CR 2006/23
International Court Cour internationale
of Justice de Justice
THHEAGUE LAAYE
YEAR 2006
Public sitting
held on Monday 20 March 2006, at 3 p.m., at the Peace Palace,
President Higgins presiding,
in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro)
________________
VERBATIM RECORD
________________
ANNÉE 2006
Audience publique
tenue le lundi 20 mars 2006, à 15 heures, au Palais de la Paix,
sous la présidence de Mme Higgins, président,
en l’affaire relative à l’Application de la convention pour la prévention et la répression du
crime de génocide (Bosnie-Herzégovine c. Serbie-et-Monténégro)
____________________
COMPTE RENDU
____________________ - 2 -
Present: Presieigtgins
Vice-Prsi-Kntasawneh
Ranjevaudges
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda
Bennouna
Skotnikov
Judges ad hoc Mahiou
Kre ća
Couevrisrar
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ - 3 -
Présents : Mme Higgins,président
Al-K.vsce-prh,ident
RaMjev.
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda
Bennouna
Sjoteiskov,
MaMhou.,
Kre ća, juges ad hoc
Cgoefferr,
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ - 4 -
The Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina is represented by:
Mr. Sakib Softić,
as Agent;
Mr. Phon van den Biesen, Attorney at Law, Amsterdam,
as Deputy Agent;
Mr.Alain Pellet, Professor at the University of ParisX-Nanterre, Member and former Chairman of
the International Law Commission of the United Nations,
Mr. Thomas M. Franck, Professor of Law Emeritus, New York University School of Law,
Ms Brigitte Stern, Professor at the University of Paris I,
Mr. Luigi Condorelli, Professor at the Facultyof Law of the University of Florence,
Ms Magda Karagiannakis, B.Ec, LL.B, LL.M.,Barrister at Law, Melbourne, Australia,
Ms Joanna Korner, Q.C.,Barrister at Law, London,
Ms Laura Dauban, LL.B (Hons),
as Counsel and Advocates;
Mr. Morten Torkildsen, BSc, MSc, Tork ildsen Granskin og Rådgivning, Norway,
as Expert Counsel and Advocate;
H.E. Mr. Fuad Šabeta, Ambassadorof Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
Mr. Wim Muller, LL.M, M.A.,
Mr. Mauro Barelli, LL.M (University of Bristol),
Mr. Ermin Sarajlija, LL.M,
Mr. Amir Bajrić, LL.M,
Ms Amra Mehmedić, LL.M,
Mr. Antoine Ollivier, Temporary Lecturer and Research Assistant, University of Paris X-Nanterre, - 5 -
Le Gouvernement de la Bosnie-Herzégovine est représenté par :
M. Sakib Softić,
coagment;
M. Phon van den Biesen, avocat, Amsterdam,
comme agent adjoint;
M. Alain Pellet, professeur à l’Université de ParisX-Nanterre, membre et ancien président de la
Commission du droit international des Nations Unies,
M. Thomas M. Franck, professeur émérite à lafaculté de droit de l’Université de New York,
Mme Brigitte Stern, professeur à l’Université de Paris I,
M. Luigi Condorelli, professeur à la fact de droit de l’Université de Florence,
Mme Magda Karagiannakis, B.Ec., LL.B., LL.M.,Barrister at Law, Melbourne (Australie),
Mme Joanna Korner, Q.C.,Barrister at Law, Londres,
Mme Laura Dauban, LL.B. (Hons),
comme conseils et avocats;
M. Morten Torkildsen, BSc., MSc., Tork ildsen Granskin og Rådgivning, Norvège,
comme conseil-expert et avocat;
S. Exc. M. Fuad Šabeta, ambassadeur de Bosn ie-Herzégovine auprès duRoyaume des Pays-Bas,
M. Wim Muller, LL.M., M.A.,
M. Mauro Barelli, LL.M. (Université de Bristol),
M. Ermin Sarajlija, LL.M.,
M. Amir Bajrić, LL.M.,
Mme Amra Mehmedić, LL.M.,
M. Antoine Ollivier, attaché temporaire d’ense ignement et de recher che à l’Université de
Paris X-Nanterre, - 6 -
Ms Isabelle Moulier, Research Student in International Law, University of Paris I,
Mr. Paolo Palchetti, Associate Professor at the University of Macerata (Italy),
as Counsel.
The Government of Serbia and Montenegro is represented by:
Mr. Radoslav Stojanović, S.J.D., Head of the Law Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Serbia and Montenegro, Professor at the Belgrade University School of Law,
as Agent;
Mr. Saša Obradović, First Counsellor of the Embassy of Serbia and Montenegro in the Kingdom of
the Netherlands,
Mr. Vladimir Cvetković, Second Secretary of the Embassy of Serbia and Montenegro in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands,
as Co-Agents;
Mr.Tibor Varady, S.J.D. (Harvard), Professor of Law at the Central European University,
Budapest and Emory University, Atlanta,
Mr. Ian Brownlie, C.B.E., Q.C., F.B.A., Member of the International Law Commission, member of
the English Bar, Distinguished Fellow of the All Souls College, Oxford,
Mr. Xavier de Roux, Master in law, avocat à la cour, Paris,
Ms Nataša Fauveau-Ivanović, avocat à la cour, Paris and member of the Council of the
International Criminal Bar,
Mr. Andreas Zimmermann, LL.M. (Harvard), Professor of Law at the University of Kiel, Director
of the Walther-Schücking Institute,
Mr. Vladimir Djerić, LL.M. (Michigan), Attorney at Law, Mikijelj, Jankovi ć & Bogdanovi ć,
Belgrade, and President of the International Law Association of Serbia and Montenegro,
Mr. Igor Olujić, Attorney at Law, Belgrade,
as Counsel and Advocates;
Ms Sanja Djajić, S.J.D., Associate Professor at the Novi Sad University School of Law,
Ms Ivana Mroz, LL.M. (Indianapolis),
Mr. Svetislav Rabrenović, Expert-associate at the Office of th e Prosecutor for War Crimes of the
Republic of Serbia, - 7 -
Mme Isabelle Moulier, doctorante en droit international à l’Université de Paris I,
M. Paolo Palchetti, professeur associé à l’Université de Macerata (Italie),
cocomnseils.
Le Gouvernement de la Serbie-et-Monténégro est représenté par :
M. Radoslav Stojanović, S.J.D., chef du conseil juridique du ministère des affaires étrangères de la
Serbie-et-Monténégro, professeur à la faculté de droit de l’Université de Belgrade,
coagment;
M. Saša Obradovi ć, premier conseiller à l’ambassade de Serbie-et-Monténégro au Royaume des
Pays-Bas,
M. Vladimir Cvetković, deuxième secrétaire à l’ambassade de Serbie-et-Monténégro au Royaume
des Pays-Bas,
comme coagents;
M. Tibor Varady, S.J.D. (Harvard), professeur de droit à l’Université d’Europe centrale de
Budapest et à l’Université Emory d’Atlanta,
M. Ian Brownlie, C.B.E., Q.C., F.B.A., membre de la Commission du droit international, membre
du barreau d’Angleterre, Distinguished Fellow au All Souls College, Oxford,
M. Xavier de Roux, maîtrise de droit, avocat à la cour, Paris,
Mme Nataša Fauveau-Ivanovi ć, avocat à la cour, Paris, et membre du conseil du barreau pénal
international,
M. Andreas Zimmermann, LL.M. (Harvard), professeur de droit à l’Université de Kiel, directeur de
l’Institut Walther-Schücking,
M. Vladimir Djeri ć, LL.M. (Michigan), avocat, cabinet Mikijelj, Jankovi ć & Bogdanovi ć,
Belgrade, et président de l’association de droit international de la Serbie-et-Monténégro,
M. Igor Olujić, avocat, Belgrade,
comme conseils et avocats;
Mme Sanja Djajić, S.J.D, professeur associé à la faculté de droit de l’Université de Novi Sad,
Mme Ivana Mroz, LL.M. (Indianapolis),
M. Svetislav Rabrenovi ć, expert-associé au bureau du procureur pour les crimes de guerre de la
République de Serbie, - 8 -
Mr. Aleksandar Djurdjić, LL.M., First Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and
Montenegro,
Mr. Miloš Jastrebić, Second Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro,
Mr. Christian J. Tams, LL.M. PhD. (Cambridge), Walther-Schücking Institute, University of Kiel,
Ms Dina Dobrkovic, LL.B.,
as Assistants. - 9 -
M. Aleksandar Djurdji ć, LL.M., premier secrétaire au ministère des affaires étrangères de la
Serbie-et-Monténégro,
M. Miloš Jastrebi ć, deuxième secrétaire au ministère des affaires étrangères de la
Serbie-et-Monténégro,
M. Christian J. Tams, LL.M., PhD. (Cambridge), Institut Walther-Schücking, Université de Kiel,
Mme Dina Dobrkovic, LL.B.,
comme assistants. - 10 -
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. The sitting is now open . This afternoon the Court will
hear the evidence of the second expert ca lled by Bosnia and Herzegovina, General
SirRichardDannatt. The expert I see is alread y in Court. Good after noon General. I call upon
GeneralDannatt to make the solemn declara tion for experts as set down in Article64,
subparagraph (b), of the Rules of Court.
