Page 338
1 Wednesday, 16 September 2009
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.17 p.m.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case
6 IT-08-91-T, the Prosecutor versus Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin.
7 JUDGE HALL
8 appearances are as before.
9 MS. KORNER: No. Well, no in the sense that it's a reduced
10 appearance. It's simply myself, Joanna Korner, and Belinda Pidwell here
11 today together with the case manager Crispian Smith.
12 JUDGE HALL
13 MS. KORNER: Can I say I do hope we're not going to be into this
14 court too often.
15 JUDGE HALL
16 MS. KORNER: Yes, he is, Your Honours. Can I just very quickly
17 before I call him mention two matters -- three matters, in fact. The
18 first is we're very sorry. We didn't appreciate until we spoke to the
19 senior legal officer this morning that as you may have noticed when you
20 were reading the report of Dr. Donia for Sarajevo, you never got the
21 appendices. We -- it seems to be technical in that they were a separate
22 document, and those appendices contain maps which is going to refer to
23 this morning. The Defence all got them but for some reason they never
24 got to you and you probably saw that, but we actually physically copied
25 them, Your Honours now. If I can ask that the usher very kindly hand
Page 339
1 them up.
2 The second matter is this: When Dr. Donia has concluded as far
3 as we get in cross-examination tomorrow, can I raise with Your Honours
4 the matter I raised last week, namely, that he's required as a witness in
5 certainly one other trial as to how we deal with the question of other
6 members of this office talking to him.
7 And finally, Your Honours, tomorrow would it be suitable to deal
8 with the question of the Defence application for certification to appeal
9 Your Honours' order on Dr. Nielsen as a matter of an oral argument if you
10 wish to hear from the prosecution at all? Our arguments are those we
11 have enunciated in all the responses, but clearly he's going to be the
12 first witness after the break on the 29th of September, so we need to
13 have a ruling if not instanter, then certainly by the end of this week.
14 And I'm being reminded of something.
15 And the other thing is if you do require us to file it in writing
16 then we'd have to do that today, but we thought it would be quicker to
17 simply deal with this as an oral matter.
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Ms. Korner. Will there be time to
19 discuss this issue?
20 MS. KORNER: Yes, because Dr. Donia, as you will recall, needs to
21 finish at quarter to 12.00 tomorrow, and we have the morning sitting. So
22 we could deal with it -- I don't anticipate it will take very long for us
23 to give any response.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Let's bring up the matter tomorrow after his
25 departure then.
Page 340
1 MS. KORNER: Yes. Thank you very much. In that case, Your
2 Honours, without further ado, may I call Dr. Donia.
3 [The witness entered court]
4 WITNESS: ROBERT DONIA
5 JUDGE HARHOFF: Welcome to you, Dr. Donia, and welcome to
6 everybody else in and around the courtroom, and thank you for coming.
7 You are now going to testify as a Prosecution witness. I know
8 that you have been here before, and so you have been through the
9 exercise. You will start by giving your solemn declaration, and after
10 that Mrs. Korner will examine you in chief for three hours, and then the
11 Defence teams for the accused Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin will
12 each be given some time to begin their cross-examination.
13 The Chamber has ruled that part of your last expert report, the
14 one on the siege of Sarajevo
15 only be examined-in-chief on three chapters of that report at this time,
16 and then at a later stage you will be called back to -- to be
17 cross-examined on -- on those three chapters.
18 The order here is that we run -- the first session will last 85
19 minutes and then we need to take a break in order to change the tapes,
20 and we will have a 20-minute break for that purpose. The second and
21 third session today will each last 80 minutes. So that's the schedule --
22 plan for you, and I invite you to make your solemn declaration.
23 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
24 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
25 Examination by Ms. Korner:
Page 341
1 Q. Yes. Dr. Donia, could you give the Court your full name, please.
2 A. Yes. Robert J. Donia.
3 Q. And I think the Court has already been provided with a copy of
4 your CV, so we needn't go through your qualifications and previous
5 writings, but can we just briefly deal with some matters that are
6 relevant to the evidence that you're going to give.
7 First, I think it's right that you are the author of three books
8 relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. The most recent being entitled "Sarajevo, A Biography."
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. In addition to that, I think you have lectured extensively on the
13 subject of Bosnia and Herzegovina generally and also on the conflict.
14 A. Yes, that's the case.
15 Q. And I think we haven't actually added up the number of times but
16 as Judge Harhoff has remarked, you have testified here before on at least
17 a dozen or so occasions.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You've prepared a number of different reports for different
20 cases, but for the purposes of this case can I just deal with the three
21 reports that have been submitted. First of all, the report that was
22 prepared for the case of Brdjanin and Talic, "Bosnian Krajina in the
23 History of Bosnia and Herzegovina," which I think was prepared around
24 2002.
25 A. Yes, that's correct.
Page 342
1 Q. Secondly, the report prepared for the Krajisnik case, "The
2 origins of Republika Srpska." That was also, in fact, prepared in 2002?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And the most up-to-date is the report that you've done
5 specifically for the purposes of the Karadzic case, which is due to
6 start, entitled, "Bosnian Serb Leadership of the Siege of Sarajevo
7 1990-1995," and as you've heard from Judge Harhoff, only three of the
8 chapters will be referred to.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. I'm just going to pause.
11 MR. PANTELIC: I apologise, Your Honour. We have a problem with
12 the computer, so could I ...
13 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the Defence, please. Microphone
14 for the Defence, please.
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, just to interject for a moment, I'm
16 taking it that we can discuss at the end of the evidence how the evidence
17 will be admitted and exhibit numbering and the like.
18 Q. Now, Dr. Donia, turning straight away to the matters -- documents
19 that you're going to deal with in evidence, is it right that you were
20 asked by the Office of the Prosecutor to consider documents, perhaps the
21 ones you considered most relevant for the purposes of this case given the
22 time limitations on the oral evidence you are about to give?
23 A. Yes, that's true.
24 Q. And I think you prepared a list which has been a bit altered
25 because of various rulings.
Page 343
1 Can I start by asking you, first of all, about something of the
2 structure and the ethnic structure of Bosnia in particular, and ask,
3 first of all, that the map which was one of your Appendix 2 come up on
4 the screen. Oh, I have to call -- I'm told I have to call the number,
5 which is 3383.
6 Apparently the one that's in Sanction, Your Honours, is slightly
7 better quality for various technical reasons. So I don't know whether
8 that would assist. I don't know. Your Honours, as I say, I'm told it's
9 a bit clearer in Sanction. Yes, we'll swap it. That's it. Thank you.
10 All right. Dr. Donia, can you tell us a little bit -- just
11 explain, first of all, to us what that map demonstrates.
12 A. Yes. The map --
13 Q. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Dr. Donia, I gather there's another
14 problem.
15 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I'm sorry, Your Honour. Well, the Bench can
16 hear me but I'm sure interpretation cannot, so I don't know what you'd
17 like to do.
18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Madam Court Reporter, can you hear if counsel
20 speaks up?
21 So speak up.
22 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I'll be loud and brief. One suggestion, on
23 presentation of exhibits, the number my learned friend has mentioned,
24 3383 is the 65 ter number, which may ultimately get an exhibit number,
25 and can I suggest that when the parties call up an exhibit using the 65
Page 344
1 ter, they get marked for identification immediately so that we can
2 coordinate 3383 with the exhibit number and not several days later or
3 several pages later. The problem will be that this map is marked 3383.
4 That is not the exhibit number. Ultimately, it will receive an exhibit
5 number, but it will be very hard -- more difficult to track the
6 connection between the number 3383 and the ultimate exhibit number, and I
7 think it would be much more efficient if we mark it for identification
8 with an exhibit number immediately. That's my suggestion.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. O'Sullivan. In response to your
10 observation I think if we give it an exhibit number right away, then
11 there seems to be established automatically a link between that exhibit
12 number and the 65 ter number, and that saves us from later having to come
13 back to the document if we only do it by MFI. So I would prefer to the
14 extent possible that exhibits are entered directly into the record with
15 their proper exhibit number unless there is some -- something wrong, so
16 to say, with the document that calls for a marking for identification.
17 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Apparently the microphone is working. Well, I
18 quite agree and that was my suggestion is that this map has been -- is
19 3383 on the 65 ter list of the Prosecutor. I'm suggesting it be given an
20 exhibit number at this point and marked for identification, and then when
21 it's tendered and accepted then we -- there is no confusion.
22 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I make an even better -- maybe I
23 hope -- sorry, a slightly --
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'm sorry, Ms. -- I just need to consult with ...
25 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
Page 345
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. O'Sullivan, I think I understand the gist of
2 your suggestion, but I find it unnecessary. We will deal with this
3 document. Dr. Donia will explain to us whatever it is he has to explain,
4 and then as soon as we let the document go, we decide whether or not to
5 admit it into evidence, and if it's admitted it's given a number. That
6 saves us again from having to review all the MFI documents at a later
7 point, which saves us time and energy. And so if I may add to this that
8 I think your suggestion is also out of the normal way of doing things.
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I make an [indiscernible]
10 suggestion. Why not simply give the -- all the 65 ter numbers, they will
11 remain as the exhibit numbers, and if they're not admitted then they
12 won't appear. So this is Exhibit -- it will be Exhibit 33 -- whatever I
13 said it was, 83.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: No, no. This is impractical.
15 MS. KORNER: All right.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: The way it works by experience is that when
17 Dr. Donia has given us the information that you have asked him to give in
18 relation to this document, then the Court will decide whether or not to
19 admit it into evidence. Now, this is something which I don't see any
20 reason why we should not, so we will give it an exhibit number right away
21 and that will be Exhibit P1, I suppose. And if anyone wants to know what
22 P1 is, then you can find it easily in the e-court system, and you can
23 also track it back through the 65 ter number. That's the way we'll
24 proceed.
25 MS. KORNER: Yes. Thank you very much, Your Honour.
Page 346
1 Q. All right, Doctor. I'm so sorry. We hardly got started before
2 we were stopped, but you were about to explain to us a little bit
3 about --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
5 MS. KORNER:
6 Q. You were about to explain to us what this map of the national
7 composition of Bosnia and Herzegovina by municipality shows us.
8 A. Yes. The map before us shows Bosnia's -- I'll refer to it as
9 Bosnia
10 municipality was the basic administrative unit of Bosnia's organisation.
11 It was a concept that dated from the 19th Century, late Ottoman times,
12 and the idea was that each municipality consisted of a central town which
13 bore the same name as the municipality as a whole, surrounded by
14 agricultural and forest lands and rural villages.
15 The municipality was invested with considerable authority in the
16 course of socialist years from 1945 until 1991 and, in fact, each had a
17 Municipal Assembly by 1991, many of which were quite large.
18 The map is, in my view, the best effort in two dimensions to
19 capture the ethnic complexity of Bosnia, and even then only partially
20 does so. It does so by portraying each municipality as consisting of one
21 dominant group, whether that dominance is an absolute majority or a
22 relative majority, and then presenting the members of other groups as
23 bars in bar-chart form.
24 As can be seen, there are certain areas of Bosnia, perhaps 8 or
25 10, 12 municipalities that have large, virtually overwhelming ethnic
Page 347
1 majorities of one group or the other.
2 Q. If you can just perhaps -- before you move on can you just show
3 us a couple of examples?
4 A. Yes, well, the green area in the extreme upper left has two
5 municipalities on the -- one is -- I can't even read them, the names, but
6 they're right on the edge there which are almost exclusively Bosnian
7 Muslim.
8 Q. I think it's Kladusa --
9 A. Velika Kladusa, and is it -- it wouldn't be Bihac. It's --
10 Q. Bosanska Krupa?
11 A. [Overlapping speakers] ... the same goes for some blue areas
12 along the lower left part of the triangle and some red areas -- I'm
13 sorry, the blue areas being Croat, and the red areas also along the
14 border, which are almost exclusively Serb and then much of the rest of
15 the country being considerably more mixed. It was not uncommon for a
16 municipality to have its central town have an ethnic composition
17 different from the rural villages that surrounded it. So even this map
18 in a sense consolidates and simplifies the ethnic complexity of Bosnia
19 landscape.
20 And if I could just perhaps in a couple of sentences introduce
21 the peoples or nations who are charted on this -- on this map.
22 All three groups traced their origins to migration of
23 Slavic-speaking peoples in the 4th to 8th Century's new era from the area
24 of present day Poland
25 developed into three different religious communities. The Slavic-speak
Page 348
1 Catholics became Croats, the Orthodox -- Serbian Orthodox becoming Serbs,
2 and the third group converting to Islam became the Bosnian Muslims. And
3 in the 19th century the intellectuals of the Serbs and Croats articulated
4 a secular entity in addition to the religious foundations of their
5 identity, and not until the 1960s did the Bosnian Muslims also articulate
6 a secular identity, which made them then a third group with the Serbs and
7 Croats who were recognised as constituent peoples in the constitution of
8 1974 that was in effect when the conflict began in 1992.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Doctor, what do you mean exactly by a secular
10 identity?
11 THE WITNESS: What I mean is that they developed an ideology that
12 the group in question was more than simply a religious community. It was
13 distinguished by some combination of language, culture, and perhaps even
14 religious traditions which gave it a distinct history, which gave it an
15 identity that was something beyond purely membership in a faith.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thanks. And just for clarification, would that
17 have any impact also on the language spoken, the sort of ethnic division?
18 THE WITNESS: It did in the sense that each group sought to
19 codify a language from this sort of jumble of dialects and different
20 manner of speaking of the South Slav tongues. They sought to codify a
21 single language which they then designated as Serbian or Croatian or
22 eventually in the case of the Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian.
23 MS. KORNER:
24 Q. So just on that point, commonly certainly before the conflict the
25 language is known as Serbo-Croat. Is that a proper --
Page 349
1 A. Yes, the languages are wholly mutually intelligible distinguished
2 by only minor vocabulary differences, and prior to then -- I'd say the
3 late 1980s were routinely called Serbo-Croatian and thought of as a
4 single language.
5 Q. Now, looking at that, would it be possible in your view, having
6 looked at the background and the history of this, to divide Bosnia into
7 ethnically separate geographic zones?
8 A. No. The -- and many efforts were made to do that, and none of
9 them was successful in actually delineating an area which was --
10 consisted purely of members of one of the three groups.
11 Q. Very briefly because we haven't got much time, did the three
12 groups remain separate in terms of relationships, in other words,
13 marriage?
14 A. To some degree, but in the, say modern period, particularly the
15 second half of the 20th century and particularly in urban areas, a great
16 deal of intermarriage took place, and those people who entered into mixed
17 marriages or the children of those marriages often sought refuge in some
18 identity which was not one of the three groups. Most typically that
19 identity was to call themselves Yugoslavs in the census category, and so
20 on each of the censuses, the last two censuses, one finds a certain
21 percentage of people identifying themselves as Yugoslavs, mostly in the
22 cities and more in some cities than others, and that Yugoslav group was a
23 very mixed category. It included some people, a lot of army officers,
24 for example, who wanted to express loyalty only to the federal state of
25 Yugoslavia
Page 350
1 Serb, purely Croat, or purely Bosnian Muslim identity.
2 Q. Right. I want to move, then, to the next document, please, which
3 is a table of the -- oh, I'm sorry. It's 3384. 65 ter number 3384.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Madam, if you're finished with this, my question
5 would be, do you wish to have it admitted into evidence?
6 MS. KORNER: I do. Can I say that I would be asking without
7 having to do it each time for each of these documents be admitted as an
8 exhibit.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: You will not or you will?
