hadzic with individual criminal responsibility for the

20     crimes of destruction and plunder, including the destruction of religious

21     sites.

22             As the Serb forces took control of the villages and towns across

23     the SBWS, killing or driving out the non-Serb inhabitants, what they

24     didn't destroy, they took for themselves.

25             In this, the JNA and its commanders co-ordinated closely with

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 1     other units, including Arkan's Men.  They were also reinforced by two

 2     other groups notorious for looting property from non-Serb homes.  These

 3     were the JNA reservists and the Serbian volunteers dispatched by Seselj's

 4     Serbian Radical Party.

 5             After their owners were killed, the Erdut homes of the Kalozi and

 6     the Albert families, the Trial Chamber has already heard those names, as

 7     well as the homes of others killed by Serb forces, these homes were all

 8     taken over by Serbs.  The Chamber will hear that after Arkan's Men killed

 9     one woman -- excuse me, Arkan's Men killed one man, a lorry arrived at

10     the man's house to remove his possessions.

11             In Erdut, a group that called itself the

12     Refugees Protection Committee of the TO staff gave Serb refugees the

13     homes of Croats and non-Serbs.  This committee exercised its authority

14     over the remaining non-Serbs by issuing orders to vacate property

15     immediately.  Some victims' homes were occupied by Arkan's Men.

16             In the towns of Western Srem such as Sarengrad, Lovas, Tovarnik

17     and Bapska, the JNA drove the local populations out with heavy artillery,

18     tank and mortar fire.  After the towns were destroyed and the people

19     fled, many of them to Ilok, the Serb forces systematically plundered

20     their homes.

21             The evidence will show that Serb forces and Arkan in particular

22     targeted, damaged, and destroyed religious and cultural structures such

23     as Catholic churches and mosques in various locations during this period

24     as well as in 1992 and 1993.

25             Your Honours, at this point I would like to move on to 1992,

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 1     where significant developments occurred with the acceptance and

 2     implementation of the Vance Plan, also the establishment of the RSK and

 3     Goran Hadzic's election as its president.

 4             As the violence and crime escalated inside the SBWS during the

 5     months I've just described, August through November 1991, the

 6     international community became increasingly involved in efforts to stop

 7     the violence, broker a cease-fire and protect civilian populations that

 8     were being terrorised and uprooted from their towns and villages

 9     throughout Croatia.

10             Your Honours have already seen this map.

11             The conflicts between Croats and Serbs weren't just taking place

12     in the SAO SBWS in late 1991 but also in the SAOs of Krajina and

13     Western Slavonia.  Croats and non-Serbs were not the only victims.  Large

14     numbers of ethnic Serbs were driven out of their homes and villages in

15     areas under Croat control.  This was especially true in the

16     SAO Western Slavonia where the areas under Serb control fell far short of

17     the borders declared for the SAO Western Slavonia.  By late 1991, war and

18     ethnic cleansing had driven thousands, Croats and Serbs alike, from their

19     homes.

20             In Geneva, on the 23rd of November, 1991, five days after the

21     fall of Vukovar, UN special envoy Cyrus Vance obtained signatures of

22     Serbian President Milosevic, Croatian President Tudjman, and

23     General Kadijevic on a cease-fire agreement that eventually served as the

24     basis for what became known as the Vance Plan.

25             I'd like to provide a brief overview of the Vance Plan, because

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 1     it is tied to several important developments that impact this case

 2     throughout 1992 and 1993.

 3             Apart from the cease-fire, these were the main aspects of the

 4     plan.  UN protected areas, or UNPAs, were to be established in Croatia.

 5     The territory of the four UNPAs would correspond generally to the

 6     territory of the three SAOs.

 7             As Your Honours can see, UNPA Sector East on this map corresponds

 8     quite closely to what we now know is the territory of the SAO SBWS.

 9     Under the Vance Plan, UNPA Sector North and Sector South corresponded

10     roughly, quite closely but not precisely, to the territory of what had

11     been the SAO Krajina.  And then, thirdly, UNPA Sector West corresponded

12     to the territory of the SAO Western Slavonia, again although it extended

13     beyond territory controlled by the Serbs there.

14             Under the Vance Plan, these UNPAs were to be demilitarised, and

15     people living within those UNPAs were to be protected by a

16     United Nations Protection Force called UNPROFOR, consisting of military

17     personnel and civilian police.  The protection force became known

18     colloquially as the Blue Helmets.  The JNA and other military personnel

19     from Serbia were to withdraw under the Vance Plan, and the local police

20     would be responsible for maintaining law and order.  Importantly,

21     displaced persons, that is people who'd been expelled from their homes or

22     who'd fled, would be allowed to return.

23             In late 1991, among the Serb leadership, Slobodan Milosevic

24     supported the plan.  After initially opposing it, Goran Hadzic joined

25     Milosevic in supporting the plan for the SBWS, although, as we will see,

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 1     he did not accept the provision for allowing non-Serbs to return or on

 2     demilitarisation.

 3             Milan Babic, the leader of the SAO Krajina, remained strongly

 4     opposed to the plan.  The evidence will show that his refusal to support

 5     the Vance Plan cost Babic the support of Milosevic and Belgrade.  The

 6     evidence will show that this led to Hadzic's elevation to the position of

 7     president of the RSK in late February 1992, and I'll speak about that in

 8     a few minutes.

 9             Another reason why the Vance Plan is significant for this case is

10     because by the spring of 1992, the first UNPROFOR personnel began

11     arriving in the UNPAs; that is, within the territory of the SAOs in

12     Croatia.  This meant that for the first time since the conflict began,

13     internationals would be present in the very areas where the crimes that

14     I've been discussing this morning were taking place.  In carrying out

15     their mandate, the UNPROFOR personnel began seeing things, hearing

16     things, meeting with local authorities, and most importantly writing

17     reports.  During the trial, the Chamber will hear the evidence of

18     international staff who -- and will have the benefit of the reports

19     written by them and their colleagues.

20             The Chamber will have evidence that the persecution and expulsion

21     of non-Serbs from the Serb-held territories in Croatia continued

22     throughout 1992 and 1993.

23             There's one last series of important political developments that

24     I'd like to mention.  In late 1991, Babic and the leadership of the

25     SAO Krajina formally declared that SAO to be a republic called the

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 1     republic of -- excuse me, Republic of Srpska Krajina, RSK.

 2             On the 26th of February, 1992, as preparations were underway for

 3     the UN Protection Force to begin deploying into the UNPAs under the

 4     Vance Plan, Croatian Serb leaders of the SAO SBWS and Western Slavonia

 5     met at Borovo Selo where they decided to join the RSK.  At this time,

 6     amendments to the RSK constitution were adopted, a government was formed,

 7     and Goran Hadzic was elected president of the Republic of

 8     Serbian Krajina.

 9             As president now of the republic, by the 26th of February, 1992,

10     these were some of Hadzic's powers and responsibilities under the RSK

11     constitution:  He could proclaim laws by edict; he performed duties in

12     the domain of foreign affairs between RSK and other states and

13     international institutions; and he commanded the armed forces in peace

14     and during a state of war, and also commanded the national resistance

15     during a state of war; he could issues orders for general and partial

16     mobilisation.