General DANNATT: I solemnly declare upon my honour and conscience that I will speak
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the trut h, and that my statement will be in accordance
with my sincere belief.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. I now give the floor to Ms Korner to begin her examination
of the expert.
Ms KORNER: General Dannatt, the Court has been supplied with a copy of your CV but I
would just like to amplify, if I may, a few matters before we turn to the meat of your evidence. I
think it is right, although you are presently the Commander-in-Chief, Land Command in the United
Kingdom, in August you take up your position as Chief of the General Staff. Is that correct?
General DANNATT: That is correct.
Ms KORNER: Going back a little bit into your experience, I believe it is right that you now
have something like 35 years’ experience in the British army.
General DANNATT: Yes, I was commissioned into the British army 35 years ago following
two years’ training and in that 37 years I ha ve now filled every rank from 2ndLieutenant to
General and have commanded on operations at every rank from 2nd Lieutenant to Major General.
Ms KORNER: In addition to that, I think it is also right that you have been on the staff of
the British Army Staff College, where you ran the Higher Command and Staff Course.
General DANNATT: That is correct. I atte nded the Army Staff College in the early 1980s
and then attended the Higher Commanding Staff Course in 1991. I then remained for a further two
years running that course. And perhaps of interest to the Court, during that two-year period I was
commissioned to write a new operational doctrine fo r the British army in the immediate aftermath
of the Cold War. That required me to conduct a large amount of research into commander control, - 11 -
contemporary methods of operation and this was published in 1993 and became and remains the
extant operational doctrine for the British Army. It is called the “The Manoeuvrist Approach to
Operations” and I was also, shortly after that, a member of the panel that oversaw the
companion document which established the commander control doctrine, that document is
known as “Mission Command” and the “Manoeuvrist Approach to Operations” is underpinned by
an understanding of what we call Mission Command. For both of those tasks, as I mentioned
before, I had to carry out a considerable amount of research into the way not only the British army
but other armies, both Soviet and western, conducted their business.
Ms KORNER: And finally, although you are going to be giving your evidence based on
your overall expertise, I think it is right that yohave personally served in parts of what was the
former Yugoslavia.
General DANNATT: Madam President, that is indeed correct. I first visited, spent time in
Bosnia in 1994 and between 1994 and 1996 I was comma nder British forces in that country. I was
first Commander Sector South-West in the last days of UNPROFOR and then became Commander
of an armoured brigade at the start of the Dayton operation in IFOR. I subsequently served as
Commander of British forces at the start of operations in Kosovo in 1999 and then a year or so later
I returned to Bosnia and this time was part of SFOR; I was the Deputy Commander of this force
responsible for operations. That was in the period 2000-2001.
Ms KORNER: Thank you very much, General Dannatt. I am now going to move straight
away to one of the aspects that we would like you to assist the Court with, and that is the theory of
command doctrines and decision-making. Could you assist the Court with the main theory or
theories of those doctrines.
GeneralDANNATT: Put succinctly, armies conduct their business in one of two ways.
Both are characterized by a somewhat comp licated German word; one is known as the
Befehlstaktik approach to commander control and the other is the Auftragstaktik method of
commander control. Essentially the Befehlstaktik approach is one characterized by essential
commander control, it is the form of commander co ntrol most frequently identified in communist
and post-communist armies where direction is p assed from the top to the bottom and there is not
much scope for initiative or for interpretation of id eas. Implementation of orders given is the main - 12 -
characteristic of that form of commander control. And that contrasts with the other form, known as
Auftragstaktik, where a senior commander gives his main idea and further down the chain of
command subordinates are encouraged to use their initiative within latitude and parameters laid
down. The British army follows the Auftragstaktik method of commander control but my
observation, having looked at a number of communist and former communist countries is that the
Befehlstaktik method is the one preferred and used and certainly is the one that characterizes the
former Yugoslav national army and also is the method of commander control used by the VJ and
the VRS.
The PRESIDENT: General, could I just ask you so speak just a little more slowly so that all
of your words are caught by the interpreters.
General DANNATT: Madam President.
Ms KORNER: We are going to look at a little detail about how the JNA, the Yugoslav
National Army, worked and its subsequent entitie s. But you do respect the JNA followed the
Befehlstaktik model. How are you able to say that first of all.
General DANNATT: I can say that with a fair degree of confidence from the result of my
extensive studies. Also by way of personal exam ple. I mentioned earlier that I was one of the
Commanders in Bosnia in 1995. At that particular time when we were pl anning the transfer from
UNPROFOR to UNFOR, I needed, amongst other people, to talk to General Tadic, who was then
commanding one of the Krajina Corp in Banja Luka. I was not in the course of my normal duties
able to go to Banja Luka but I passed a message to him that I wished to meet him and indeed got to
Banja Luka where I was told that he was not able to meet me as he had not received authority from
GeneralMladic, his superior. It was quite surprising that he was not prepared to meet, because
what I had to say to him would have been quite helpful in terms of the conduct of future operations,
but as he had not received that clearance, he did not have the authority to meet me on his own
authority. And I use that as an example of a centralized type of command.
Ms KORNER: How much flexibility does that cen tralized form of command allow to junior
officers or, indeed, to more senior officers? - 13 -
General DANNATT: Remarkably little flexibility. The orders are passed from top to bottom
and implementation of those orders as given is wh at is required. Interpretation and doing it your
own way, as it were, is not expected and not required.
Ms KORNER: As I said, we are going to look at some detail of how the VJ and the VRS
worked but I want to come on to the next, as it were, topic and that is how command actually works
in the military. You have described the two theories. Now can we move to how it works?
General DANNATT: In interpreting political di rection and converting it to activity on the
ground, we recognize decision making broken down to four levels of decision making: called at
the highest level, the grand strategic level; the ne xt level down is the military strategic level; the
third level is the operational level; and the fourth leve l, the lowest level, is the tactical level. And
to illustrate that, activity at the grand strategi c level is the activity mainly characterized by
politicians determining their ambition, determining their intentions. At the military strategic level,
the military government advisers convert political intention, political ambition into realistic
objectives that could be carried out with military activity. That is then passed down to the
operational level, and that is the level at which campaigns are constructed and carried out, that is
the level at which “operational ar t”, as it is known, which is the stuff of what generals do, is
practised, and those campaigns are broken up into major operations of ba ttles and engagements,
which are conducted at the tactical level. So in these four layers of decision making, political
intent is converted into a serie s of steps to meaningful tactical activity on the ground in an
organized way ⎯ nothing happens by chance, it happens because it has been ordered and because
it is in pursuit of the overall political intent.
