¹⁶¹⁸ THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL CASE NO. IT-94-1-T FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

IN THE TRIAL CHAMBER Friday, 31st May 1996

(10.15 a.m.) (Hearing in closed session-released by Trial Chamber II on 13 October 1996). WITNESS P, recalled

Examined by MR. TIEGER, continued.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Mr. Tieger, are you ready to proceed?

MR. TIEGER: Yes, your Honour.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: We are in closed session. I will ask the persons in charge of maintaining this in a closed session technically to confirm that fact. Very good. OK, thank you. You may proceed, Mr. Tieger.

MR. TIEGER: Thank you, your Honour. (To the witness): (redacted), just before yesterday's adjournment you were discussing methods of achieving greater Serbia through ethnic cleansing which were advanced by Serbian nationalists and successfully implemented in 1992. I had asked you just before the adjournment about Stevan Moljvic. You indicated that he, among other things, had identified the borders of a proposed greater Serbia. I believe you were about to look at Exhibit 2, a map, to indicate the borders identified by Stevan Moljvic. Can we have that exhibit placed in front of the witness, please? May we have that placed on the elmo? (redacted), can you indicate the borders identified by Stevan Moljvic as his propoSAO for greater Serbia? ¹⁶¹⁹

A. In his work "Homogenous Serbia" of 1941, Stevan Moljvic proposed the areas which

would be included in greater Serbia outside the borders of Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II. These areas are both on the east and west side, that is, on the north and south part of Serbia, but the south western borders are more important as they were borders that the war of '91, that is, 92 was all about. Stevan Moljvic says that those areas which Serbia conquered in Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 should be joined to Serbia, and these are in Macedonia or, rather, part of Macedonia which was in the former Yugoslavia, so this is it. So, Macedonia, then part of Sandzak which was conquered during Balkan wars, it is here roughly, Sandzak, which is a region which in the post World War II Yugoslavia was divided between three republics, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro. So this part was to become part of Serbia, then Montenegro as a whole and then -- so in the south and south east, northern parts of Albania here, parts of Bulgaria in the Danube Valley, that is, Wallachian lowlands and part of Romania called Banat which is up here. As for the western borders, the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina in its present frontiers should have been annexed to Serbia, the whole of Dalmatia, Dalmatia here from, that is,

the border with Montenegro to roughly up here to Zadar, so this whole area; parts of Lika which is here, parts of Banija and Kordun which are here, west Slovenia. These are areas north of the Sava River and in Vance Owen plans, they were called sector north, that is, west ¹⁶²⁰ Slovenia. Parts of this area, Pakrac and Nova Gradiska, parts round Bjelovar, whole Srijem which goes as far as, stretches as far as, Vinkovci and then Baranja and the areas towards the Sava. These western borders are of paramount importance in this particular case, because JNA define them as -- it defined as its border, that is, the border on which it would establish its front line would be Karlovac, Virovitica, Karlobag. They are here. Karlobag is on the coast. Karlovac come here in this narrow spot between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia and Croatia, and Virovitica is up there, up above the "Croatia", where it says "Croatia".

Q. So, in addition to the other territories, you indicated the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina was to be included in a homogenous and expanded Serbia, according to Stevan Moljvic?

A. Yes, yes, the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina, except that in his programme Moljvic

suggested to grant autonomy or special status to some areas. Special status was to be granted to the city of Dubrovnik and the surrounding area as Dubrovnik was known in its history as the Republic of Dubrovnik. So it is this area here, and Dalmatia north to north, north west of Dubrovnik should also be granted special status. It is this part here, and part of west Herzegovina which is inhabited mostly by Croats or, rather, Roman Catholics and they were also to be granted autonomy, according to Moljvic.

Q. I noted in the extracts you prepared concerning historical advocates of greater Serbia the name Milan Nedic appears; can you tell us who ¹⁶²¹ Milan Nedic was?

A. Yes, Milan Nedic was in the kingdom of Yugoslavia, he was an army officer of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia and he was the Prime Minister of the puppet state of Serbia under German occupation. He developed further Moljvic's propoSAO because Moljvic did not explain how the non-Serb population would be moved out. In his work "Homogenous Serbia", simply said that the matter had to be solved. Nedic elaborated it in much greater detail.

He says that from this area, that from the territory of greater area, about 2,600,000 people should be moved out and another 2 million something should be moved in from other

areas. He is very specific in his propoSAO and even says from what district, from what municipality, should be sent away, should be moved out, and how many should be moved in. He calls his work "ethno-graphic problem of Serbia", and he emphasises in this work that the Muslims constitute a special, a particular, problem and that it has to be solved at the first stage.

Q. Did Nedic indicate what an acceptable level or percentage of Muslims would be in an expanded Serbia?

A. Nedic did not mention any specific figure, what allowance, what number of non-Serb population would be tolerated in greater Serbia. He simply developed and explained the model according to which the movement of the Muslims should be solved in three stages as part of the overall solution of greater Serbia, but the number of ¹⁶²² non-Serb population,

that is, not only Muslims but all the others that were specified in this war; and so,

therefore, the area of Krajina it was said that about two per cent, up to two per cent, of the total population could be tolerated, according to the Crisis Committee of the SAO Krajina -- not more than two per cent.

Q. Who was it that said in 1992 that the upper tolerable limit on the presence of Muslims in Krajina would be two per cent?

A. In '92 this was said by the President of the Crisis Committee, Radoslav Brdjanin.

Q. That would be a reduction in that region to two per cent from approximately what percentage of the population?

A. In the region of AR Krajina where there were about 500,000 non-Serbs, it would mean a drop from about 30 to 40 per cent to be reduced to two per cent. I believe that this region, AR Krajina was developed in, AR Krajina, Autonomous Region of Krajina, was

developed in two versions; under one project it would have about 2 million population and under another one about 1.half a million, but in both the percentage of the population was not more than 500,000 which was the existing figure.

JUDGE STEPHEN: Can I ask a question? The region of Krajina you talk of, looking at this map in front of us, is partly in Croatia and partly in Bosnia-Herzegovina along the borders between those two, is that so? I wonder if you could just indicate the Krajina that you are talking of? ¹⁶²³ No?

A. There are two Krajinas and it can give rise to confusion. In the territory of the Republic Serb Krajina, that was Krajina in Croatia and it is this area here, Lika, Banija and Kordun, part of east Slovenia up here and west Slovenia. This was before the summer of '95, that is, until last summer when the army of the present Croatia occupied these regions, so this would be the territory of the Republic Serb Krajina, and that is, one might think that it is the same area, but the Autonomous Region of Krajina that I am referring to is the area of Bosanska Krajina, Bosnian Krajina, so this is this part, with the exception of Bihac, and it was not in Croatia. The Autonomous Region of Krajina was entirely in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, excepting the area around Bihac.

MR. TIEGER: The area that you have just referred to in Bosanska Krajina, that was the area which the President of the Crisis staff indicated where the Muslim population should be reduced to two per cent?

A. Yes, but not only Muslims. I am talking about the tolerable number of non-Serbs which means both Muslims, Croats and others. In this area, especially around Prnjavor, there were about 20 different ethnic groups before this war. So that the tolerable number up to two per cent refers to all of them, not only Muslims. It is that area, that is correct, the Autonomous Region of Krajina, which was under the jurisdiction of the Crisis Staff.

Q. You indicated that Nedic talked about the reduction of the population, the non-Serb population, in three stages. What were those three ¹⁶²⁴ stages?

A. According to his ideas, the problem of non-Serbs was to be solved by creating impossible conditions for them so that some would leave on their own, that is, the attitude of authorities towards them, various forms of pressure and terror; and then another one was to be deported, to be banished, expelled; and the third part which would remain there, those who would not fit into the joint plan were to be liquidated. Those were the three stages.

Q. (redacted),I would like to ask you now about the elections of 1990. First of all, let me ask you to identify the parties principally involved in that election.

A. The elections of 1990 brought about very many new political parties which were at republic levels, that is, parties which wanted to win seats in the Republic Assembly and there were also parties which had only local ambitions, that is, in municipalities. In Bosnia-Herzegovina at the level of the republic, that is, parties which were contesting seats in the Republican parliament, were SDA, SDS, HDZ, the League of Communists, SDP, it was called the League of Communists, the Party for Democratic Changes, the Alliance of Reformist Forces of Yugoslavia, the Liberal Party, the Civic Democratic Alliance, that is, Democratic Alliance of the Socialists which is the same thing.

During the campaign or, rather, at the outset of the electoral campaign, a part of SDA split off and formed a new political party called MBO, Muslim Bosniak Organisation, which ¹⁶²⁵ also took part in the elections.

(24 lines redacted) ¹⁶²⁶

(24 lines redacted)

Q. At the time of the elections in 1990 in terms of their public ¹⁶²⁷ platforms and pronouncements, were the leading parties, the SDA, the SDS and the HDZ, relatively similar or different at that time?

A. As regards political programmes, the political programmes of these parties, very similar for a simple reason, that the law on (redacted) associations, on citizens' associations, (redacted) served as a legal ground for the foundation of political parties, and their filing of records explicitly prohibited any nationalistic provisions or parts in the political programmes and statutes of the parties, and explicitly prohibited any reference to the possibility of disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In other words, no party could include any reference to any part that would mean such assumptions, such as references, because then it could not be registered nor take part in the elections. But offers made during the electoral campaign were quite different and on the eve of the elections, that is, one to two months before the elections, when the campaign escalated, those offers were made at organised meetings or rallies or again publicised, or in the media, and there one could already observe significant difference among the political parties -- all of them, I mean, not only those three. However, there was an evident difference between these three parties on the one hand and other parties on the other.

Q. Despite the facial similarity of the three leading parties, did they have extremist wings at

the time of the elections?

A. Yes, all three parties had their radical extremist wings. ¹⁶²⁸

Q. What was the position of the extremist wing of the SDS?

A. The position of the extremist wing of the SDS was what happened later on. The formation of a Serb state from Bosnia-Herzegovina or a part thereof, and the joining of all Serb lands to form one country; that was the radical position of the SDS.

Q. Was there an SDS in Croatia before the formation of the SDS in Bosnia?

A. Yes, there was. That party existed, I think, ever since the winter of January 1990, or maybe December 1989. I do not know exactly when they were founded or, rather, the exact date of their foundation and entry in the court register, but the SDS of Croatia participated in the elections in Croatia held more than six months before those in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the elections in Croatia were held at the end of April 1990.

At the time the Assembly of the Republic of Croatia was elected, which was

organised in the same way as it was before 1990 because the constitutional changes had

still not taken place, the leader of the Serb Democratic Party in Croatia was Jovan Raskovic, and extremist members of that party were Dusan Zelenbaba and Jovan Opacic.

Q. What was the position of Mr. Raskovic concerning greater Serbia?

A. Dr. Jovan Raskovic fully subscribed to the idea of a greater Serbia according to the maps of Stevan Moljvic. He wanted the unification of Serb regions, that is, regions in Croatia inhabited by Serbs, should ¹⁶²⁹ be joined to Serbia or, rather, the joint states of all Serbs on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Those are the regions I indicated, Lika, Banja Kordun, western and eastern Slovenia with Baranja.

Q. By 1992 had the views advocated or espoused by Jovan Raskovic become the predominant views of the SDS party in Bosnia?

A. I think that in 1992, I am not sure, but I think he died in Belgrade in 1992 or at the end of 1992. However, his positions were present within the SDS party in Bosnia, especially the views of the two extremists, Zelenbaba and Opacic or, rather, Zelenbaba -- he was the most extreme of the two. Jovan Raskovic was a mythical figure by then for the SDS of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. His positions were very important and highly esteemed.

MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, may I have this document marked as Exhibit 143 for identification, please? (Document handed). (redacted),do you recognise this document as an article from Kozarski Vjesnik which contains a reference to Jovan Raskovic?

A. Yes, Jovan Raskovic is mentioned here in the way in which he was, in fact, present in the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I would tender that exhibit for admission.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Is there any objection?

MR. WLADIMIROFF: No objection, your Honour.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Exhibit 143 will be admitted. MR. TIEGER (To the witness):(redacted) although the date of the article may not appear in the portion of the Serbo-Croat original which you have, ¹⁶³⁰ can you see the date of the article on the English translation?

A. Yes, July 15th 1994.

Q. In this article are the views of Raskovic characterised as extreme or instead as visionary?

A. This article talks of the visionary policies of Jovan Raskovic, but I must say -- not admit,

but say -- that Jovan Raskovic was not too extreme in his positions. He did not present

the platform in the way in which it was presented by his deputies like Dusan Zelenbaba. It is Dusan Zelenbaba who is the extremist in the Serbian Democratic Party of Croatia who insisted on arms, war and a conflict with Croatia.

Jovan Raskovic supported the platform of a greater Serbia and he wanted an independent Serb state in the territory of Croatia, but he did not insist on war as the one and only way

of achieving such a state. War was one of the possibilities, but he gave priority to a peaceful solution.

The extremists who were far stronger than he in the Serbia Democratic Party of Croatia changed many of his positions, and provoked the war in Croatia. They even forced him

not to accept the offer made to become Vice President of the Croatian Assembly in the summer of 1990. He rejected this offer because he was forced to do that by the extremists in his party in Croatia because they said that, "If you accept, you will be against us".

JUDGE VOHRAH: Mr. Tieger, do you think we could have the article on the ¹⁶³¹ elmo, please?

MR. TIEGER: Yes, your Honour, I am sorry.