17             And so beginning in February of 1992, there was a significant

18     change in the nature of the conflict between Croats and Serbs, the size

19     of the territory over which Hadzic has authority, and the nature of his

20     powers.  The nature of the conflict changed because with the

21     establishment of the UNPAs and the arrival of the Blue Helmets, the

22     confrontation lines remained fairly stable, although there was continued

23     armed conflict between Serb and Croatian forces throughout the remaining

24     time-frame for our case, 1992 and 1993.  The size of the territory over

25     which Hadzic had authority increased substantially, because as president

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 1     of the RSK, his authority now extended throughout the combined

 2     territories of what had been SAO Krajina, SAO Western Slavonia, and

 3     SAO SBWS.  Hadzic enjoyed an expansion of his de jure powers under the

 4     RSK constitution.

 5             One thing, however, did not change.  The evidence will show that

 6     Hadzic's policy on populations within the RSK was no different than his

 7     policy in the SAO SBWS.  He rejected co-existence with Croats and

 8     non-Serbs in the areas under Serb control.  He embraced the Vance Plan

 9     only as a way to preserve the status quo of Serb-held territory in

10     Croatia.  Throughout 1992 and 1993, non-Serbs continued to be persecuted

11     and expelled from the RSK.  Despite his public support for the

12     Vance Plan, Hadzic did not support the return of non-Serb refugees into

13     areas under Serb control.  RSK policy was to prevent their return.

14             I'd like to briefly address Hadzic's role as president of the RSK

15     during this period.  As we've seen, under the RSK constitution, Hadzic

16     was essentially Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but under the

17     Vance Plan, the RSK wasn't supposed to have military forces, just police

18     forces.  With the proclamation of the RSK, Territorial Defence forces

19     were formed and under the RSK constitution, they were subordinated to

20     Hadzic.  In contravention of the Vance Plan, the Serbian military and

21     police organs that were supposed to withdraw under the Vance Plan instead

22     turned over their military equipment to the newly formed RSK TO units,

23     and even some JNA personnel remained and served in the RSK

24     Territorial Defence.  These RSK police continued to be financed, trained,

25     and equipped by Serbia, including the Serbian Ministry of Interior.

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 1             When UNPROFOR was deployed to Croatia in May of 1992, many of the

 2     RSK TO units were then transformed into these Special Police units, since

 3     under the Vance Plan the police were the only authorities authorised to

 4     be present in the UNPAs.  Instead of withdrawing or demobilising, JNA and

 5     RSK Territorial Defence commanding officers, personnel, and equipment

 6     were transformed to these newly formed Special Police Units.  Even JNA

 7     and TO vehicles were repainted to make them into police vehicles.

 8             Also in violation of the Vance Plan, on the 18th of May, 1992,

 9     Hadzic as president promulgated a decision establishing the Serbian Army

10     of the RSK called the SVK.  Not surprisingly, the SVK relied heavily on

11     financial, logistical and operational support from the Yugoslav army and

12     Serbia's political leadership.  Also contrary to the Vance Plan

13     undertaken on demilitarisation, Arkan's Tigers arrived in Knin from the

14     SBWS and fought there in early 1993.  They were an integral part of the

15     SVK.  Goran Hadzic's role during this period as Commander-in-Chief of the

16     SVK is illustrated here in the military rally held in July of 1992.  The

17     occasion is Hadzic's promotion of Milan Martic and

18     Colonel Borislav Djukic to the rank of General of the SVK.

19                           [Video-clip played]

20             THE INTERPRETER:  "[Voiceover] Goran Hadzic:  May God be with

21     you.

22             "The public:  May God be with you.

23             "Goran Hadzic:  I greet you all in the name of all citizens of

24     the Republic of Serbian Krajina and please allow me to thank you for all

25     you have done for us all.  You, standing here before us, you are the new

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 1     Obilics and Sindjelics, the new heros whose actions will be written about

 2     in the history books of the Serbian people.  Your brothers and ours who

 3     gave their lives will go down in history as saints, and their blood

 4     spilled for the freedom of the Serbian people is holy.  Through this act

 5     which you have carried out, we have shown that the Serbian people have

 6     never been on their knees and have never asked anybody for mercy, that we

 7     can accomplish all we want by ourselves.  And from this place here, we

 8     send a joint message to all the wheelers and dealers of the world that

 9     the Republic of Serbian Krajina is not for sale.  No price can be put on

10     our freedom, and we will not sell it for any money in the world.  We are

11     now in a very difficult situation, encircled on all sides by our enemies,

12     but we have never yet been so unified and decisive to defend our freedom.

13     Most importantly, we are aware of our enemies and nobody can fool the

14     Serbian people anymore with some new 'brotherhood and unity,' some new

15     deceits.  All citizens of the Republic of Serbian Krajina are equal and

16     will be equal regardless of their ethnicity but it must be known that

17     this is the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and those who accept that can

18     live here.  Those who do not want to can leave the Republic of

19     Serbian Krajina.  Now, I don't want to tire our brave troops in this sun

20     anymore.  I would like to thank them once again and to publicly announce

21     here for the first time that as of today we have two new generals of the

22     Serbian Army.  They are Borislav Djukic and Milan Martic.  Long live and

23     thank you."

24             MR. STRINGER:  Your Honours, the evidence will show that during

25     1992 and 1993; Martic and Djukic were among the RSK authorities, both

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 1     civilian and military, led by the accused, who implemented persecutory

 2     policies to remove the remaining non-Serbs from the Serb-held

 3     territories, while at the same time preventing those already expelled

 4     from returning.

 5             While thousands of non-Serb residents had been killed or fled

 6     during 1991, those who remained were targeted.

 7             The non-Serbs living in the RSK suffered abuses ranging from

 8     losing their jobs and freedom of movement to losing their homes and even

 9     their lives.  One UN official said that they were subjected to a

10     "prolonged and consistent pattern of intimidation."

11             Discrimination against the non-Serbs of the RSK was part of the

12     wider programme of ethnic cleansing, one purpose of which was to free up

13     houses for Serbs being welcomed from other areas.  Those who remained

14     were extremely vulnerable and were preyed upon by the Serb forces as they

15     were repeatedly robbed and their property taken.  You will hear testimony

16     that the RSK leadership ensured that even when non-Serb farmers were owed

17     money for their crops, the local co-operative was ordered not to give

18     them the food coupons they'd earned.  The effect was they could not feed

19     their families.