Ms KORNER: If one is analysing a military ope ration that took place, is it possible to, as it
were, work backwards to how these military e ngagements or operations were actually first
directed?
General DANNATT: As I ha ve described, the two methods of command and control and
identified that the armies that we are looking at this afternoon ⎯ the JNA, the VJ and the VRS ⎯
all have their origins in the performance tactic , the centralized method of command and control.
By performing that method of command and control, the political ambition, political intentions, the
policy formed at government level would then be passed down by the steps that I have described - 14 -
until orders to conduct battles and engagements were passed by troops at battalion and junior
formation level on the ground. So that is how political intention is converted into tactical activity.
Ms KORNER: You talked about the grand stra tegic level, the military strategic level, the
operational and the tactical, can we try and put some personality to that? I do not mean actual
living figures, but what would the grand strategic level be made up of, who would decide on that?
General DANNATT: In the context of today’ s discussions, the grand strategic level would
be activity in Belgrade, or activity in Pale, Banja Luka, wherever the seat of government at the time
was as far as the Bosnian Serb Republic is concer ned. The military strategic level would be the
activity by the Supreme Command Council, the group ing that brought together military advisers,
the senior generals ⎯ in this case, we are perhaps talking about General Persic of the VJ, or
General Mladic of the VRS ⎯ meeting with senior political advisers and officials at that military
strategic level. At the next level down, the opera tional level, this is the level of corps commanders
in the case of the JA, the VJ and the VRS, Gene ral Tadic was a corps commander, General Krstic
was a corps commander of people at ambassador level, and underneath hi m were battalions,
brigades and task forces formed to carry out the operations so ordered.
Ms KORNER: I want to move, as I said, to look at a little detail in respect of the VRS and
the VJ, but first of all, is this correct, General Dannatt, that you have first in your studies for giving
evidence in the case against General Krstic examin ed a large number of military documents that
were provided to you by the Office of the Prosecutor in the ICTY?
General DANNATT: Madam President, that is correct. I looked at a large number of
documents in order to understand for myself where the regulations of the VRS came from because
any army has to have a handbook of regulations that orders what it does. But of course the
intriguing thing about the VRS was that it was an army formed almost overnight. As I said, any
army needs to have a handbook of regulations, so it begged the question, where did the VRS get its
handbook of regulations from? It is quite clear fro m contrasting its regulations with those of the
former JNA that they are one and the same. And certainly, for quite a period of time after the VRS
nominally became an independent army, they were working off the former JNA regulations, which
is perhaps not surprising if one thinks about the background that there just was not time in setting
up an army from scratch to produce regulations completely afresh. Certainly, in the previous case - 15 -
that you alluded to, General Krstic acknowledged that that was the origin of the regulations of his
army.
Ms KORNER: In addition to that, I thi nk you also looked at other documents and
part-transcripts or transcripts that were provide d to you in preparation for your evidence in this
case?
General DANNATT: I looked at a large number of documents that I asked to see, or I was
shown, or from my knowledge of operations in the Balkans over the last ten or 12 years. I have
looked at an extensive number of documents.
Ms KORNER: And also I think you have r ead a number of memoir es written about the
period. Is that also correct?
General DANNATT: Indeed, it is so. People such as General Sir Michael Rose, General
SirRupert Smith, Mr. Richard Holbrook, all have committed their near contemporaneous records
into book form. I certainly have all those books and others. One finds that the colour in those
books amplifies the facts that I have picked up from the trial documents that I have studied.
Ms KORNER: Can we now then look, please, you have already in fact dealt with the
transformation of the JNA into the VJ and the VRS and the fact that their regulations were
effectively the same, as we will see. Have you got in front of you, General Dannatt, one of those
documents?
General DANNATT: Yes, I have, Madam Presi dent. I have got a bundle of 23 documents
in front of me.
Ms KORNER: Could you turn, please, to the first document in that bundle.
Madam President, we have outlined, so that we can turn to it fairly quickly, the part we are going to
refer to. This is a document dated 20 June 1992, wh ich was sent out by the 1st Krajina Corps. I
think, General Dannatt, it is right you know that to be the corps that General Tadic was in charge
of, is that right?
General DANNATT: Certainly by the end of the fighting phase, that is correct.
General Tadic was the corps commander.
Ms KORNER: And we can see there on the following page, the penultimate paragraph, that
in fact Colonel Vukelic is issuing instructions th at until there is a law enacted on the army of the - 16 -
Socialist Republic they must respect the law on All-People’s Defence of the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia. Does that accord with your understanding of the situation?
General DANNATT: Madam President, in a matter of four lines, it rather confirms what I
was saying just now that until regulations could be issued, adopted by law for the army of
Republika Srpska, they should continue to abide by the law ⎯ it is called here “All-People’s
Defence” ⎯ and that is the law that was developed during Tito’s period running Yugoslavia and
makes the point that the existing law was to contin ue until such time as there was a new law that
could be passed to formalize the regulations and activities of the VRS.
MsKORNER: Thank you. Now the next docum ent, if you can turn to that, please, the
second document and we will go to the fifth pa ge, it is marked page 10n at the bottom ⎯ Madam
President, may I say that while we have extracted pages from documents to save space, we do have
the complete originals available for anybody who wants them. It is about the Befehlstaktik method
of commander control. If you look there, please, at paragraph17 of the Provisional Service
Regulations of the Army of the Serbian Republic, you see there that it says that “[m]embers of the
Army shall carry out the orders of their superiors without demur, in full, accurately and
punctually”, and so on and so forth. And then th ree lines further on “[t]he execution of each order
shall first be reported to the superior officer or to the officer who has given the order”. How do
those instructions fit in with what you have described?
General DANNATT: The first paragraph alluded to there is what I would expect to see in
any military publication formalizing the fact that subordinates are expected to carry out their
superiors’ instructions. But what is quite telling here is the second excerpt: the [inaudible] just at
the end of paragraph17 where it says “[t]he executi on of each order shall fi rst be reported to the
superior officer or to the officer who has given the order”. This is a clear characteristic of that
centralized form of commander control: when you ha ve been told to do something, you do it, and
then you report to your superior that you have done it. In the army that I am part of, instructions
are given, we get on, do the action and then we re port back [inaudible] or on a periodic basis. So
this is indicative of this very rigid downward fl ow of orders and upward flow of information to
keep the superior command informed at all times. - 17 -
Ms KORNER: Thank you. Now, I want to deal now also as a topic with the transformation,
as it were, of the JNA into the two separate armies ⎯ that is to say, the VRS and the VJ as they
came to be called ⎯ and then I want to come back to the question of how this all came about. Are
you aware of the reorganization that took place in December 1991 which created the 2nd Military
District, and can you briefly just tell the Court what that is about, if you can?
General DANNATT: Prior to that reorgani zation the JNA, the Yugoslav National Army,
was organized in a number of military districts which covered the complete territory of Yugoslavia,
as it was then. And I will say a singular military district that controlled the S base, of course the
whole of Yugoslavia as it was. But the interesti ng thing of the reorganization, or the interesting
point about the reorganization that occurred in December 1991 is that the 2nd Military District was
reorganized so that the geographic area that it was responsible for was exactly contiguous over the
boundaries of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was done, you will recall, some months
before Bosnia became independe nt and one wonders why that re organization was necessary, and
my research shows to me that the purpose behind th at reorganization was in anticipation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina becoming an independent State, th en one military formation, one military district
controlled all the territory in what was going to become an independent country. I think it would
be right to say at this stage too that at the sa me time that the reorganization took place, measures
were instituted to change the ethnic make-up of thos e in the 2nd Military District. Up to that point
typical of everything Yugoslav at that stage, the 2nd Military District would have had a mix of
Serb, Muslim, Croat, people from Slovenia. Of course the six republics within that military district
were by a process of posting people in and posting people out of the 2nd Mili tary District by the
early months of 1992 nearly 90percent of the people within the 2nd Military District were Serb.
The non-Serbs have been posted out or have left the army.