JUDGE VOHRAH: Could the witness refer to the portions?

THE WITNESS: Yes, the positions of Jovan Raskovic are contained in the first paragraph.

MR. TIEGER: Is it the President of the Prijedor municipal board of the SDS who is speaking about Raskovic and his visionary policy?

A. Yes, it was visionary in the sense of the creation of a Serbian nation or the joining of all Serb lands, as it was referred to then, and from the positions of SDS this was a visionary policy.

Q. Did Raskovic's deputies, Zelenbaba and Opacic, continue to exert an influence on members of the SDS in Bosnia?

A. Not only instigated but they insisted directly on arming, on the war of Serbs, against the Ustasha, as they described all Croats. That is one of the major problems because for SDS all Croats were Ustashas. Dusan Zelenbaba and the founding meeting in Banja Luka, the founding meeting of SDS

for Banja Luka, said that all Serbs must purchase arms, if they cannot obtain them in other ways. He said that even he has only one car on which his life depends, he must sell it and buy a rifle. Nothing was as valuable as a rifle with which to fight for the freedom of the Serb people. That was his position, the position of Dusan Zelenbaba.

Q. What was Zelenbaba's position on the continuing presence of non-Serbs in the territories envisioned as greater Serbia?

A. He held an important political position in SDS. He was considered the ¹⁶³² leader of the extremist radical wing of the SDS of Croatia, and he was the leader. Thanks to his activities, Jovan Raskovic had to go to Belgrade and give up his post of President of the SDS for Croatia. With him at the time in 1990 on that extreme end were Milan Babic and Milan Martic. Their positions were even more important in view of the duties they performed.

Q. In addition to an extremist wing of the SDS party both in Croatia and in Bosnia, were there also extremist Serbian parties which advocated a greater Serbia?

A. Yes, in Serbia there were political parties advocating this idea because the elections in Serbia were held after the elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the course of 1990, the party advocating openly a greater Serbia with its western borders along the line Karlobag, Karlovac, Virovitica was the Serbian renewal movement headed by Vuk Draskovic. That party at the time was known for its extremist positions.

In the course of 1990 a division occurred within the Serb renewal movement into two political parties, that is, Vojislav Seselj withdrew from that party and founded his own, the Serb Radical Party, whose positions after it became independent were extremely radical, the most radical on the whole region of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. There was another political party in Croatia which was very radical, and which had similar views to those of Seselj's party, and that was the Croatian Rights party of Dobroslav Paraga. Vuk Draskovic also advocated the line of greater Serbia up to the elections in Serbia, ¹⁶³³ counting on such a policy winning him the votes of the electorate. However, when his party did very poorly at the elections he radically changed the positions of the Serbian renewal movement which, immediately after the elections in Serbia, started to criticise the radical views of the formation of a greater Serbia and to criticise the political parties that were continuing to advocate such a goal.

Q. Was there also a party of Serbian Unity?

A. Yes, there was a party of Serbian Unity headed by Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan, but that

party in the political sense in Serbia was quite marginal. It only participated in the area of Kosovo in Serbia in the elections, but it was important because of the formation of the

Serb National Guards as a military formation of that political party, and that Serbian National Guard later participated in the war in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It

exists to this day.

Q. Were the views of Seselj's Serbian Radical Party or Draskovic's Renewal Party, extremist views of these groups, disseminated to or made known to Serbs in Bosnia?

A. Yes, the positions of the Serbian Renewal Movement of Draskovic in the course of the 90s and the elections were well known in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even before the political parties were formed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. After the division that occurred within the party and the withdrawal of Vojislav Seselj and the formation of the Serbian Radical Party, both parties were present in the territory of ¹⁶³⁴ Bosnia-Herzegovina, both the Serbian Renewal Movement and the Serbian Radical Party.

Q. Through what means were the views of the Serbian extremists made known to the Serbian public in Bosnia?

A. Serbian Radical Party had one way of spreading its political views and positions, and that was rallies, public rallies, with large numbers attending -- at times tens of thousands of people. At those rallies those present were fanned with fiery speeches. In those fiery speeches which were catching for the masses, Seselj was particularly prominent with his calls for war and the formation of a single state in which all Serbs would live or, rather, the state of all Serb unity, as he called it.

Q. Were there historical symbols or other symbols of Serbian nationalism displayed at these rallies?

A. The Serb Radical Party had as the official insignia the Chetnik symbols, the Chetniks of the Balkan wars and the Second World War. After all, Vojislav Seselj himself was officially known as a Chetnik duke, a Chetnik leader, because he was appointed Vojvode by clergyman Momcilo Djujic, a war criminal, living in Chicago. I think this appointment occurred somewhere in 1989.

Momcilo Djujic was Commander of the Dimara Chetnik division during the Second World War which was based in Strimica near Knin and where the Chetnik movement was most powerful, not counting Montenegro, in the Second World War.

Q. During these rallies, the fiery speeches you mentioned, with respect ¹⁶³⁵ to those speeches, did they include portions designed to incite fear or hatred of other national groups?

A. Yes, of course. That was the basic meaning of those speeches, specially those of Vojislav Seselj. To instigate hatred and war; that was the only thing that he had to offer -- endless and unlimited hatred.

Q. You mentioned that these parties had a presence in Bosnia ultimately. Who was the Bosnian leader of the Serbian Radical Party, of Seselj's party?

A. At the time, that is, at the time of the elections in 1990, the Serbian Radical Party did not spread too much into

Bosnia-Herzegovina. The seat of the Serbian Radical Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time was in Banja Luka, and the President of the Serbian Radical Party was Cavic for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian Radical Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Later, the Serbian Radical Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina went through some transformation. It was enlarged. There was an increase in membership. The territorial organisation was spread out, and all this happened in the course of '92 and '93 and at the end of '93 the process of organisation was completed on the territory of the Republic of Srpska.

What is important is that the Serbian Renewal Movement was also present in Bosnia-Herzegovina with its extremist positions, and the Serbian Renewal Movement had the greatest influence in eastern Herzegovina, that is, the region of Trebinje, Bileca and Gacko, and it ¹⁶³⁶ was quite powerful in Bosnian Krajina. But in the course of the elections in 1990, in the region of Bosnian Krajina, both the Bosnian Renewal Movement and the Serbian Radical Party decided not to participate in the elections for the Municipal or the Republic Assemblies. But they advised their members and supporters to vote for the Serbian Democratic Party since, in their view, the Serbian Democratic Party was the best advocate of the interests of the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina and they fully

supported it.

Q. Just to clarify the geography of these parties, if I may: The Serbian Radical Party was led

by Vojislav Seselj and was headquartered in Serbia; is that right?

A. The Serb Radical Party had its headquarters in Belgrade and it is a political party of the Republic of Serbia, as one of the Republics of the former Yugoslavia. In 1990,

Yugoslavia had still not disintegrated or, rather, Croatia and Slovenia had not seceded

from Yugoslavia. Belgrade was still the capital. The Serbian Renewal Movement for Bosnia-Herzegovina had its headquarters in Sarajevo, for eastern Herzegovina in Bileca, I think, and for Bosnian Krajina in Banja Luka.

Q. There was a Bosnian branch of the Serbian Radical Party which was led by Mr. Cavic; is that right?

A. Yes. It was a part of the Serbian Radical Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina, because in the former Yugoslavia political parties ¹⁶³⁷ could be formed in that way for as long as it was a single state. It was possible for a political party to be formed in Serbia and to have its branch in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. In the same way, the Croatian Democratic Community was formed in Croatia and it had its branch in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. Instead of directly seeking political offices in the elections of 1990, the Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement threw their support behind the SDS?

A. Yes, they called on their members and supporters to vote for the SDS?

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Excuse me. May I ask a question? Was there a radical wing of the SDA party? You have talked of the radical part of the SDA party.

A. Yes, there was a radical wing of the SDA which immediately before the elections formed

its own Bosniak Muslim organisation. It was a more radical part of the SDA. However, in SDA radical and extremist members remained who had radical and rightist views, and they uphold them to this day.

Q. In the elections did the members of the radical wing of the SDA prevail or were there more moderate members of the SDA who won the elections of 1990?

A. The SDA won the elections without having publicised the differences within the party. Those problems emerged to the fore at a party Congress held after the elections in the autumn of 1991, when a division occurred, a rift, within the SDA with a highly radical position, but which was not right wing extremist, was Fikret Abdic as ¹⁶³⁸ a member of the SDA party and heading the other radically extreme position was a group formed around Omer Behmen and they remained in the party.

With time in the developments within the party itself in the course of '91, I think, yes, the moderate current had a stronger influence, particularly after the open withdrawal from the party by Fikret Abdic and his group which later formed the Autonomous Region of western Bosnia.

Q. Where was that region? Near Bihac?

A. Yes, north of Bihac, the municipalities of Cazin, Velika Kladusa -- they are in this part. Bihac is roughly here and the municipalities are in this part. Cazin and Velika Kladusa.

Q. What were the views of the radical or extremist wing of the SDA? What did they advocate, if you know?

A. Yes, I know that a part of them, the views advocated by the leaders of the Muslim Bosniak organisation, even during the election campaign, Mohamed Filipovic, known as "Tumjo", professor of philosophy from the Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy, and Adil Zulfikarpasic, who was a member of the immigration in Switzerland -- I think he is still living in Switzerland -- their view was that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be a unified state in which the Muslims would gradually acquire dominance over other political parties with

the growth of the number of inhabitants. In any event, the problem of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time in '91 was that all three of these political parties wanted the whole of ¹⁶³⁹ Bosnia-Herzegovina for themselves. The extremist Croatian orientation or policies or parties, such as the Croatian Rights Party, to this day in its premises have a map of Croatia with its borders along the Drina River which includes the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina. SDS wanted the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to include it in greater Serbia and SDA wanted its place for the Muslims throughout the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. For all three such extreme and radical options, there was simply no room in such a small area.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Thank you.

JUDGE VOHRAH: Just a point of clarification: You mentioned earlier on about a group called the MBA which split up from the SDA, is this the radical group, radical Muslim group, as far as you know?

A. It was a radical wing which existed right at the outset, at the foundation of the SDA and it wanted SDA to become an extremist organisation right at the beginning. This group did not like the policy of the SDA when it was founded and during the electoral campaign, and that is why they left this party, founded the Muslim Bosniak organisation, and took part in the elections upholding its own views. But then the Muslim Bosniak organisation again split into two later on and Tumjo Filipovic left it and set up the liberal Bosniak

organisation and the Muslim Bosniak organisation headed by Zulfikarpasic remained.

JUDGE VOHRAH: Thank you.

MR. TIEGER:(redacted),if I can pursue this a bit further? You described the ¹⁶⁴⁰ position of the

extremist members of the SDS and of SDS extremist parties concerning greater Serbia and the methods of achieving that greater Serbia. What was the position of the extremist wing of the HDZ?

A. The extremist -- the extreme wing of HDZ was made of several high ranking political officials of that party in Croatia, in the state of Croatia. Those were Anton Vrdoljak, Sime Djordan, Vladimir Seks. They wanted to create a greater Croatia in a very radical manner, that is, not only Croatia within the borders it had in the former Yugoslavia, but expand it including parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina Since this was an erroneous political concept during the elections, that is, the voters

in Croatia might resist it, Franjo Tudjman imposed stricter discipline on the extremists in

his own parties, so the much milder attitude, much milder policy, of HDZ won. But the Croat Rights Party of Dobrosav Paraga was prominent with its extremist views, of these radical views, and they never renounced their radical views.

Moreover, it was already 1990 that it formed its armoured units wearing black uniforms

and were known under the name of HOS, Croat liberation forces, H-O-S. Very extreme views of some HDZ members are still present today. Some three or four months ago, I saw on (redacted) television an address by Anton Vrdoljak, who is now the Chairman of the Croatian Olympic Committee, and who is asking young sportsmen of Croatia to win over ¹⁶⁴¹ Serbian athletes, saying that it is more important to -- that this is more important than winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games, or I do not know, a world title, and this is still incitement to hatred.

JUDGE STEPHEN: While we are on this topic, can I ask you, in relation to the Muslim power in Bosnia, did it have or does it have a distinct Islamic association beyond the borders of former Yugoslavia? I ask you this really because I have read of what President Izetbegovic has said in the past about this.

A. Yes, there were such associations. I was surprised in 1993 when some people were explaining to me why the sports hall in Sarajevo intended for ice hockey and chief

Olympic events in Sarajevo was called Zetra. Zetra means green, transfersal, that is,

Zelana transferzala, green thoroughfare, and this was an indication of the association of the link with the Islamic Fundamentalist movement in Iran, that is, Homeini.

However, this was not particularly evident in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not even in 1991. (redacted)

(3 lines redacted) (redacted). That influence was not felt either during the elections, that is, it was not significant, or in

the course of 1991 even though it was present among some SDA members. ¹⁶⁴² Unfortunately, that radical stand, that radical position, has won, and today it is very powerful.

JUDGE STEPHEN: Thank you.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Since we started late, we will continue for another 10 minutes.

MR. TIEGER: Thank you.(To the witness):(redacted)if extremist Serbs sought a unified state with Serbia and extremist Croats sought a unified state with Croatia, where did that leave the Muslim citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. The extreme SDA, the presence of the radical SDA wing was not much felt during 1991. I think that common sense prevailed at the time. They realised they were caught between and betwixt two strong nationalisms, Croat and Serb, so the Muslim extreme nationalism was rather suppressed, suppressed owing to good thinking. It was always there, but it was insignificant in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the election, at the time of the elections, and in 1991.