10 MS. KORNER: No, I will -- I will each time if you want me to,
11 but can we take it -- unless I say I don't want it admitted I would like
12 it admitted. All right. No, I'll ask.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: No. Mrs. Korner, there are two options: Either
14 you ask for admission as we leave the document and move on to the next,
15 or you bundle it up towards the end and then towards the end of the
16 testimony you ask for this and that and the other document to be
17 admitted.
18 MS. KORNER: I think it's easier for the purposes of the
19 transcript, as Mr. O'Sullivan points out, if I ask now that this may be
20 admitted as an exhibit [indiscernible].
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: I do agree.
22 MS. KORNER: As an Exhibit, so it would be Exhibit 1, P1.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P1, Your Honours.
24 MS. KORNER: All right.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: So this is now admitted as P1, is it?
Page 351
1 MS. KORNER:
2 Q. Can we move to the next document, 65 ter 3384, which is on the
3 screen, which specifically deals, I think -- or perhaps you better
4 explain what it shows, Dr. Donia.
5 A. Yes. This table represents in figure form the graphic that we
6 have just seen which was, of course, fine tuned to the level of
7 municipalities showing that in all of Bosnia-Herzegovina, about 17 per
8 cent of the population identified themselves as Croats in the 1991
9 census, the 1st of April, 1991, about 44 per cent as Muslims, and about
10 31 per cent of Serbs, and the remaining 5.5 per cent as Yugoslavs.
11 Q. And then you've looked at the same -- or you have extracted
12 information for the ten municipalities that make up Sarajevo.
13 A. Yes. Sarajevo
14 the municipality that I discussed earlier in that Sarajevo was actually
15 made up of ten municipalities, giving this anomalous situation where a
16 city actually consists of ten administrative units, which are called
17 municipalities, and looking at those ten municipalities together,
18 grouping them together, one can see that the population of Sarajevo was
19 more Muslim than Bosnia
20 and much -- substantially fewer Croats, but that the percentage of
21 Yugoslavs was higher.
22 If I may, I've just noted an error in the percentage of Muslims
23 in the B/C/S map, was not 3.5 per cent but it should be 43.5 per cent.
24 Q. Yes. Right. We're going to look at a map of Sarajevo at the end
25 of these diagrammatic representations, but you then talk about Sarajevo
Page 352
1 four peripheral municipalities. Could you just tell the Trial Chamber
2 the names of those four.
3 A. Yes. Those four municipalities, Hadzici, Ilijas, Vogosca, and
4 Trnovo were added to the city of Sarajevo
5 to join the city, and they had a somewhat different composition than the
6 rest of the city. As is shown here, a somewhat larger percentage of
7 Serbs and a lesser percentage of Croats than the rest of the city.
8 Q. Well, then let's move to the next document, please.
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may that be admitted as an exhibit in
10 the case, please.
11 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P2, Your Honours.
12 MS. KORNER:
13 Q. The next document bears the number 65 ter 3385.
14 A. Yes. This is a bad photo that reproduced even worse but simply
15 captures the character of eastern Sarajevo
16 Bosnia
17 luxury apartments so that much of the urban population of Bosnia
18 live in such structures, and of course, since they were all moving in,
19 there was absolutely no ethnic distinction among the residents of these
20 high-rises. So I wanted to show the picture just to indicate the, let's
21 say, homogenising influence of urbanisation as it took place in Sarajevo
22 and in other Bosnian towns, and of course other cities of the world as
23 well.
24 Q. And the word you used was "luxury" was it, Dr. Donia?
25 A. That's what they were built as. Some of them didn't end up that
Page 353
1 way, but that was the intent.
2 Q. Yes. Thank you.
3 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may that be admitted, please, as P3.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P3, Your Honours.
5 MS. KORNER:
6 Q. And then could we look, please, at 65 ter 3386.
7 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mrs. Korner, there is a question raised about
8 whether or not these exhibits that we've seen, P1, 2, and 3, were
9 actually included in your 65 ter list.
10 MS. KORNER: The report was. Your Honours, they were a part of
11 the report. They were attached to the report. That's what I just
12 explained. And Your Honours are admitting the report. Unfortunately by
13 an error, I don't know why, when it was sent with the 94.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Okay.
15 MS. KORNER: I don't mind whether it stays as part of the
16 report --
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Right. I understand. But it's -- it's accepted.
18 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
19 Q. Right. I'm so sorry, Dr. Donia, that you had this interruption
20 again. Can we look at this table now that you produced, as 3386 -- we
21 produced -- and tell us -- explain what that shows.
22 A. This table shows the results of the November 1990 multi-party
23 elections in the numbers of seats in the Bosnian Assembly, the Assembly
24 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in the city Assembly of Sarajevo.
25 What it shows is that the election results, in many respects,
Page 354
1 were census-like. They reflected the ethnic categories in the census in
2 which three national parties emerged dominant: The SDA or Party of
3 Democratic Action for the Muslims, the Serbian Democratic Party or the
4 SDS
5 Croats.
6 In the case of the SDA and SDS
7 the Bosnian Assembly and the Sarajevo City Assembly, is somewhat below
8 their representation in the census in the population as a whole. In the
9 case of the Croats, it's about the same. So there was -- it is not in a
10 sense completely census-like. There is some -- some voters turned their
11 back on their ethnic or national background in order to vote for Social
12 Democrats and Reformists who represented non-national or even
13 anti-national programmes. And again, the representation of those groups
14 in the Sarajevo
15 Assembly, showing the greater propensity of the urban Sarajevo
16 away from these ethnic and national identities.
17 Q. And just, as it were, as a side issue, the League of Communists
18 also stood in the 1990 elections, didn't they?
19 A. The Social Democrats there is the name that I've given to the
20 reformed League of Communists, which at a point actually had a name of
21 League of Communists Social Democrats of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which I
22 mercifully kept off the chart.
23 Q. All right. Now we're going to continue the theme of this
24 inter-party split or party split, but just before we leave Sarajevo
25 the time being, can you look, please --
Page 355
1 MS. KORNER: And, Your Honour, this is a separate map.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Do you wish to have this?
3 MS. KORNER: Oh, I'm sorry, yes. Could we have that exhibited,
4 please, then. Thank you.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P4, Your Honours.
6 MS. KORNER: And we're going to show this in Sanction. We just
7 thought Your Honours might like to see a proper map of Sarajevo. Thank
8 you.
9 Q. And can you, Dr. Donia, just first of all ...
10 [Prosecution counsel confer]
11 MS. KORNER: Oh, it's in e-court, so he can draw apparently.
12 Q. You can just put -- we can see -- maybe -- let's not. I don't
13 want to spend too much time on this.
14 Effectively I think the Court can see, the Trial Chamber can see,
15 to the right Pale, just dealing with the municipalities that are part of
16 our -- to the right Pale, then Ilijas is up there. Other way round, but
17 never mind. And Vogosca in large letters.
18 Dr. Donia, I've just got one question. Was there -- we can just
19 about make out that there's major roads in the middle of the town, but
20 was there any strategically important roads that were going to figure in
21 the conflict to come?
22 A. Yes. The city of Sarajevo
23 entry and egress was very restricted to the east at the right of the map,
24 and all went through essentially a narrow tunnel up in the direction of
25 Pale. On the west end, the left side of the map, there were three major
Page 356
1 strategic passageways: The one that went through Vogosca we can see
2 going to the north, the one heading out to the west going through Blazuj
3 and Hadzici, which goes down to Mostar and the Adriatic coast, and then
4 one which really doesn't connect very well with the city of Sarajevo
5 the south. The most passage -- the entry and egress of persons and goods
6 from Sarajevo
7 west, and north, and therefore each went through a central town of one of
8 the municipalities of Sarajevo
9 MS. KORNER: Well, I think unless Your Honours want anything else
10 indicated on the map we'll move on from there, but may that map be
11 admitted, please, as an exhibit.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Could the counsel please refer to the 65 ter
13 number.
14 MS. KORNER: 3412.
15 THE REGISTRAR: Will become Exhibit P5, Your Honours.
16 MS. KORNER:
17 Q. Right. Now, I want, Dr. Donia, for a moment to -- you to deal
18 with -- we looked at how the elections returned, married up with the
19 ethnic distribution, as it were. Can we now look at a diagram.
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, this has not been exhibited. It's
21 simply a diagram to reflect evidence that -- it's easiest to look at it
22 if it's -- it was attached to the pre-trial brief marked 6.1, which shows
23 the make-up of the Presidency and government between January 1991 and
24 March 1992.
25 Q. How does that fit in with what was happening between the three
Page 357
1 parties?
2 A. The elections of 1990 resulted in victories for the three
3 national parties, the SDS
4 HDZ for the Croats.
5 In negotiations prior to the calling of the elections, the
6 Socialist era Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina designated two seats each on
7 the Presidency to the three groups. That is, two were designated for
8 Serbs, two were designated for Croats, and two were designated for
9 Bosnian Muslims. In addition, a seventh seat was designated for the
10 category of Yugoslavs. Because of the electoral arithmetic, the results
11 ended up with three Bosnian Muslims. Being the most numerous group, they
12 were able to triumph in the category of Yugoslavs as well. And then a
13 seven-person Presidency with the president of the Presidency selected by
14 the -- all members of the Presidency voting.
15 However, in the period of the campaign, the three national
16 parties were closely allied. They were all afraid of being swamped by
17 the Social Democrats and Reformists and, therefore, cut a deal whereby
18 the leading vote-getter of the three parties would designate informally
19 who would be president of the Presidency. The next party, which turned
20 out to be the SDS
21 president of the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That turned out to be
22 Momcilo Krajisnik. And the HDZ could designate who would be the
23 president of the government position also known as prime minister or
24 premier.
25 Q. So if we move the -- we've seen the Presidency. If we move the
Page 358
1 diagram up -- or down. Up, I think. What do we see there? How does
2 that fit into what you've just said?
3 A. Well, the deputy prime ministers were also appointed as sort of a
4 way to balance the ethnic structure at the top, and the -- if we could
5 perhaps see the rest of the chart, the various ministers were also
6 selected in accord with formulas that were agreed upon before the
7 election in what's called the inter-party agreements.
8 Q. All right. Yes. Thank you. Now can I move to a slightly
9 different topic.
10 Did the leaders of the parties over the next period between the
11 elections, 1990 and what happened in 1992, express publicly any view that
12 they had about the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Let's start with Alija Izetbegovic.
15 A. Okay. The debate about the constitutional future of Bosnia
16 during the campaign was the only issue on which the three parties, three
17 national parties, had sharp disagreements at that time, but one of those
18 parties, the Muslim SDA, was headed by Alija Izetbegovic, who had quite a
19 political history and, therefore, became both a unifying figure amongst
20 Bosnian Muslims but a polarising figure amongst non-Muslims, particularly
21 Serbs. He had been imprisoned on two occasions in the late 1940s and
22 then again in 1983 for being a political dissident, was prosecuted by the
23 Socialist regime, and in the late 1960s had written a book called the
24 "Islamic Declaration," which became the central focus of the criticism of
25 him, particularly by those people, the Serbs and Croat nationalists who
Page 359
1 wanted to identify him with a project of creating an Islamic state in
2 Bosnia
3 Declaration" just very briefly.
4 Q. Yes, I think it's about to -- I'm sorry, now I have to call you
5 up, don't I? Could I have 65 ter 3388?
6 A. The Islamic Declaration was written in the late 1960s in the
7 aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 which, of course, was won
8 decisively by Israel
9 Muslim and Islamic -- Muslim intellectuals and Islamic figures globally.
10 The Izetbegovic "Islamic Declaration" was written to contribute to that
11 debate. As a book, it never mentioned Bosnia-Herzegovina, never
12 mentioned Sarajevo
13 contribution to the global discussion of Islam, and Izetbegovic called
14 for a renewal, Islamic renewal, while rejecting the two -- what he saw as
15 extreme paths of radical secularisation and the extremely conservative
16 mullahs and hodjas of the Islamic faith.
17 Q. Can we pull up page 10 of this, Y 0164151.
18 A. In this --
19 Q. 51 -- okay.
20 A. -- passage -- okay. In this passage, Izetbegovic levelled his
21 criticism at the Islamic religious establishment, writing: "Theologians
22 have turned out to be the wrong people in the wrong place."
23 Now, when the Muslim world is giving all signs of an awakening,
24 this class has become an expression of all that is gloomy and sclerotic
25 in the world. He was equally critical of modernising secularists, but
Page 360
1 levelled this criticism of the clerics as well. And ...
2 Q. Can we look at --
3 A. One more.
4 Q. Yes. I'll just get the page number out. Page Y0164205, and 6.
5 A. Yes. He was also critical of nationalism in the Islamic world,
6 writing on this page at the bottom of the last sentence --
7 Q. I'm not sure I -- just -- just pause for a moment. I don't think
8 it's come up yet. This thing takes a long time, obviously, to change.
9 A. I think it's a few pages beyond what we're looking at.
10 Q. Yes. Can we go on, please, sorry, to Y0 -- 205? Yeah.
11 A. Yes. The central paragraph of this page, the last sentence:
12 "Pan-Islamism has always sprung from the very heart of the Muslim
13 people, while nationalism has always been imported goods."
14 This is perhaps the only sentence in the entire tract which could
15 be considered a possible reference to something that was going on then,
16 because it was in the 1960s that the Bosnian Muslims were articulating a
17 secular identity, as I had indicated earlier, a secular national
18 identity. And clearly he was on the other side of that issue. He did
19 not favour a national identity or nationalism for Muslims.
20 He continued on the next page --
21 Q. Let's pause for a moment while we get that up. So that's 206.
22 Yep.
23 A. The sixth line of the first paragraph:
24 "The creation of the European Economic Community, although this
25 claim may seem unacceptable at first sight, is the most constructive
Page 361
1 event in 20th-century European history. This super-national structure is
2 the first real victory of the European peoples over nationalism."
3 Again making clear his feelings about nationalism.
4 Q. Right.
5 A. Now, this book does contain some statements about what Muslims
6 should do, how they should form a state or society at the point that they
7 have a majority, and these seem to be cautions against jumping the gun in
8 a sense, for Muslims to create institutions separately or prior to the
9 time that they hold a majority, but it is those quotes which became the
10 central focus of critics of Izetbegovic who charged him with wanting to
11 create an Islamic state in Bosnia
12 Q. So that was -- are there any other passages which you think would
13 be useful for the Court to look at? I think not. No?
14 A. I think we've seen --
15 Q. All right. So there's -- that's the, as it were, the outlook
16 expressed by Alija Izetbegovic.
17 What about the Serb side of the line, as it were? Were any views
18 expressed --
19 MS. KORNER: Oh, I'm sorry, yes. Could that be admitted,
20 Your Honour.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mrs. Korner, may I remind you that according to
22 the procedural guidelines that we have issued, you have to be specific
23 about which parts of larger documents, such as books, you need -- or you
24 wish to have admitted into evidence. So if we're speaking about only
25 these two pages, it's not a problem, but I hope that this is what you had
Page 362
1 in mind and not the entire book.
2 MS. KORNER: No. For the moment we'll stick to the pages -- I
3 think it's three pages, in fact, that we've referred to.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: And can you, for the purpose of the Registrar,
5 just identify those three pages.
6 MS. KORNER: 65 ter 3388, pages Y0164151, Y064205, and 206.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
9 MS. KORNER:
10 Q. Now, can we look at, as it were, some of the thinkers on the Serb
11 side. Can you tell us something about a gentleman named Jovan Raskovic?