Ms KORNER: Can you look, please, for a moment ⎯ I am jumping one document ⎯ to the
fourth document in the bundle, which is a diary published by a gentleman named BorisavJovic,
who was at one stage part of the Presidency. And could you look at the second page where there is
an entry for 5 December 1991.
The PRESIDENT: Ms Korner, can you identify this document for us? - 18 -
MsKORNER: Yes, it is the published diary called “The Last Days of the SFRY ⎯
Preface”.
The PRESIDENT: Where . . ?
Ms KORNER: Sorry, it is document No. 4. I am so sorry, I thought I had said that. And it
is the second page and it is headed “5 December 1991”. We see again in the penultimate paragraph
on that page an entry by Mr.Jovic where, talk ing about Milosevic it starts: “Conversation with
Slobodan Milosevic... feels that we must withdr aw all citizens of Serbia and Montenegro from
the JNA in Bosnia-Herzegovina in a timely f ashion and transfer citizens of Bosnia and
Herzegovina to the JNA there in order to avoid ge neral military chaos”, and so on and so forth: I
know you have read this. Does that entry tell you anything, General Dannatt?
General DANNATT: This entry, Madam President, underlines what I was saying a moment
ago about a deliberate policy of changing the ethni c make-up within the 2nd Military District in
anticipation of it becoming an independent army. And you will note the date, 5December1991.
Of course there is also a sentence in that same pa ragraph, towards the end of that paragraph, which
reads: “That will also create the possibility for the Serb leadership in Bosnia-Herzegovina to
assume command over the Serb part of the JNA.” Again I point at that as being indicative of a
deliberate policy and intention to assure that the 2nd Military District covering the complete
territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina was predominantly [inaudible] in the control of people of Serb
nationality.
MsKORNER: If you go then to the next document at No.5, which is later in ⎯ it is
actually 1992, 7 May ⎯ again it is an order from General Talić, this time headed the 5th Corps, but
I think it is to your knowledge that the 5th Kra jina Corps of the old JNA became the 1stKrajina
Corps. Does that show, looking at that order, which, again, I think you have seen, which states that
in order to implement the decision of the Re public of Yugoslavia presidency on 5May1992 to
transform the JNA published in the media ⎯ that is the order ⎯ as being sure that members of the
JNA who remain on the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina will retain the rights.
In keeping with this, the next paragraph will be : all members of the JNA who are Bosnia and
Herzegovina citizens should be retained in their cu rrent duties and units and institutions in Bosnia
and, finally, members of the JNA who do not have Bosnia and Herzegovina citizenship may remain - 19 -
in their current duties in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina or may request a transfer to the
territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
General Dannatt, again, what does that document tell you?
General DANNATT: Madam Pr esident, this tells me ⎯ it points to some of the
inconsistencies that were beginning to arise be tween what was becoming an independent army, the
VRS, the fact that many people within it were still members of another country’s army, the Serb
Republic’s army, they were still members of the VJ , even though they were serving with the VRS.
And this is a theme that will come out over the next few minutes. We will see a number of
examples whereby people who are paid by and belo ng to the army of another nation are serving in
the army of an adjacent country: in particular, I am talking about people belonging to the VJ, the
army of Serbia and Montenegro, serving in the ar my of Republika Srpska; this is not a practice
that you would expect to see elsewh ere in the world, you either belong to one army or another
army. It is unusual to be in both.
Ms KORNER: The causes were that Bosnia’s independence was declar ed at the beginning
of March and was recognized by the European Union on 6April 1992. What is your view, as a
general in the British army, of that situation, where you have got officers from the VJ serving in the
VRS?
General DANNATT: Thank you, Madam President . It should not have been happening.
People belong to one country and serve in that c ountry’s army: or you belong to another country
and serve in that country’s army, and to see written down here that the rights of people who belong
to one army are being preserved, even though they are serving in another army, is most unusual and
I have not come across it elsewhere.
Ms KORNER: In fact, as I think you are also aware, the transformation, or the proper
establishment of the Bosnian Serb army, did not take place until 12May and 19May was the
formal, as it were, declaration. What is your view in that respect of the document of 7 May?
General DANNATT: What we see here is paying for what was going to happen and it is
another example ⎯ to which I referred to a few minutes ago ⎯ that the organization took place in
December 1991 of starting to prepare the plan for th e Second Military District to become the VRS.
And here we have some of the personnel issues being addressed for those who were then going to - 20 -
be serving in the new VRS: they still have their rights, their pay, their entitlement to pensions and
things like that preserved, even though they were going to wind up in the VRS and not in what
became the VJ.
Ms KORNER: Now, I want you just, if we could for a moment, to go back to part of
Borisav Jović’s diary and deal with an entry for 30 Ap ril, which, again, you will find as document
No.4 and this is a document ⎯ or an entry ⎯ dated 30April. And if one goes to the page just
before 7 May ⎯ I am sorry, the last page in the document: at the bottom, just before we get to the
entry marked 7 May, you see this entry: “Since it is also necessary to withdraw generals who are
not originally from Bosnia and Herze govina, it was agreed that General Mladi ć would replace
General Vuković.” But can you comment on that entry?
General DANNATT: Well, it is not an example, Madam President, of what I was saying
before: here is playing going on to reorganize an army, to arrange the manning of it and here this
quotation shows the delegation of it was being pl anned and sorted out, and that GeneralMladi ć
would replace GeneralVukovi ć in command of the Second Military District, at that stage on its
way to becoming the army of Republika Srpska.
Ms KORNER: Alright, we are going to look a little later at some of what happened between
1992 and early 1993, but I want to now move to a slightly separate topic and that is, the question of
intent. You describe to us that it is the grand st rategic level which sets the goals, which are then
carried out by the military strategic level, and so on through your structural command. Are you
willing to assist the Court with what the in tent was from the documents, and your expert
knowledge in this particular case, of those events, particularly in 1992?
General DANNATT: I think, Madam President, that you will recognize that this is an
absolutely key issue. I have endeavoured to describe, up to now, the process, whether we are going
from the top to the bottom, intent is converted to activity on the ground. And it has to beg the
question why the break-up of Yugoslavia was such an event, surrounded by conflict and bloodshed,
in the way that it was. After all, in history, even more recently, we have seen the break-up of the
former Soviet Union and, of course, a number of countries have managed to change their political
construct without resort to bloodshed. So, wh y did the break-up of Yugoslavia attract so much
bloodshed? We are drawn to the conclusion that there was an intention to see that the territory - 21 -
occupied by Serb people was contiguous: we have viewed the enlargement of the boundaries of the
Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, it was going to also encompass those parts, say, of Bosnia and
it might have possibly been Croatia as well, where there were large numbers of Serb people. And it
was that intention to have a large Serb State, of geographical size large enough to encompass all the
Serb nation; the Serbs were a nationality, I belie ve grievance was at the heart of the difficulties
that Yugoslavia got itself into. Now, that, I confess, is conjecture but it is conjecture I think well
supported by history. If one looks at some documen ts, one can find the statements of some of the
leaders of that country which, by their spoken word s, back that conjecture. And, certainly, if one
may go on to one such document, which is the one at flag 3 . . .
Ms KORNER: Yes, it is flag3; if the Court would be kind enough to turn to the one at
flag 3.
General DANNATT: Flag3 is the testimony of ZoranLili ć, in front of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and this exhibit is a transcript of what was said at the
time and what was said is that we hold that each nation has the equal right to decide about its
destiny, such a right can be constrained solely by the same equal right of other nations. As far as
the Serbian people are concerned, they want to live in one State, hence divisions into several States,
which will separate Serbian people and force them to live in different sovereign States is, from our
point of view, unacceptable. That is, let me specify, out of the question. A Serbian nation living in
one State and every nation wanting to live with the Serbian people in the same State on an equal
basis is welcome. And he rules out confederation. And he’s then asked, isn’ t that consistent with
the views publicly expressed by the accused, refe rring to Mr. Milosevic, at the time, and he
answers, yes. So I infer from that that there was a stated intention to generate a State larger than
the boundaries of any of the existing republics in Yugoslavia, populated possibly by Serb people,
and I believe that statements like that very much form the political intent which then exposed that
four-step process that I have described, inevitabl y led from political intent being converted to
military objectives, to campaigns planned by generals at the operational level, which led to tactical
activity on the ground.