Q. During the rise of Serbian nationalism, just prior to the elections and around the time of the elections, was there any single charismatic figure around whom feelings of Serbian nationalism revolved?

A. Yes, the most prominent charismatic Serb figure was Slobodan Milosevic and he is indubitably a person who could mobilize the masses, was trusted infinitely, as only Tito

was trusted in the former Yugoslavia, whose pictures, whose photographs, were on the trucks, on buses, window shops, badges, flags, large placards, posters. I think he became such a charismatic ¹⁶⁴³ figure, such a powerful charismatic figure, in the course of 1988 suigeneris political tourism was organised in the form of all sorts of rallies held in Serbia,

in Vojvodina and part of Bosnia, and the finale of that rallying part was Gazimestan, and

the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the battle on Kosovo, 28th June 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic in his address (which was the central event of the whole

manifestation) said that Serbia was represented by all areas inhabited by Serbs, and that

the Serbs would resort to arms to defend themselves if need be. After that, his importance had no limits, had no boundaries.

Q. Did Milosevic's political appointments reflect his views on greater Serbia?

A. Yes, they did, they did, although at that time or, at least in 1989, in 1988 and '89, Milosevic was only the executor of the idea. He was only putting it into practice. The brain fathers were Dobrica Cosic and Vasa Cubrilovic. Later on, especially after Vasa Cubrilovic died in 1990 that, Milosevic rose above them, and after Dobrica Cosic was removed from the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and towards the end of 1991, Milosevic was the only figure of importance in that area, that is, the only figure behind which all the others rallied.

Q. You mentioned Cosic as one of the persons who put into practice the philosophy for which Milosevic was the ultimate executor. What were ¹⁶⁴⁴ Cosic's nationalistic views or his views on greater Serbia?

A. Dobrica Cosic, I have to say something about him. Dobrica Cosic was a prewar communist, I mean, preWorld War II. During World War II, he was, I believe, the commissar of the Kosmaj partisan detachment, novelist, story writer, and a very radical communist, especially as the political commissar with unlimited political authority in partisan detachments, frequently much more important, with much more say than the Commander of a particular unity. His work about that period is a novel "Far is the Sun" in which he describes a true event about his wartime days.

After World War II, sometime in the 50s, there was a disagreement between him and the central committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, political disagreement, so that

he was ousted from the League of Communists and fell into disgrace and remained so for some 15 years. He was almost in a kind of a house arrest. The pressure, I think, relented somewhat in the 70s. His views about greater Serbia, about its territories, were identical with Moljvic's. He is one of the brain fathers of the memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Q. You mentioned earlier that a kind of coalition was formed between the three major parties, the SDS, SDA and HDZ, before or at the time of the elections. What was the nature of the agreement reached by these parties prior to the election?

A. Those three parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina and before the elections, these three parties agreed to form the ruling coalition after the ¹⁶⁴⁵ elections, to assume the power. The elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina were anti-communist above all and they were expecting that within this manner they would win very many votes. Their expectations were justified; they did win indeed.

After the elections, they did form their coalition which was to be the ruling coalition of political parties in the Republic Assembly. Those three parties together had over 80 per cent of all the seats in the Assembly. However, the only thing that their coalition managed to do was to divide offices, to divide post, in the government, that is, to distribute ministerial posts in the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and executive posts in individual ministries. In everything else, the coalition failed. Quite the reverse; in this ruling coalition, the coalition of three parties, two blocks emerged. One was the SDS and the other HDZ and the SDA.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: We will stand in recess for 20 minutes, please.

(11.40 a.m.)

(Adjourned for a short time)

(12.05 p.m.)

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Mr. Tieger, you may continue.

MR. TIEGER: Thank you, your Honour. (redacted), just before the recess you mentioned that the coalition between the SDS, SDA and HDZ succeeded only to the extent that positions

were distributed and thereafter the work of the democratically elected government was not advanced by the coalition. Was the work of the Assembly frustrated by the failure of the coalition beyond the simple ¹⁶⁴⁶ distribution of positions?

A. The work in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina and relations within the ruling coalition, not only in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina but also in the municipal assemblies in which a similar distribution of departments was carried out at the municipal level, did not function. Problems could be felt already at the very beginning of 1991, three or four months after the beginning of the work of the new Assembly. Tension was always in evidence among the three parties of the coalition; differences of views on which they could not come to agreement, various outvoting on important issues, such as the passage of important laws, on the government, on the budget for instance, on internal affairs, because internal affairs were important as they included the police, responsibility for the police. Frequently, clashes flared at Assembly meetings at the republic and municipal levels. So that the general impression was that each of those three parties in the ruling coalition was following its own tracks, heading for its own goals.

Q. Let me ask you about the structure in this case of the SDS party. How was it organised?

A. All the political parties represented in the Republic Assembly, who had deputies in the Republic Assembly, were organised at the level of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole. SDS

as one of these powerful political parties and a member of the ruling coalition, assumed in its entirety the model of territorial organisation applied by the League of Communists. It simply had a ¹⁶⁴⁷ good example and a principle which, in that respect, functioned extremely well. So that the SDS was a political party in Bosnia-Herzegovina throughout its territory, and it had its municipal organisations at the level of each municipality as a territorial unit. The highest body of the Serbian Democratic Party was the Assembly which was meant to meet once in four years. In between two Assembly meetings, that is regularly, on a permanent basis, the highest organ of authority was the main board of the Serbian Democratic Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was a political body which decided on everything, everything in the area of political decisions. At the level of the municipalities, that is as the lower level of territorial organisation, were the municipal organisations of the Serbian Democratic Party headed by an Executive Committee of the party and this Executive Committee or Board was also the highest body at the municipality level and it was the decision-making body.

Q. You indicated that the SDS had as a model for its organisational structure the system which had existed in former Yugoslavia prior to the elections and the communist system. Did the SDS organisation both at the republic and local levels hold regular meetings?

A. Yes, the main Board of the Serb Democratic Party held regular meetings once a month, at least once a month, and many times more frequently depending on whether there was a need for them to meet more often. But they were obliged to meet at least once a month.

Q. Were members of the SDS obliged to attend?

A. The members of the main Board of SDS, of course, had to attend those ¹⁶⁴⁸ meetings. Also in the case of lower level meetings, that is the local Executive Committees, of course the members had to be present. When talking about the lower level below the municipal committees, that is the local SDS organisations which usually apply to the local commune, and when they held meetings of the local committee and meetings of all members of the party in that local commune, all members of the party should be present. The SDS, like other political parties in those days, had in its documents, that is its Statute and rules, an elaborated model of party discipline, so that it was possible to expel members if they are not active and if they do not attend regularly.

Q. What would be the effect of repeated unexplained or unjustified failures to attend

meetings?

A. According to the rules there was a warning first and then exclusion from the party, expulsion from the party.

Q. Now you indicated earlier that the main board decided, made decisions on virtually everything. Would that include significant actions to be taken by local SDS party members?

A. Yes, the main board took decisions which were to be implemented in the municipal organisations of SDS. These were either decisions or instructions or orders or rules of behaviour. It passed decisions at the highest level, because the main board is the highest body of the Serbian Democratic Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Similarly, the Executive Board at the municipal level took its decisions. It also took decisions having to do with the municipality within its ¹⁶⁴⁹ competencies or following instructions or decisions of the main board, and those decisions obliged local organisations and members.

Q. So, significant actions taken by local SDS officers would have to be either directed or approved by the higher offices including the main board?

A. Yes.

Q. For example, could a local SDS office undertake the arming of citizens, of Serb citizens without the direction or approval of the SDS hierarchy?

A. No. No, they would have to have such a decision taken by the main board to apply generally. Such a decision had to be taken by the main board and then in its implementation, if we are talking about the distribution of weapons specifically, then they could give arms to one particular community or if they had enough then to everybody.

Q. Could a local SDS party undertake the military takeover of an opstina without either the direction by or approval of the SDS hierarchy?

A. No. No, a decision had to be taken by the higher level body, either the main board or a regional body, though within the SDS there was no direct communication according to Statute between the main board and regional boards, but in fact there was a regional board for the autonomous region of Krajina and this regional board did take decisions within

SDS which were obliging for the municipal SDS committees.

Q. With respect to an action of that significance, would the regional board have undertaken responsibility to order the local SDS to do it ¹⁶⁵⁰ without approval by or a direction from the main board?

A. I think that there were such several such cases, but they were always covered subsequently; subsequent approval was given for it. In any event, higher bodies always knew what was happening or gave instructions, directions or took decisions. They would never exclude it. I do not know of any example of a municipal organisation doing something without

higher instant bodies in the party knowing of it.

Q. Could a local SDS office establish and maintain concentration camps or detention camps without the direction or approval of the SDS hierarchy?

A. No.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: May I ask just one question? I understand that the headquarters then of SDS regional, the regional headquarters of SDS in the Bosnian Krajina region would have been in Banja Luka. Banja Luka is 50 kilometres from Prijedor and Prijedor then would be a part of that region, is that so?

A. Prijedor at the beginning when the community of municipalities of Bosnian Krajina was formed and when it was transformed in the autonomous region of Krajina was not a part of that region. Prijedor joined the autonomous region of Krajina I think in May 1992. I do not know the exact date. Some other municipalities were not part of the autonomous region of Krajina. For example, Kotor Varos joined in June 1992. Joined the autonomous region of Krajina.

Q. So at least after they joined the SDS party in Prijedor would then be ¹⁶⁵¹ under the regional headquarters in Banja Luka; am I understanding you correctly?

A. No, I was not thinking of the party. I was thinking of the municipality as a territorial unit from the standpoint of the authorities. As for the political party of SDS, it was always a member of SDS for Bosnia-Herzegovina and when the regional board was formed I think

it was in February 1991, February or March 1991, SDS Prijedor was then already a

member of the region or SDS organisation for Bosnian Krajina.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Thank you.MR. TIEGER:To complete the circle,(redacted), after Prijedor was taken over by the SDS in the military coup, was it then that it joined the autonomous region?

A. Yes, as a municipality.

Q. As time moved on from the elections did the SDS move towards the development of a separate political structure outside the existing democratic institutions?

A. I am sorry, I did not understand the question quite?

Q. Following the elections of 1990, did the SDS move toward the development of a separate Serbian political structure outside the existing democratic institutions?

A. Yes. SDS started to form regional structures or regional organisations or actually it started to work on a different regional organisation for Bosnia-Herzegovina. ¹⁶⁵² Bosnia-Herzegovina did not have any compulsory forms of organisation of regions in

terms of the administration, the executive authorities. There was the municipality as the lowest organ and the municipal executive government, and directly above it was the republic authorities. Regional forms of organisation were not compulsory. They had no authorisations, no executive powers. SDS in the course of '91 or already the beginning of '91, January and February, immediately after the elections, started to form Serb autonomous regions. So that several such Serb autonomous regions were formed such as Romanija, eastern Herzegovina, Semberija and Majevica, and this process was completed with the formation of the autonomous region of Krajina in the course of '91.

Q. What was the first step in the development toward the establishment of an autonomous region in Krajina?

A. The first stage was a demand addressed to the Republic Assembly for a new territorial organisation of Bosnia-Herzegovina with a prepared layout for the organisation of communities of municipalities in Bosnian Krajina. This community of municipalities was formed by agreement of the municipalities to join this community in the course of March and April 1991. At the time this community of municipalities of Bosnian Krajina was joined by all the municipalities which formed the municipality of Banja Luka before, and several communes that belonged to other communities such as the communes of Jajce, from which the communes of Sipovo and Kljuc joined this community. ¹⁶⁵³ Then out of the community of communes of Bihac the communes of Bosanski Petrovac, Bosanski

Grahovo and Drvar joined. Out of the community of communes of Mostar the communal assembly of Glamoc and out of the Prijedor community of communes Bosanski Novi, Bosanski Dubica. Out of the community of communes of Bihac Bosanski Krupa also joined, and out of the community of communes of Doboj, I think this was in May '91, the communal assembly of Teslic joined.

Q. Your Honour, perhaps we could call for exhibit 73 which might aid the witness in identifying the opstinas he is referring to.

A. As I said, this community of opstinas of Banja Luka before '91 consisted of the opstina of Banja Luka which is here, Banja Luka, Laktasi, Prnjavor, Srbac, Bosanska Gradiska, Celinac and Skender. Kotor Varos did not join the community of opstinas of Banja Luka because when Banja Luka joined this community they took a decision to join the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna. Prijedor remained outside as a separate community of opstinas, but from that community Bosanski Dubica, Bosanski Novi joined this new community, Kljuc. Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo, here it is, they also joined. They belonged to the community of opstinas of Jajce. Jajce itself did not. Bosanski Petrovac, Drvar and Bosanska Grahovo and Bosanska Krupa, is here, they were the opstinas from the community of opstinas of Bihac that joined. Bosanski Novi, Bosanski Dubica, belonged

to Prijedor community, and Glamoc, there is Glamoc, belonging to the community of opstinas of Mostar. Though Glamoc was linked with many ¹⁶⁵⁴ ties to Banja Luka even

before this formal joining of the community of opstinas of Bosnian Krajina, it had some links with Banja Luka, others with Mostar, depending on what was being organised. For example, the Chambers of Commerce, there were six in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Glamoc belonged to the Chamber of Commerce of Mostar. In terms of defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it belonged to the zone of Banja Luka. So that it was even before

this linked in some way to Banja Luka and others to Mostar, and in '91 it joined the community of opstinas of Banja Luka.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Mr. Tieger, we are receiving a lot of detail and perhaps you can explain why we are receiving all of this detail. We have heard from other witnesses, I do not know, it may have been Dr. Greve, it may be even Dr. Gow, about different opstinas joining the autonomous regions. Is there a reason why we have to hear so much detail? Tell me why.