12 A. Yes. The Serb viewpoints on Bosnia's future emphasised the
13 national factor. They became very critical of the Bosnian Muslims for
14 being less than avid nationalists and for favouring a civic option. At
15 the same time, they denounced the Muslims for being fundamentalist and
16 wanting to establish an Islamic state.
17 Several of them, in their more candid moments, dismissed the
18 notion of fundamentalism in Bosnia
19 I think, his first or second press interview in the course of the
20 campaign in 1990, and so did Jovan Raskovic, who was the founder of the
21 SDS
22 important figure in founding the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia
23 Raskovic actually died in July 1992, a couple months after he stated
24 these words, but it was his view --
25 Q. We'll call up the document.
Page 363
1 A. All right.
2 MS. KORNER: Could we have up please 65 ter 3390. Thank you.
3 Right.
4 Q. This is, I think, an interview, is that right, with
5 Mr. Raskovic --
6 A. It is.
7 Q. -- in a publication called "Borba."
8 A. Yes. And in that interview on -- it's the third page, which is,
9 if I can cite the ERN, 03015931, which is, I believe, up now, stated the
10 view that -- in this response to the question about Karadzic:
11 "First, I never had the impression that the SDA, regardless of
12 the fact that it was Islamophile, was a danger for the Serbian people in
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina. But, what is done is done. It is different with the
14 Croatian authorities and the Serbs in Croatia."
15 And skipping the next line:
16 "Conspiratorial policy was necessary in Croatia because it could
17 not be any different. Such a policy was not necessary in Bosnia."
18 Q. Right. So at that stage, certainly, and this is April of 1992,
19 is it not, I think --
20 A. 22 April 1992
21 Q. So even at that stage Mr. Raskovic was saying that in his view
22 there wasn't a malicious intent against the Serbs by the --
23 A. That was his view --
24 Q. Right.
25 A. -- for the situation in Bosnia
Page 364
1 Q. Then I think around or -- the time of the elections, Izetbegovic
2 expressed what he wanted or what he saw for -- for Bosnia. Is that
3 right? If we look, please, at 3 -- 65 ter number 3391.
4 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, Your Honour. Did I ask for that last
5 article to be admitted? I did. Could that be admitted, please?
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: It's admitted.
7 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
8 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P7, Your Honours.
9 MS. KORNER: Yes.
10 Q. Now, this is -- is it a publication called -- I think you better
11 say it, not me, Dr. Donia.
12 A. Yes. "Nedeljni Glas," which simply means "Weekly Voice," the
13 weekly magazine of a daily newspaper in Banja Luka, which was named
14 "Glas" or "Voice."
15 Q. And was this an interview -- sorry, I'm just checking this is the
16 right document. I thought -- no. Just for one moment. Yes. Was this
17 Izetbegovic speaking, in fact?
18 A. This is, yes, a paraphrase of --
19 Q. Of what he said.
20 A. -- of Mr. Izetbegovic's position in this article by a journalist,
21 and accurately reflects the position of the SDA at that time in the -- in
22 the constitutional question of Bosnia
23 about Bosnia
24 but there was also a dispute about its future as a discussion of
25 political options or constitutional solutions, if you will. And the
Page 365
1 second full paragraph on this page which begins "That is the real thing,"
2 expresses this position:
3 "Bosnia-Herzegovina wants a contemporary state. It is not
4 favouring the confederate concept," or a confederation, in other words,
5 "as suggested by Slovenia
6 federal concepts as proposed by the Presidency of the Socialist Federal
7 Republic of Yugoslavia
8 formula that would reconcile these two suggestions and therefore is for a
9 new agreement, for a charter on the Yugoslav state community."
10 Now, this places Izetbegovic and the Bosnian Muslims in the
11 middle of the ongoing debate among presidents of the six republics of
12 Yugoslavia
13 Montenegro
14 least as strong as it was then, and if they could, they wanted to
15 strengthen the federal state. Serbia
16 other hand, who were moving increasingly towards independence, wanted a
17 confederation in which sovereignty would reside in the individual
18 republics as much as in the federal state.
19 Q. Right.
20 A. And the two republics that were sort of caught in the middle
21 between these viewpoints were Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia and their
22 respective presidents.
23 Q. Now, if we look at almost about exactly the same time, November
24 of 1990, as what Karadzic said on this topic, can we call --
25 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may this -- the last document, 3391,
Page 366
1 please be admitted.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: It's admitted.
3 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
4 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P8, Your Honours.
5 MS. KORNER: Then can we call up, please, 3392.
6 Q. Again, I think this is an article in "Glas"; is that right?
7 A. This, yes. It is an article in the Banja Luka newspaper "Glas"
8 taken from the Yugoslav news agency, which was known as Tanjug, which
9 originated a lot of the stories that appeared in local newspapers
10 throughout Yugoslavia
11 the viewpoint here of Serbs, saying:
12 "The Serbian people cannot accept an independent
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina which exists alone or in a confederation with other
14 states," so he rejects the confederate -- confederate option, "or any
15 other form of state organisation that would separate them from the
16 Serbian people as a whole or would turn them into an ethnic minority.
17 Then on the very last page of this document he express -- he
18 again --
19 Q. Yes, let's go to --
20 A. -- paraphrased --
21 MS. KORNER: Yeah. I don't -- you've got the last page up.
22 Thank you, yes.
23 THE WITNESS: -- as saying:
24 "He repeated the standpoints according to which
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina within a confederation could not be brought about
Page 367
1 without a civil war." Is again something that he stated a number of
2 times and reported here by Tanjug which is -- could be considered, I
3 think, a very, say, fair-minded reporting agency at this time.
4 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Could that please be admitted as an
5 exhibit, Your Honours.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: It's admitted.
7 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P9, Your Honours.
8 MS. KORNER:
9 Q. Now, that was in -- in 1990. When we get into 1991, how was this
10 discussion or argument about federation or confederation being perceived
11 by the -- in particular, the Bosnian Serbs?
12 A. The Bosnian Serb position on this hardened. It didn't really
13 harden. It was firm and remained firm in the time after the election.
14 It was to them a non-negotiable position that if Bosnia
15 state in which Bosnian Serbs wanted to live, it had to be a part of a
16 federal Yugoslavia
17 Q. Now, let's look next, please, at document 14 -- 65 ter 1493,
18 which is the 4th Session of the Bosnian Serb Assembly on the 21st of
19 December, 1991, and I want to look, please, at a speech made by Mr. Buha.
20 A. Yes. At this -- at this time, the debate about Bosnia's future
21 constitutional status, was really the sharpest public controversy at the
22 time, and Professor Aleksa Buha, who later became the Foreign Minister of
23 the Republika Srpska, expressed, I thought quite graphically, this
24 difference between the Serb or Bosnian Serb viewpoint and the viewpoint
25 that he considered the other groups, mainly the Muslims but also the
Page 368
1 Croats, to be espousing at that point.
2 Q. I think we need to look, please, at page 00939642. I think we --
3 A. I don't see the --
4 Q. Do you not see it? If we look "All this national identity."
5 A. Yes. Middle of the page, the first -- let's see here. It's now,
6 as I look at it, the third paragraph on the page beginning: "All this,
7 that is, national identity, national equality, nation as a fundamental
8 unit of individual and collective life that was once sacred to them,"
9 that is the Croat and Bosnian Muslims --
10 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry to interrupt, but the Serbian page does
11 not correspond, so the clients cannot follow.
12 MS. KORNER: It should be 00898134. The -- the accused will
13 presumably hear the translation through their headphones in any event.
14 I'm sorry, what? SA02-5071.
15 MR. ZECEVIC: Just for the matter of accuracy, they should be
16 able to see the document, the original of the document, not the
17 translation.
18 MS. KORNER: Okay. We're bringing it up.
19 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you very much.
20 THE WITNESS: In the B/C/S it's the middle paragraph on the page
21 as it stands now, and may I commence again with the English?
22 MS. KORNER:
23 Q. Yes.
24 A. "All this, that is, national identity, national equality, nation
25 as the fundamental unit of individual and collective life, that was once
Page 369
1 sacred to them, our partners," again referring to the SDA and the HDZ,
2 "have forgotten overnight and adopted the civil principle and started
3 advocating civil society instead of national society. Presumably this
4 principle would have deemed -- been deem an anathema at the Yugoslav
5 level, but now it is considered a perfect solution for
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina."
7 It's actually in the middle of a quite learned discussion of the
8 origins of the civil concept and national society which he put forth, but
9 emphasising, kind of encapsulating this Serb view that the Muslims were
10 advocating a civil state, that is, equality of all citizens, in
11 expectation that they would have a majority some day soon and therefore
12 take over the state. That's the essence of the Serb viewpoint on this.
13 Q. He then goes on, does he, to talk about the ethnic composition of
14 BiH?
15 A. Yes, he does.
16 MS. KORNER: Can that, Your Honours, please be made an exhibit,
17 and could we have the whole document exhibited, because it's going to be
18 referred to by other witnesses as well, so it would make sense to have it
19 as an exhibit already.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: How long is it?
21 MS. KORNER: How many pages? I can't tell you. It's probably --
22 it's one of the Assembly sessions. Fifty pages. Thank you very much.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: We agree.
24 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P10, Your Honours.
Page 370
1 MS. KORNER:
2 Q. Now, can we now move on before the break, finally, to consider
3 the question of regionalisation. Was that something that was figuring in
4 SDS
5 A. Yes, it was. The SDS
6 independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, began organising areas of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina which had substantial Serb populations, with the idea
8 of combining Serb majority municipalities and forming regional
9 associations for the purpose of rejecting some of the functions and
10 sovereignty of the Bosnian state.
11 Q. I think you dealt with that in your report, and we needn't bring
12 that up, but you did for the purposes of the Brdjanin case, but can we
13 have a look, please, at a speech made by Krajisnik, please, in 1991,
14 65 ter 1484. Which was the 2nd Assembly of the Bosnian -- 2nd Session of
15 the Bosnian Serb Assembly on the 21st of November. And could we have on
16 that page 00930300 in English, SA01-2009 in the B/C/S.
17 A. Yes. In this couple of sentences, Krajisnik expresses the
18 purpose for which regional associations were being formed. The first
19 one, the most important one, of course, being the community of
20 municipalities of the Bosnian Krajina. And using -- looking at the first
21 full paragraph there, actually the sixth line on the page:
22 "It is our goal to decentralise all republican funds, to keep
23 most of the income of citizens and legal entities in their
24 municipalities, regions and autonomous districts, so that only limited
25 contributions are paid to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Page 371
1 "We have a duty to determine the function of regions and
2 autonomous districts with a view to preserving the unity of the Serb
3 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
4 Q. So what's happening here? This was a -- or you should tell us,
5 but regionalisation was being used to do what in political terms?
6 A. To become autonomous from Bosnia-Herzegovina and achieve
7 basically local control of tax monies and key decisions.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, I think that's 85 minutes. Oh, yes,
9 and please may I tender again the whole document. It's the Assembly
10 minutes.
11 JUDGE HARHOFF: These are the minutes from the second Session in
12 November --
13 MS. KORNER: [Overlapping speakers] The 2nd Assembly, yes, and
14 I'm sure [overlapping speakers] -- they're going to be referred to over
15 and over again.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sure.
17 THE REGISTRAR: It will become Exhibit P11, Your Honours.
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: And we will adjourn and reconvene at 4.00.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Could -- could I -- could we go back to
20 Exhibit P9, please, last -- last page. I think there's something wrong
21 there.
22 MS. KORNER: P9. Is that the last exhibit that Dr. Donia looked
23 at before this one?
24 JUDGE DELVOIE: No, no. No, no, it's P9. We're at P11, I think,
25 now.
Page 372
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: Was the paraphrasing of Karadzic's views.
2 MS. KORNER: The paraphrasing of Karadzic. Ah.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Last page.
4 MS. KORNER: Karadzic. That's 3392, I think.
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: Last sentence. Shouldn't we read "Could not be
6 brought without a civil law"?
7 THE WITNESS: Yes.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: A civil war -- sorry.
9 THE WITNESS: That's correct, Your Honour, yes.
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
11 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much, Your Honour.
12 --- Recess taken at 3.45 p.m.
13 --- On resuming at 4.06 p.m.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Usher.
15 Just for information to the parties and to the two accused, I
16 would like to refer to a conversation that I had with the Prosecution
17 just here on the break about the seeking admission of some of the
18 documents which we have just recently admitted into evidence, and the
19 problem that I raised with Mrs. Korner was that it appeared that some of
20 the documents that we did admit did not appear on the 65 ter list, and I
21 would like to repeat that the rule for the future is that if a document
22 will be sought admitted into evidence through a witness, then that has to
23 be notified to the Defence, first of all, in advance and then also to the
24 Chamber, because otherwise we will be unable to familiarise ourselves
25 with the documentation prior to the testimony of the witness. And that
Page 373
1 goes also for expert witnesses such as Dr. Donia.
2 The ruling I passed down yesterday, or the Chamber passed down
3 yesterday, concerned, first of all, the documents that were in the
4 Sarajevo
5 Sarajevo
6 apply to the previous reports, because we thought that the previous
7 reports had already been dealt with and that you were -- that you had
8 made up your mind in advance as to which documents from those earlier
9 reports you would put to Dr. Donia and thus have admitted into evidence.
10 Now, we will just leave things as they are at the moment because
11 the Defence did not object, and so the documents that you have admitted
12 will stay admitted, but for the future, I would like to ask the
13 Prosecution and the Defence when it becomes their turn to make sure that
14 the other party and the Chamber is duly notified of each and every
15 document that you wish to have admitted through a witness.
16 MS. KORNER: Yes, I can. Right. Very quickly because I don't
17 want to waste time.
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Exactly, so I think we should just leave it --
19 MS. KORNER: Can I -- then come back and deal with that point
20 later. Thank you.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Let's move on.
22 MR. PANTELIC: I do apologise. Just a correction to the
23 transcript. When Honourable Judge Delvoie intervened, it was on the page
24 33, line 20, in transcript said civil law instead of civil war. Just
25 correction. Thank you.
Page 374
1 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, just one suggestion
2 that may remove such difficulties in the future. I suggest that
3 admission of evidence be sought after the testimony of a witness to avoid
4 situations wherein the Defence is unable to check whether a certain
5 document is on the said 65 ter list or not. Therefore, I suggest that
6 the decision to admit a certain piece of evidence be taken after the
7 testimony of a witness.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Krgovic.
9 MS. KORNER: Can we get -- could we -- could I get on with the
10 witness and we can discuss this later? I don't think that's helpful, and
11 the point I'm going to make is that all these documents I've been
12 referring to by 65 ter number are on the application we made to add,
13 which was dealt with on -- which was filed -- I can't remember the date,
14 but I think it was on -- on the 14th of September, and we took Your
15 Honours' ruling to exclude certain things to mean that the others were
16 allowed in. All the documents were listed on one -- one motion.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: We'll deal with that when we're over with
18 Mr. Donia.
19 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: So let's proceed for now.
21 MS. KORNER:
22 Q. Dr. Donia, I'm sorry again about that. I'm afraid at the
23 beginning of a trial things go awry. Can I just ask you to look there,
24 please, at one further document on the subject of regionalisation, and
25 can I ask that what I'm calling 65 ter 3395 be put up on the screen.
Page 375
1 Which again is another "Glas" article. And the number -- yes. Could we
2 turn to the next -- well, first of all, I think the article itself is
3 headed "Hasty Regionalisation," and then can we turn, please, to the
4 other side of the translation with the number L0099855.