As I have already said, military activity does not happen by chance in an ordered army. I
will try to explain that the VRS although new, was [inaudible] regulations and therefore the activity - 22 -
on the ground originated for political intent, e xpressed at the governmental level, which is
illustrated in the quotations I have just read out.
Ms KORNER: Just to make it absolutely clear, it is referred to in th e transcript. What was
happening here, was that Mr. Mladic was being asked about a report of one of Mr.Milosevic’s
speeches. Now, can we, apart from that, are there other documents, other knowledge that you have
that assist you in coming to the conclusion that you have? Apart from you’ve looked at this
transcript, have you read reports of other meetings and the like?
General DANNATT: I would use considerable ev idence that discussions of the nature that I
have just described, were indeed commonplace in that language, and become commonplace.
Interestingly of course, none of those statements of intent I think so far have been accurately
pinned if you like, to Mr. Milosevic himself, but th e attitude of the desire for a greater Serbia was
prevalent, and certainly from the direction of th e guidance given, which came down the chain of
command.
Ms KORNER: I think you are aware, and its not a contentious matter, that there were
meetings that Mladic held in Belgrade with Milosevic during the course of the period of the
conflict. What’s your view of that?
General DANNATT: General Mladic, as we established, Madam President, was the
commander of the army of Republika Srpska, and therefore he should have been having proper
dialogue with his own President and Presidenc y, and particularly in the personality of
Mr.Karadzic. But it is well documented th at General Mladic had frequent meetings and
discussions, not just in Belgrade, but with Mr. Milosevic personally. And I do not need to describe,
its, I am afraid, it is highly unusual for the commander of one nation’s army, should be having
regular consultations with the President of anothe r State. If you could imagine the situation, if I
was commanding the British army I would not expect to go to Paris to talk to the French President
about operations that I might be conducting in Northe rn Ireland. It just doesn’t logically stack up.
And I think it begs the question “what was the substance of the discussions at times between
Mladic and Milosevic”; I do not know, I was not th ere. But it begs the question, why were they
having those conversations, and, secondly, it is a f act which I believe we will come back to, that
throughout this period, General Mladic, who had originally been an officer in the Yugoslav - 23 -
national army, remained on the payroll of the VJ , and therefore, in a sense, by talking with
Milosevic in Belgrade, he was talking to the h ead of the country that actually paid his wages ⎯ he
who pays the piper calls the tune, I think is an expression sometimes used.
Ms KORNER: Yes, I think on that point you looked at the testimony of Sir Rupert Smith,
which we have not copied ⎯ but I think it’s going to come in at some stage. Who said at one stage
that the man who pays the cheque, is usually the man who is in command eventually.
General DANNATT: That’s another way of putting it, Madam President.
Ms KORNER: And very briefly, because the time as you know General, is limited, we
copied for the Court, and you have looked at the do cument No. 7, which is part of the testimony of
Mr. Williams. He was one of Mr. Akashi’s aid es, I think, and if we go to the second page ⎯ the
very last part of the last line ⎯ we see him saying “that I think both before the imposition of
sanctions in August 1994, and afterwards, the indi cations we have that GeneralMladic was a
frequent visitor to Belgrade”.
General DANNATT: Indeed, Madam President , what Michael Williams was Mr.Akashi’s
Director of Information, and he has testified that General Mladic was a frequent visitor to Belgrade.
Indeed, he comments “that no matter what the political tensions were that were self-evident in the
relationship between Belgra de and Pale they did not seem to affect unduly his ⎯ that’s
General Mladic’s ⎯ comings and goings”.
Ms KORNER: I want to move to a topic of the relationship between the VRS and the VJ
during the period that we are concerned with. Fi rst of all, as regards their command structures,
what was the appearance, if you like, of the command structures?
General DANNATT: Madam President, if I could just answer that question a trifle more
widely. I have talked about command and control styles of armies, what actually defines a military
organization as an independent army, is the ability to give operational orde rs and guidance: but
secondly to generate forces that can be employed on operations ⎯ and certainly in my army and
my staying of the army of Republika Srpska ⎯ personnel requirements, equipment requirements,
logistics sustainability and the provision of training, were the four key elements that the army of
Republika Srpska needed to provide for itself, or to have provided for it, in order for it to be able to
function properly as an army. And, in my r eading of various documents, I have come across - 24 -
numerous examples where personnel support, logis tic support, equipment and training were
provided substantially by the VJ, which were under the command from Belgrade. And, if you wish
I could give you some examples of that.
Ms KORNER: Yes, can you look, and now can we go back to document No.6, please.
Again, Madam President, this document runs to we ll over 130 pages, the whole document is here
should anybody wish to see it. But we have just selected extracts. This is a document called the
“Analysis of the Combat readiness and activities of the Army of Republika Srpska in 1992” and it
was actually apparently drafted in April of 1993 and I think you had an opportunity ⎯ is that
right ⎯ to read through the whole document.
General DANNATT: Yes, Madam President, I ha ve read this complete document and I find
this, as a professional working person, an absolutely fascinating document.
It is a very honest appraisal by the senior command of the army of Republika Srpska about
his own capabilities and particularly about its shortf alls and why it choose to make some of those
shortfalls from.
Ms KORNER: Very briefly then, and as I said, because of the time, if you look please at the
third page, yes, it is at the back of the second page which is marked... No sorry, it is page10.
The last paragraph says “The control and command function in the framework of the establishment
of the Army of Republika Srpska developed in two stages” and then “[a]n important development
in the first period was the self-organizing of municipal and other regional units on the basis of
territorial defence units under the political and patriotic influence of the Serbian Democratic Party.”
Could you very briefly, if possible, tell the Court what your understanding of that is, what they are
talking about here.
General DANNATT: Madam President, what I see here is a carry-on of the traditional way
that forces were developed in Yugoslavia, under th e “All-People’s Defence” doctrine. So in that
first period, from 1April to 15June, many of th e local defence organizations, territorially based,
came together for either collective defence or co llective operations and they were taken into the
main body of the army and we see many examples of these local defence organizations, some of
which are called paramilitary organizations, coming together, conducting operations but - 25 -
increasingly coming into the overall command and control structure of the VRS as the regulations
required, as opportunities required them to do so.
Ms KORNER: Thank you. On the next page, page 13, there is a pa ragraph which we have
outlined, which deals with paramilitary formations ⎯ but can you just note that in passing, because
I want to deal with that again separately. Page 31, this deals with, as it were, the communications
aspect, and it says that “Stationary wire co mmunications, together with radio-relay
communications, formed the foundation of the stationary segment of the communications system of
the former JNA.” From your reading, what do you understand was the situation with the
equipment which had belonged to the JNA on the territory of Bosnia?
General DANNATT: MadamPresident, no army can exist without a means of
communication so that command and control can be exercised and, quite simply, the
communications systems of the JNA which were in place, were taken over by the VRS, in
substantial part, and were used as their main pr incipal methods of communications for conducting
command and control.
Ms KORNER: As you go next to page33 ⎯ I think you see what you just said set out:
“Radio-relay communications . . . The Army of Y ugoslavia has extended great assistance to us in
putting into place this type of communications link, as it has made available to us a number of its
connecting pathways and the available capacities of its communications channels” at the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia. Personnel, could we move on to next, page79. It is headed “Personnel
Problems” and we have already looked at one documen t dealing with this. “The framework of the
officer cadre of the Army of RS comprises the active and reserve officers”.
The PRESIDENT: MsKorner, can I just remind you, you are not introducing documents;
you are leading the examination.