MR. TIEGER: I understand the question, your Honour, and I think the point is well taken. The identities of the specific opstinas which joined the community of municipalities is certainly secondary to the creation of the municipality itself, which is the point that I am trying to develop here. In fact, the next question I had was aimed at the original purpose behind the community of municipalities, the difference between that original concept and what was implemented in 1991 and its significance. But I certainly agree with the Court, the identification of all the individual members of the community of ¹⁶⁵⁵ municipalities is not something that has to concern the Court.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: It might help sometimes if we understand the significance before we receive the detail, if you understand what I mean.

MR. TIEGER: I certainly do.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: It is almost like reading the end of the book and you know the conclusion and then you need to go back to decide what is important. So if you ask someone, is there any significance about whatever happened, and then ask him to explain

it, it might help us to follow better. It is very interesting, though. I do not mean to cut you off.

MR. TIEGER:(redacted), can you tell us what the original concept under the law of the community

of municipalities was intended to be? What was a community of municipalities and what was its purpose?

A. Community of municipalities and how they came about was a very strange process. It was completely non-constitutional. I am talking about Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was in contravention of the laws of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the reason for the establishment of these communities was also unusual. To begin with, the territory that covered was always larger and bigger than one would expect from such a community. The provisions of such agreements referred to the complete organisation and, to all intents and purposes, those were states. The centre place in the agreement was accorded to all national defence and army. When a decision was taken in Banja Luka to join the community ¹⁶⁵⁶ of municipalities (redacted) that agreement the establishment of military Krajina, that is of military frontier, because that was what it looked like, nothing else.

Q. So to clarify, if we can, originally the concept of a community of municipality was essentially a form of economic co-operation without administrative power or other functions?

A. Yes, economic and cultural, but only in the field of co-operation. There were no binding provisions on anyone. There was no compulsion that would derive from it for municipalities joining in.

Q. What was different about the community of municipalities that was formed around Banja Luka that you have just referred to in 1991?

A. The significant thing was that they were taking over the functions of the republic; for instance, establishing an autonomous power supply system which was integrated by Bosnia-Herzegovina, it could not be divided. Then national defence for the community of municipalities which was against the defence law of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The defence plan for such a community was also adopted, again in contravention of the law; the joint budget of the community, again in contravention of the budget law of Bosnia-Herzegovina or Yugoslavia. Then economic planning, the taxation system, various dues, the judiciary, the judicial system was rounded off. All this meant the establishment of an autonomous republic, that is an autonomous entity, and under the laws of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its constitution it simply could not be done.

Q. Was the formation of the community of municipalities in this form ¹⁶⁵⁷ constitutionally challenged?

A. Yes. Yes, it was filed with the constitutional court by some municipalities and political parties, but since the proceedings before the constitutional court were very specific and not everybody can appear either as a plaintiff or anything, as a party before the constitutional court, some specific measures were taken by the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and it requested the constitutional court to censor the constitutionality and legality of such agreements; not only agreements on the establishment of the communities of municipalities of Bosnian Krajina, but also with reference to other such cases in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the constitutional court did pass such a ruling.

Q. May we have Exhibit 96 presented to the witness, please? Sir, do you recognise this document as the decision of the constitutional court on the constitutionality of the community of municipalities?

A. Yes. This is the decision of the constitutional court. It was also published in the official Gazette of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, because it has to be publicised. This is also by Statute. This is the text of the decision, signed by the President of the constitutional court, Dr. Kasim Trnka was the President at the time. He is the Ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Croatia at present.

Q. Do you see references in the decision to the illegal military aspects of the community of municipalities to which you referred earlier?

A. Yes, here annulment of the decision taken by the Assembly of the ¹⁶⁵⁸ municipality of Glamoc, and it says, among other things, that in the territory of the community of municipalities in this agreement, this is chapter 4, the last paragraph, that during the state of war or immediate war danger, the community of municipalities organises all national defence in the territory of

the community of municipalities; and it is in charge of it, that it establishes the basic principles of organisation of the Territorial Defence, civilian protection, the intelligence reconnaissance, logistics and the protection of codes that ensures the management and command, leadership and command, of the Territorial Defence in the community of the municipalities.

Q. That is the last paragraph before the section marked V?

A. Yes, this is it. This is the content of Article 9 of the agreement. That is (redacted) it military Krajina, that is, military frontier.

Q. Can I ask you to turn, please, to the last paragraph before (ii)?

A. Yes, this is the government position, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which says -- this is in point of fact their request not to implement decisions already taken, and asks those who had not adopted this yet to refrain from the adoption of such decisions. It also says that these communities are organised in a manner which blesses them with attributes

of a socio-political community, and a socio-political community means a territorial form

of organisation, that is, it is a municipalitive subdivision of powers, because a socio-political community -- both municipalities ¹⁶⁵⁹ and republics were defined as socio-political communities. The important thing is that the government says that such unilateral documents and acts committed in the territory of Bosanska Krajina and in other regions, in government's view disrupt the existing political and territorial structure of the republic, aggravate inter-ethnic relations, create prerequisites for the disruption of rational and economical justifiable relations between business entities, that is, companies, prevent the exercise of authority in the entire territory of the republic, and create prerequisites for further escalation of negative trends throughout the republic.

Q. Finally, can I ask you to turn to the last page, the first full paragraph on that page? Assuming the translation parallels the -- do you see a paragraph which begins "According to the above listed laws and regulations"?

A. 119, yes, I see. The constitution of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina -- is that it?

Q. I am actually referring to the paragraph above that. Does that indicate the decision of the constitutional court and its concerns about the creation of an association which assumed military and other powers?

A. Yes. Yes, it says: "According to the above listed laws and regulations only the socio-political communities, meaning the republic and the municipality and not

associations of municipalities, shall organise all people's defence and social ¹⁶⁶⁰ self-protection", and this embraces the whole national defence, the all national defence

and self-protection and regulated by law, the regulations and defence plans of the republic; and then the statement, that "the agreement adopted by the ... municipality of Glamoc is at variance with the constitution", and so on and so forth.

(18 lines redacted)

Q. By the time that this decision holding that the community of ¹⁶⁶¹ municipalities was unconstitutional was published, had the community of municipalities become any other entity?

A. Yes, it was published in November 1991, and immediately before that, before the decision was taken, the community of municipalities of Bosanska Krajina was transformed into the autonomous region of Krajina which in conformity with the agreement on the association and its Statute elected its Executive Council, that is, the government of the autonomous region, and its first President was Andelko Grahovac. The second one was, the second Prime Minister of the autonomous region was Nikola Erceg.

Q. Did the opstina of Banja Luka become part of the autonomous region Krajina?

A. Yes, on 29th of April, 29th April -- no, sorry, of the autonomous region of Krajina, this is when it became a member of the community of municipalities of Krajina. But under that agreement on the association in the community of municipalities of Bosanska Krajina, any change in its layout had to be confirmed again by the Assembly of the communities of municipalities which were its members. The transformation from the community of municipalities of Bosanska Krajina into the autonomous region of Krajina has never been confirmed by the Assemblies of Municipalities of its members. (redacted)

(4 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁶² (redacted).

Q. You indicated that there were municipalities in the region that did not join the community of municipalities or the autonomous region. You indicated Kotor Varos, Prijedor and, I believe, Sanski Most. Were those municipalities where the SDS was not in political control as a result of the democratic elections?

A. The SDS did have political control over one part where it could participate in the government of these municipalities into the coalition. So, on the basis of the results of the elections or the manner in which the ruling coalition had distributed those posts, the SDS did have some authority in some of these communes according to, under this coalition agreement. But in these three municipalities, Prijedor, Sanski Most and Kotor Varos, the SDS did not have the majority in their Assemblies and, therefore, could not decide without other parties, as was the case in some other municipalities such as Glamoc, Mrkonjic Grad, Celinac and even Banja Luka.

Q. What eventually happened to those municipalities which did not join the community of municipalities or the autonomous region?

A. Well, their absence from the autonomous region of Krajina was tolerated until the spring of 1992, and then after the SDS took over the power, decisions were taken on their inclusion and they became a part of the autonomous region.

Q. So they were taken over by military force and then the new officials joined the autonomous region? ¹⁶⁶³

A. Yes, military force, but SDS took over the majority in these Assembly or won the right to take decisions, and ensured, of course, that these decisions would receive the necessary majority -- and after that took over the power completely.

Q. Was the Serbian plebiscite the next step in the development of a separate Serbian political structure?

A. Yes, the plebiscite of the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the next step in a series

of steps set forth by the SDS of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It took place in November '91.

Q. Who organised and conducted the plebiscite?

A. SDS.

Q. What was the nature of the plebiscite question, the question that was put to potential voters?

A. There were two questions. One was meant for Serbs and there was another question for those belonging to other ethnic groups who were ready to come out and vote in the plebiscite. For the Serbs, the question was virtually the association of all Serb municipalities in one state, and for members of other peoples the question was whether they wanted Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole to join Yugoslavia or to join in some form of a common state which could be established later on.

The campaign for the plebiscite was very interesting. The Serb people were invited -- there were calls, appeals were made to the most delicate, to the most subtle, feelings of the Serbs, and at the same ¹⁶⁶⁴ time those who did not plan, who did not intend, to go out and vote were already called the traitors of the Serb people.

MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, may I have Exhibit 97 placed before the witness, please? (To the witness): Do you recognise Exhibit 97 as containing the two ballots presented to voters during the plebiscite?

A. Yes. Yes, these are the ballot papers.

Q. Who were the categories of voters that the two different ballots were presented to?

A. They were of different colour so as to avoid any possible mistake. The first was intended for Serbs and the second for non-Serbs.

Q. Can you show us first, please, the ballot that was presented to Serbs?

A. Here.

Q. What was significant about the wording of the ballot that was presented to Serbs?

A. The significant thing is the mention of areas inhabited by Serbs, that is, Serbia,

Montenegro, SAO Krajina, SAO Slovenia, Baranja, and western Srem, and our association in one state. What is remembered is the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this Krajina

is Knin Krajina.

Q. Can you show us the wording of the ballot that was presented to non-Serbs? (The witness indicates) What was the significance of the wording of this ballot?

A. It speaks about integral Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole to join together, to associate, with ¹⁶⁶⁵ other republics, which also declared themselves willing to do so.

Q. Looking back to the wording of the Serb ballot, was there any mention of the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the ballot that Serbs received?

A. Reference to the Assembly of the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24th October 1991, that is the only place where it is mentioned.

Q. Would the proposed common state which the Serbian people were invited to join include Bosnia and Herzegovina?

A. No, that is clear. The Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, areas under the Serb control; that was the distinction between the two ballot papers because the other ballot paper speaks about Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Mr. Tieger, I just wanted to share with you a concern that the Trial Chamber has and it has to do with the potential for cumulative testimony. Several times we have heard testimony. Right now, for example, we are hearing testimony regarding this ballot or this plebiscite and the differences in the ballot. As I recall, Dr. Greve, I believe, testified about it. She came at it, perhaps, a little differently. She

certainly did not focus on the communities; her focus really, as I recall, her

testimony, was the difference in the way that it was worded and, of course, the colour of

the ballots and who could vote. I think it was Dr. Greve, was it? ¹⁶⁶⁶

MR. TIEGER: I think that is right, your Honour.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: In any case, we have heard it before. I understand the Prosecutor wishes to prove its case of widespread or systematic, and there was some question about the propriety of Dr. Greve testifying and you may want to shore up her testimony from actual factual witnesses. But keeping that in mind, please attempt to avoid offering evidence that would be considered as cumulative. We hear some of the same stories over and over again, perhaps from different perspectives, but some of the facts are the same. I understand you want to convince the Trial Chamber but after a while we have heard all we need to hear on some points.

MR. TIEGER: I certainly -----

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: So just please keep it in mind because we are paying very close attention, I think, and remember and recall testimonies. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about that or give you some warning before we decide to cut off a witness.

MR. TIEGER: I appreciate the feed back, your Honour. If I may, we are, I trust, sensitive to this question and we will remain so, even increasingly so. Sometimes, however, it seems

to me that revisiting the same area of concern may be useful when we are dealing with a different source, (redacted). That may occasionally account for the same subject matter coming up, but from a wholly different perspective which, I think, can be useful to the court. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the court's feedback.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: No, as to this, I understand because I do remember ¹⁶⁶⁷ the objection to the testimony even of Dr. Greve. I remember our ruling and what we said is that it certainly was relevant and we considered it to be probative, but we take another look at it and if, in fact, it was not, then we might reject it. So I guess you do not know what we are going to do with that, so that is permissible here. Yesterday, and I do not recall the exact testimony, it just seemed like a lot of it was cumulative, and even from your previous witness again, though he was President of the SDA, some of it was cumulative. Keep it in the mind. Please do the best that you can and keep it in mind because we are concerned just about the time. Very good. We will stand

in recess until 2.30.

(1.05 p.m.)

(Luncheon Adjournment) (2.30 p.m.).

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Mr. Tieger, would you like to continue?