5 And this, I think is an interview -- or it's a summary, is it
6 not, of what Mr. Dodik said?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Can you just tell the Court, because I don't think I've explained
9 about Dodik yet, who Dodik was -- is.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Krgovic.
11 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I object to the
12 manner this question is asked. This is an article. Therefore, it is
13 hearsay evidence. The article mentions the name "Dodik," but that does
14 not necessarily mean that the article reflects faithfully what Dodik had
15 said. This is double hearsay evidence. The witness has told us about
16 the role of the media. This witness is not an expert in media issues.
17 At least he was not represented that way by the Prosecution.
18 I object to this whole line of questioning and the presentation
19 of news articles. Transcripts of Assembly sessions are another matter.
20 What probative value does the conclusion of Mr. Donia have based
21 on reading newspaper articles about which we know nothing? Maybe they do
22 not reflect faithfully what the original speakers had said.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Zecevic.
25 MR. ZECEVIC: One more thing, Your Honours. In light of your
Page 376
1 ruling just at the beginning of this, this document, 3395, is not on the
2 65 ter list either. Thank you very much.
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you for making this note, Mr. Zecevic.
4 Now, as for the objection raised by Counsel Krgovic, we will
5 overrule your objection because, first of all, hearsay evidence is, as
6 you know, admissible before this Tribunal, and secondly, and more
7 importantly, the evidence that goes in is not the article with the
8 presentations of what Mr. Dodik may have said but what Dr. Donia's
9 comments to the article is going to be. So that is what we will have a
10 look at when we consider the evidence in the end. So we will attach
11 weight to Dr. Donia's opinion about this point of view and not to the
12 article as such.
13 MS. KORNER: Yes.
14 Q. Dr. Donia, before you were interrupted, you were just telling the
15 Trial Chamber who Milorad Dodik was -- is.
16 A. Yes. Mr. Milorad Dodik --
17 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours. I raised the issue that
18 it wasn't on the 65 ter list. I believe the Chamber should rule.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry, Mr. Zecevic. I thought that I had made
20 clear in my comments just a while ago that there seems to be some degree
21 of uncertainty as to exactly which documents had been notified in the
22 last motions made by the Prosecution and that we would deal with it at
23 the end of Dr. Donia's testimony or after Dr. Donia's testimony so as to
24 avoid losing time at this moment for discussion -- for discussion of
25 administrative matters. Let's -- let's deal with these issues when
Page 377
1 Dr. Donia is through and --
2 MR. ZECEVIC: Yes, but I -- with all due respect, I think it
3 should be dealt first with the documents which are not on the 65 ter list
4 before we hear the witness reflect on these documents. That is my
5 opinion. Thank you very much.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: I agree that this is the principle, but as I have
7 told you, the Prosecution is of the view that they have notified us, and
8 there seems to be a misunderstanding about the contents of the ruling
9 that we handed down yesterday.
10 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
11 JUDGE HARHOFF: I think in light of that uncertainty I think the
12 best thing we can do now is move on and then settle the issues later on.
13 Is that okay, Mr. Zecevic?
14 MR. ZECEVIC: I have to accept the ruling of the Trial Chamber.
15 There is nothing else. I hope we will resolve the matter afterwards.
16 Thank you.
17 MS. KORNER: If Mr. Zecevic's case manager calls up the motion
18 that was served, you'll see that all these numbers are on it.
19 Q. And again I apologise, Dr. Donia. Maybe this time you'll be
20 allowed to tell the Court who Mr. Dodik is.
21 A. If Mr. Dodik can get a word in. He is currently the president of
22 Republika Srpska and has been in that position for several years. In
23 1991, he was elected as a Reformist --
24 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour. I really object to this now. This
25 is the third time that Dr. Donia has been interrupted. Unless this is of
Page 378
1 extreme importance, may I ask that Mr. Pantelic waits.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Well, could we hear what his objection is?
3 MR. PANTELIC: To help Dr. Donia. Maybe you may state corrected
4 Mr. Dodik is not the president of -- he's the prime minister. Just a
5 matter of -- thank you, Your Honours.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Pantelic. May I suggest that
7 issues of this character be raised by you during your cross-examination
8 so as to avoid numerous interruptions. Thank you.
9 MS. KORNER:
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. In any case, thank you for the correction. He is the prime
12 minister of Republika Srpska. In 1990 he was elected to the Assembly of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina from the municipality of Laktasi
14 ticket and as such was a Serb in a party that had no -- no national
15 allegiance. It was a non-national party.
16 When the -- several municipal assemblies in the region of
17 north-western Bosnia
18 municipalities of Bosnian Krajina, it set off a controversy amongst all
19 party leaders in that area. The SDS
20 or movement for the creation of a municipal association as simply
21 following on a Socialist era practice of associating municipalities for
22 certain limited functions. Things like a water district or schools or a
23 particular municipal kind of project. And other party leaders took issue
24 with the notion that this was simply an apolitical or a national project,
25 and Dodik was one of those who was quoted as such at this time, saying:
Page 379
1 "This means that we as parties," meaning political parties,
2 "were not engaged in all this. I personally consider it politically
3 highly illiterate and impudent that certain municipal assemblies voted on
4 the initiative in spite of the fact that none of the deputies received
5 any materials, that the explanations were distributed verbally, and that
6 the vote on such important decisions was held directly there and then.
7 It is, therefore, our stance that the initiative of the
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina republic authorities must by all means be supported
9 and that this problem has to be approached more seriously and studiously
10 and that it must be accompanied by a simultaneous public debate
11 especially since the initiative originated from one party only, the SDS
12 Q. Right. All right. That's --
13 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I ask that that document be
14 admitted. Now, I don't know how you're going to deal with it at this
15 stage.
16 [Trial Chamber confers]
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: It will be admitted.
18 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
19 THE REGISTRAR: As P12, Your Honour.
20 MR. KRGOVIC: Your Honour, just for the record, we object to
21 admission of this evidence.
22 MS. KORNER:
23 Q. Right. Thank you very much. Dr. Donia, I want to move now to
24 what happened at the Assembly meeting, the Bosnian Assembly meeting in
25 October of 1991, the 14th of October. What in your view emerged from
Page 380
1 the -- the meetings that occurred that day that we're going to look at,
2 and we'll start, first of all, with 65 ter number 2296.
3 A. The date of 14, 15 October 1991
4 day filled with events that -- in which these contrasting political
5 philosophies and constitutional positions collided, and they collided in
6 the context of the 8th Session of the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
7 which began a multi-day session the week before to debate the
8 constitutional future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The SDA, the Muslim party,
9 and the HDZ together arrived at that session with two proposals: One
10 which has become known as a declaration of sovereignty, ascribing
11 sovereignty to Bosnia-Herzegovina or, more specifically, citing an
12 existing constitutional amendment which provided that Bosnia and
13 Herzegovina
14 Presidency to guide its negotiations in the context being -- then held by
15 the European Union -- European Community.
16 So on that day three important things happened: Number one, the
17 debate became very heated, and Radovan Karadzic uttered some words that
18 he had previously only expressed in private telephone conversations,
19 which threatened the future existence of the Bosnian Muslims.
20 Q. Pause for a moment. We'll just -- the Trial Chamber saw, in
21 fact, the video of that speech yesterday, but just -- can we have page 3
22 in English and in B/C/S just so that we can see.
23 A. Okay. If I may -- just these couple of selected passages. About
24 halfway down the page, the sentence that begins:
25 "We shall disable you to carry out violence against Serbian
Page 381
1 people, constitutional violence, in front of local and international
2 public, because after the constitutional violence, all other violence
3 will come. We won't be consulted regarding this situation anymore."
4 Then skipping one sentence:
5 "Knowing that in Bosnia-Herzegovina that hell would be
6 1.000 times worse, and there would be no way to stop it."
7 Again, I see an error in the English here. And then the last two
8 sentences on the page:
9 "It is not good what you are doing. This is the road that you
10 want Bosnia and Herzegovina to take, the same highway of hell and
11 suffering that Slovenia
12 Q. And as I say, I think we can leave it there, Dr. Donia --
13 A. Okay.
14 Q. -- because the Trial Chamber heard it yesterday.
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may I ask the admission of the minutes
16 of the Bosnian Assembly for the 14th of October.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: It is admitted. And may I suggest that in view
18 of the objections made by Counsel Krgovic that we MFI P8, P9, and P12, if
19 that is possible, Madam Registrar.
20 THE REGISTRAR: Certainly, Your Honours. 65 ter 2296 will become
21 Exhibit P13, and Exhibit P8, P9, and P12 are now marked for
22 identification.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
24 MS. KORNER: Can I just tell Your Honour that this one's been on
25 our 65 ter list all along.
Page 382
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: But that's admitted.
2 MS. KORNER: Right.
3 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P13.
4 MR. ZECEVIC: Your Honours, I just -- I just need to raise the
5 attention of the Trial Chamber that the Serbian version of the document
6 does not correspond to the English, the page. So in order to avoid
7 future problems with that, I would like to -- because the Serbian text is
8 cut halfway through.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes, Ms. Korner.
10 MS. KORNER: [Overlapping speakers] yes. We'll try and make
11 sure.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes, please be careful and make sure that where
13 pages turn over that the defendants are notified.
14 MS. KORNER: I -- I apologise to Mr. Zecevic. I agree it's
15 difficult.
16 Q. Right. Now, that's the Assembly. That evening was there a party
17 council meeting?
18 A. Yes. If I can just describe the background to that party council
19 meeting.
20 Q. Exactly.
21 A. Following Dr. Karadzic's speech, the president of the Assembly,
22 who was an SDS
23 many Serbs were still in the hall, the vice-president of the Assembly
24 reconvened the session, and that reconvened session was attended only by
25 members of the HDZ and the SDA, the Muslim and Croat parties, and in that
Page 383
1 reconvened session they then passed the two documents that I referred to,
2 the memorandum of sovereignty and the Presidency -- or the platform, and
3 that led the members of the SDS
4 was illegal and unconstitutional, and they immediately convened or later
5 that -- this was 3.00 or 4.00 in the morning, and they convened for that
6 evening a session of the SDS
7 that included not just the day-to-day party leaders but also a number of
8 professors and other intellectuals who were not actively day by day
9 engaged in the party but were frequently acting as advisors, and at that
10 party council meeting they discussed future steps to take in light of the
11 decision of the Bosnian Serb Assembly.
12 Q. Could we have up, please, on the screen 65 ter 3398, at page --
13 the one page. The first page. And hopefully the B/C/S is the same.
14 Page 2 on the B/C/S I'm told.
15 MR. HICKS: Terribly sorry to interrupt, Your Honours.
16 Could we request that the Registrar also or the Court Officer
17 also enlarge the B/C/S portions as they do for the English. They're
18 having trouble reading the exhibits on the screen. Thank you.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Hicks.
20 MS. KORNER:
21 Q. Dr. Donia, we see there the minutes, 15th of October, and
22 underlined on that page is something said by Mr. Todor Dutina.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Tell -- please be kind enough to tell the Trial Chamber who he
25 was.
Page 384
1 A. I -- I can only identify him as a member of the party, SDS party.
2 And the -- this was in a sense a wide-ranging discussion of which we have
3 only minutes, not transcript. So this is a secretary's rendition of the
4 main points that were made rather than a verbatim transcript, but he is
5 quoted as saying what some -- a number of other members of the council
6 also stated:
7 "Tonight we must put an end to the illusion that it is possible
8 to find some kind of joint existence with the Muslims and Croats ..."
9 There were also a number other people who expressed the idea that
10 they should give the Muslims and Croats, that is the HDZ and the SDA, one
11 last chance to -- to rescind their decision of earlier that day.
12 Q. Thank you.
13 MS. KORNER: Then, Your Honours, may that be marked for
14 identification.
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: As you wish.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P14, marked for identification, Your
17 Honours.
18 MS. KORNER:
19 Q. And then finally, can we look at one last party council meeting,
20 which should be 3398. On this date. Oh, is it? I thought there was
21 three. All right. I'm sorry, you're quite right. I got myself mixed up
22 there.
23 All right. So that was October -- or, rather, before I move on,
24 Dr. Donia, are there any other meetings that took place at that -- around
25 that period?
Page 385
1 A. There is just one other statement in that party council
2 meeting --
3 Q. Ah, right.
4 A. -- that I think is -- remarkably it was prescient in the sense
5 that Mr. Miskin, misspelled Niskin here, it's the third page of this
6 document, outlined steps that he proposed the SDS should take. It's --
7 may I give you the ERN number anyway? It's 03044273. It's the third
8 page of this document in English, and I -- I don't know what page it is
9 of the B/C/S.
10 Q. It's SA02-3847.
11 A. Yeah, okay. We see him now -- at least I see the --
12 Q. I don't think it is actually --
13 A. The English anyway.
14 Q. I see the English but it's not the B/C/S page, I don't think.
15 A. Yes, and it's not terribly easy to read but ...
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. Mr. Miskin listed these things that he would propose. Number one
18 was to intensify regionalisation.
19 Now, if I can note that at this time there were already several
20 regions that had been declared. The region in north-western Bosnia
21 Bosnian Krajina, had been renamed the Autonomous Region of Krajina,
22 affectionately known to friend and foe alike as the ARK. And the other
23 one that was significant was a regional -- Serbian regional association
24 in the Sarajevo
25 kind of a peasant tradition, legend, and was called the SAO Romanija. So
Page 386
1 this process of regionalisation was in fact already been intensified at
2 the time that he spoke, but his other proposals were actually just
3 germinating.
4 Number 2 was to: "Call a group of constitutional law experts who
5 will analyse the current situation in the state and give their
6 proposals."
7 Number 3 was to: "Inspire, to defend legitimacy."
8 Number 4: "Immediately form parallel organs of power so that
9 they will be ready."
10 5: "Organise militarily, especially in the cities and issue
11 instructions to municipal and local boards to that effect."
12 And then also noting: "We are unorganised in the media war, and
13 I would like to emphasise the plebiscite," that is a popular vote, "but
14 it should not be rushed because regionalisation is the priority."
15 Q. Thank you very much, Dr. Donia. I think that leads us into the
16 next document, those very words. Just to, in fact, fill in the gap,
17 between this in October and the date we're now going to come to, the
18 19th of December, did a plebiscite in fact take place?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Right.
21 A. In fact, many of these proposals were either enacted or on the
22 way to being realised in that time period. On the 24th of October, the
23 Serb delegates in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina formed their own
24 separate Bosnian Serb Assembly which they called it in the first
25 iteration the Assembly of the Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
Page 387
1 first act of that body was to call a plebiscite asking voters whether
2 they wished to remain in Yugoslavia
3 Serb Assembly made preparations to announce a republic of the Serbian
4 people. They actually announced that on the 9th of January. They
5 subsequently drafted, adopted, and promulgated a constitution in February
6 and March and finally in April declared that republic independent after
7 hostilities had actually begun. They did that on the 7th of April.
8 So there were a series of really what I call public theatre.
9 They were -- it was performance events, each of which was typically
10 televised and drew great attention both from Bosnians and from the
11 international press as the Bosnian Serbs under SDS leadership moved to
12 create these separate institutions and break away from the Republic of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
14 Q. Yep. Thank you. All right, Doctor. Can we have a look, please,
15 at Variant A and B, which is -- sorry, it's number 65 ter 27, well and
16 truly on our 65 ter list. And can we have page 4 of the English and page
17 4 of the B/C/S up on the screen, please.