20             You will hear evidence from an UNPROFOR official in Beli Manastir

21     located in the Baranja portion of SBWS, that non-Serbs slept outside the

22     headquarters of the Belgian UNPROFOR peacekeepers there because they were

23     afraid of the violence they would face by Serb forces if they returned to

24     their homes.  The ranking UNPROFOR official in Sector East, the SBWS

25     region, will describe the expulsions of non-Serbs he witnessed from the

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 1     towns of Erdut and Aljmas on the 11th of April, 1992.  Elderly people,

 2     women and children, were forcibly removed from their homes and forced to

 3     leave their possessions behind, loaded onto buses bound for Croat-held

 4     territory at gunpoint.  When confronted about these crimes, the RSK

 5     authorities made half-hearted attempts to characterise the departure as

 6     voluntary.  Another UNPROFOR official raised the issue of expulsions

 7     directly with Hadzic in April 1992.  Hadzic's response was to demand that

 8     the accusers be brought directly to him or to refer to centuries of

 9     oppression suffered by Serbs as though that was a form of justification

10     for what was taking place.

11             The Chamber will hear evidence of several UN officials about the

12     destruction and plunder of non-Serb property that continued during 1992

13     and 1993.  Churches and mosques were also targeted.  The JNA and Serb

14     forces targeted and caused extensive damage to the churches in Sarengrad,

15     Erdut, Dalj, Tovarnik, Bapska, and Aljmas.  The destruction of places of

16     warship continued even after UNPROFOR's deployment.  In the fall of 1992,

17     UNPROFOR received reports on the destruction of churches near Knin and

18     other parts of that area.  In 1993, another UNPROFOR official noticed an

19     increase in attacks on churches in Sector East culminating in April of

20     that year.  This official complained bitterly to the RSK authorities in

21     April 1993 when rockets were fired at the church in Ilok and a bomb was

22     detonated on the steps of the Ilok monastery.

23             The destruction of these religious buildings served no military

24     purpose.  Rather, Serb forces intentionally destroyed them in order to

25     show the non-Serbs that as a people, a community, they no longer had a

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 1     place in this Republic of Serbian Krajina.  Their places of worship,

 2     symbolic of one of their defining characteristics as a group, ceased to

 3     exist.

 4             And so what was the end result of all of this crime, murder and

 5     expulsion that occurred in the areas of the SBWS and the RSK under

 6     Goran Hadzic?

 7             The demographic evidence to be presented at the trial will show

 8     that the territories of the SBWS and Krajina were overall ethnically

 9     mixed in March of 1991, with a similar proportion of Serbs and Croats

10     overall, with some ethnic minorities as well.  Your Honours have heard

11     about Hungarians and also Slovaks.  However, some of the areas such as

12     Wester Srem and Baranja had a relatively small number of Serbs.  The area

13     of Vukovar was roughly 43 per cent Croat and 38 per cent Serb before the

14     conflict.

15             To transform these regions into essentially ethnic Serb

16     territories would require huge numbers of people to be moved out,

17     expelled.  The evidence is going to show that that is exactly what

18     happened during Goran Hadzic's tenure, first as prime minister of the

19     SBWS and then as president of the RSK.

20             The evidence will show that hundreds of thousands, at least

21     180.000 people were forcibly expelled from these territories between the

22     25th of June, 1991, when Hadzic was designated to be the leader of the

23     SBWS government and 31 December 1993, which is the end of Hadzic's tenure

24     as president of the RSK.

25             Over 90 per cent, 97 per cent of these people were ethnic Croats

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 1     and non-Serbs.  In Vukovar alone, roughly 20.000 people were expelled

 2     after the city fell to Serb forces; 97.9 per cent of them were non-Serbs.

 3     Vukovar was to be the capital of the SBWS.

 4             On the 2nd of March, 1992, shortly after he became president of

 5     the RSK, Goran Hadzic attended a meeting of the SFRY Presidency held in

 6     Belgrade.  He was accompanied by a man named Zdravko Zecevic, who was the

 7     RSK prime minister, the leader of the RSK government.  Also present at

 8     this meeting were Milan Martic and Mr. Paspalj, who had travelled with

 9     Mr. Hadzic to New York in early 1993 in the video footage that we saw

10     earlier.

11             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Mr. Stringer, it's about that time.

12             MR. STRINGER:  I can finish in about five minutes, Your Honour.

13     If we could -- if I could -- I can come back and conclude, but I've

14     literally got about one page left.

15             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Okay.  Please go ahead.

16             MR. STRINGER:  I apologise.  I thought we were going to go

17     another hour and a half.  I forgot about the 15.

18             The meeting on -- on March 2nd, 1992, at the Presidency in

19     Belgrade was attended, as I've said, by Hadzic, Martic, Paspalj, and the

20     RSK Prime Minister Zecevic.  This is what Zecevic said about the idea

21     that Croats driven from the town of Benkovac might actually return as was

22     envisioned under the Vance Plan.

23             And I apologise for the long quote, Your Honours, but I would

24     like to read it.  Mr. Zecevic said:

25              "It is not my intention to bother you with specific situation in

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 1     Benkovac, but this town is specific when it comes to refugees.  We are

 2     thinking only about our refugees, and we would like them to come back,

 3     and they are welcome here.  I'm in panic when I think that 15.000 Croats

 4     would return to Benkovac, and they are mostly peasants emotionally linked

 5     to the soil.  They are now compacted in Zadar area, along the coastal

 6     area.  I fear the excess ignited by our people.  This issue is a complex

 7     one.  The instinct made our people burn anything that belonged to Croats

 8     in order to prevent them from coming back to their homes.  The truth is

 9     that we cannot live together, that we do not want to live with them any

10     more.  But there is also another type of truth which is recognised by a

11     democratic world and which claims that these people have the right to

12     return to their homes.  I really cannot imagine how we're going to

13     organise life then; I guess we'll have to think about it later.  I'm

14     picturing it like this - well, gentlemen, the schools will teach

15     Cyrillic, and you will hate it so much that you will simply have to

16     leave.  That is what is awaiting us."

17             Your Honours, the evidence will show that Mr. Zecevic's candid

18     words about the prospects for those peasants emotionally tied to the soil

19     actually being allowed to come to their homes and work their land,

20     statements made while his president, Goran Hadzic, sat silently nearby,

21     are in fact an accurate statement of the RSK government policy under

22     Hadzic.  In Hadzic's RSK, only Serbs were welcome.

23             At the end of 1993, Goran Hadzic lost a general election to

24     Milan Martic, who then took over to become the president of the RSK.  In

25     1995, the RSK and the territories in Croatia claimed as Serb autonomous

Page 144

 1     territory all disappeared.  Croatia re-took the areas of the SAO

 2     Western Slavonia and Krajina in operations called Flash and Storm.  The

 3     territory of what has been the SAO SBWS was gradually reintegrated into

 4     Croatia after the signing of the Erdut agreement in late 1995.

 5             Even in Goran Hadzic had not succeeded in creating a permanent

 6     Serbian entity or state in Croatia, the evidence will show that he did at

 7     least during the time that he was in power succeed with his JCE members

 8     in separating Serbs from non-Serbs there.  This was achieved by the

 9     commission of many crimes, the crimes charged in the indictment in this

10     case.