MR. TIEGER: Thank you, your Honour. (To the witness): (redacted), you indicated earlier that prior to the conducting of the plebiscite appeals were made by Serbian authorities to what you referred to as the "most delicate feelings" of the Serbs and, further, that those Serbs who did not vote were labelled traitors. In that connection, I would like to show you an exhibit I would asked to be marked as Exhibit 144 for identification. (Document handed). Sir, do you recognise this exhibit?

A. Yes. Yes, this is one of the posters used for the plebiscite and on ¹⁶⁶⁸ all the other occasions but the largest number of them appeared at the time of the plebiscite. The text, as I have already said, is such that it appeals to the inner most feelings and invites people to come out to the plebiscite and vote against the Serb people who were again facing the decisive fateful battle, "Remember the battle of Kosovo and the yet unborn generations. Rally your numbers and summon all your strength to avoid the curse of ancient Czar Lazar and make your end become invincible" and, I do not know, "everlasting hatred" and things like that, "May you be united by your everlasting love for freedom, peace and justice" and, finally, "The Serb Democratic Party is your shield and your sword".

MR. TIEGER: I tender this exhibit for admission and ask that the poster be displayed to the court and the translation be displayed on the elmo.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Any objection?

MR. WLADIMIROFF: No objection, your Honour.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Exhibit 144 will be admitted. MR. TIEGER (To the witness): One quick point of clarification, (redacted): In the translation it said that the people were invited to come out to the plebiscite and vote against the Serb people who were again facing the decisive fateful battle. Is that what you meant?

A. No, it was wrong.

Q. OK. What is the display, the hand display, on the poster? What does it symbolise?

A. This appeal, this invitation is for something that can best ¹⁶⁶⁹ encourage, urge the Serbs on, because this reference to Serb, to Csar Lazer and things like that, it is aimed at mobilizing the masses, so they are directly encouraging them to participate in the plebiscite rise, save the Serb people, "The Serb Democratic Party is your shield and your sword". It means only the Serb Democratic Party can defend them as a shield, that is, and a sword, of

course, is a tool which is used to cut, to fight, for the goals and interests of the Serb

people.

Q. What is the three finger display, what does that signify?

A. The three fingers is a traditional Serb greeting and in the Serb orthodox church epitomizes the holy trinity, father, son and the holy spirit. Only Serbs use such three fingers in a greeting, nobody else but the Serbs. So it is distinguished from anything else. When such three fingers are shown, it means that they mean only Serbs.

Q. Is it correct that most Serbs voted in the plebiscite?

JUDGE STEPHEN: I may have missed it, but have you connected this with the plebiscite at all? It does not say anything about voting.

MR. TIEGER: I think he did, your Honour, but I will clarify that again. (To the witness):

(redacted), was this poster prominently displayed in Bosnia just before the plebiscite was

conducted in an effort to encourage voter or Serbian voter participation?

A. Yes, of course, that was the whole purpose of it, of the poster. ¹⁶⁷⁰ That was the invitation, the invitation for SAOvation.

JUDGE STEPHEN: No translation -- that is only because I had the wrong number!

MR. TIEGER: Were Serbian officials successful at getting most Serbs out to vote in the plebiscite?

A. Yes, yes. The majority of Serbs. There were very few of them who did not come out and vote.

Q. Those that did not were branded as traitors?

A. Yes, of course, and afterwards it was a big obstacle if one wanted to achieve it, that is, there was the record of those, there were a list of voters so that they knew precisely who had and who had not come out and voted.

Q. Is it also correct that most non-Serbs did not vote in the plebiscite?

A. That is correct. The majority of the non-Serb population did not come out, but SDA and HDZ members did not feel in any way whatsoever that they had any moral or any other obligation to turn up because they saw it as an invitation to the Serbs to state their minds, and they were already preparing a referendum for independent Bosnia-Herzegovina. The decision about this was taken by the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina some two or three months later, and it took place towards the end of February '92. So that in this particular case everybody had his own plebiscite, his own referendum. The Serbs had their referendum in November; the Muslims and Croats had their referendum in February. ¹⁶⁷¹

Q. Did the results of the plebiscite serve as a basis for later action by Serbian officials in the further development of a separate Serbian political structure?

A. Yes, from that point of view the plebiscite was very important for the SDS as a political party, because it legalised, it legitimised, all the subsequent moves, notably, the proclamation of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the departure of the Serb Democratic Party from the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the establishment of the system of power in territories under the Serb, that is, SDS control, and for all the subsequent negotiations conducted either at the Yugoslav or international levels. This plebiscite served as a basis and as an excuse for everything. It was used as a pretext, as an excuse, explanation, for everything that they did.

Q. Was the plebiscite regarded by Serbian officials at the time it was conducted as an extremely significant and important event?

A. Yes, indeed by the Serbs and the Serb Democratic Party. This was one of the turning points, a decisive vote which determined the behaviour in the years to come. The

plebiscite practically legitimized the club of members of parliament, members of

parliament in the Republic Assembly to leave that Assembly. It provided a basis for the foundation or the establishment of a Serb state in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. Was responsibility for conducting the plebiscite entrusted to casual or passive members of the SDS? ¹⁶⁷²

A. To organise the plebiscite, a Republic Commission was set up by the SDS, by the main board of the SDS, and, of course, only SDS members sat on it. In every municipality there were municipal commissions for the plebiscite set up by the SDS, and the task of the municipal commissions for the plebiscite was the appointment of voting committees that were appointed for each balloting unit, ballot unit, and a similar committee was set up, was appointed, by the Republican Commission for the plebiscite. It was very important to know who would be appointed to those commissions. So that they did not want to leave it in the hands of unimportant people or, rather, people who did -- irresponsible people,

better to say.

Q. Was responsibility for conducting the plebiscite entrusted to members of the SDS who

were unaware of its programme or who were not ideologically committed to its programme?

A. I do not think so and, if this did happen, perhaps it could have only happened in those places where the Serbs constituted the majority and where they were sure there would be no problems at all. Particular attention was accorded to critical places, that is, what has always been done whenever something like that was taking place, plebiscite or something else.

Q. Would those critical places include municipalities or local communes where the Serbs did not constitute a majority?

A. Yes. Yes. ¹⁶⁷³

Q. Under those circumstances, would particular care be taken to be sure that the person or persons responsible for conducting the plebiscite in that area was ideologically committed to the SDS programme and trustworthy?

A. Of course, an active SDS member, an individual who was quite aware of what the SDS

was and, of course, the behaviour of that particular individual and, among other things, the party discipline that I have already referred to which figured in the rules of every political party, among other things.

Q. During this period of time, between the time of the elections and the outbreak of the conflict, were separate Serbian municipalities also created?

A. There were such instances in Bosnia-Herzegovina, several of them. The general stance of the SDS was the following. Where the Serbs were a majority and where they had a majority in the Assemblies, that is, where the SDS had a complete sway, where it had absolute control and could decide without other parties, it would then decide as it found appropriate at a given moment, that is, without others, without the coalition; and where it was a minority the general stance was that no decision could be taken without its consent. They encountered such problems in the municipality of Bosanski Brod, Zvornik, Srebrenica, and then they formed Serb municipalities of some Serb settlements, that is, there was Bosanski Brod which did exist before war but now it became Serb Bosanski Brod, Serb municipality of Srebrenica, which ¹⁶⁷⁴ subsequently changed its name, the Serb municipality of Zvornik and, I do not know, perhaps there were other cases but I do not know.

Q. You have already indicated that after the plebiscite the development of a separate Serbian structure accelerated culminating in the establishment of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the formation of a separate Assembly, a Serbian Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In April or May, was there a separate organ of the autonomous region which was also created?

A. Which year do you mean, '91?

Q. In April or May 1992.

A. In April and May '92, this process was more or less rounded off. The establishment of the Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina was already completed as well as in Serb autonomous regions which I have already mentioned, Semberija, Majevica, Romanija, east Herzegovina. The Assembly of the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina was also completed some time in mid-March 1992 when the constitution was promulgated of the Serb Republic Bosnia-Herzegovina when the Assembly was proclaimed of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the state itself.

It began as a session of the club of SDS members of parliament in the Republic Assembly which was transmitted live on television, and all the final declarations were also transmitted by television that same day. There were two very strange statements to my mind. One was by Radoslav Brdjanin who was a member of the Republic parliament and who said: "At long last I have lived to see Bosnian Krajina become ¹⁶⁷⁵ western Serbia", and Radislav Vukic, who was the President of the municipal committee of SDS in Banja Luka, who stood up and said: "Now the Turks will shake with fear from us".

Q. When he used the expression "Turks" to whom was he referring?

A. This is a term which was used in Bosnia with reference to Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, that is, Muslims in general.

Q. Does it remain a disparaging term for Muslims?

A. No, the word "Turk" is not a pejorative term. It is an official term in some republics, in some parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina where those who were Turks stated that they were Turks, that is, citizens of Turkish origin. It depended on the context. In certain context, it could be offensive for Bosnian Muslims because that is not how they felt. There were

other terms used to offend Bosnian Muslims such as "balija", "balija", yes, that was the

best known term. It was used very often.

Q. In April or May of 1992, was a Crisis Staff created within the Autonomous Region

Krajina?

A. Yes. Yes, the Autonomous Region of Bosnian Krajina envisaged in its Statute the possibility of establishing a Crisis Staff in case of war or immediate war danger. The state of war or immediate danger of war means to different states, but basically it is the same thing because the consequences are identical with regard to the establishment of different force of adjustment to war or authorities in wartime, which ¹⁶⁷⁶ are adjusted to wartime conditions.

The Crisis Staff of Krajina began to operate in April 1992, in Banja Luka, and in the early days of May the official decision on its establishment was taken by the Executive Council of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. According to that decision, the Crisis Staff, because the state of immediate danger of war had been proclaimed, practically took over all the functions, all the duties of the assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, of the government, and all other agencies there. It became the highest reckoned decision making body in Bosanska Krajina under those circumstances. Its decisions had to be enforced throughout the territory of the Autonomous Region of Krajina.

Q. The Crisis Staff was an organ of the Autonomous Region; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And the Autonomous Region had grown out of a community of municipalities?

A. Yes.

Q. So, between approximately May 1991, when the community of municipalities was

illegally formed from an entity which had no administrative power, to May 1992, it had become an entity which exerted total control over the Autonomous Region of Krajina?

A. Yes, in the interim, the transformation took place from the formation of the community of municipalities of Bosanska Krajina into an ¹⁶⁷⁷ Autonomous Region and, finally, the Crisis

Staff and the takeover of all powers at the beginning of May 1992.

Q. I would like to ask you some questions about the people who were in power in May of 1992, less than two years after the election. First of all, you mentioned Mr. Brdjanin, the President of the Crisis Staff. Can you tell us what his views were on greater Serbia and on other nationalities in the territory of what was considered greater Serbia?

A. He was one of the most extremist, maybe the most extremist, member of this Crisis Staff; a man who was also thirsty for power. His views regarding greater Serbia were identical to those of the Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement. What is more, in a number of interviews broadcast on radio Banja Luka he said that he was a member of the Serbian Democratic Party, but deep down he was a member of the Radical Party. At the Assembly itself, he said that he had finally lived to see Bosanska Krajina become western Serbia. As for his position regarding members of other ethnic groups, he was the most radical. In the Crisis Staff and in the Autonomous Region of Krajina, his position (which he kept repeating on the media) was that the largest possible percentage of the non-Serb population that were tolerant were two per cent. Then he called on direct struggle; he instigated fighting and killing on radio Banja Luka. He was very demanding regarding the execution of the decisions of the Crisis Staff. In any event, he was a very prominent figure, and member.

Q. Who was the President of the municipal board of the SDS in Banja ¹⁶⁷⁸ Luka?

A. The President of the municipal SDS committee was Radislav Vukic.

Q. Was Banja Luka the most influential opstina in the Autonomous Region?

A. Everything was happening in Banja Luka ---

Q. And was Vukic -----

A. -- and SDS members from Banja Luka did have the greatest influence. They were there,

all members of the Crisis Staff were there on the spot.

Q. Was Mr. Vukic also the President of the regional board of the SDS?

A. Yes, he referred to himself as the President of the regional committee for SDS. He convened meetings of the regional board, though very frequently SDS members

themselves opposed this because formerly the regional SDS board could not exist, but it was there and it took decisions. Those decisions were binding on the municipal SDS committees and they executed them. I think that after the formation of that regional SDS board, Radislav Vukic was elected to the main SDS board of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was also very extreme in his views, and he was particularly active at rallies where he would speak with passion and call for war and, as for his views which, like Brdjanin, he presented over the media, on the

radio and other media, he said he would not allow the gynaecology department (because he was a doctor, gynaecology) any woman to give birth at the gynaecology department at Banja

Luka hospital who was not a Serb. He said that all mixed marriages ¹⁶⁷⁹ should be divorced and annulled, and he said that children of mixed marriages were good only for making

soap.

Q. This man who said that the children of mixed marriages were only good for making soap was the regional President of the SDS?

A. Yes.

Q. The views of Brdjanin and Vukic were views that you described as ones belonging to the extremist wings of the SDS earlier in your testimony. Had they now by 1992 become the views of the leadership of the SDS?

A. Yes, this was a second transformation that SDS went through. The extreme behaviour became the ticket for entry into the exclusive circle of SDS members and also a precondition for climbing up the political and professional ladder. The more

extreme one's positions, the more passionate speeches, the easier it was to forge ahead.

Q. So that those who aspired to leadership positions within the SDS adopted such views?

A. Yes, if they behaved otherwise they would be replaced. A certain number of people kept quiet, and remained so, and held their positions but most of them, those who were not prominent in expressing such views, were replaced.