18 Now, how does this document fit in to the general progression of
19 what was happening, Dr. Donia?
20 A. Well, if fits into the SDS
21 the effort to win the struggle, the political struggle, for control of
22 individual municipalities, but it is different from the events that I
23 just described in that it was distributed with a confidential label on
24 it, discussions about it were non-public, and it remained within the
25 confines of the SDS
Page 388
1 by a Sarajevo
2 So this was, let's say, the local and secret portion of the plans
3 that were being laid and executed by the SDS.
4 Q. Now, the -- the Court looked at it yesterday or the day before in
5 detail, so perhaps you can just look, please, at -- it's -- page 4. I'm
6 sorry. Can we go back to -- yes. You've got a second level. Can we go
7 back to probably one page. Should read "First level," and it's item 5.
8 A. Okay.
9 Q. Just hold on a minute, Dr. Donia, while we get this -- make sure
10 we get up -- the right bit up on the screen. Yes.
11 Right. Item number 5, "First level," Variant B. Preparations to
12 be made for taking over the staff facilities and equipment, et cetera.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. What's the importance of that as --
15 A. Well, this -- this document, these instructions are in a sense
16 integrating instructions. The local boards are instructed to coordinate
17 with and in certain cases to integrate the work of the local police at
18 the municipal level with their own activities and with the activities of
19 the Yugoslav People's Army.
20 So in this point 5, the second sentence of it:
21 "The local committees are instructed to prepare the take-over of
22 staff, buildings, and equipment of security services centres and their
23 integration with the newly established organ of the interior at the seat
24 of the centre."
25 Now, the new institutions that were ordered by the instructions
Page 389
1 were two: Number one was to form a Serbian Municipal Assembly, which in
2 some municipalities in the A variant where the Serbs held a majority was
3 not very much different from the existing Municipal Assembly, but the
4 second body was to be a Crisis Staff which was to be headed by commander
5 and, therefore, that Crisis Staff just by virtue of being headed by a
6 commander was to have certain military or quasi-military functions.
7 Q. And if we look, I think, at one further part on the second level,
8 please, which would be the next page, both in English and B/C/S, I hope.
9 A. Yes, and I --
10 Q. Just pause for a minute, Dr. Donia. It's got to come up on the
11 screen here. I agree with you that hard copy is quicker.
12 A. In the second point here, point 2, fourth line of the page:
13 "All members of the police force of Serb nationality are to be
14 mobilised and in co-operation with the commands and headquarters of the
15 JNA their gradual subordination is to be ensured."
16 So more of this integrating functions around the SDS local
17 institutions.
18 Q. Now, the very last part, I just want to ask one question about.
19 Can we go to the very end of the document in both B/C/S and
20 [indiscernible] -- which it talks about secret procedures.
21 Dr. Donia, has anybody outside the SDS themselves, as far as
22 you're aware, ever found any records of what these secret procedures
23 were?
24 A. Not to my knowledge.
25 Q. All right. Thank you very much.
Page 390
1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may that be admitted as a proper
2 exhibit.
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
4 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P15, Your Honours.
6 MS. KORNER:
7 Q. Now, I want to deal very briefly, if I may, with some of the
8 negotiations that took place, as it were, between international sides of
9 the former -- countries of the former Yugoslavia.
10 Is there documentation which shows discussions taking place
11 between members of the SDS
12 the former Yugoslavia
13 A. Other republics.
14 Q. Other republics. Quite right.
15 A. Yes, and the opportunity for discussion, and I'd like to
16 highlight, arose with the end of armed hostilities in Croatia. In very
17 late 1991 a cease-fire and ultimately a rather unsuccessful peace
18 agreement signed in Sarajevo
19 and the cessation of hostilities opened up really for the Bosnian Serb
20 national -- nationalist leadership, a possibility of working more closely
21 with the Croats rather than facing them as a part of the alliance between
22 Croats and Muslims.
23 MS. KORNER: Could we have up on the screen, please,
24 document 2824. And page -- it says page 80 at the bottom. No, sorry.
25 That's the wrong document.
Page 391
1 [Prosecution counsel confer]
2 MS. KORNER: Okay. It's 2824. And it's page 5 in English. It's
3 2 out of -- it's 2 -- 051509178. Page 6 of the B/C/S? Yep, that's it.
4 Thank you.
5 Q. Now, can you just look at -- the meeting here was being held
6 with -- between whom?
7 A. Yes. This meeting was held in the office of Croatian President
8 Franjo Tudjman. He arrived somewhat late for the meeting, as is recorded
9 in the transcript. The transcript is a verbatim copy of the actual tape
10 recording that was made. It wasn't until after Tudjman's death that we
11 all learned that he shared with Richard Nixon a penchant for recording
12 every word that took place in his office and left a very rich treasure
13 trove of documentation about meetings in his office, and for this
14 occasion Nikola Koljevic, who was one of two Serb members of the Bosnian
15 Presidency, travelled to Zagreb
16 Bosnian Presidency, Franjo Boras, having arranged this meeting to try to
17 see if there was some common ground that the Croats and Muslims -- or the
18 Croats and the Serb nationalists could pursue.
19 Q. And the part of --
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: When was the meeting?
21 MS. KORNER:
22 Q. -- the conversation that you wanted to draw attention --
23 A. I'm sorry, yes, it was January 8th, 1992. So only six days after
24 the Vance Plan was signed.
25 MS. KORNER:
Page 392
1 Q. And the part that you want to draw attention to, Dr. Donia --
2 A. I don't see.
3 Q. It's the paragraph starting "Our second interest," I think.
4 A. Ah, yes. Okay. If I may start in the -- perhaps the third
5 line -- or second line --
6 Q. And this is Mr. Koljevic speaking?
7 A. This is -- yes. This whole meeting really was driven by Koljevic
8 and the proposals that he laid down to the Croats present.
9 "The authenticity of Croatian policy irrespective of these
10 unhappy circumstances of war which have occurred," he refers to the war
11 in Croatia
12 Serbs believe in, that is to say, that pacification can be attained
13 through separation. If you want people to prevent -- want to prevent
14 people from engaging in conflict or to create trust among them, you have
15 to separate them first. That's what the peace forces likewise do - they
16 separate first."
17 Q. Right. And then I think there's some further passages in this.
18 If we can go to page -- well, there may be further passages, but I'm not
19 sure we can dig them out at the moment. Can -- perhaps you can just give
20 the Trial Chamber an overall picture of what it was that from your
21 reading came out of this meeting.
22 A. Well, the two parties to the meeting, Koljevic for the Serbs and
23 the various Croats present, found common ground on a couple of areas:
24 Number one, they broached the subject -- Koljevic broached the subject
25 and found a very receptive response. He broached the subject of
Page 393
1 population transfers and specifically discussed the possibility of using
2 the coercive powers of the state through some sort of bureau or agency to
3 make sure that populations actually transferred. That was the first
4 point on which they found some agreement. Tudjman personally responded,
5 "Yes, I believe that population transfers are necessary from time to
6 time."
7 The second point of agreement was they found a surprisingly
8 common complaint about the Bosnian Muslims. They both complained that
9 Alija Izetbegovic supported a civil -- or civic state and that the
10 Muslims were -- would be unhappy with any agreement between Serbs and
11 Croats and should only be presented with a fait accompli in the form of
12 such an agreement if in fact it were to be reached.
13 Q. Right. Well, I think we'll leave it there because I'm getting
14 slightly concerned about the time.
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, again this was on our original 65 ter.
16 May it be admitted. Thank you very much.
17 Q. I think there was a -- is this right, one other, as it were,
18 intermeeting, which I want to go to now in Graz in Austria
19 be 65 ter 3407.
20 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry again, no, no, but just for the record
21 that we keep it clear. I'm sorry. You asked the -- the document to be
22 admitted. I believe we should have the ruling on that then the number,
23 yes?
24 MS. KORNER: I thought I did get a ruling.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry, we didn't --
Page 394
1 MR. ZECEVIC: But we didn't got the number.
2 THE REGISTRAR: [Inaudible].
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Well, to settle this matter, thank you very much.
4 The Chamber did deliberate on it, we agreed to admit it, and it was
5 admitted as Exhibit P16. That's the Tudjman-Koljevic meeting on
6 8 January 1992
7 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honour, but the Registrar didn't
8 say P16.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Okay.
10 MR. ZECEVIC: That's why I wanted to intervene just to have the
11 clear record. I didn't want to disturb anybody. I just -- thank you
12 very much.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: I wasn't aware of that. Thank you very much,
14 Mr. Zecevic. It's good that you at least keep an eye on what's going on
15 here.
16 MS. KORNER: Can we have 3407 on the screen, and -- which is a
17 public announcement made by Karadzic and Mate Boban.
18 Q. Can you just explain how that came about?
19 A. Yes. It proved difficult to reach an actual agreement between
20 the Serb and Croat nationalists. The principles were not so difficult,
21 but when it came to territory, they found it extremely difficult to get
22 together on an actual division of Bosnia-Herzegovina as had presidents
23 Milosevic and Tudjman in a meeting in March of that year. Principle of
24 division was not difficult but the specifics were. Tudjman -- I'm sorry,
25 the Croats and Karadzic met again on the 26th of February in the southern
Page 395
1 Austrian town of Graz
2 May 6th of 1992, by which time hostilities were well underway and armies
3 were in occupation of considerable territory did they in fact reach an
4 agreement which covered almost all of Bosnia. As might have been
5 anticipated, they did so only by excluding the Bosnian Muslims from the
6 discussion completely, and so the announcement that was made was strictly
7 between the Muslim and -- or the -- the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian
8 Croat leader, Mate Boban, and was subsequently denounced by the European
9 Community negotiators who wanted any agreement to be between all three
10 sides.
11 Q. Right. Yes. Thank you very much.
12 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, that was on our application so that
13 would just be marked for identification, please.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: That is admitted as MFI.
15 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P17, marked for identification, Your
17 Honours.
18 MS. KORNER:
19 Q. All right. Can we then move from internationals, please, to, as
20 it were, the relationship between the military and the SDS. Have you
21 been able to look at a number of documents, including memoirs, to assist
22 the Court with that?
23 A. Yes. Perhaps just to identify the actor in question, the
24 collective actor in question, the Yugoslav People's Army, abbreviated to
25 JNA in the local acronym, was the heir to the Partisan resistance force
Page 396
1 that Tito had put together during the Second World War. It became the
2 Army of Yugoslavia
3 valued institution in socialist Yugoslavia, very esteemed, celebrated
4 every year. It drew in people. Virtually every Bosnian male served for
5 a brief period of time in the conscription system for 15 months or
6 something like that, but the army itself consisted of much -- many fewer
7 troops and had call upon a large number of reservists in various ways,
8 and of course it was extremely well-armed, because in the Cold War
9 Yugoslavia
10 able to both develop its own arms industry and to buy arms from abroad.
11 So the JNA emerged in 1991 as a very important player, if you
12 will, in the disintegration of Yugoslavia
13 disintegrating. Yet Tito had fought a constant struggle to try to
14 prevent the JNA from being a force that was dominated by officers of Serb
15 nationality with relative success during his lifetime, and that success
16 continued at the highest levels of the General Staff but started to
17 weaken in the 1980s. And in the course of 1991 in Croatia and then in
18 early 1992 in Bosnia
19 supported really by all groups in Yugoslavia gradually succumbed to
20 becoming a force that served Serb nationalist objectives. And within
21 Bosnia
22 individual situations provided arms to Bosnian Serb nationalists and
23 ultimately actually transformed itself into the Army of Republika Srpska,
24 the VRS, in May of 1992.
25 Q. Right. Dr. Donia, I just want you to look, then, briefly and
Page 397
1 fairly quickly at first of all the memoirs by General Kadijevic, who I
2 think was the Federal Secretary of Defence of the Yugoslav -- the -- in
3 fact the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from May 1991 until
4 January of 1992. And that's 3401, please. And we have only got one
5 page.
6 A. Yes. Let me cite just the middle paragraph on that page
7 beginning:
8 "Since the JNA failed in its efforts to steer the Muslim part of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina's leadership toward a new Yugoslav state of those
10 Yugoslav nations," that is peoples, "which so desired, we had to orient
11 ourselves toward concrete co-operation with representatives of the Serbs
12 and with the Serb Nation as such, never closing the door to co-operation
13 with others, even if it meant just individuals who were for new
14 Yugoslavia
15 and move JNA troops via Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was of vital
16 significance for the JNA."
17 Q. And then at the bottom of the page --
18 A. Yes. Let's see.
19 Q. I think --
20 A. The italicised -- it's italicised in the English anyway.
21 Q. Yep.
22 A. "The units and headquarters of the JNA formed the backbone of the
23 army of the Serb republic, complete with weaponry and equipment. That
24 army, with the full support the Serb people, which is required in any
25 modern war, protected the Serb people and created the military conditions
Page 398
1 for an adequate political solution which would meet its national
2 interests and goals to the extent, of course, that present international
3 circumstances allow."
4 Q. All right. And I think we see something along the same lines
5 from an interview with General Kukanjac.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Can we have 3402, please. Oh, could we have 3401 marked for
8 identification, please.
9 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours, again we have the same
10 problem that the Serbian text does not correspond to the English.
11 MS. KORNER: The Serbian what?
12 MR. ZECEVIC: The Serbian text does for the correspond to the
13 English text which Dr. Donia is reading. I would kindly ask you to pay
14 attention to that fact. Thank you.
15 MS. KORNER: I think it was the first part that Dr. Donia started
16 to read that isn't there. I think the second part is shown. Is that
17 right?
18 MR. ZECEVIC: Quite opposite. The first part was shown and the
19 second part is probably on the next page or something.
20 MS. KORNER: Okay. It's there, is it? I mean, it's no good
21 [overlapping speakers] --
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Can you enlarge?
23 MS. KORNER: I don't think it's up to us to enlarge. I think
24 it's ... all right. Your Honour, all I can say is I'm sorry. I'm afraid
25 this is, I hope, just teething problems, first day, first set of
Page 399
1 documents. I'm not sure why this has happened, but if it's not there,
2 it's not there. There's nothing we can do about it, and we'll fix it.
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry?
4 MS. KORNER: We'll fix it. We'll make sure there's a Serbian ...
5 JUDGE HARHOFF: I hope that the defendants were able to follow at
6 least what was read out in the translation. Apparently for technical
7 reasons that I'm unfamiliar with, the last page in B/C/S has disappeared.
8 So it's ...
9 MS. KORNER: Right.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mrs. Korner. Let's move on.
11 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer and Registrar confer]
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes. 3401 is admitted.
13 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
14 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P18, Your Honours.
15 MS. KORNER: All right. Really quickly. Can we look, please, up
16 on the screen 3402. Thank you, page 5 English, page 3 B/C/S.
17 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm really, really sorry, but, Your Honours, I
18 really don't want to interrupt, and don't get me wrong. I'm just trying
19 to make some sense of the transcript. Ms. Korner asked for the previous
20 document to be marked for identification and now it has been admitted.
21 I'm really sorry. P18. It was asked by Ms. Korner -- offered it for --
22 to be marked for identification --
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes, I understand, Mr. Zecevic --
24 MR. ZECEVIC: -- but it was --
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- but according to the information I have, 3401
Page 400
1 was included in footnotes 128 and 146, so it was probably notified --
2 properly notified. So it doesn't need to be admitted as MFI. We can
3 take it in because we have all been notified of it. So there's no
4 problem with this exhibit.