11             We thank Your Honours for your attention.  At the end of this

12     trial, the Prosecution will return to ask that the Chamber find

13     Goran Hadzic guilty of the crimes he is charged with in this case as set

14     out in Counts 1 through 14 of the indictment.

15             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you, Mr. Stringer.  We will now break and

16     come back at 12.50.

17                           --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.

18                           --- On resuming at 12.50 p.m.

19             JUDGE DELVOIE:  I understood that -- we understood that there

20     will be no declaration from the Defence pursuant to Rule 84 nor a

21     statement from Mr. Hadzic pursuant to 84 bis.  So the Prosecution can

22     call their first witness.

23             MR. STRINGER:  Thank you, Your Honour.  If I could introduce to

24     the Chamber Ms. Lisa Biersay.  She's an extremely experienced advocate

25     for the Prosecution in this Tribunal.  She's appeared in other trials.

 

Page 145

 1     She'll be appearing regularly in this trial, and I think the Chamber

 2     knows -- and some you know our Case Manager, Thomas Laugel.

 3             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

 4             MR. STRINGER:  Excuse me, Mr. President.  My sincere apologies.

 5     I failed to mention Muireann Dennehy, who is also a legal officer in the

 6     Office of the Prosecution, and I should have introduced her to

 7     Your Honours as well.

 8             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

 9             MS. BIERSAY:  Good afternoon, Mr. President, Your Honours.  I am

10     hoping to address the issue of some exhibits that we propose to show to

11     this witness.  They are new exhibits, and they were addressed with him

12     during his proofing on the 14th and 15th of October.  This is my first

13     appearance before the Trial Chamber, and I am also bringing a motion that

14     I understand is perhaps not going to be granted in full.  And with that

15     knowledge, I would like to address those exhibits, if I may, with the

16     Trial Chamber before the witness comes into the courtroom.

17             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Could you do that -- sorry.  Could you do that in

18     more or less five minutes, Ms. Biersay?

19             MS. BIERSAY:  Absolutely, Your Honours.  It will be brief.

20             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Okay.  Thank you.

21             MS. BIERSAY:  So we are seeking leave to add to our Rule 65 ter

22     exhibit list certain exhibits, and as I said, these were discussed

23     with -- with the witness over the weekend.  Essentially at issue we have

24     three maps, one drawn by the witness, one is a basic road map, and a

25     close-up of a segment of that road map.  We had other maps available for

Page 146

 1     him to use, but he was much more comfortable with the traditional map

 2     which is not on our 65 ter exhibit list.

 3             I did manage to speak to Defence counsel, and they're not

 4     objecting to the map that was hand drawn by him, and that would be

 5     65 ter -- the proposed 65 ter exhibit number is 6328, which I believe is

 6     your tab 1.  So I don't believe there are any objections to the addition

 7     of that one.

 8             Then we also have some photographs that the witness identified as

 9     places where he was in Dalj and in Erdut.  Three of the photographs are

10     essentially of the same place, just different angles.  And one photograph

11     is a Google photograph of a place where he was in Erdut, and so the ones

12     pertaining to Dalj would be your tabs.  I believe, if I'm correct, it

13     would be your tabs 4, 5, and 6; so our 65 ter number 6331, 6332, and

14     6333.  And then the Google Earth map would be proposed 65 ter number

15     6253.

16             So we found that it was helpful to the -- to the witness to

17     describe where he was, what level, what room.  It was helpful for his

18     explanation of what he experienced.  And so we would propose that they be

19     added to the 65 ter list and we be allowed to use those exhibits with

20     him.

21             There is another exhibit that was subject to the third motion to

22     amend our 65 ter exhibit list.  The Defence indicated that they would

23     object to this exhibit because it was very long and they hadn't had

24     sufficient time to look at it.  So I am proposing at that we defer

25     addressing the issue of that exhibit today, and I will endeavour to meet

Page 147

 1     with the Defence after today's session and show them that we're merely

 2     seeking to add less than a five-minute segment of that 40-minute video,

 3     and we're seeking to do it without any sound.  So essentially it's for

 4     the moving images for which we would seek to add and tender the --

 5     that -- that exhibit.  And from that exhibit the witness identified some

 6     people that he recognised.

 7             So for purposes of -- of today, we have 65 ter number 6328, which

 8     is the one agreed upon by the Defence.  Then we have 6329, 6330, 6331,

 9     6332, and 6333.  There's another one, but we're happy to just be focused

10     on the very core ones for purposes of addition to the 65 ter exhibit

11     list.

12             JUDGE DELVOIE:  If I'm not wrong, Ms. -- could you please recall

13     me the pronunciation of your name.

14             MS. BIERSAY:  Absolutely.  I like to tell people that it sounds

15     like Dutch beer.

16             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Yes.

17             MS. BIERSAY:  So it's Biersay.

18             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  So if I'm not wrong,

19     you mentioned 65 ter number 6253 --

20             MS. BIERSAY:  I wonder if I --

21             JUDGE DELVOIE:  But not in your last summary and I had a problem

22     with that one.

23             MS. BIERSAY:  Oh, excuse me, Your Honour.  You're absolutely --

24     you're absolutely correct.  And that would be your -- your tab 12.  So

25     you're correct.  It would be your tabs 1 through 6 and then tab 12.

Page 148

 1             JUDGE DELVOIE:  1 through 6.

 2             MS. BIERSAY:  Right.

 3             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Not 7 and 12 --

 4             MS. BIERSAY:  Correct.

 5             JUDGE DELVOIE:  -- right?

 6             MS. BIERSAY:  Correct.  It's our effort to reduce it as much as

 7     we can without compromising what would assist in his testimony.

 8             JUDGE DELVOIE:  And then just to be totally clear, 6253, that

 9     number 12 --

10             MS. BIERSAY:  Correct.

11             JUDGE DELVOIE:  -- is in your list --

12             MS. BIERSAY:  Yes.

13             JUDGE DELVOIE:  -- is not mentioned as or not highlighted as new.

14             MS. BIERSAY:  No, it was not, but it is not new to the proposed

15     exhibits for purposes of the Trial Chamber, but it's new because it's not

16     yet on the 65 ter exhibit list.  It's subject to our third motion to

17     amend.

18             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Okay.  Thank you.  Can we hear from the Defence.

19             MR. GOSNELL:  Yes, Your Honour.  Thank you.  First, I can confirm

20     that after consulting with my learned friend that we did agree that there

21     would be no objection to 6328.

22             The second matter is the maps.  Now, I suppose I should just

23     pause here and try to convey what the principle is that the Defence would

24     like to follow.  If there is an existing document on the 65 ter list that

25     is modified by the witness, we would have no objection to that.  So what

Page 149

 1     we would object to, however, Your Honour, are new maps or new materials

 2     being brought forward with the witness, and that would include not only

 3     the traditional maps that were apparently shown to the witness but also

 4     any, I guess, Google photos.  And the Google photos we would object to

 5     not only on the basis that they're not on the 65 ter list but also that

 6     although Google can be very useful for certain issues and illustrating

 7     certain things, we don't think it's appropriate for photographs.