(4 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁸⁰

(6 lines redacted)

Q. Was pressure placed on persons outside the party who expressed resistance to the increasingly extremist SDS programme?

A. Yes, yes of course, immediately.

Q. What kind of pressure was that?

A. Pressures varied depending on the person involved. There was dismisSAOs from work, of firing of people, of those who opposed or expressed disagreement with the principle political line, and at the time that was an extremist line. For those who could not be pressured in this way, threats were used face to face, by phone, or through third parties; there were even beatings; there were explosives planted in homes or under cars.

Q. Were some politicians forced to flee the area in fear of their lives?

A. Probably. After May 1992 they were all forced to flee, but even before that, even in Banja Luka, people were being pressured to leave and many did leave. In Banja Luka explosives were put outside the entrance of the home of the town Mayor of Banja Luka who headed the list of SDS candidates of Banja Luka -- his name is Predrag Radic -- because on several occasions he publicly expressed his disagreement with such SDS policies. After ¹⁶⁸¹ that he was silenced. He showed no opposition any more.

Q. Were politicians from other parties threatened with injury or death for expressing opposition to extremist SDS policies?

A. Yes, quite a number. (redacted)

(21 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁸²

(2 lines redacted)

Q. What was the red kombi?

A. The red kombi existed in Banja Luka. It operated in May, June, July up to the end of

1992, and this red kombi was the symbol of fear. Any mention of the "red kombi" would provoke panic. It was a large red kombi, a van, with a crew of eight members of the Reserve police force. It would drive around town with the back doors open, and it would ask for identity papers of citizens.

Muslims and Croats usually, in most cases, would be put in the kombi and

driven off to a place -- it is the part of Banja Luka on the way to Jajce and they were

beaten up there. This was a fur making workshop, and there were quite a number of cases;

(2 lines redacted) (redacted).

JUDGE VOHRAH: Mr. Tieger, what is a "red kombi"?

MR. TIEGER: I will clarify that, your Honour. (To the witness): First of all, does the word "kombi" mean van?

A. Yes, this red kombi was a van, a vehicle, with two front seats and the rest was for freight, closed, a closed cabin. I think its carrying capacity was about, up to two tonnes. ¹⁶⁸³

JUDGE VOHRAH: Thank you.

MR. TIEGER: Because of the vehicle that was used, this group became known in Banja Luka as the "red kombi"?

A. Yes. This red kombi, its very mention caused fear and panic. That was one of the ways of exerting pressure, especially since those people were wearing police uniforms and they were members of the Reserve -- of the police Reserve force. They had authorisations to stop people and ask for their ID papers, like any other policeman. They were fully in their right to stop anyone, but taking these people collected in the streets not to jail but to a separate building which was used particularly for the purpose of beating them up.

Q. Was that the function and purpose of the red kombi group, to spread terror and fear?

A. Yes, yes, fear, with the aim of people moving out.

Q. Who was in charge of this unit of the Reserve police?

A. These people were attached to the police station of the centre of Banja Luka. The chief of police was Bosko Nanic, also one of the extreme members of SDS in Banja Luka. He originally came from the Knin Krajina. He was particularly extreme in his attitudes towards Croats. For him, there were no Croats, only Ustashas. (redacted)

(2 lines redacted) (redacted).

Q. In approximately March 1992, peace marches were organised against the war in Banja Luka; is that correct? ¹⁶⁸⁴

A. Yes, they were organised before that. These peace marches were organised in Banja Luka in March 1992 and in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole also in March, before the beginning of war operations at the beginning of April, before the beginning of the war in Sarajevo, to be more precise. In Banja Luka, these peace marches were organised by a group of opposition parties and in Bosnia-Herzegovina an independent TV channel called Yutel. These peace marches, those organised by Yutel, were very popular, or peace rallies. (redacted)

(12 lines redacted)

Q. How were the marches, the peaceful rallies, finally stopped by the SDS?

A. They were stopped by a blockade on Banja Luka on April 3rd 1992. Banja Luka was totally blocked. One night, the night between April 2nd and 3rd, barricades were put up all over town. In the morning, ¹⁶⁸⁵ whoever came across those barricades was asked to go home. Nobody could come in or go out of Banja Luka.

This was carried out by units who called themselves SOS, Serbian Defence Forces, Serbian Defence Forces, SOS, and their insignia on that day and on the following days were red berets. They wore red berets. They put up checkpoints all over town. They demanded an emergency session of the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka, and they had certain demands regarding ensuring rights for the participants of the war in Croatia who were in Banja Luka. In any event, after that blockade the checkpoints were taken over by the Reserve police forces, (redacted) (redacted).

(5 lines redacted)

Q. The Serbian Defence Force, the SOS, which initiated the blockade, was this a paramilitary unit?

A. Certainly in this case it was a paramilitary unit. It was not a regular army unit or a police regular police unit, but many of those people later were part of the Reserve police force (redacted)

(3 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁸⁶

Q. After the blockade and the turnover of the checkpoints to the Reserve police, was there a reduction in the level of dissent against SDS policies in Banja Luka?

A. No, it was one of the turning points in the SDS policy in the town and around it, because after that everybody had to keep silent. It had just become too dangerous. (redacted)

(1 lines redacted) (redacted). The media fell completely silent about everything else except this SDS policy. I was going to say on such occasions that blood was pouring from their contributions -- so ugly were they.

Q. You mentioned Yutel, the multi-ethnic station, that sponsored and televised some of the peace rallies in Bosnia. Were the broadcasts of Yutel into the Banja Luka area terminated by the takeover of the transmitter on Kozara mountain?

A. Yutel was an independent television channel and they used Sarajevo television studios because there were no other television stations and there was enough room for them. It is true in the summer of 1991 the transmitter on the Kozara mountain was occupied by a paramilitary group known as Vukovi from Vucjak, wolves from Vucjak, led by Veljko Milankovic who sometime in the summer '93 was killed in Knin Krajina during the Croatian Maslenica campaign. (redacted)

(1 lines redacted) (redacted). They wore the uniforms of the military police. ¹⁶⁸⁷

Q. Is it correct that broadcasts from Belgrade then replaced the previous Yutel telecast?

A. Yes, before that Belgrade television could not always be seen in the territory of Banja Luka and some other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. After that it could be seen always in the morning and in the evening. They were broadcasting the whole, the entire programme of radio television Serbia and, from the propaganda point of view, I think that the most important were programmes, were talk shows or open channels which made it possible to maintain contact with the guests on these programmes. Those were the programmes broadcast by television Novi Sad and television Belgrade, and they always happened at prime time, at 8 o'clock p.m.

Q. In that programming, was there a presentation of extremist views, promotions for war, promotions of greater Serbia and so on?

A. Yes, yes, frequent guests on such open talk shows, open channels of Novi Sad TV were Brdjanin and Vukic and they voiced their views.

Q.(redacted), I want to ask you now about the weaponry which was available in the Krajina area, and about who controlled or possessed those arms. First of all, can you identify for us the main sources of arms available at that time, the main entities which possessed arms or military equipment?

A. In the territory of Bosnia Krajina and in other areas, JNA units had weapons, the Territorial Defence, the police also had weapons, citizens had their hunting weapons and their personal arms, companies also had some, even to a lesser degree and, as of the summer, June of ¹⁶⁸⁸ 1991, the armament of Serbs in Banja Luka began by the Yugoslav People's Army.

(5 lines redacted) (redacted) After that in the newspaper, Glas, there were some articles about the armament. Then some time in the autumn of '91 -- no, I am sorry, in the spring of '92 open armament through local communes started of the SDS members.

In the autumn of '91, that is, after the plebiscite, everybody began to obtain arms; others began also to arm themselves, Muslims through the SDA and Croats through the HDZ. At that point in time everybody realised that war was about to begin, that it would happen shortly and everybody wanted to get ready for it.

(8 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁸⁹

(15 lines redacted)

A. There was a text in Glas in 1991 in which territories they were being armed -- microphone, please; the microphone is switched off -- I said: "Yes, there was a text in the paper, Glas, about that". One of the vice presidents of the SDS who was distributing those weapons had had an accident. A grenade dropped out of his car as he was driving it and it went off, and there was an article about that in the paper, Glas. Those were areas which were Serb, purely Serb villages around Banja Luka.

Q. Do you know whether or not there was any arming in areas in the vicinity of the Serb village of Omarska? ¹⁶⁹⁰

A. That is Bronzani Majdan, which is in the vicinity of Omarska. It adjoins Omarska, or something like that, Bronzani Majdan in Omarska.

Q. Who indicated to you that there was arming by Serbian officials of Serb civilians in that area?

A. It was in the newspaper, Glas. The man who did this was Dragan Batar. He was the vice president of SDS and he was arming them. Nearer to Banja Luka arms were also distributed. (redacted)

(2 lines redacted)

Q. Let me ask you to turn your focus to some of the entities which possessed arms and which you identified a little earlier, first of all, the JNA: In 1991, 1991/1992, was the JNA a well-equipped military force?

A. Yes. The Yugoslav People's Army was represented a major force in terms of armament, but not so much so as it comes to its strength, but the Territorial Defence which was a complimentary force could master an army of about 5 million people in the former Yugoslavia. I think that was the quantity of armaments available in the former Yugoslavia of different kinds and sorts, heavy and light infantry, artillery, and so on and so forth.

The armaments of the JNA were taken over by the SDS, that is, the army of the Republika Srpska. The weapons stored in the depots of the Territorial Defence in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina were taken by the units of the army of the Republika Srpska or, rather, the TO units controlled by the SDS practically, the units of the patriotic ¹⁶⁹¹ league controlled by the SDA and the units of the Croatian Defence Council controlled by the HDZ.

The weapons at the dispoSAO of the police, that is, MUP, the Ministry of the Interior, were issued or, rather, taken in the same way as the weaponry of the Territorial Defence. Moreover, large quantities of weapons were purchased. SDA and HDZ bought weapons in Hungary and received it through Croatia, from other sources.

Q. In the area of Banja Luka, in that general region, what was the presence or what corps or units constituted the presence of the JNA there in 1991 to May 1992?

A. Banja Luka was the seat of the 5th JNA corps in 1991, and the area around Banja Luka, the region was manned by the 5th corps units whose command was in Banja Luka. The 5th corps had a number of armoured units, tank units, because Banja Luka was the largest centre for the training of officers and NCOs for armoured units, there was a military academy there, and it had the largest training grounds for armoured units on the Manjaca mountain. In one part of those grounds the Manjaca camp was set up later on in 1991. Otherwise, in all larger places there were also active army units.

Q. Who was the Commander of the 5th corps?

A. In '91 it was General Uzelac. He was then replaced by a General who spent there only a very short while, two or three months -- I cannot remember his name exactly -- and then the Commander of the 5th corps became General Talic. He, after that, came to command the 1st Krajina corps. ¹⁶⁹²

Q. In May 1992 was General Talic a member of the Autonomous Region Crisis Staff?

A. Yes, yes, he was a member of the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina and the Commander of the 5th corps, and in May '92 it was still the 5th corps which was gradually metamorphosing into the 1st Krajina corps, that is, JNA was gradually being transformed into the army of the Republika Srpska Reserve units.

Q. What was the ethnic composition of the JNA in May 1992?

A. In May 1992 the composition of the JNA units stationed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Serbia, because at that time most of them had already withdrawn from Croatia, were largely Serbian, that is, Serbs accounted for more than 90 per cent of the strength. Before that, the Slovenians and Croats were offered to be demobilized and they had left to their units, to the armies that were made there.

Q. You mentioned earlier the transformation or metamorphosis of the JNA into the army of the Republika Srpska. How was that new army formed? Was it started from scratch? A piece of equipment at a time?

A. No. No, nothing happened by accident there. Immediately after the war in Slovenia, which lasted for a very short time, I think about a fortnight, withdrew from Slovenia and those units arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the exception of the Air Force which withdrew to Serbia immediately. After the war in Croatia, towards the end of 1991 when UNPROFOR came to the territory of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Yugoslav People's Army withdrew from Croatia as well. All those units were in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those units ¹⁶⁹³ were Reserve forces, were manned by Reserve forces, with the exception of active officers, that is, professional army officers. After the decision on the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, after the referendum, JNA began also to withdraw slowly from Bosnia-Herzegovina. This withdrawal from Bosnia-Herzegovina had a different meaning, was of a different nature, than in Slovenia and Croatia. The units in Slovenia was manned by active duty soldiers, not Reserve forces, and when they withdraw from Slovenia and come into the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, soldiers were demobilized, that is, soldiers serving their regular military service. The officers were posted to a new post, to new places, that is, they were sent to new units.

In Croatia, JNA included both Reserve units and active duty units. The active duty units had the same fate as those in Slovenia, that is, soldiers were demobilized and the officers were sent to new posts.

However, things were different when it came to Reserve units or, rather, the units filled up to their full strength with Reserves. Those were people from Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, soldiers were from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and they could not go to Serbia because they had no reason to go to Serbia, but officers were offered this, to go to Serbia. Many accepted. Others remained in the army of the Republika Srpska or, rather, the army of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina which was then renamed into Serb Republic and then into Republika Srpska. ¹⁶⁹⁴ This army gradually began to be formed in May of 1992, and the process was rounded off, was completed, on 28th June 1992 when the army of the Republika Srpska was confirmed, and June 28th was set as the day of the Republika Srpska and the day of the army and the major holiday of the Republika Srpska, the day of the formation of the army of the Republika Srpska.