5 MR. ZECEVIC: I understand, but it was just that the Prosecution
6 didn't ask the document to be admitted. That was the whole point,
7 Your Honour.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
9 MS. KORNER: I'm afraid I've lost track of admitted, 65 ter list,
10 whatever. I'LL just leave it up to your legal officer, who obviously
11 knows which ones we asked for, which we didn't, and whatever.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Right.
13 MS. KORNER: Can we move on.
14 Q. But can I just -- could we quickly look, please, on this topic,
15 Dr. Donia, at an interview with General Kukanjac in -- on the
16 6th of January, 2000, in a magazine I think called "Nin." We're on the
17 same theme. Under item D he said what had happened; is that correct?
18 A. Yes. This interview appeared in 2000 in "Nin" and is a
19 retrospective of his -- in which he stated:
20 "When we realised what was being done and what was going to
21 happen, we began to pull out the entire mobile assets of the JNA in a
22 timely manner; in an endeavour by both officers and soldiers, employing
23 perfect organisations, we managed to pull out, preserve and retain
24 everything; even if there had been cases of seizure by the enemy, we
25 would immediately make it up manifoldly; the Muslim-Croat horde never got
Page 401
1 hold of a single plane, helicopter, tank, armoured personnel carrier,
2 gun, mortar, motor vehicle ..."
3 Q. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Donia.
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that one, I understand, may I ask to be
5 admitted.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: Granted.
7 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P19, Your Honours.
9 MR. KRGOVIC: Same objection, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Krgovic, I did not hear you.
11 MR. KRGOVIC: Same objection about the admissibility because it's
12 the article as well.
13 MS. KORNER: Now we'll -- can we take it as read that Mr. Krgovic
14 is going to object to any article, so he doesn't have to stand up each
15 time and say so.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Right. Are you requesting, Mr. Krgovic, that all
17 articles be admitted only as MFI
18 MR. KRGOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Until when? For what purpose?
20 MR. KRGOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.
21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, these are on our 65 ter list. You've
22 explained carefully to Mr. Krgovic that hearsay evidence is admissible.
23 We accept entirely that newspapers are -- can quite often be inaccurate
24 in their recording and that they're for such weight as Your Honours are
25 prepared to give them, and we would ask that they be properly admitted as
Page 402
1 they're on our 65 ter list or have agreed to be.
2 [Trial Chamber confers]
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Krgovic, I think there is a misunderstanding
4 here. You may sit.
5 MR. KRGOVIC: Yes.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: We have MFI
7 presented to us this afternoon which did not appear on the 65 ter lists
8 because there remains some uncertainty about whether or not the Chamber
9 has ruled on their admissibility through the 65 ter list. So that's the
10 reason why we have MFI
11 The other objection that you have raised is a completely
12 different one and technical one that has to do with the fact that some of
13 the exhibits are newspaper articles or press articles. But that, as I
14 have explained, is not a reason for objection, in the Chamber's view,
15 because, as you know, hearsay evidence is admissible, and because what
16 the Chamber will ultimately pay attention to and attach weight to is not
17 the articles by themselves but Dr. Donia's comments to these articles.
18 So your objection is overruled if your objection was based on the
19 fact that this is an article.
20 MR. ZECEVIC: If I may be of assistance, Your Honour, I believe
21 Mr. Krgovic's objection was the fact that although the hearsay evidence
22 is -- is accepted in this Tribunal, the comments made by third person on
23 hearsay evidence, according to the jurisprudence, is not as far as I am
24 aware. Because, Your Honours, this is a -- this is a newspaper article.
25 It's a hearsay evidence. Now, Mr. Donia is commenting on the hearsay
Page 403
1 evidence. What does the person who gave the interview thought and was
2 doing, and stuff like that. That is the essence of the objection, as far
3 as I understood.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Zecevic, Dr. Donia is an expert, and experts
5 are different from ordinary witnesses in that experts exactly are allowed
6 to and expected to provide opinions, and this is what we are looking for
7 in asking these questions to Dr. Donia.
8 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
9 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
10 Q. And finally on the topic of this relationship between the JNA and
11 the SDS
12 the 50th Assembly Session in April of 1995, 65 ter 3207. And it's at
13 page ...
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Go on.
15 MS. KORNER: I'm waiting for the -- is the document up? It's
16 1496, is it? I'd rather not --
17 Q. I'm really concerned, Dr. Donia, and apologise to you for all
18 that's been happening, but I won't bother -- I think you have looked at
19 the minutes of the 50th Session in April of 1995, and can you tell the
20 Trial Chamber whether Karadzic dealt with that aspect of the JNA and SDS
21 co-operation.
22 A. Yes. He spoke for perhaps a minute or less describing from his
23 point of view how the Army of the Republika Srpska was created from the
24 JNA and the important role that the SDS played in creating that military
25 force through this coordination process we spoke of.
Page 404
1 MS. KORNER: And I think we can -- if we please go to page 305 in
2 the English and 278 in the B/C/S. Well, I want to don't bother. It's
3 taking too long. Thank you very much.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Madam Korner, I think it's time for the next
5 break.
6 MS. KORNER: Yep.
7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the Judge. Microphone for the
8 Judge.
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm going to ask that I'm given --
10 not -- with the constant interruptions that have been, I would like for
11 that time that's been wasted to be added on.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: We'll get back to that.
13 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Maybe we should just ask the Registrar to inform
15 us how much time you have used, because she has been subtracting time
16 that has been spent on other matters.
17 THE REGISTRAR: [Microphone not activated].
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Apparently you have spent 2 hours and 4 minutes,
19 so you have 56 minutes left.
20 MS. KORNER: And then I would like to have added on the time that
21 has been discussed.
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Let's get to the end of your 56 minutes before we
23 take any further steps. We will adjourn until 20 minutes to 6.00.
24 --- Recess taken at 5.20 p.m.
25 --- On resuming at 5.42 p.m.
Page 405
1 JUDGE HALL
2 For the benefit of those who may not have observed it, tomorrow morning
3 when we resume at 9.00, we will be in Courtroom I.
4 MS. KORNER: Yes.
5 MR. PANTELIC: Before Ms. Joanna Korner will start, please, we
6 have the B/C/S version which does not correspond to English on our
7 screens, so I would just ask to arrange that. Thank you.
8 MS. KORNER: I'm not -- I'm going to move on right from at a
9 document, but it's the 50th --
10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone, please.
11 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, Mr. Pantelic needn't worry because I'm
12 not going to deal with this document any longer. I'd like to call up
13 straight away, please, 65 ter 3403.
14 Q. We're still, Dr. Donia, for two more documents going to deal with
15 JNA SDS
16 For you, it's page 4 English, page 1 B/C/S.
17 This is an interview, I think, in the Sarajevo magazine
18 "Oslobodjenje" on the 14th of February 1992, and it's page 4 of the
19 English. It's an interview, just to set the screen, with Ratko Adzic,
20 who as we can see was the president of the Ilijas municipality.
21 A. Yes.
22 MR. ZECEVIC: We don't have the Serbian version on our -- now we
23 do. Thank you.
24 MS. KORNER:
25 Q. And if we look at page 4 -- are we on page 4? Yes. Exactly. I
Page 406
1 think it's the top -- it's the top part where he's -- thank you very
2 much. Obviously he's discussing the Yugoslav People's Army, and then the
3 part I think you'd like to draw the Trial Chamber's attention to,
4 Dr. Donia, starts "Due to this"; is that right?
5 A. Yes, in the first line.
6 "Due to this, when it became necessary together with my
7 associates, I organised for volunteers from the area of our municipality
8 and neighbouring municipalities to travel to the barracks as assistants
9 and for training. The response from the volunteers shows that there is
10 currently a sizable number of the same who are for Yugoslavia and for the
11 JNA. The volunteers that we sent as assistance to the JNA are of Serb
12 nationality. If members of other nationalities had expressed the same
13 wish, they would have been eagerly welcomed into the JNA as volunteers.
14 Unfortunately, they remained faithful to the practice of implementing the
15 policy of obstruction toward the JNA and did not respond to our calls for
16 assistance to the JNA."
17 Q. Right. Now, the importance of that is in your expert opinion,
18 Dr. Donia, is what?
19 A. The president of the municipality who was tasked with integrating
20 these functions as a part of the instructions from December indeed took
21 it as a part of this to actually go out and recruit from not only his
22 municipality but other municipalities these volunteers which would then
23 enter the JNA.
24 Q. I'd like to have called up, please, immediately 3404, please.
25 And may I ask, Your Honours, this be admitted as an exhibit.
Page 407
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes, you may, but can I just put one question to
2 Dr. Donia? In relation to this observation by Mr. Adzic, because if the
3 volunteers didn't want to go to -- or join the JNA, then where did they
4 go to? Do you know or is that a --
5 THE WITNESS: Well, as a general point at this time, most of
6 those Muslims and Croats who were either mobilised as reservists or asked
7 to volunteer simply stayed home. They did not join the JNA at this point
8 or any force at this point.
9 The process of the JNA accepting these volunteers had been laid
10 out fairly recently, like in December or so of 1991, by the JNA senior
11 command, and so it was simply a matter of taking these folks to the
12 barracks, giving them a certain amount of training and then adding them
13 as volunteers to the JNA. So it was a simple process for those who were
14 Serbs who wanted to volunteer for this kind of association to do so, but
15 very few members of other groups did and were in more of a boycott mode
16 than actively engaging with other forces.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you for this answer. Which brings me to
18 another clarifying question, and I'm not take up too much time of the
19 Prosecution's time, but you said that they would become -- those Serbs
20 who actually then did volunteer and did join up, sign up for the -- for
21 the JNA, they became, to use your expression, volunteers of the JNA.
22 THE WITNESS: Yes.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: What -- what does that mean? What -- were
24 volunteers members of the JNA, or were they outside and sort of
25 semi-attached to the JNA? What was their -- how were they integrated
Page 408
1 into the JNA?
2 THE WITNESS: That's -- the answer to that is probably beyond my
3 expertise to say.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: In that case, then don't answer.
5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we'll be hearing from Mr. Brown on --
6 on this.
7 THE REGISTRAR: And if I may interrupt, 65 ter 3403 will become
8 Exhibit P20.
9 MS. KORNER: 3404, please, very quickly because I think this is
10 effectively simply General Milosevic confirming -- General Dragomir
11 Milosevic confirming what Mr. Adzic was effectively saying there. And
12 we -- I think he talks about Ilijas somewhere, right at the bottom.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. "In Ilijas, the municipality president."
15 A. He really is speaking about what happened after the war began to
16 Mr. Adzic:
17 "In Ilijas, the municipality president, Ratko Adzic, led the
18 defence of the Serbian people and commanded the units in the initial
19 period of war. According to many evaluations thanks to his timely
20 preparations and the subordinating of social and political life to the
21 defence of the Serbian people, this town was successful in facing and
22 respelling the Muslim aggression."
23 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Your Honour, may that please be
24 admitted.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
Page 409
1 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P21, Your Honours.
3 MS. KORNER:
4 Q. I'm now going to move specifically to matters that relate to the
5 MUP participation in these events and some of the documents there. I'm
6 going to leave out, Dr. Donia, the Assembly minutes, I'm afraid, because
7 of timing, and ask you to come to an interview which was with Malko
8 Koroman who this Chamber has already heard about. Tab 30 in your binder.
9 MS. KORNER: And could I have 1392, please, on the screen. Page
10 2 in English, page 2 in B/C/S.
11 Q. I think this was a -- is this right? This was an interview with
12 him in a magazine, some sort of police magazine, wasn't it?
13 A. It was a magazine which was the publication of the Republika
14 Srpska MUP, the Ministry of the Interior.
15 Q. Right. And it's November of 1994. And just if you could remind
16 the Trial Chamber who Malko Koroman was.
17 A. Malko Koroman was the commander of the police -- of the police
18 station in -- in Pale. He was -- actually, that title would be the
19 commander of MUP in -- in Pale.
20 Q. Right.
21 A. And so he was in the authoritative position at that time to have
22 observed what went on.
23 Q. And perhaps just before we look at what he said, from your
24 researches, and I think -- how did the MUP figure, as briefly as you can,
25 Dr. Donia, in the general take-overs that took place?
Page 410
1 A. Well, very briefly, it was an integral part of the take-over of
2 many municipalities, and in those cases in which the city -- or the
3 Municipal Assembly was already under SDS control, frequently that police
4 force was already a largely or exclusively Serbian police force. In
5 other cases the MUP that we're talking about was a product of the split
6 away from the police of Bosnia-Herzegovina to create a separate Serbian
7 MUP in the various municipalities. But those two variants both came down
8 to the fact that the Serbian MUP participated in these take-overs.
9 Q. And if we look at the -- that interview of Mr. Koroman, if --
10 yes. I think it's the -- the penultimate paragraph in English, "The war
11 started," and then, "After Vrsac."
12 A. Yes.
13 "The war started in the night between 1 May 1992 and 2 May 1992
14 with a part of our units. We started the defence of the Internal Affairs
15 School and Serbian Sarajevo
16 regions - the villages toward Renovica and Gorazde." It would be to the
17 south. "Later we mainly dealt with the defence of the Serbian land in
18 the Pale municipality.
19 "We participated in all the actions, as the organisers, until
20 the VRS, Army of Republika Srpska, was formed. At that time, on Pale,
21 there existed all the authority institutions as well. We performed all
22 the police work securing individuals and buildings and whatnot, and there
23 today Pale is free, Serbian, and a," it should be "wonder," "for all the
24 world."
25 Q. Yes. Could I call up next, please, the -- yes, I was going to
Page 411
1 ask -- the document 1490. Can that -- that can start happening, and
2 could I ask that that Exhibit 1392 be admitted?
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: It's admitted.
4 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
5 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P22, Your Honours.
6 MS. KORNER:
7 Q. It's tab 31. I'm so sorry, Dr. Donia.
8 MS. KORNER: And page 2 of the English and 2 of the B/C/S as
9 well.
10 THE WITNESS: All right. Yes.
11 MS. KORNER:
12 Q. This is an intercept of a conversation between Milosevic and
13 Karadzic on the 9th of September 1991, and what does that show in respect
14 of the question of the establishment of the MUP and the use of the MUP?
15 A. The -- the intercept happened at a time there was a great deal
16 going on. It was a very event-filled day and night, and Karadzic was
17 sharing with Milosevic in almost offhand fashion some of his thinking
18 long-term about what he wanted to accomplish when he said "They're simply
19 going for a division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and we are going to implement
20 a regionalisation and introduce our MUP wherever we're in power because
21 what they've done is unacceptable."
22 Now, this is in September a full seven months before actual
23 hostilities began, and -- yeah, stop there.
24 Q. Right.
25 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Your Honour, may that, please, be
Page 412
1 admitted?
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
3 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P23, Your Honours.
4 MS. KORNER:
5 Q. Now, I'm afraid I'm going to omit again some more of the Assembly
6 sessions that you wanted to draw attention to, Dr. Donia, but from your
7 reading, how much interest was Karadzic showing in the developments of
8 the MUP?
9 A. From time to time he expressed -- made specific statements
10 indicating that he was following very closely developments in the MUP,
11 and at times took -- on a number of occasions made prescriptions on
12 exactly what the MUP should be doing, who should be leading it and how it
13 should be conducting its business.
14 Q. Next I want to move to the six strategic goals that were
15 enunciated by Dr. Karadzic on the 12th of May.
16 MS. KORNER: And could we have up, please, 1643. This is the
17 actual publication of the strict -- six strategic goals.