 8             We would object to tabs 4, 5, and 6 on the basis that although

 9     these are investigators' photographs, nonetheless they're new.  We've got

10     no notice of them.  And, finally, we have the video, and we've expressed

11     our position on that in an e-mail to the Chamber.

12             I think that covers everything, but I'm at your disposal.

13             JUDGE DELVOIE:  I think the video is not an issue yet, unless I'm

14     wrong, because the Prosecution is still trying or will try to get an

15     agreement from you on that -- on that one, and we will see that one

16     tomorrow.  We see about that one tomorrow, okay?  So what you are saying

17     is no problem for tab 1, 65 ter 6328.  2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 you say, We

18     object, and 12 you object as well.

19             MR. GOSNELL:  That's correct.

20             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Is that correct?

21             MR. GOSNELL:  That is correct, Your Honour.  Thank you.

22                           [Trial Chamber confers]

23             JUDGE DELVOIE:  We, of course, do not object to the 65 ter 6328,

24     the parties agreeing upon that one.  So we will allow the addition of

25     that one, that exhibit to the 65 ter list.  But for the other ones we are

Page 150

 1     of the view that the Defence objections are justified and we will deny

 2     the motion.

 3             MS. BIERSAY:  Thank you, Your Honour.  So at this time I think

 4     we're prepared to call the witness, Mr. Antunovic.

 5             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Okay.  Can we call the witness, please.

 6                           [The witness entered court]

 7             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Good afternoon, Witness.  Can you hear me in a

 8     language you understand?

 9             THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

10             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.  What is your name and your date of

11     birth, please.

12             THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Zlatko Antunovic,

13     23rd of December, 1973.

14             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.  Could you please make the solemn

15     declaration.  The usher will assist you.

16             THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will

17     speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

18                           WITNESS:  ZLATKO ANTUNOVIC

19                           [Witness answered through interpreter]

20             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you very much.  Please take a seat.

21             Before -- before I give the floor to the Prosecution for your

22     direct examination, could you please tell us what your ethnicity is.

23             THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Croat.

24             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

25             Ms. Biersay.

 

Page 151

 1             MS. BIERSAY:  Thank you, Your Honour.

 2                           Examination by Ms. Biersay:

 3        Q.   Good afternoon, Mr. Antunovic.

 4        A.   Good afternoon.

 5        Q.   I wanted to know if you were comfortable seated where you are.

 6     How does it feel, the chair?

 7        A.   Everything is fine, yes.

 8        Q.   And you're able to hear me?

 9        A.   Yes, I can.

10        Q.   And if that changes, will you let us know, please?

11        A.   Very well.

12        Q.   Have you ever testified before?

13        A.   No.

14        Q.   Does that include local proceedings as well?  Have you testified

15     in local proceedings?

16        A.   No.

17        Q.   So this is your very first time.

18        A.   The first time, yes.

19        Q.   The Trial Chamber asked you what your full name was, and you gave

20     them that.  Do you also have a nickname?

21        A.   I do, "Kepa."

22        Q.   And what does "Kepa" mean?

23        A.   Like a person of a small stature, a midget, if you will.

24        Q.   When did you get that nickname?

25        A.   Back in primary school.

Page 152

 1        Q.   How old were you then?

 2        A.   Nine.

 3        Q.   Could you tell the Trial Chamber where you were born.

 4        A.   I was born in Osijek.

 5        Q.   And did you grow up and go to school in Osijek or somewhere else?

 6        A.   No.  I grew up in Erdut, and I went to school at Dalj.

 7        Q.   How -- do you remember how old you were when you moved to Erdut?

 8        A.   Sixteen, 17 when I moved to the village.

 9        Q.   And Osijek and Erdut and Dalj, where are they, generally

10     speaking?

11             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Ms. Biersay, can I -- can I have one moment,

12     please.

13             MS. BIERSAY:  Yes, please.

14             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Mr. Antunovic, I forgot, and I have to tell you

15     what the consequences are of your solemn declaration.  You are obliged to

16     tell the truth, nothing but the truth, and you expose yourself to perjury

17     should you not do so.  Thank you.

18             Sorry, about that, Ms. Biersay.

19             MS. BIERSAY:  No problems, Your Honour.

20        Q.   Could you tell us, generally speaking, where Osijek, Erdut, and

21     Dalj are?

22        A.   In Eastern Slavonia.

23        Q.   And is that in Croatia?

24        A.   Croatia, yes.

25        Q.   Now, when you moved to Erdut, did you live alone or did you live

Page 153

 1     with someone else?

 2        A.   I moved to the village of Erdut in 1989, and I lived there with

 3     my aunt and uncle.

 4        Q.   Where did you live with your parents?

 5        A.   I lived outside of the village.  There were three or four houses;

 6     a small hamlet we call Salas back in our parts, halfway between Erdut and

 7     Dalj.

 8        Q.   So just so that I understand, you first lived with your parents;

 9     is that correct?

10        A.   Yes.  I lived with my parents.  The address was Podvinje 21.

11     That was the name of the street.

12        Q.   And this place where you lived with your parents, is that the

13     place that was outside the -- the village, as you just mentioned?

14        A.   Yes, that is the place.

15        Q.   And which village do you mean?

16        A.   Erdut.

17        Q.   This hamlet where you lived with your parents, approximately how

18     many houses were there?

19        A.   There were three households.

20        Q.   And do you know the ethnicity of those households?

21        A.   My neighbour was Croat, his wife was a Serb, and there was

22     another neighbour of mine who was Ruthenian.

23        Q.   And could you describe for the Trial Chamber the relationship

24     between neighbours in this hamlet where you lived with your parents.

25        A.   Things were normal.  We went along well.  We helped each other

Page 154

 1     out, and I mean my parents, of course.  We had no problems whatsoever.

 2        Q.   Could you tell us the name of your parents, please.

 3        A.   My father Josip and my mother Katica.

 4        Q.   Now, you lived in this hamlet outside the village of Erdut.  Did

 5     you go to school there or somewhere else?

 6        A.   No.  I went to school at Dalj.

 7        Q.   And how far was it from where you lived to school in Dalj?

 8        A.   Roughly 5 kilometres.

 9        Q.   And how did you get to school?

10        A.   There was a school bus from Erdut to Dalj and onwards.

11        Q.   Now, I'd like to ask you some questions about your school, the

12     one you went to in Dalj.  Approximately how many students attended

13     this -- this school?

14        A.   I wouldn't be able to tell you how many, but quite a few from

15     Grade 1 to 8.  There were four classes per every generation.

16        Q.   And in your class specifically, could you describe the ethnic

17     composition, make-up, of your class?