Ms KORNER: Yes, I am sorry, Madam President. Having read that paragraph, what is your
understanding ⎯ together with the other information you have ⎯ of the situation of personnel and
the two armies.
General DANNATT: From these paragraphs here, it is quite clear to me, Madam President,
that the army of Republika Srpska required considerable support from some of the officers from the
army of Yugoslavia, from the VJ. And the second part that is illuminated here talks about the - 26 -
higher leadership and command posts ⎯ again they have a deficiency of such people and sought to
recruit them from the army of Yugoslavia; and i ndeed the army of Yugoslavia sent people to fill
these posts. Elsewhere in the documentation there are a number of other examples where
individuals are sent to reinforce the army of Republika Srpska.
Ms KORNER: And then one more example: “intelligence gathering”. How important is
intelligence and security support in an army situation?
General DANNATT: Madam President, in an y army, intelligence is an absolutely key
function unless you know what the enemy or the othe r side’s plans or intentions are, it is very
difficult for you to form your own plans and therefor e I see on the page of this document, page 85,
a paragraph in the middle of that page says ⎯ I think it is circled on everyone’s copies ⎯ you see
the words:
“Co-operation and exchange of data with related services in the territory of RS
is generally satisfactory, as well as with the Main Staff of the SVRSK/Serbian Army
of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Of la te, co-operation has also been intensified
with the intelligence and security organs of the Army of Yugoslavia, while with the
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia it is still at an unsatisfactory level.”
So I understand from that, that the intelligence sta ffs of the Bosnian and Serb army, the Serb army
of Krajina and the army of Yugoslavia were co- operating and indeed would like to have had more
co-operation, but were not getting it, from the Interior Ministry forces of the Republic of Serbia.
Ms KORNER: And then I did say that it was fi nal, but one more because we need to look at
a second document. Could you go please to page96, “Material needs”. And just tell us at the
highlighted paragraph or outlined paragraph, what that shows?
General DANNATT: This paragr aph on page96. I notice a number of things that I have
already . . . but I will read it to you:
“⎯ war production to meet the needs of the VRS has not been instituted;
⎯ [he is explaining that] material reserves have been exhausted, and their present
[stocks] levels are critical;
⎯ [and that repair is not going reliably] the extent of repairs and regeneration does
not guarantee reliable reserves;
⎯ [and indeed he says] there are no imports, except from the FRY.” - 27 -
Again I think this indicates the extent to which reliance on the FRY army, the army of Yugoslavia,
is absolutely critical for the continuing systems of operations for the army of Republika Srpska.
Ms KORNER: And I think, although this mean s jumping a document or two or three, could
we go please to document No.12, which is... there was an assembly held, the Bosnian-Serb
Assembly, 16 April 1995 in Sa nski Most and General Mladi ć attended, and again we have the full
document, if anybody requires it. At page18, he gave a list that is described as a “consumption
review from the beginning of [the] war until 31 December1994”; and then we see a long list of
ammunition and the like. A very simple question: what sort of quantities are these, as he describes
they received?
General DANNATT: Madam President, the qua ntities of infantry ammunition, artillery
ammunition and to a lesser degree anti-aircraft ammunition that are referred to in this paragraph are
by any measurement very large indeed. In gross terms, they are very large, if you can imagine
nearly ten thousand tons of infantry ammunition, th at translates to a very large number of bullets.
And indeed in proportional terms –– as I already mentioned –– infantry ammunition, the proportion
is broken down: 42.2per cent of supplies that the VRS inherited from the former JNA and with
47 per cent of their requirements provided by the Yugoslav army, I think that if you add those two
together you come to something around 10per cent that were acquired by other means. So the
point that this document is saying to me with rega rd to all these natures of ammunition is that the
dependence on the army of Yugoslavia, by the army of Republika Srpska, was very large indeed.
Ms KORNER: Very quickly again. You told the Court about effectively members of the VJ
being “posted” –– I think was your word –– to the VRS. Can we look, please, at document No. 8, a
document with which I think you are very familiar. It deals with General Krstic and the Colonel.
What does that tell you?
General DANNATT: Madam President, this document, No. 8, is a very simple document ––
a very human document if you like–– Krstic, at that stage a Colonel, was now serving with the
VRS. He wanted to move his family to Belgra de and he submitted an application through the 30th
Personnel Centre: that was the personnel centre se t up by the Army of Yugoslavia to administer
people serving the Republican Third Army. He submitted this application to move his family, who
was then living in Kosovska Mitrovica in Kosovo, to an apartment in Belgrade. And in paragraph 6 - 28 -
he says: “I believe that the general staff of the Army of Yugoslavia fully understands my situation.
Therefore I ask you, within the frame of your competence to help resolve my housing issue.”
It is a human request. It is a very normal request and indicative of a system that was well in
place for the administration of people who belonged to the VJ but were actually serving with the
VRS at the time. And there is something similar, over the page at document No. 9. I again call
Vinko Pandurevic. There is some information about him.
Ms KORNER: I think we can just summarize that . Is it right that we can see from that that,
although he was serving with the VRS, his family were continuing to live in Belgrade in a VJ
apartment?
General DANNATT: That is precisely the point I would have made.
Ms KORNER: I am sorry to rush you but it is the timing element that I am concerned about.
In respect also of the relationship between the two armies, could you quickly turn to
document No. 10, which is a report on the United Nations cable to Mr. Akashi from Mr. Kirudja,
who was in Sector North. It is very difficult to r ead, because it is a very bad copy. That is all we
could get, unfortunately. But you have read it. Do es it talk about, at the bottom of that first page,
orders that have been issued to officers who were born on the other side of the Drina?
General DANNATT: Madam President, this poor ly copied document tells me that the army
of Republika Srpska, amongst the many problems it w as having, was one of desertion of its people
from its ranks and that a meeting had been held between the authorities in Serbia and in the
Bosnian Serb Republic, to effectively close the border to Bosnia and Serb males between 18 and 65
coming across–– in other words, getting away from th e war. I think this is indicative of (1) a
shortage of manpower in the Bosnian Serb ar my, and (2) a fairly sophisticated degree of
co-operation between the two armies across the international boundary.
Ms KORNER: Very quickly again, the next document which, thank heavens, is much
clearer. On the second page the bracketed part of the second paragraph, which is about written
orders to the professional soldiers. Again, very br iefly, General Dannatt, what does that part tell
you?
General DANNATT: Madam President, the middl e part of that second paragraph tells me
that orders were being issued by the VJ for six- month detachments of officers in the VJ to either - 29 -
the armies of Republika Srpska or the Kraijina ar my. This was routine business and they were
being detached for six months’ service with a different army.
Ms KORNER: Although we did have other doc uments about the co-operation, I think you
have dealt with that. Because of the time, can I please move to the topic, please, of joint
operations. If we have time I will come back to paramilitaries. Have you studied, in particular,
three, what you would call, joint operations? Can you very quickly explain to the Court what you
mean by that?
General DANNATT: Madam President, in lookin g at the operations that were carried out
during 1992-1995, I have seen three clear exampl es whereby joint opera tions were conducted––
that is, operations jointly between the army of Y ugoslavia, the army of Republika Srpska and, in
some cases, the army of the Krajinas as well. These three operations are operations in 1993 along
the banks of the Drina, at Srebenica in 1995 and around Bihac in the winter of 1994 and 1995, and
they all provide examples of co-ordinated activity between those three armies.
Ms KORNER: Let us just very briefly, please, deal with the Drina operation. Can you tell
the Court, if possible in one line, what that was about?
General DANNATT: Essentially, Madam President , this was in fulfilment of the political
intent to make the river Drina not a boundary between Republika Srpska and the Serb Republic.
There were a large number of Serb people on the Bosnian side of the Drina and the intention was to
conduct operations in a 50-km. strip on the Bosnian side of the Drina to effectively cleanse that of
non-Serb people, to make that part of the territory of the expanded Serb State in this particular
[inaudible] in 1992 and 1993.