Complete equipment, armaments of the Yugoslav People's Army which was available to those regular units remained in the hands of the army of the Republika Srpska, not only the armaments, but depots as well, equipment and armaments and ammunition.

Q. You mentioned that active duty soldiers returning from Croatia were sent on new assignments. Do you know what happened to their weapons?

A. The weapons of those units also remained in Bosnia-Herzegovina and these arms were distributed among SDS members and a part of it was sold.

(10 lines redacted) ¹⁶⁹⁵

Q. Did the soldiers who were members of the JNA and then who became members of the army of the Republika Srpska regard the change as anything other than pro forma?

A. Yes, that is how they behaved and that is how it was in fact, because nothing virtually changed. Everything remained the same except that in the military booklets, instead of the name of one unit, another unit was entered, the name of another unit.

(12 lines redacted)

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: We will stand in recess for 20 minutes.

(4.00 p.m.)

(Adjourned for a short time) (4.20 p.m.).

JUDGE STEPHEN: I wonder if could I fill in time by asking you, I remain confused about the Krajinas. There seem to be three Krajinas or three ¹⁶⁹⁶ districts, two in Croatia and one that we have heard a great deal about in Bosnia. Do any of the maps actually identify the areas? If they do not, perhaps that is something that you might in the course of the evidence deal with.

MR. TIEGER: I cannot think offhand of a map which does precisely that, although we will look to see if something like that is in evidence and can be handled directly in that way.

JUDGE STEPHEN: When I say "three", there seem to be two different not joined together parts in Croatia which are referred to as "Krajina" as well as the Bosnian Krajina.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Would you begin, please, Mr. Tieger?

MR. TIEGER: Thank you, your Honour. (To the witness): (redacted), just to round off that quick discussion about the JNA: After the departure of the JNA from Bosnia and the declaration of the army of Republika Srpska on June 20th, the JNA continued to pay officers in the army of the Republika Srpska?

A. Yes. Yes, they paid them, paid the officers who were assigned to barracks or military posts, as they were called, in Serbia and were temporarily in the army of Republika Srpska, or officers who were permanently assigned to Bosnia-Herzegovina and they were paid out of the budget of not the JNA, because it was no longer the JNA, but the Yugoslav Army until the end of '92 and even later.

Q. Let me ask you about two of the other armed entities you identified, first of all, the police. Who was the head of the Police Force in Banja Luka? ¹⁶⁹⁷

A. Banja Luka was the base of the centre of security services as a form of regional organisation of the internal forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Zupljanin was in charge of the security forces.

Q. What was the structure of the police services in Bosnia and specifically within the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina as it became created? What was the top level of the police, what was the regional level and what were the local levels?

A. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the elections, the Ministry was formed on the basis of the law on government. Before it was called the Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs, it became the Ministry. This Ministry had three most important sections, one was the service for State Security, the other was public security and the third was a department for administrative affairs, dealings with the citizens, through which citizens exercised their rights regarding various records, identity cards, driving licences, licences for arms, certificates for citizenship for those who were not from the same region, and so on. That is the republic level with three segments. The administrative affairs were conducted exclusively at the communal level, but they were a part of one whole, a part of a vertical structure, and at the regional level there were centres of security services, centres for security, which also had these three groups of activities. At the level of the commune or the opstina, there was a public security station which performed the activities of the police, public safety and administrative affairs in dealings with citizens. The State Security was the concern of the republic level ¹⁶⁹⁸ only.

After the formation of the Republic of Srpska and its proclamation, a Ministry of Internal Affairs was formed of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had the same organisational setup. In Banja Luka, there was a centre of security services for the region of Bosanska Krajina, and this centre engaged in State security, public safety and administrative affairs. Each commune or municipality or opstina had a public security station in which active police officers were employed, professional policemen, in other words, and also they engaged in these administrative affairs. At the time in '92 when the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Srpska was formed, there were many Reserve policemen who continued to work in the Ministry of Interior as Reserve policemen. At the time the insignia were changed. In the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Srpska, they all had to put on their caps and elsewhere where insignia were normally worn the Serbian tricolor, which was the official emblem of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republika Srpska.

At the same time a statement of loyalty had to be signed by all members of the Police Force, Serbs or non-Serbs -- it did not matter. All those who did not sign such a statement were dismissed or their work ceased, their employment ceased. The non-Serbs who were necessarily employed as policemen before the formation of the Republic of Srpska roughly corresponding to the share of the ethnic group in the population; if there were 14 per cent Croats, for instance, then ¹⁶⁹⁹ there should be 14 per cent Croats in the Banja Luka Police Force, if we are talking about Banja Luka. So all non-Serbs who signed the statement of loyalty, their employment ceased, I think in June 1992, with the exception of a few individual cases in Banja Luka, because there are several Muslims and Croats who are working there to this day.

Q. So local police, that is, police of the municipalities or communes, were at the bottom level of a larger vertical structure?

A. Yes.

Q. Above the Police Forces at the municipal level was the centre for security services in this region in Banja Luka?

A. Yes.

Q. Above that, the Ministry of Internal Affairs which is sometimes referred to, as we may have heard here, as MUP; is that right?

A. Yes, its official name is MUP, Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Q. There was a regular communication system to enforce the hierarchal structure of the MUP, the centre for security services, in the local police?

A. Yes, there was a system of communication or, rather, the obligation to send daily reports and to receive orders. The municipal public security stations had to daily report to the centre of security services in Banja Luka about their activities in the course of that day or the previous day. Usually, reports would be sent between 00 hours and 24 hours covering that period, from 00 to 24. The centre of security services would send its report to MUP and the centre of that ¹⁷⁰⁰ Ministry was in Bijeljina for the Republic of Srpske. In the same way, orders were received or handed down from MUP to the centre of security, to the local police stations.

Q. Were any significant actions undertaken by local police departments, therefore, undertaken at the direction of or with the approval of the centre for security services and the MUP?

A. No, I do not think so, everything had to be reported or approved so that the centre of security services and MUP were familiar with everything that was happening at the local level that day or the previous day.

Q. Just to clarify, would an action like participation in the armed takeover of a municipality by local police have to be directed by or approved by the centre for security services and the MUP?

A. I think that operations of that significance were never undertaken without appropriate orders or approvals that would be too much. Within such a system only minor operations were tolerated or something that could not be covered in advance. The takeover of power in Prijedor could not have been undertaken without previous approval. Such an operation by the police could not be carried out without previous approval.

Q. What about participations in ethnic cleansings by local police would that also have to be directed by or approved by the CSB and the MUP?

A. Yes, it was approved or rather nobody opposed it because if somebody had opposed it people would have got fired, but as this did not happen it was all okayed. ¹⁷⁰¹

Q. Let me ask you now about the presence of paramilitary forces in the Banja Luka area in approximately May 1992. Were paramilitary forces active in the area at that time?

A. There were paramilitary groups not only in Banja Luka but in the surroundings as well and throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Banja Luka, among the larger paramilitary groups, there was the armed unit of the Serbian Radical Party which were on the territory of the municipality of Banja Luka and they operated in other municipalities as well. In Banja Luka, there were also a number of independent paramilitary groups of up to roughly 100 people who were, to all intents and purposes, private armies -- they mainly protected private buildings and engaged in robbery and plunder -- outside Banja Luka, a well-known larger group known as Vukovi from Vucjak, the wolves from Vucjak, headed by Milankovic, it was quite numerous, I think it numbered some 400 people; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there were units of the patriotic league; in Sarajevo, the green berets, the group of Juka Prazena; in Herzegovina, the HVO, the Croatian Defence Council.

Q. You mentioned the armed unit of the Serbian radical party, Seselj's party. How large was the paramilitary force of the Serbian Radical Party in the Banja Luka area?

(1 lines redacted) (redacted), about 3,000 people, but they never liked to be called "Seselj's men" in Banja Luka. They called themselves the Serbian Chetnik movement or Chetniks.

Q. What was the function or purpose of the Serbian Chetnik movements, ¹⁷⁰² these paramilitary forces in the Banja Luka area?

A. The purpose was roughly the same as that of the red kombi, the red van, though they did not engage in such activities in Banja Luka. They spread terror and persecuted Muslims and Croats and plunder, and that was also one of their aims. In this way they obtained funds for the activity of their party.

Q. Did they operate wholly independently or did they co-ordinate with the JNA or were they under the control of the JNA?

A. At first, they acted completely independently, alone. During individual terrorist operations -- these were, after all, typical terrorists operations. Later, I think at the end of May and in June, they placed themselves under the command of JNA units in the region in which they were operating. This was so in most cases or, rather, they were most numerous in the regions of Derventa and Posavina when the corridor was broken through and in Bosanska Krupa.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: What year would this have been, Mr. Tieger, May or June 1992, 1991?

MR. TIEGER: When you mentioned May or June, the time when they came under the control of the JNA, what year did you mean?

A. Serbian Chetnik movement or this paramilitary unit, I had them in mind.

Q. What year did you have in mind?

A. '92.

Q. Beginning in May of 1992, or at least around the time of the establishment of the Crisis Staff in the Autonomous Region of Krajina, ¹⁷⁰³ did Serbian officials begin to impose restrictive measures on non-Serbs?

A. Yes, the Crisis Staff when it was formed immediately started with such activities and it started to take decisions which were binding. First, they started to supervise the mobilization, then with dismisSAOs, first, from executive posts of all those who were non-Serbs, then firing of those who did not respond to mobilization calls, and then all workers who did not respond to mobilization were prohibited from entering their firms and then they were fired because they were absent for five days in continuum, and that was a legal provision for dismisSAO, if you were absent from work for five days, but they could not go in because a guard was outside, an armed guard was outside, who would not let them in.

Then checks were carried out by Crisis Staff regarding the implementation of their decisions, and these checks, those responsible for implementation, were the municipal Crisis Staff or war presidencies or war staff. They too had to report on a daily basis on what had been done to implement decisions of the Crisis Staff.

Q. So can you describe the situation then that existed for Muslims and Croats in the Autonomous Region area by May of '92, the kinds of restrictions that existed and the kinds of risks they faced?

A. At first, there was a common risk for all, that was the prohibition of freedom of movement. You could not move freely without permission. Such permissions had to be given for both Serbs, Croats and Muslims, and this was not an easy matter because all those who did not respond ¹⁷⁰⁴ to mobilization were withheld such permissions.

The mobilization that was carried out in April 1992 on the territory of the Autonomous Region of Krajina was not responded to by Croats or Muslims or, rather, by very few, very few of them. Most of those who did come when they were called up were turned back. So that was one of the ways of getting permission for freedom of movement, to be mobilized, to be a member of the military unit, and to have a certificate from that unit that you had been assigned a war post, although the other people could not move freely.

Secondly, was the curfew. In Banja Luka, the curfew was enforced from 22 hours until 6 a.m. and during that time nobody could move about unless they had a special permit. The measures taken exclusively towards non-Serbs were dismisSAOs from work, prohibition for private businesses or shops, or their closure, attacks carried out on certain buildings, planting explosives or bombs, prohibition of treatment. Because people were not regularly employed, they were not covered by social or health insurance, and those who were on a waiting list for employment -- this applied to a certain category of dismissed workers or laid-off workers -- did not receive any remuneration though, according to law, they should have received some relief.

Q. Did this situation begin to track the restrictions and burdens recommended by Cubrilovic to achieve a greater Serbia many years before?

A. Yes, I spoke yesterday about the instructions to the authorities given in the work, the resettlement of the Albanians by Cubrilovic. ¹⁷⁰⁵ All decisions of the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina can be fitted within the context of those instructions, all, even the last decision, the one we looked at yesterday, the last paragraph, according to which those asked to implement this were the Academy of Sciences and the University. The Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina replaced the Chancellor of the University and his two deputies and appointed new ones to those posts. The Chancellor who was dismissed was a Serb, but he refused to dismiss his two deputies, one of whom was a Croat and the other a Muslim, and because he refused to do this, then the Crisis Staff dismissed all three.

Q. You mentioned the restrictions on travel. What was the situation in May of '92, May and June of '92, with respect to travel between Banja Luka and Prijedor or vice versa?

A. There were a large number of checkpoints in May going from Banja Luka towards Prijedor in the territory of the Banja Luka municipality itself, and no-one could pass through these checkpoints without a permission for movement. When the attack on Prijedor started and when war operations started in the region of Prijedor and Kozarac, no-one could pass through those regions except people within the military units.

Q. If somehow someone got to Banja Luka from Prijedor, would it then be an easy thing to stay?

A. No, the decision of the Crisis Staff was that all refugees have to go back to their municipalities and to fight. It was quite strictly implemented because all refugees had to report to the headquarters for ¹⁷⁰⁶ the reception of refugees. They were registered as refugees and they received little cards, and they had to report to the Secretariat for National Defence, or that Secretariat had a record of their names itself. These refugee cards for a time did serve as permits for movement but, after the decision of the Crisis Staff, it was prohibited to move about on the basis of this refugee card. It was no longer a pass.

Q. If someone was fleeing from the mobilization, would that person be able to remain in Banja Luka?

A. Yes, if he hid, but if he was regularly registered as a refugee he could not.

MR. TIEGER: May I have these documents marked as Exhibit 145 for identification, please? (Documents handed). For the benefit of the Defence, these documents were marked as document 3 among the Greve documents. The Greve documents, you had them marked as document 3, I believe.

(To the witness): (redacted), do you recognise document 143 as decisions of the Crisis Staff -- 145, excuse me?