18 Q. Now, I think this is right, Dr. Donia, and there's no dispute.
19 It wasn't actually -- although enunciated as the Court's seen from
20 looking at the minutes of the meeting, they weren't actually published
21 until November of 1993. Is that right?
22 A. That's correct.
23 Q. And do you know the reason why it took so long?
24 A. Well, they actually had a debate about whether they should be
25 published or not, and Krajisnik favoured publishing them immediately so
Page 413
1 that they would be -- they would be known to all the world. Karadzic and
2 others favoured not publishing them because they felt they gave away too
3 much of what the actual intent of the things were happening in terms of
4 political and military developments.
5 Q. So can we just go through those six goals. First:
6 "Establish state borders separating the Serbian people from the
7 other two ethnic communities."
8 Is there anything that you want to say about that particular
9 goal?
10 A. The term "separation," of course, it also occurred in the meeting
11 between Tudjman's people and Koljevic and in fact was a goal that had
12 been articulated in various ways long before this but formally endorsed
13 here as a strategic goal of the Serbian people.
14 Q. The second goal?
15 A. The second goal:
16 "Set up a corridor between Semberija and Krajina." I think does
17 deserve a little bit of explanation.
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. Along the northern boundary of Bosnia there ran a strip of land
20 which unlike the rest of the country was flat, agriculturally rich and
21 through which ran the Sava River
22 which became known as the -- well, it was known as the Posavina and
23 became known as the Posavina corridor was the primary link connecting on
24 the east the -- Serbia
25 Croatia
Page 414
1 Western Bosnia, the area of the Bosnian Krajina with those holdings in
2 the eastern part, making for almost like a saddle on a horse the shape of
3 these lands. This corridor was at points, particularly around the city
4 of Brcko, very thin, only a few kilometres at times, and so establishing
5 or maintaining this corridor was vital strategically to the Bosnian Serbs
6 but also to the Republic of Serbia
7 Croatian area.
8 Q. Well, I'm going to ask you to go through the rest of them and
9 then we'll pull up the map of -- of Bosnia and then if you can just
10 indicate -- describe and we'll indicate because we'll do it in Sanction.
11 The third goal: The corridor in the Drina River
12 A. Yes. And this pertains to the eastern part of Bosnia
13 a -- or a border with the Republic of Serbia
14 as stated here was to -- in saying they wanted to eliminate it as a
15 boundary, they didn't want to have a border between two Serb territories,
16 one on the Serbian side, side of the Serbian republic and the other on
17 the Bosnian side. It pertains to Eastern Bosnia, and the boundary
18 between Serbia
19 the Drina River
20 Q. Right. Next, the border --
21 "Establish a border on the Una and Neretva rivers."
22 A. Yes. This pertains really to major rivers which they saw as the
23 extent of lands that they wished to claim, the Una River
24 North-western Bosnia and the Neretva running right straight down the --
25 sort of the middle of the lower -- lower third of the country to the sea
Page 415
1 past Mostar.
2 Q. Number 5.
3 A. Number 5 essentially applies to Sarajevo the same goal stated in
4 number 1, which is to have it divided into national parts, Serbian and
5 Muslim, and then adds that there should be effective state authorities in
6 each.
7 Q. Now, from what you told the Court earlier this afternoon, how was
8 that to be achieved as far as the various municipalities were concerned?
9 In other words, was this going to be a simple job or a difficult job?
10 A. Well, it would be an extraordinarily difficult job to divide
11 Muslims and Serbs physically within the city of Sarajevo.
12 Q. And finally, ensure access to the sea?
13 A. Yes. Actually an underrated strategic goal, but because Bosnia
14 was land-locked in all except a very thin sliver of territory at the port
15 of Neum just a few kilometres wide, the Serbs wanted to have their own
16 access to the sea which would logically run through either Croatia
17 territory of the Republic of Serbia
18 Q. Can we just pull up the map of -- of -- the "Times" map that we
19 looked at yesterday just so that you can indicate to the Trial Chamber
20 the various -- we'll try and indicate if you describe. And it's in
21 Sanction, so we'll do it.
22 Okay. First of all, Semberija and Krajina.
23 A. Yes. One can see across the -- since this map does show
24 mountains, across the topside of the triangle this relatively flat and
25 fertile territory that runs from east to west just south of the Sava
Page 416
1 River. The town of Brcko
2 There it is. Was the place where the -- that umbilical cord was the
3 thinnest, the narrowest, and it was, too, the territories around Brcko
4 that one referred in speaking of the Posavina corridor from east to west.
5 Q. Next the Drina River
6 A. The Drina
7 irregular boundary in the northern half of the -- the boundary on the
8 right-hand side of the triangle, so when speaking of the Drina River
9 valley, they refer really to those lands of the Drina River
10 were in Bosnia
11 It was Serbs and Muslims almost exclusively, very few Croats, few, but
12 they were the two groups that were most dominant there.
13 Q. And just to make sure, we're on the right bit of the map, are we?
14 A. We've captured on this most of the boundary area for which the
15 Drina
16 begins in Bosnia
17 Q. Then finally the Una and --
18 A. Again those are -- the Una's in the upper left-hand corner of the
19 map there, and one sees it running through the city of Bihac.
20 Q. Yeah.
21 A. And then joining the Sava
22 in the lower third of the map running from the centre of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina, working its way south through Mostar and to the
24 Adriatic Sea.
25 Q. We can see it. Right.
Page 417
1 A. The Serbs were -- I mean, they wanted the right side. It would
2 be the, I guess the left bank, but the eastern side of that was they
3 viewed as theirs.
4 Q. All right. Yes, thank you. Again I'm afraid I'm going to omit
5 the various Assembly minutes, but perhaps you could give a summary to the
6 Trial Chamber of the strategic goals. How often did they tend to come up
7 in Assembly meetings?
8 A. The strategic goals were introduced by Karadzic going in
9 considerable detail over each one at the 16th Assembly session on
10 May 12th, 1992
11 they -- the iteration in each case is just -- I mean, they're not quite
12 the same, but they have the same essential content.
13 Subsequent to that, there are -- I've not been able to count
14 them, but many dozens, perhaps hundreds, of references to the six
15 strategic goals throughout the 63 Assembly sessions that I've looked at.
16 Q. Yeah.
17 A. They are cited by the leaders as kind of sacrosanct statements,
18 and they're often cited by individual delegates to argue for military
19 action on behalf of their particular municipality, and even after the war
20 was over, when the status of Sarajevo
21 Momcilo Krajisnik issued a very strong affirmation of the importance of
22 respecting the first strategic goal in any arrangements being made as a
23 part of the peace talks for Sarajevo
24 Q. Thank you very much, Dr. Donia.
25 MS. KORNER: Could that be admitted, please, Your Honours. It's
Page 418
1 on the 65 ter.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes, it's admitted.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P24, Your Honours.
4 MS. KORNER:
5 Q. Can we now look at a little bit on Sarajevo itself. Firstly, I'm
6 going to ask -- I'll have it called up and then I'll -- while that's
7 being called up deal with some other matters. 3409, please.
8 How did the Sarajevo SDS
9 the Variant A-B instructions?
10 A. They, first of all, held a meeting on the -- I believe the
11 25th of December to coordinate their responses at the city level to the
12 instructions. In the municipalities, which I've referred to in my report
13 as the west -- the municipalities of the western approaches, those SDS
14 leaders were generally enthusiastic executors of the A-B instructions.
15 Q. Can we look first of all then -- I think it's up on the screen,
16 pages -- I'm sorry. It's tab 17, Dr. Donia. And it's page 2 in the
17 English and page 2 in the B/C/S. And I think we saw on the screen that
18 it's a record of an intercept of a conversation on the 25th of December,
19 1991, between Karadzic and Jovan Tintor. Yes, could you tell the Court
20 first of all who Tintor was?
21 A. Yes. Jovan Tintor was the -- I'm not sure of his exact title. I
22 believe he was the president of the Municipal Assembly of Vogosca. He
23 was the head of the SDS
24 very active in coordinating activities of other SDS chapters or boards in
25 the western approaches, and he was particularly focused on the
Page 419
1 neighbouring municipality of Ilijas, which had a substantial Serbian
2 population but lacked an absolute majority, and so the -- he is reporting
3 in this intercept on what has happened in Ilijas in the very last days of
4 December 1991, because the vote in Ilijas Municipal Assembly required
5 that certain members of other parties of Serb nationality join the SDS
6 delegates in voting to attach Ilijas municipality to the SAO Romanija.
7 So in this conversation he says here about line 8 on the English:
8 "And now this issue at Ilijas municipality. Do you know how they
9 conducted that?"
10 And D, who is "Doctor," is Karadzic, says no.
11 And then he responds:
12 "There is one paper. I should fax it to you." That would be the
13 resolution. "Or I should deliver it to you. They voted for SAO
14 Romanija. We prepared seven Serbs, our Serbs. They are on the other
15 side, and they immediately left," that is, he's speaking here of
16 non-Serbs, "they immediately left and established another Assembly; and
17 now, this one is Croatian and Muslim's Assembly. It is a valuable
18 information, you see, you can create assemblies on your own, great, it
19 could be used on press conferences."
20 Q. Right. So he's explaining Dr. Karadzic what they've been doing?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Thank you.
23 MS. KORNER: May that please be admitted, Your Honours?
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P25, Your Honours.
Page 420
1 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
2 Q. And then can we look very quickly, please at 3410. Again this is
3 Mr. Tintor and someone else. It's in March of 1992. It's tab 18.
4 Oh, sorry, page 2 in English and page 2 in the B/C/S.
5 I don't think we know who Zika is, do we?
6 A. I don't.
7 Q. You don't anyway. Can we have page 2, please, in both?
8 What was Mr. Tintor talking about there?
9 A. At -- at the bottom of the page is the last six lines in the
10 English. I don't see that.
11 Q. Are we on the right page? It's clearly not the same as what's in
12 the B/C/S. Line 43. So we need -- can we go up the page or the next
13 page or whatever it is. Please, anybody. Okay. It's the next page.
14 A. Next page in the English.
15 Q. In the English, please. In the English, not the B/C/S. That's
16 not right.
17 [Prosecution counsel confer]
18 MS. KORNER: Can we find line -- in the English, line 44 -- it's
19 a different --
20 [Prosecution counsel confer]
21 MS. KORNER: Could we have the next page, please. Okay. There
22 appears to have gone another slight mishap, because -- no, no. We need
23 to have lines 43 -- next page, next page. Yes. Okay. It's actually
24 not. It's a slightly different version of it. I think it's line 10,
25 Dr. Donia.
Page 421
1 A. Ah, yes. "Of course, thank God, thank God, and we know what is
2 ours. We can't split us up just on the basis of municipalities. We will
3 attach and join them together in order to make a whole, which is normal.
4 We have from Sarajevo
5 Nis
6 same thing goes for Bosanski Novi," which is along -- in northern Bosnia
7 "I know if you are on their land that has to be --" something, "because
8 it is small, therefore, you don't have a reason for anything."
9 Q. Right. So how did what Mr. Tintor was saying there fit in to
10 what appears to have been the object of what was happening?
11 A. The --
12 MR. PANTELIC: Objection, calling for speculation.
13 [Trial Chamber confers]
14 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may I say, Dr. Donia is explaining
15 from his study of all the materials how this was developing, and I'm
16 asking him how this particular conversation fits into his understanding
17 of the whole situation.
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Zecevic.
19 MS. KORNER: Mr. Pantelic.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry, Mr. Pantelic. As I explained a while ago
21 to your colleague Mr. Zecevic, the difference between expert witnesses
22 and ordinary witnesses is that when you have an expert witness in front
23 of you, we have the benefit of allowing or seeking the expert's
24 interpretation of the evidence put before him. So I don't think that
25 your objection is particularly well-founded in this case. The -- the
Page 422
1 expert here is asked to provide his interpretation of an intercept that
2 is being put to him and that's perfectly legitimate.
3 MR. PANTELIC: Your Honour, if I may, respectfully disagree with
4 your approach. Number one, Dr. Donia is not an expert of analysing
5 intercepted calls, tapes, and other sort of forensic categories. He is
6 simply here to interpret or to explain his picture and understanding of
7 certain particular event.
8 I can understand that he, being historian, can give certain
9 expert opinion regarding the historical sources, documents, et cetera,
10 but, Your Honours, this particular fact with intercepted call that we
11 don't know who was the author of this operation, who made the transcript,
12 et cetera, it's really out of his --
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: No.
14 MR. PANTELIC: -- scope of expertise.
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Pantelic, you're confusing things now. One
16 thing is the authenticity of this intercept. If that is what you wish to
17 attack you can say so. The other thing, which is completely different,
18 is Dr. Donia's opinion and qualified interpretation about what is the
19 impact of this conversation assuming it is correct, of course, but if you
20 wish to challenge the authenticity, that's a completely different matter,
21 but your objection was that this is cause for speculation, and I disagree
22 and so does the Chamber.
23 MS. KORNER:
24 Q. Thank you. Doctor --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone, please.
Page 423
1 MS. KORNER:
2 Q. You've been looking over all the developments in Sarajevo. How
3 does what Mr. Tintor was saying here on the face of it fit into that
4 development?
5 A. The beginning of this statement that they -- "We can't split us
6 up just on the basis of municipalities," was the precise grievance that
7 Radovan Karadzic had expressed repeatedly alleging that the municipal
8 system in Bosnia
9 people, and he named several instances of that including most famously in
10 some rural areas where Serbs were dispersed among various municipalities.
11 So this begins very much consistent with Karadzic's complaints as
12 specifically embodied in the western approaches of Sarajevo, and his
13 remedy is the same as Karadzic's remedy which was to have contiguous
14 lands, contiguous Serb lands flowing over municipal boundaries and in
15 this case going all the way to Nis
16 land.
17 Q. Right. Thank you. And I want you to look at as quickly as we
18 can two more -- may that be admitted, please, Your Honour, and could we
19 have up immediately, please, 1593, and it's your tab, Dr. Donia, 25.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: And document 3410 was on the 65 ter list and it's
21 admitted.
22 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much, Your Honour.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P26, Your Honours.
24 MS. KORNER: Could -- did you hear? I said, Could we have up
25 1593. And this, I think -- it's page 7 of the English, please, and page
Page 424
1 8 of the B/C/S. It's not 1593. 1593. 1593 should be an interview with
2 Mr. Tintor. 65 ter number 1593. English? Right. Page 7, English; page
3 8, B/C/S.
4 Q. Right. I don't -- in fact, Dr. Donia, I think we can -- perhaps
5 we can summarise this.
6 A. It's up now, I believe.
7 Q. Yes. Can you -- yeah.
8 A. Yeah, yeah, okay. Just at the -- the lengthy paragraph in the
9 English there that begins at 20:07
10 was the commander of the Crisis Staff that was superior to the military
11 and civil authorities at the time. I took the job very seriously and
12 understood what had to be done at that time because you know that the war
13 in Sarajevo
14 received their specific tasks, and, of course, I went along with my
15 people with the units there where the Serbian territory is to defend it
16 and to establish the absolute peace and authority on our territory.
17 However, something we didn't expect happened."
18 Q. Right. And that, I think, was an interview in 1994 with
19 Mr. Tintor; is that right?
20 A. Yes. Part of this series of interviews that this programme did
21 with various wartime Serb leaders.
22 Q. Before this, the beginnings of a conflict period, was there the
23 same sort of mixing up of civilian leader -- political leaders
24 effectively taking up what appears to be military roles?