18        A.   The population was mixed.  There were mostly Croat and Serbs.

19        Q.   In Dalj itself, what was the ethnic composition of Dalj?

20        A.   It was mixed, but the majority was Serbs.

21        Q.   And what about Erdut?

22        A.   There were many more Croats than Serbs in Erdut.

23        Q.   Going back to your -- your school, how did you get along with

24     your other classmates of other ethnicities?

25        A.   We didn't have any problems.  As children we never made such

Page 155

 1     distinctions other than perhaps by who supported which football club.  We

 2     didn't even know what politics meant.

 3        Q.   Did you play football?

 4        A.   I did.

 5        Q.   And was -- on the team, did you play with other children of other

 6     ethnicities?

 7        A.   Yes.  It was mixed.  They were all villages of Erdut, Dalj,

 8     whoever took part, Croats or Serbs.

 9        Q.   Now, did you have a best friend while you were in school in Dalj?

10        A.   Well, I did.  From my class they were Serbs and Croats.  We were

11     on good terms.  We played as children.  Everything was all right.

12        Q.   And your -- your -- did you have a best friend or did you have --

13     all your friends were the same?

14        A.   We socialised and played together without making such a

15     distinction.  There was no reason for that.

16        Q.   Where you lived with your parents, did you play somewhere close

17     by?

18        A.   We would often play at the holiday centre of the Osijek water

19     supply company.  There was a place where your could swim, and there was a

20     playground.  So we went and played there very often.

21        Q.   What was the name of this place?

22        A.   It's called Vodovod Osijek, or it was also called Pustara.

23        Q.   And how close was that to your house where you lived with your

24     parents?

25        A.   One kilometre or 1.5 kilometres.

Page 156

 1        Q.   Could you describe what that -- you described it as a holiday

 2     centre.  Could you describe what it looked like?

 3        A.   There was one area where drinks were sold.  There was a football

 4     pitch and a basketball court.  Then there were huts that will we -- we

 5     called them like that, or bungalows, where people employed for the Osijek

 6     water supply company would come for holidays for 10 or 15 days.  There

 7     was a park as well.

 8        Q.   So close to the house where you lived with your parents there was

 9     the Vodovod which was nearby.  Was there another company-related site

10     that was close to your house there?

11        A.   Yes, there was the IPK Osijek, the wine growing company where I

12     worked.

13        Q.   Do you know the full name of the IPK?

14        A.   Industrial and Agricultural Complex Osijek.

15        Q.   And what did they do?

16        A.   Grape growing.  They had vineyards.

17        Q.   And do you know where they had their vineyards?

18        A.   I do.  Next to Novi Erdut, roughly along the line of Bogaljevci

19     which was a street in Erdut and then in the direction of the

20     Erdut Planina area, or Mount Erdut.

21             MS. BIERSAY:  At this time I'd like to call up 65 ter 6328, which

22     is also tab 1.

23        Q.   And, Mr. Antunovic, there is water if you need to drink a little

24     bit.  It does get dry.

25        A.   No, no.  It's fine.

Page 157

 1        Q.   While we wait for that exhibit -- can you see it on your screen?

 2        A.   Yes.

 3        Q.   Do you recognise the document before you on that screen?

 4        A.   I do.

 5        Q.   And what do you recognise it to be?

 6        A.   This is the area where Erdut, Bogaljevci and the water supply

 7     company centre -- is my home.  The road to Aljmas and Osijek.

 8        Q.   And do you recognise the handwriting?

 9        A.   Yes, it's mine.

10        Q.   Does your name appear on that document?

11        A.   Yes.

12        Q.   Mr. Antunovic, if --

13             MS. BIERSAY:  If Mr. Antunovic could be assisted with a pen just

14     to point out the areas as he discusses them?

15        Q.   Directing your attention to the top of that exhibit, 65 ter 6328,

16     there is the word "Dunav."  Do you see that?

17        A.   Yes.

18        Q.   And what -- what is that?  What is Dunav?

19        A.   It's the river that flows by Erdut, the Danube.

20        Q.   And could you use your pen to touch the area of Erdut.

21        A.   [Marks]

22        Q.   And did you mark the part of the map that is the letter E?

23        A.   Yes.

24        Q.   And what does that E represent?  Is that all of Erdut or one part

25     of Erdut?

Page 158

 1        A.   No.  This is the centre of Erdut.  All the rest comes under the

 2     village, but I marked the very centre.

 3        Q.   Now, to the right of the E where you just placed the mark, what

 4     is that?

 5        A.   This is where the castle is.  Beyond the castle there is the

 6     Erdut Winery, and then next to it there is an area that we called

 7     Predvojnicka.  This is where Zeljko Raznjatovic's units were located.

 8        Q.   Now, in the upper right-hand section there is the word -- is it

 9     "Srbija"?

10        A.   Yes.  This is bridge across the Danube, and on the other bank of

11     the river lies Serbia.

12        Q.   Could you point out for the Chamber, please, where the Vodovod

13     was located?

14        A.   [Marks]

15        Q.   And you've marked the lower part of that map; is that correct?

16        A.   Yes.

17        Q.   And how are you able to -- let me start again.  Are you able to

18     put a pen at the approximate point where your parents' house was?

19        A.   I can.

20             [Marks]

21        Q.   And could you read the words that appear next to that mark that

22     you've just made on the lower right-hand side.

23        A.   It reads "Parents' house."

24        Q.   Now directing your attention to the middle of that map.

25     "Vinogradi," what is that?

Page 159

 1        A.   This is the area where the vineyard was planted stretching from

 2     Novi Erdut all the way to Osijek alongside Bogaljevci, all the way from

 3     the main road to Osijek through to the road to Dalj and Erdut Planina

 4     which ultimately reads to Aljmas.

 5        Q.   Do you know anyone who has worked in those vineyards that you

 6     just highlighted for us?

 7        A.   Yes, I do.

 8        Q.   And who do you know?

 9        A.   There were many of them.  Now, by name, for instance,

10     Tihomir Majkic, Marinko Lucan, Pero -- well, apologies.  I can't recall

11     all the names.

12        Q.   Fair enough.

13        A.   There were many of them.

14        Q.   Did you have any relatives who worked there?

15        A.   There were relatives of mine.  My cousin, Josip Antunovic, worked

16     there, as did Ivan Albert, but he was the foreman or the boss, if you

17     will.

18        Q.   In the area, can you estimate how -- what percentage of the

19     people who lived in this area worked for the IPK vineyards?

20        A.   Well, from our village of Erdut, between 60 and 70 per cent of

21     all people worked there.

22        Q.   And where did your father work?

23        A.   My father had worked for years before 1989 there.  He worked for

24     the IPK.

25        Q.   Do you know approximately for how long he worked there?

Page 160

 1        A.   I don't know exactly.  Some 20 years for sure.

 2        Q.   Did there come a time that you started working there as well?

 3        A.   Yes.  Immediately upon completing my elementary education in

 4     September 1988, I went to pick grapes for the first time and then I

 5     continued working there on a seasonal basis.