A. Yes, yes, these are the official gazettes of the Autonomous Region of Krajina which carried all the decisions the Crisis Staff. They were all published in this official gazette and entered effect either after the publication or entered effect immediately and would be published afterwards.

MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I would tender 145 for admission.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Any objection? ¹⁷⁰⁷

MR. WLADIMIROFF: No, your Honour.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: 145 will be admitted. MR. TIEGER (To the witness): (redacted), are some of the restrictions and conditions which you referred to a few moments ago reflected in the decisions of the Crisis Staff contained in document 145?

A. No, those restrictions were the effect of the decisions taken by the Crisis Staff. The Crisis Staff ordered the implementation of those measures of the restrictions and they would be implemented after such a decision was taken.

Q. Can I ask you then to take a look at the decision by the National Ministry of Defence which is contained in No. 1 of the document before you? Can we put the translation of that document on the elmo, please? Does paragraph 1 of that decision indicate the general mobilization to which you referred?

A. It says, "General public mobilization is ordered", so this is an order and it has to be respected.

Q. Who was that order aimed at? Who was included in that order?

A. This order includes all military conscripts, regardless of their ethnic origin.

Q. Turning to document 2 of the gazettes, does this contain the decision establishing the Crisis Headquarters?

A. Yes. Yes, this is a decision of the Executive Council of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, that is, the government of this Autonomous Region on the establishment of the Crisis Headquarters and its composition. Its terms of reference, its jurisdiction was set ¹⁷⁰⁸ forth in the Statute and -- no, I mean the Statute of the Autonomous Region of Krajina.

Q. As you indicated earlier, Radoslav Brdjanin was the President of the Crisis Staff. Can you tell us who Lieutenant Colonel Milorad Sajce was?

A. Milorad Sajce was the Secretary for National Defence of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, so we might say the Ministry of Defence of the Autonomous Region, and Commander of the municipal staff of the Territorial Defence of Banja Luka.

Q. On entry No. 6 indicates Dr. Vukic to whom you have referred earlier. Entry No. 10 indicates Stojan Zupljanin, who was he?

A. Stojan Zupljanin was the chief of the security services centre in Banja Luka.

Q. No. 8 is General Momir Talic, the Commander of the 5th corps?

A. Yes.

Q. So the Commander of the army in that area, the Commander of the TO and the head of the security services were members of the Crisis Staff?

A. Yes, yes, that was how the Crisis Staff was set up.

Q. Turning to entry No. 3 in the gazette, paragraph 8?

A. Yes, this is an order issued to the media to inform the citizens of the Autonomous Region of Krajina of all the events in the territory of the Serb Republic Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the basis of this order a change of the executives in radio Banja Luka was carried out and in other media in the territory of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. So ¹⁷⁰⁹ that the Crisis Staff placed the media under its control by virtue of this decision.

Q. Can I ask you also now to turn to entry 4 and look first at paragraph 4? Is that a further explanation or does that provide a further explanation of what you have just referred to?

A. Yes. Yes, this is, in fact, the order to the Krajina media to operate according to a war schedule, which means passing on to the wartime organisation which becomes an exclusively military organisation or, rather, a system of orders, a command system is of a military nature.

Q. I note in paragraph 5 the JNA is ordered to immediately embark to certain areas of Bosnia, including Bosanski Brod, Kupres, Glamoc, Bosansko Grahovo and Derventa. (redacted)

(1 lines redacted)

A. Yes, this is a request that the JNA units moved to the front line of Bosanski Brod, Derventa, and this was a breakthrough through the corridor. In that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the most numerous ethnic group is the Croat and that was along that line, Bosanski Brod, Derventa, towards central Bosnia, that is the Lasva Valley, and with armoured paramilitary formations which Croatia, that is, HDZ had at that time had interrupted the communication between Banja Luka and Belgrade. So that at the time, in May, Banja Luka was completely cut off. It was surrounded and it was impossible to establish communication from any side or pass through.

So this was the operation intended to break through and create ¹⁷¹⁰ a corridor. The fighting there lasted for about a month. So there was a breakthrough. A corridor was established towards Belgrade and it still figures on the Bosnian Herzegovina maps as adopted in Dayton by Dayton Accords. (redacted)

(3 lines redacted)

JUDGE STEPHEN: Is that a correct translation where it says "the JNA authorities"?

MR. TIEGER: Looking at paragraph 5, can you read the text of paragraph 5 as it appears in front of you?

A. "It is requested from the military territorial authorities of the JNA". The JNA was still there. This was the beginning. These were the early days in the formation of the army of the Republika Srpska.

JUDGE STEPHEN: It was really the word "authorities" rather than "forces" I was querying.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: It is on the first page, what was it, June of '92?

MR. TIEGER: Can you read the date of this decision?

A. May 8th 1992. 8th May 1992.

MR. TIEGER: If we can show the top of the page on the elmo? (To the witness): Looking at paragraph 8, the last three paragraphs, does that reflect the calls for persons to respond to mobilization and to fight that you referred to earlier?

A. Yes, this was the order of the Crisis Staff to the refugees ordering them to immediately run to their own homes, all the refugees who were ¹⁷¹¹ from the Republic of Croatia, this is the republic Serb Krajina, and then from the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina but outside the Autonomous Region of Krajina, and the territory of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, if they happened in some other municipalities. The order is very clear here. All have to return to their municipalities within five days' time and help their fellow citizens in the struggle against the enemy. If in case they failed to do so, they would be denied the hospitality in the Banja Luka region and the surrounding area; and if they failed to respond to these calls to return to the Autonomous Region, they will be banned from returning to their homes and all their movable and immovable property will be confiscated.

Q. So persons who were in the Banja Luka area from other regions were ordered to return to their own localities to fight upon pain of confiscation of their property, for failure to do

so?

A. Yes, yes, that is true, and all those who were outside the Autonomous Region were invited to come back. This refers only to those who were in Banja Luka and in the territory of the Autonomous Region.

Q. Can I ask you to direct your attention to paragraph 9 of the May 8th decision?

A. Yes, it says that all executive posts in companies may be held by persons absolutely loyal to the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. Was this the beginning of the terminations from employment of the non-Serb population of the Autonomous Region? ¹⁷¹²

A. These were only executive posts.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: May I just ask a question regarding 9, the first line, the first paragraph? What was the National Defence Council? What was the War Staff of the Krajina Autonomous Region once again?

A. The National Defence Councils which existed in municipalities and which are mentioned here are municipal bodies operating in the field of national defence, which existed even before the war, that is in the former Yugoslavia. They were set up but they were never active. They were to be activated in case of an immediate danger of war or proclamation of war. Their duty was to assume complete control over the implementation of wartime plans in the territory of the relevant municipality, that is the defence plans, mobilization, operation of businesses, economy in wartime conditions, civilian protection.

Q. The War Staff?

A. The War Staff of Krajina Autonomous Region was the Crisis Staff. It discharged both those functions.

MR. TIEGER: Can I ask you to direct your attention now to the decision of May 9th, entry 6 in the gazette. Can you look, please, at paragraph 2?

A. Yes.

Q. Does this reflect further conditions for retaining employment and an indication of the conditions which had to exist in order to retain employment?

A. In this case one could not keep the employment, even though it is indicated specifically security jobs, so janitors and guards, but it ¹⁷¹³ also said that those people could not take part in the decision making about work or anything, that is they practically enjoyed no rights in that particular company.

Q. I noticed that again the order or conclusions refer to only persons loyal to the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Did the Crisis Staff ultimately define the meaning of "loyalty" in the context of employment or participation in decision-making posts?

A. Yes, a problem arose with regard to a number of such decisions. A number of such decisions raised the question of loyalty, and this loyalty was interpreted in different ways: What does it mean to be loyal to the Republika Srpska? Does it mean signing of a statement of all Serbs or what? The Crisis Staff clarified it by adopting a decision in June 1992 wherein it defined this term, the loyalty, to the Republika Srpska. The decision says that loyal are only those citizens, that is only Serbs and not all Serbs at that, but only those Serbs who are ideologically quite clear about the fact that the only true representative of the Serb people is the Serb Democratic Party. This resolved the question of loyalty, that is not all the Serbs but only SDS members were deemed loyal.

Q. Can we have Exhibit 104 presented to the witness, please?

A. Yes, that is this decision.

Q. Can that be displayed briefly on the elmo.

A. This first part is a part of a newspaper article, and an attachment to it is a copy of the decision. It was published in the official gazette of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Here in the decision ¹⁷¹⁴ itself in paragraph 1 it says that all leading positions, positions involving access to information, therefore positions of any significance, protection of public property and other positions of importance for the functioning of the economy, of an economic subject, a firm or an enterprise can be occupied exclusively by personnel of Serbian nationality. This applies to all socially owned enterprises or state enterprises, joint stock companies, state institutions, public enterprises, the Ministry of the Interior and the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, such positions cannot be occupied by workers of Serbian nationality who have not confirmed that in the plebiscite or to whom it is not yet clear that the only representative of the Serbian people is the Serbian Democratic Party.

Q. Thank you. I think the court can see it on the screen and it is in evidence. Thank you (redacted). I know in one of the earlier portions of the decisions you referred to there was the call on Banja Luka Radio, the hourly call on Banja Luka Radio, for return of weapons. Is it correct that there are repeated references to the demand for surrender of weapons and disarming of people with weapons throughout the decisions of the Crisis Staff?

A. Yes.

Q. To whom or to which groups were those orders directed; against whom were they enforced?

A. The orders for the surrender of arms were addressed to all, but Serbs were not deprived of weapons in the territory of the municipality of ¹⁷¹⁵ Banja Luka.

Q. So that order was simply not enforced against Serbs?

A. No, in the territory of the whole region, the whole Autonomous Region of Krajina, and all the orders of the Crisis Staff were to be implemented throughout the Autonomous Region.

Q. Can I ask you to turn to entry 7, a decision of May 13th? I am sorry, I would like to return to document 145. I realise we are on 104. Looking at paragraph 6, I am sorry, entry 7, and again paragraph 6 of that decision ----

A. Yes.

Q. What is the effect of this part of the Crisis Staff decision?

A. It is stated here that all able bodied men from 18 to 55 years of age who have fled from the Krajina Autonomous Region are to return to their municipalities immediately and come to the aid of their fellow citizens in the fight against the enemy. Ignoring the above mentioned calls shall result in the ban on the return of the said individuals to their homes, that is to the area of the Krajina Autonomous Region, and all of their movable and immovable property shall be confiscated.

Q. So, does that mean that any man between the age of 18 and 55 who left his municipality was required to come back to that municipality and fight?

A. Yes, this applies to all those who left the municipality and the Autonomous Region in this period, but those who were employed abroad and who had regular residence and labour permits abroad were not affected; they could remain abroad. But they had to pay a tax to the ¹⁷¹⁶ Autonomous Region of Krajina amounting to 100 marks a month, that was the tax in Banja Luka. (redacted) (redacted); 1,200 marks a year, deutschemarks.

Q. Would this order have applied on May 24th 1992, the order to ----

A. No, this decision came into effect immediately.

Q. Would it have remained in effect on May 24th 1992?

A. I do not understand. Which decision of 24th May are you referring to?

Q. I am sorry, I will clarify that question. You have indicated that on May 13th the Crisis Staff ordered anyone who had left his municipality within the Autonomous Region to return immediately and fight in that municipality. Is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. The penalty for failing to do so was a ban on return and confiscation of homes?

A. Yes, movable and immovable property.

Q. Would that decision, that is that people who fall within the mobilization age are to stay in their municipality and fight, have applied on May 24th 1992?

A. Yes. Yes, it applies to all persons.

Q. Would it have applied in the Prijedor municipality?

A. Yes, it applied for the entire region of the Autonomous Region of Krajina.

Q. Can I ask you to turn to entry 10, please, paragraph 3?

A. Yes, this is that in enterprises the counsellors of directors cannot ¹⁷¹⁷ be replaced. This applies to a previous decision of the Crisis Staff when all non-Serbs were dismissed and, of course, many in those firms wanted to protect them. They protected them by dismissing them from managerial posts to implement the decision of the Crisis Staff, but then they appointed them as counsellors to the managers retaining their same SAOaries. When the people in the Crisis Staff realised that in this way they were bypassing their decisions, then they passed a new decision clarifying what they meant, that this could no longer be done, that replaced managerial staff members cannot act as counsel to the directors.

Q. Were there other decisions by the Crisis Staff attempting to prevent the circumvention of those orders against non-Serbs?

A. Yes, there were several.

Q. Can I ask you turn to entry 14?

A. Decision No. 14?

Q. Yes. Is paragraph 3 an attempt to prevent any kind of circumvention of the Crisis Staff orders?

A. Yes. Many people tried to avoid or to circumvent decisions of the Crisis Staff by going on sick leave. Again, as in the case of directors and managerial staff, doctors would grant them sick leave. The Crisis Staff wanted to prevent this too and ordered strict control of all approved sick leaves if there were any indications that these were being used for avoiding general mobilization or work obligations. This is again a clarification of a decision which people had tried to bypass, because it is quite normal that many Serbs tried to protect ¹⁷¹⁸ their friends, Muslims and Croats. They were not all like Radoslav Brdjanin. They did not all want to kill. They were not all extremists. They did not all want to have an ethnically pure Bosnia-Herzegovina or Banja Luka or Krajina.

THE PRESIDING JUDGE: We will adjourn until Tuesday at 10 a.m.

(Closed session not released)

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(8 lines redacted) We will adjourn until Tuesday at 10 a.m.

(The hearing adjourned until Tuesday 4th June 1996)