25 A. Yes. The events in Sarajevo
Page 425
1 the referendum on independence on March 1, 2, 3, in those events in which
2 the SDS
3 leaders of those people on the barricades were civilian SDS authorities
4 who were essentially exercising military functions, including Tintor who
5 spoke about this elsewhere in this interview.
6 Q. Right.
7 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may that please be admitted. In fact,
8 I think -- yes, there's one other part of the interview where I think he
9 makes it even clearer, but I think it will take too long to find, so
10 we'll leave that.
11 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P27, Your Honours.
12 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Next on this real same topic of the --
13 what was happening in Sarajevo
14 police magazine, which is 1392. That's already admitted, isn't it?
15 Q. Well, in that case, I think -- Dr. Donia, don't worry, we'll deal
16 with that because I know within there there's an interview with Malko
17 Koroman as well about taking control of Serbian regions, but it's already
18 been admitted.
19 So can we turn next to the -- a view of a take-over from a
20 civilian, as it were, and that I think was the diary of a man named
21 Vuksanovic, and you'll find that 3411, please, tab 36.
22 [Prosecution counsel confer]
23 MS. KORNER:
24 Q. While that's being looked for, and we're just going to have to
25 find out where the passage we want is, can you tell the Court, please,
Page 426
1 about Mr. Vuksanovic.
2 A. Yes. This diary was published in 1999 in its B/C/S original by a
3 publisher in Zagreb
4 period from about April -- March of 1992 until July of 1992 when
5 Vuksanovic departed Pale. He subsequently died in 1999, I believe.
6 The -- Vuksanovic was a professional journalist, and he was a native of
7 Pale. I forget which of his parents was buried in the Serbian Orthodox
8 graveyard and the other one was buried in the Catholic or -- Catholic
9 Croat graveyard. So he was one of those people of mixed parentage that
10 we spoke of earlier, and he absolutely detested anything associated with
11 nationalism, made that clear.
12 He was a very perceptive observer of things going on around him,
13 some of them based on hearsay but some based on direct observation, and
14 this particular passage I thought captured the same process of take-over
15 that Malko Koroman had been so excited, ecstatic about having executed
16 from the point of view of someone who thoroughly detested its outcome.
17 But this is on page 35. I don't see it.
18 Q. It's page 2 of the document we've got up because we haven't
19 copied the whole diary.
20 A. Okay. Yeah. Here is -- I see the English.
21 Q. And we're trying to find the B/C/S still, I'm afraid. I'm just
22 waiting. I'm told it will take a few more minutes to bring the B/C/S up.
23 I'm not sure why, but that's what's going to happen.
24 All right. Can I -- I don't want to lose it while it's up there.
25 Can I ask for the indulgence of my learned friends and have this read out
Page 427
1 in English with the translation, and we'll get the B/C/S up. Oh, we've
2 got it, have we?
3 A. Yes. This is the -- it's an entry of, I think, April, starting
4 there at the: "After I realised how blind I had been ...."
5 "The new Serb authorities have taken over all the hotels in Pale
6 and on Jahorina," which was another ski resort, "for their personal use.
7 Villas and the more commodious weekend cottages," the famous vikendicas,
8 "predominantly owned by Sarajevo Muslims have been seized and junior or
9 senior officials of the new regime have moved into them. The hotel in
10 Koran has been turned into a military hospital staffed by Serb doctors
11 who left Sarajevo
12 has become a strictly guarded helicopter landing field."
13 And then down five lines:
14 "The flag of the Serbian Democratic Party," the SDS, "flutters
15 over the police station while the entire civil administration in the
16 municipality is now subordinate to the new authorities. Everywhere in
17 Pale and on the surrounding hills check-points have been set up in order
18 to control the movement of civilians."
19 MS. KORNER: Right. I'm told that -- I'm told that I may have
20 got the wrong page up. In fact, it should be 22 and 23.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: May I remind you, you have five minutes left.
22 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much, Your Honour. All right. And
23 finally one last document, please, then -- oh, yes. Admit it or -- may
24 that be admitted, please, Your Honour?
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
Page 428
1 MS. KORNER: It was 3411.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P28, Your Honours.
3 MS. KORNER:
4 Q. And finally, Dr. Donia, in the five minutes I have left, one last
5 document dealing with the specific Sarajevo take-over.
6 MS. KORNER: 65 ter 65, please, which is a report in
7 "Oslobodjenje", on the 1st of April, 1992.
8 Q. And it's tab 37, Dr. Donia, for you. I must wait. It seems a
9 very suitable way in one way, to end up with topic of the day, "Division
10 within the MUP BiH." And I think it's the fifth page in English of the
11 article which deals with a report on what happened in Ilijas on the
12 31st of March. More on the fifth page and that's what we're looking for.
13 We don't have the fifth page?
14 Any luck, Dr. Donia, in seeing the --
15 A. I'm not sure what exactly we're looking for. I could, I think,
16 be instructed just --
17 Q. Yeah.
18 A. -- if I read this one paragraph. This is taking place on the day
19 after the announcement by Momcilo Mandic that a separate Serbian MUP is
20 being established, and that announcement set off responses by leaders of
21 the various groups, and this particular article deals with the response
22 of the minister of interior of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
23 "The division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and
24 Herzegovina
25 Mandic, deputy minister, invited 'according to the constitution of the
Page 429
1 Serbian Republic
2 nationality to put themselves at the disposition of the MUP of Serbian
3 republic today on the 1st of April. Minister Alija Delimustafic, in his
4 telegraphic message directed to the members of the service, says all that
5 is -- said that all that is just -- all that is just manipulation of the
6 people with evil intentions and he is appealing: Do not allow anybody to
7 separate you from your colleagues."
8 Q. Well, that's not what I expected. I don't think that's what you
9 expected, but that's it, I'm afraid, Dr. Donia. Thank you very much.
10 MS. KORNER: Could we have that admitted. It's on our 65 ter
11 list, please.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
13 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P29, Your Honours.
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: Madam Korner, does this conclude your
16 examination-in-chief.
17 MS. KORNER: It concludes the time you have given me,
18 Your Honours, so it concludes my examination.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you for keeping up. I give the floor to
20 the Defence. Mr. Cvijetic.
21 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation] Good evening, Your Honour. I have
22 not had the opportunity to address you so far.
23 Cross-examination by Mr. Cvijetic:
24 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Donia, I'm Slobodan Cvijetic, attorney. I'm
25 a member of the Defence team. I'm co-Defence counsel representing
Page 430
1 Mr. Mico Stanisic.
2 First of all, I'm going to deal with some general aspects of the
3 testimony in my general cross-examination where I expect a high degree of
4 concordance. History, as a scientific discipline that you are involved
5 with and in your approach to the study of historical events, there are a
6 number of methodological principles. One of them mentioned today deals
7 with sources whether they are primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on and
8 so forth, however, having followed the trials where you testified as an
9 expert witness so far, I believe that there was sufficient discussion of
10 the sources and their utility in historical examinations, so since all of
11 these matters have already been introduced along with your testimony, I'm
12 not going to dwell too long on the quality of the sources that you use
13 except in those cases where I have specific comments to make.
14 I'm going to say one thing where I expect more or less agree on.
15 History, in its methodology, as a scientific discipline, requires time,
16 distance between the event that occurred and its study. Am I correct?
17 A. I would say that distance increases the quality of the history
18 that one can write. Distance in time, particularly. But doesn't
19 necessarily preclude contemporary history, that is events up to, you
20 know, yesterday afternoon as part of a longer process.
21 Q. Mr. Donia, could you be decisive? Would you agree with me that
22 the majority of historians believe that a time distance of scores of
23 years or longer is required for such study?
24 A. No, I wouldn't agree that they feel it is required. Plenty of
25 historians will undertake and -- undertake successfully to write history
Page 431
1 with much less time having passed since the events they are studying.
2 Q. I assume that then you will not agree with me when I say that
3 this distance is something that the majority of serious historians set at
4 30 years and many of them even longer?
5 A. No, I wouldn't agree with that normative a description of a time
6 that must pass. No, I wouldn't say that's the case. I also wouldn't say
7 that most historians have that viewpoint. Some -- some certainly do.
8 Typically those who study things like the Middle Ages or the early modern
9 period will argue strongly for the value of distance, but others would
10 not -- would not agree with the statement either.
11 Q. To be quite sincere, I don't expect you to agree with me in
12 everything, but I hope that the Trial Chamber will to agree -- agree with
13 some of the positions of the Defence. I'm going to give you several
14 reasons that would justify the existence of such a time distance, and you
15 can, as a historian, perhaps add some reasons for that, and perhaps you
16 may agree with some of those reasons.
17 For example, would you agree that throughout history it happened
18 frequently that in certain state systems in a specific time-period
19 certain state structures for the purposes of short-term political goals
20 or daily political goals fabricate and falsified history in order to
21 achieve those temporary or short-term political goals, and -- I
22 apologise. I must permit you to answer first.
23 Do you know about this historical truth, that this is something
24 that occurs in many regimes?
25 A. Absolutely. I agree with you, yes.
Page 432
1 Q. I'm going to state the following reason: Frequently it would
2 happen that archive material would be concealed or destroyed, and that
3 archives of intelligence services would sometimes be locked away for
4 50 years, that some major political figures decide that after scores of
5 years to tell the truth and to state the arguments for doing that. Are
6 these some reasons that you would be able to accept?
7 A. Except --
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm really sorry, and I know -- I know
9 this is a [indiscernible] of time, but there are about three questions
10 wrapped up in these, and it's difficult to know when Dr. Donia says,
11 "Yes, I agree," what he's agreeing to. And it would be simpler if it's
12 broken down into shorter questions for the purpose of the transcript.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: Dr. Donia, I think --
14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry. I expect Dr. Donia himself would be able
16 to distinguish between the questions put to him, but for clarity's sake,
17 Mr. Cvijetic, I, too, would appreciate if you could --
18 MR. CVIJETIC: Okay.
19 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- put one question at a time. Thank you.
20 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation] I'm going to ask Dr. Donia if he's
21 able to answer this last question. If not, I will break it down.
22 Q. You are able to? All right. Please go ahead.
23 A. Yes. I do agree that the opening of archives, which often
24 happens over a longer period of time, is of great value to the historian
25 seeking to produce a good work of history. In some cases those archives
Page 433
1 may come open in a very short period of time and reveal things very
2 quickly, so -- again I would -- I would just simply say I don't think
3 that I would agree with your normative statement of 30 years or a
4 specific time-frame, but as identifying a factor in improving and the
5 general concept that history improves with age, I would agree with you.
6 Q. Very well. Can you agree with me, then, that history is full of
7 such historical facts which after certain period of time acquire quite a
8 different appearance and significance after a certain period of time has
9 passed and after certain things have happened, such as the opening of
10 archives and so on, and were you ever, as an historian, aware of the
11 experience that something that is considered a historical fact later
12 turns out as not a fact?
13 A. Certainly. There are many instances of presumed facts later
14 turning out to be in error or disproven by other documentation, but again
15 that is not necessarily a factor of time. The Middle Ages was 800 years
16 ago. We probably haven't discovered many new documents about the
17 Middle Ages of Bosnia
18 the same arguments about the --
19 Q. Mr. Donia, yes, you were quite clear. You were clear. I think
20 the first part of the answer that I required was an affirmation. There
21 is no need, although we could continue to elaborate further.
22 Would you agree with me that adopting historical judgements about
23 major historical events at the time that they are still happening or
24 shortly after the event itself is something that is too early and
25 historically unacceptable?
Page 434
1 A. No.
2 Q. Very well. Let us continue. I'm going to give you an example.
3 This Tribunal was established in 1993, at the point in time when war was
4 still going on in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina
5 began to be processed by the Tribunal immediately after the war. When I
6 say "immediately after the war," I do have in mind this historical
7 distance. Do you agree with this?
8 I'm going to explain the question. Do you agree with me that
9 this term "immediately after" can cover these few years between the end
10 of the war and the beginning of the processing of the first cases? I'm
11 sorry, I'm not allowing you to finish, but you did testify in some of
12 these first cases that were tried, so you know how long ago that was and
13 how it proceeded.
14 A. I'm sorry, I lost the question in -- I didn't really understand
15 the specific question.
16 Q. Would a period of four or five years after the war can be
17 considered as a period immediately after the end of the war in view of
18 this thesis that I have stated about historical distance?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You agree with me. Okay. Are you aware, and you should be
21 because we heard that you testified in some ten cases, and I know exactly
22 in which cases you testified, I did follow your testimony in those cases,
23 then you should be aware that this -- this court, in the context of the
24 historical context of events, took the facts from these cases that were
25 heard by the Tribunal at first as adjudicated facts and continues to use
Page 435
1 them in subsequent cases, including this one? Are you aware of this
2 about the adjudicated facts?
3 A. I'm aware of the practice of accepting adjudicated facts, yes.
4 Q. Yes. This is what I was thinking of exactly. Many of those
5 facts are based, amongst other things, on the testimony of experts,
6 including historical experts, expert witnesses; is that correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I'm going to try to show you on an example how one fact can
9 evolve during the work of the Tribunal. I'm going to ask you
10 specifically the fact or date -- data about 200.000 Muslims killed and
11 40.000 Muslim women raped in Bosnia
12 A. That was -- that was the number that was used, I would say,
13 during the war and immediately after the war, prior to the completion of
14 demographic studies that came up with a -- with a lower number. The same
15 was true of World War II, actually.
16 Q. [In English] Okay. [Interpretation] So do you agree with my
17 assertion that this data that I have just referred to was used for a long
18 time and this Tribunal, to a good extent, was established on the basis of
19 this particular piece of information?
20 A. I can't speak to that latter part of the question as to whether
21 the Tribunal was established based on that information.
22 Q. Simply you don't agree with my assertion, and we will continue.
23 Is that correct?
24 A. No, I really don't have any information to be able to --
25 Q. All right. All right.
Page 436
1 A. -- agree or disagree with that premise of yours.
2 Q. [In English] Okay. Okay. [Interpretation] Do you know what the
3 latest demographic data is precisely about the number of casualties and
4 the breakdown?
5 A. Precisely, no.
6 Q. Would you be surprised by the fact or information from Sarajevo
7 sources, from a Muslim demographer who places the total of victims of all
8 the three peoples at, let's say, 95 or 96.000, 60-odd thousand of whom
9 are Muslims, 20.000 something are Serbs and about 28.000 are Croats.
10 Would you be surprised by this information?
11 A. No. I'm very familiar with the work that you're citing.
12 Q. Since this witness is not a protected witness and I think the
13 Prosecution is not going to call this witness, this demographer, you
14 probably know his name, but according to information from him, I think he
15 said that about --
16 THE INTERPRETER: And the interpreter did not hear the exact
17 figure.
18 MR. CVIJETIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. -- women were raped from all three peoples. Do you recall that
20 piece of information?
21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note, could the counsel please
22 repeat the number of the women raped.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: Dr. Donia, I am sorry that I have to interrupt.
24 It's 7.00 and we have to adjourn until tomorrow. And as the
25 Presiding Judge has announced, we will meet tomorrow at 9.00 in
Page 437
1 Courtroom I. And I believe that the Stanisic Defence team has been
2 given, I'm not sure, somewhere between three and four hours altogether
3 for its cross-examination. So we shall meet tomorrow at 9.00 in
4 Courtroom I. This meeting is adjourned.
5 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.00 p.m.
6 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 17th day
7 of September, 2009, at 9.00 a.m.
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