Ms KORNER: You said this was fulfilment of the political intent. If we look, please, at
document No. 17, which is part of the transcript of a gentleman named Deronjic who is testifying at
his own plea hearing. I think you are aware that he was in fact the head of the Crisis Staff in
Bratunac and he had various meetings. If we go to the second page of that extract we can see him
describing a meeting with a Mr. Kertes Perhaps you can just tell us, because I think you have read
it, very quickly, rather than me reading it.
General DANNATT: Madam President, this is clear documentary evidence, about which I
was suggesting a moment or two ago, that there was political and State intent that the 50 km. from - 30 -
the Drina, on the Bosnian side, as the words are used here: “that all of that would be Serb”. I think
that is a clear intent to make a nice piece of te rritory Serb. And military operations were then
conducted to make that so.
Ms KORNER: I think in document No. 18, can we see again on the second page, the
highlighted part of paragraph 3.
General DANNATT: In paragra ph 3, Madam President, of that document, it lays down the
method of co-ordination between those three armies and in the second line there it says “I suggest
you form a Corps IKM/ forward command post in Bratunac” and as that paragraph shows it is to
co-ordinate the activities of the VRS, the VRSJ and of units of the army of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, the VJ. So that is a clear indication of setting up a joint headquarters to co-ordinate the
operations of those three armies.
Ms KORNER: Again, just noting in passing, document19, does that also as you told us
[show] a further statement of the political intent or the intent thereof?
General DANNATT: Madam President, that is correct. Referring to the forces on the right
bank, the Bosnian side of the Drina.
Ms KORNER: I think the second joint opera tion that you had mentioned was Srebrenica
with which you are very familiar; very briefly can you tell the Court, not what that was about, but
how that was a joint operation?
General DANNATT: Madam Pr esident, the operation in 1995 to attack Srebrenica
principally under the command of 5Corps Co mmander General Krstic but under the overall
direction of General Mladic requires the i nvolvement not just of 5 Corp troops under
General Krstic but also VRS main staff troops as we ll. In Document 21 in the pack you have been
provided with it also lists that there will be speci al police at the [inaudible] not just Republika
Srpska, but from the Serbian Krajina Republic and from Serbia, including Serbian Interior Ministry
troops as well. Another example of elements of Serbian military forces taking part in one
operation.
Ms KORNER: Do we know anything about Ma ravic’s movements during the course of that
operation? - 31 -
General DANNATT: We do. As already men tioned, General Mladic was in the habit of
making frequent visits to Belgrade and if you look at document No. 22, this is part of the testimony
of General Smith.
Ms KORNER: It is the fourth page of that testimony.
General DANNATT: Looking towards the bottom of that page where it says: 4. and 5.: this
is commenting on a meeting between Mladic and Milosovic: He [Milosovic] was clearly the
superior of Mladic. He referred to Mladic by hi s Christian name and Mladic was deferring to him.
And that is the description of a meeting held between Milosovic and Mladic on 15 July 1995
watching the model of the operations being conducted in Srebrenica. By that stage the town had
fallen and the well-documented killing of the males wa s then in train. I have to speculate; I
wonder what they talked about.
Ms KORNER: And finally, on the third of the joint operations, I think it was something
called “Operation PAUK”, can you tell us when this was and what that involved briefly.
General DANNATT: Madam President, Oper ation PAUK The operation was conducted in
the Bihac area in the north of Bosnia with the intention of destroying the Sarajevo forces 5th Corps
which would have removed the authority of Bosnia from Bihac and enabling Fikret Abdic’s forces
to take control in Bihac and these operations were conducted by elements of the forces in Krajina
Corps of the Bosnian Serb army and the 15th, 21st and 39th Corps of the armies of the Krajina
Serbs and also, as it was Fikret Abdic’s troops involv ed, is evidence of Ministry of Interior troops
from Serbia also being involved. Therefore I o ffer this as a further example of joint operations
between a number of armies belonging to different countries c onducting operations on a
co-ordinated basis.
Ms KORNER: And I think the last document, No.23, is that a diary of the operation as it
were which shows, we can simply pick one example, that there was reporting to Belgrade going on.
If you look at page27 at the bottom we can see ⎯ I know it is not highlighted, I’m sorry about
that ⎯ it is 1655h which is highlighted, yes, “PAUK to report to Belgrade”.
General DANNATT: . . . not easy to identify. On page 46 of that document 1000h it is said
that PAUK, that is the name of the command group, is holding a meeting with the command and
familiarizing us with the situation and the developm ent of the talks in Belgrade. And if you were, - 32 -
Madam President, to go over the page towards th e bottom of the column for 3January there is a
whole paragraph that says at 0800h, Lieutenant-General Novakovi ć ⎯ he was the overall
commander, and he was from the VJ army ⎯ Colonel Mijia the Ministry of the Interior individual
and another individual named Božović left for Belgrade. One wonders what business took them to
Belgrade at that stage and what other exampl es showing interaction between Malakovic who was
commander of operations and the authorities in Belgrade at that time.
Ms KORNER: Madam President, can I quickly ask for guidance? Do I get to 4.25 with the
witness or . . .
The PRESIDENT: Well, Ms Korner, you are awar e we must give the same courtesy of time
and your aware we shall need to rise very shortl y and that we will need time to consider any
questions. So if you take the extra five minutes what is at risk is your right of re-examination.
Ms KORNER: I will surrender my right to re-e xamine, Madam President. Just very briefly
General Dannatt. I would like to ask you abou t the question of paramilitaries which again is a
matter which you have studied and looked at. From your experience and background, what was the
role of any of these paramilitary formations in the conflict.
General DANNATT: Madam President, the way of the paramilitaries in some ways were
similar to those activities by the local territorial gr oups. But they came together early on. They
were the main instruments of fighting early on in the war, particularly in 1992. They were
subsequently brought under the main command of th e army and indeed, under the regulations of
the army they were obliged to come under the command of the army, and there is documentary
evidence in the pack of Genera l Mladic accepting command of all the paramilitaries and territorial
organizations. I think the only point I would make from that is that when a senior commander has
accepted command of organizations like paramilitaries and territori als, then with acceptance of
command also comes acceptance of responsib ility. Command and responsibility cannot be
separated. So when we describe the activities ⎯ and this is well documented as well ⎯ of many of
the paramilitaries, nevertheless they were brought in to the main commander control of the army of
Republika Srpska, Mladic accepted their command and, we would venture to suggest, consistent
with military doctrine, he also accepted responsib ility, whether he knew it or not or whether he
liked it or not. - 33 -
Ms KORNER: And from where in your understanding did some, if not all, of these
paramilitary formations originate.
General DANNATT: They originated from throughout the areas where the Serb population
inhabited. Perhaps some of the most notorious came from Serbia itself and again, documented in
the pack of information, are facts which suppor t that. I am thinking of Seselj’s men and also
Arkan’s men, in particular.
Ms KORNER: If the paramilitary formations came from Serbia and were then taken under
the control of the VRS ⎯ under Mladic ⎯ if they came from there, if they were sent by the VJ,
posted to the VRS, for example, under whose control or whose authority were they operating?
General DANNATT: They were operating on the territory of the VRS, as I have indicated,
Madam President, they would have been under th e command of Mladic and part of the chain of
command of the VRS. As has already been suggested, many of these people came from Serbia
proper and therefore their activities and their involvement in the war, I venture to suggest, was
most improper.
Ms KORNER: We have got one moment. I just want you to watch one segment which
comes from “The Death of Yugoslavia”, which is Seselj talking, which will take one minute.
The PRESIDENT: This is a video that has already been entered into the record?
Ms KORNER: Yes.
The PRESIDENT: Very quickly, then.
Ms KORNER: Yes.
[Video being shown]
The PRESIDENT: What is your question to the General?
Ms KORNER: General, I think you need to see this last bit. Sorry.