 6        Q.   How old were you when you first went to work for the vineyards?

 7        A.   Fifteen.

 8        Q.   You said you lived with your -- your parents at this address, and

 9     was there anybody else in the household?

10        A.   Yes.  My brother Goran was also a member of the household.

11        Q.   Now, looking at this map, how far would it be from your parents'

12     house to the area that you've marked "Arkan"?  Approximately how far

13     would that be?

14        A.   Well, around 5 kilometres.  Between 4 and 5 kilometres.

15        Q.   You can let the pen rest, Mr. Antunovic.  If we need to, we'll

16     come back to it.  Thank you.

17             What happened --

18        A.   Very well.

19        Q.   You described your father and where you worked.  Did your father

20     have a view of what his ethnicity was?  What did he consider himself as?

21        A.   He considered himself to be a Croat.

22        Q.   What does the word -- to describe someone as a Yugoslav, what

23     does that mean to you?

24        A.   Well, a citizen of Yugoslavia.  That person was Yugoslav in those

25     terms, but by ethnicity he or she was Croatian.

Page 161

 1        Q.   Did anyone in your family consider him or herself to be a

 2     Yugoslav?

 3        A.   Well, as a matter of fact, we were all Yugoslavs.  We lived in

 4     that state, and my father respected Tito.  That's it.

 5        Q.   What happened to your parents in a caused you to move?

 6        A.   They both died in 1989, my father in January and my mother in

 7     November.  They suffered from cancer, both of them.

 8        Q.   And where did you go to live next?

 9        A.   I moved to stay with my mother's sister, my aunt, and her husband

10     in the village of Erdut.

11        Q.   And what were their names?

12        A.   My aunt's name is Anica or Ana Kristic, and my uncle's name is

13     Stjepan Butkovic.

14        Q.   And could you describe approximately where their house was in

15     Erdut?

16             MS. BIERSAY:  Is it possible for us to clean the screen?

17                           [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

18             JUDGE DELVOIE:  If we move it now, Ms. Biersay, we will -- we

19     will lose every marking.

20             MS. BIERSAY:  Then I'd propose that we take a shot of it and save

21     it and then call it up anew.

22             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Can we do that, Mr. Registrar?  Okay.  It will be

23     done.

24             MS. BIERSAY:  And, Your Honour -- Your Honours, we would tender

25     the -- both the marked version and the clean version into evidence.

Page 162

 1             JUDGE DELVOIE:  That's what I was waiting for, Ms. Biersay.  Yes,

 2     please, to be marked.  To be marked as an exhibit.

 3             THE REGISTRAR:  Your Honours, 65 ter document 6328 shall be

 4     marked as Exhibit P1, and 65 ter document 6328 marked by the witness in

 5     court shall be assigned Exhibit P2.  Thank you, Your Honour.

 6             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

 7             MS. BIERSAY:  Thank you, Your Honour.  So now if we could please

 8     have P1 on the screen.

 9        Q.   Mr.  Antunovic, we're just trying to erase these markings so you

10     can make new ones so you're not making markings on top of markings.

11     There we go.

12             So could you now point to Exhibit P1 and indicate approximately

13     where your aunt and uncle lived.  We'll help you.

14        A.   It keeps moving.  I can't.

15        Q.   It's not a test, so don't worry.

16        A.   [Marks]

17        Q.   So you've marked to the lower left of the E that is on your

18     drawing; is that correct?

19        A.   Yes, it is.

20        Q.   And approximately how far did they live from the Erdut centre as

21     you described it?

22        A.   Some 300 metres.  It was very close.  It's a small village in

23     total.

24        Q.   You described that there was harmonious relationships when you

25     were going to school and in your village.  What was the atmosphere like

Page 163

 1     when you moved to live with your aunt and uncle as far as the

 2     interactions between the ethnicities?

 3        A.   Well, at that time things were still normal.  If there was

 4     anything different, I still didn't feel it at the time.

 5        Q.   And when did that change?  When did that feeling of things being

 6     normal, when did that change for you?

 7        A.   I think in 1990, when the parties were established in the

 8     country, like the HDZ.  I think it was then that many things changed.

 9        Q.   And how did that show itself, that change?  How did that show up

10     in your daily life?

11        A.   I had many Serbian friends.  Even my best friend was a Serb.  On

12     one occasion we had a conversation, and he told me that we would no

13     longer socialise because I was a Croat, he was a Serb.  I was with the

14     HDZ youth, whereas he was a member of the SDS.  And that we had nothing

15     in common.  It was along those lines.

16        Q.   Did you around this time get any special markings to show your

17     membership with the HDZ youth?

18        A.   Yes.  I had a HDZ tattoo on my right arm, a tattoo of the

19     Croatian Democratic Union.

20        Q.   And when did you have that placed there?

21        A.   In 1990, I think.

22        Q.   And why did you get that tattoo?

23        A.   Well, I had friends who were members of the party, and I was a

24     member of the party youth organisation.  Basically there was no

25     explanation.  I just had it made.  It turned out to have been a mistake.

Page 164

 1        Q.   We'll -- we'll talk about that.  Before I move to the next topic,

 2     I wanted to ask you if at some time -- at some point after 1990 you saw

 3     any military-related activities in your area of Erdut-Dalj.

 4        A.   Yes.  In 1991, the National Guards Corps arrived in Erdut,

 5     Croatian soldiers, and there were some Croatian reserve policemen there

 6     as well.

 7        Q.   And the -- I'm looking at the translation.  You said the

 8     National Guards Corps arrived in Erdut, meaning the Croatian soldiers.

 9     And where did they go?  Were they stationed somewhere in Erdut or around

10     Erdut?

11        A.   They were stationed -- if we look at the map -- do you want me to

12     indicate it?

13        Q.   That would be --

14        A.   Where Arkan arrived later.

15        Q.   So perhaps you can put an X, if you've mastered the pen.

16        A.   If I can manage.

17             [Marks]

18        Q.   And you have.  Okay.  So you're marking the "Arkan" box as being

19     the place where the -- I want to say it exactly - the National Guard

20     Corps was; right?

21        A.   Yes.  They were there and at the Vodovod facility.

22        Q.   And you've also marked that with an X; is that correct?

23        A.   Yes.

24        Q.   What did you see them doing, if anything?

25        A.   Well, I saw soldiers carrying rifles.  They moved around the

Page 165

 1     village much like the other civilians were.  I guess they had some

 2     training of theirs, but I do distinctly remember seeing them about the

 3     village.

 4        Q.   At some point in time did something happen to the Vodovod?

 5        A.   Yes.  During a night, the Vodovod area was shelled.

 6        Q.   And do you remember the approximate month and year when that

 7     happened?

 8        A.   It was in 1991, towards the end of July.

 9        Q.   If you could take us back in time and describe how you

10     experienced that event.  What was the first thing that you remember

11     happening that night in -- in late July 1991?

12        A.   During the night, one could hear shells being fired and

13     explosions.  In any case, I remember my aunt pulling me down to the floor

14     from my bed, and we stayed on the floor until things calmed down.

15        Q.   Could you -- could you tell at the time approximately from what

16     direction these explosions were coming from?

17        A.   No, not at that moment.  Later on I heard from some people that

18     the shells were being fired from across the bridge, from Serbia.

19        Q.   And is that bridge on your map, P1?

20        A.   Yes, it is on the map.

21        Q.   Could you mark it with an X, please.

22        A.   [Marks]

23        Q.   And is it correct that you've managed it on the box marked

24     "Most"?

25        A.   Yes, that is correct.

Page 166

 1        Q.   And do you remember how long these explosions went on for?

 2        A.   I can't remember how long it all took.  In any case, there were

 3     more than one explosion.  There were more, but I don't know how long it

 4     all took.

 5        Q.   What happened -- did you eventually go outside?

 6        A.   Yes.  Once things calmed down, we went outside.

 7        Q.   Where did you go the next day -- or should I say that day?  So it

 8     was night when the explosion started, and at the first light, that's what

 9     I -- that's what I mean by "next day."

10        A.   Yes, in the morning, I accompanied the local firemen who were

11     volunteers to the Vodovod facility to see what was there and to help.  We

12     wanted to help gather the property that was there.  When we arrived

13     there, we could see that it had been shelled.  There was blood.  We

14     mainly gathered the mattresses where the Croatian soldiers used to sleep.

15        Q.   And where did you see blood?

16        A.   On the mattresses.  They were on the floor in the wooden

17     bungalows, and there was a stench.

18        Q.   And when you say "stench," what do you mean by "stench"?

19        A.   I guess the stench of burning and blood.  I had never experienced

20     such smell before.  In any case, it was not in the least pleasant.

21        Q.   You describe the IPK being next to the Vodovod, that there was a

22     facility in that area.  Was there any damage to that as well?

23        A.   No, not at the vineyard.  It had not been shelled.

24        Q.   Were there any buildings near the Vodovod that had been shelled

25     or damaged by the shelling, as far as you could tell?

Page 167

 1        A.   Yes, two, two buildings where the IPK had their tractors,

 2     agricultural equipment.  A few shells landed there.

 3        Q.   I'd like to direct your attention to the time when you were told

 4     to -- to go home, where you couldn't go to work.  You tried to go to work

 5     and you couldn't go to work.  Do you remember that?

 6        A.   Yes.  In the morning just like on any other working day, I went

 7     to the centre of Erdut, and from there --

 8        Q.   I just wanted to know which -- what day are we talking about?  Do

 9     you remember when that -- what you're about to describe?  When you tried

10     to go to work and you couldn't.

11        A.   On the 1st of August, 1991, I went to catch a bus which took us

12     to the vineyards.  Some people arrived, the police, and told us to go

13     back home, that there was nothing to do and that the police station in

14     Dalj had been attacked.

15        Q.   And what did you do?

16        A.   Nothing.  I turned back home.

17        Q.   Did you hear anything unusual on that day?

18        A.   Well, I heard that there were tanks arriving towards the village,

19     and I realised that myself later on.  There was much noise, and I could

20     clearly tell that they weren't trucks or buses.  On top of that, people

21     were saying that JNA tanks had crossed over the bridge and were about to

22     enter Erdut and move further afield.

23        Q.   And do you mean the same bridge that you've marked with the X

24     over the word "Most"?  Is that the bridge you mean?

25        A.   Yes, that is it.

Page 168

 1        Q.   Did you see the tanks yourself?

 2        A.   No, not at that point in time when they entered.

 3        Q.   What was the atmosphere like that day in the -- in the town?

 4        A.   Everyone was confused, and people went home.  If they had

 5     cellars, they hid there.  We had certain neighbours who came over to my

 6     uncle's house to hide in our cellar.  Most of them, though, went in the

 7     direction of Aljmas, because they were told that there was a boat

 8     awaiting there to take them to safety, towards Osijek.

 9        Q.   And approximately how many people sought refuge in your basement?

10        A.   Sometimes there were four or five or six.  It depended and

11     changed.  Some left while others stayed.

12        Q.   And what ethnicity were those people who sought refuge in your

13     basement?

14        A.   Croats.

15             MS. BIERSAY:  Your Honours, I'm looking at the clock, and I had

16     hoped to -- to play a video, but I think it's best to keep it for

17     tomorrow at this point, and I'll just finish up on this segment if that's

18     okay with the Chamber.  From here it looks like it's five to 2.00, and

19     I'm just trying to think ahead.

20             JUDGE DELVOIE:  You could -- you could be right, Ms. Biersay.

21     You'll lose five minutes.  What's five minutes in life?

22             MS. BIERSAY:  I'll continue until I get the signal that it's

23     time, and I'm happy to proceed that way, but I just wanted to let you

24     know that I'm aware of the time, but I may not be able to find a stopping

25     point.

Page 169

 1             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.

 2             MS. BIERSAY:  Thank you.

 3        Q.   How -- you said you went home.  How long did you stay in your

 4     house without going outside?

 5        A.   Well, I stayed home.  As I told you, some people went to Aljmas,

 6     whereas my uncle, aunt, and I stayed behind.  The next six or seven days

 7     I was inside the house for the most part because I feared going outside.

 8        Q.   Did you watch television during this time?

 9        A.   Yes, we watched television.  There was some footage of Aljmas,

10     and we could see people fleeing towards Osijek.  There was also some

11     reporting about events in the environs of Dalj.

12        Q.   Did you -- did you -- were you able to see any programmes from

13     Serbian TV, do you remember?

14        A.   Yes.  We could see it.

15        Q.   And what were those reports about?

16        A.   To tell you the truth, I don't remember much.  I can't say

17     specifically what I heard then.

18        Q.   Did there come a time where you went to look for your brother?

19        A.   Yes.  As I said, six or seven days later, I went to our parents'

20     house where my brother lived with his wife and small child.  It was a

21     baby, three or four months old.  I went there to look for him.

22        Q.   And was he there?

23        A.   No.  Later on I found out that he also left on the 1st of August

24     in the direction of Osijek.

25             MS. BIERSAY:  I'm prepared to conclude my examination for today

Page 170

 1     at this point, Your Honours.

 2             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you very much, Ms. Biersay.

 3             Mr. Antunovic, your testimony for today comes to an end because

 4     we stop the hearing at 2.00.  You will come back tomorrow at 9.00.

 5     You're still under oath, which means that you cannot discuss your

 6     testimony with anybody, and you cannot talk to any of the parties.  You

 7     understand?

 8             THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do.

 9             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Thank you.  You may leave the courtroom now.

10                           [The witness stands down]

11             JUDGE DELVOIE:  Court is adjourned.  We will reconvene tomorrow

12     at 9.00 in this same courtroom.  Thank you.

13                           --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.00 p.m.,

14                           to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 17th day

15                           of October, 2012, at 9.00 a.m.

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