[Video continues]
First question, General. You saw Seselj saying these were not orders, they were requests. In
your experience, is there a difference? - 34 -
General DANNATT: Madam President, I refer to my earlier discussion about the nature of
which political intent is then translated to activ ity on the ground. I do not believe that Milosevic
needed to give, or indeed, Mladic, needed to gi ve orders, but that the intent had already been
expressed and these extreme paramilitary forces were acting to carry out that intent by the activities
we saw glimpses of there on the screen, on the ground.
Ms KORNER: Thank you very much, General Dannatt.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. The Court will now rise for no more than ten minutes. I ask
the witness to remain in the near vicinity of the courtroom.
The Court adjourned from 4.25 to 4.35 p.m.
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. I give the floor now to Mr. Brownlie for his
cross-examination, and we ask that the General be brought into the courtroom. Mr. Brownlie.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you, Madam President. General Dannatt, on behalf of Serbia and
Montenegro, can I express my appreciation that y ou are willing to give your time to assisting the
Court with your expertise. Could you help us on the question of when you were actually present in
Bosnia?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I can. I was in Bosnia briefly in February 1994,
assisting General Sir Michael Rose with one or two t asks that he may wish to refer to later in the
week. I was present from October 1995 to April 1996 when, as I explained earlier, I was
Commander of British Forces and then under IFOR, Commander 4th Armoured Brigade, as part of
IFOR. And then in the winter of 2000-2001, I wa s in Bosnia from October 2000 until April 2001.
Over and above those extended periods, I have visite d and continue to visit regularly in exercise of
my supervisory responsibilities for troops under my command who were serving there at the time.
And I was last in Bosnia in, I cannot remember the month but in the middle of last year.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. It is true, is it not, that possibly one of your later stints in
Bosnia was as a part of the British force, taki ng part in the implementation of the Dayton
Agreements? - 35 -
General DANNATT: That is right. That was one of the earlier times I was there. IFOR was
formed on, I believe, 20 December 1995, and at that point, I and the British troops under my
command switched from being part of the United Nations UNPROFOR and became IFOR.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Is it the case that when you were about to move British units into the then
Republika Srpska you contacted a commander of Republika Srpska in order to ensure your safe
passage?
General DANNATT: That is right, Madam Presid ent. Mr. Brownlie is quite correct. In
order to ensure that the transition from UNPROFO R to IFOR went as smoothly as possible, I
contacted the commanders of the Bosnian Serb army, the Croat forces and the Bosniak forces,
because I was given to understand that their strategi c level had agreed at Dayton that there was to
be a ceasefire and there was to be the beginnings of a peace process and if I wanted to contact the
next level down ⎯ the operational level down ⎯ to ensure that they understood that and that they
would issue appropriate orders to the soldiers on the ground, so that in the case of the British
elements, when they advan ced into Republika Srpska ⎯ territory which they had not operated in
before ⎯ Republika Srpska soldiers would not be alarmed or frightened or surprised by seeing
British soldiers arrive and start a local firefighAnd my intention was to ensure from the bottom
to the middle to the top that the intent was the same.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Now, is it not the case that when you were actually moving,
you were making your first move with your units into Republika Srpska, you contacted a
commander in the Republika Srpska army?
General DANNATT: I intended to contact, Ma dam President, General Tadic, who was then
the corps commander with his headquarters in Ba nja Luka and, as I was mentioning earlier this
afternoon, the arranged meeting that I had with Ge neral Tadic, I having got to Banja Luka, did not
happen and he ⎯ General Tadic ⎯ sent a colonel to meet me in stead and I conveyed my message
to General Tadic through the colonel, whose name I now forget. But the captain who was with him
was one Captain Povovic, and I have reason to believe that my message was communicated to
General Tadic, because a few days later when the British forces advanced to Banja Luka, the Serbs
knew we were coming and were expecting us. - 36 -
Mr. BROWNLIE: That, if I may say so, is a very clear account. So, it did not occur to you
to approach a JNA commander to assure that the forces were safe when they entered?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I am sure Mr. Brownlie will be aware from the
answers I have already given that I was at that stage a relatively junior commander in the NATO
command and control structure that was being stood up. It was perfectly appropriate for me to deal
with commanders, Croat, Bosniak and Serb, whose areas of responsibility were adjacent to mine. I
had no normal dealings myself with Belgrade and, indeed, had I wished to have dealings with
Belgrade, I would need to have gone through two, if not three, higher levels of authority above
myself. I acted pragmatically on the ground, identifying the problem and choosing how to solve it.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Could you tell the Court, when did you first see the bundle
of 23 documents which the Court was given earlier today?
General DANNATT: The constituent documents , Madam President, I have seen variously
over the last two or three or four months amidst a mass of documents that I have been looking at. I
selected, knowing that the time that this Court ha d to hear my evidence was relatively short, a
number of documents, and they were put together in a bundle and I saw that bundle yesterday for
the first time ⎯ as a bundle ⎯, but all the documents are ones th at I asked to be included in a
bundle for the information of the Court this afternoon.
Mr. BROWNLIE: If I could rephrase the question. When were you first aware of the
identity of the 23 documents which were put in recently before the Court and to my clients?
General DUNNATT: Madam President, I was aw are of them variously. As I said, I am
trying to remember when I was first contacted and asked if I would appear for the information of
this Court; I think it was probably October or November last year. And having agreed that I would
do so, and I had to seek authority from the Britis h Foreign and Commonwealth Office to do so, I
then began to request documents to supplement my existing knowledge. Certainly many hundreds,
if not several thousand documents and pages were forwarded to me and I selected from that large
number, the relatively modest number which we have been examining this afternoon.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. In the bundle of 23 documents, quite a number of the
documents refer to a period going as far back as 1991. Am I right in assuming that your knowledge
of matters in, say, the period 1991 to 1994, relates exclusively to documents you have seen? - 37 -
General DANNATT: Madam President, that is right. I would simply add that by having had
the opportunity of serving in Bosnia for the length of time that I described earlier, my
understanding of these documents has been placed in better context by having some feel for the
country, the people and the problems. But I do not stand here, this afternoon, as Mr.Brownlie I
think well knows, as a witness who saw events; I am here as an expert to give my opinion, such
value as the Court may place upon it, on material that I have now been scrutinizing.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Is it the case that as a background to your giving extensive evidence in
the Kirstic case, you carried out research on behalf of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTY?
General DANNATT: Madam President, it is indeed correct. I appeared as a witness called
by the prosecution in the ICTY case of the Prosecutor v. Radislav Kirstic. I also appeared in the
capacity of expert witness on that occasion a nd as with today’s appearance I spent some
considerable time reading and requesting documents and visiting areas of Bosnia that I had not
been to before in order to fulfil, to fully inform myself, of the events which I was going to be asked
questions about.
Mr. BROWNLIE: In relation to the murders at Srebrenica in July 1995, how far back do you
think the relevant documentation goes?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I think I would like to ask Mr. Brownlie to rephrase
that question, before I give you a flow of words, as I am not quite sure exactly what the question is.
Mr. BROWNLIE: You have explained to us ⎯ and we appreciate what you say, that you
studied masses of documents, or you have had access to masses of documents ⎯ you are the
expert, forgive me, you are dealing with events in 1995, you are aware of the background, as you
said: in your experience, would there be any background in point of time, in relation to what
eventually happened in Srebrenica in July 1995?
General DANNATT: Madam President. there are two or three strands in answer to that
question. First of all, it was very important as part of my research for that case, as it is for this
hearing today, to have a full understanding of the historical origins of the VRS, the army of
Republika Srpska. And as I have suggested today I am quite clear that the origins of the VRS was
in the former JNA, and as I have given in ev idence this afternoon, the regulations, the handbooks
used by the VRS were pretty much identical with that of the former JNA; and, as I mentioned a - 38 -
little earlier this afternoon, when I gave that evidence in the ICTY Tribunal, GeneralKirstic
acknowledged that that, indeed, was the origin of the VRS in the regulation and background of the
former JNA.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. For the projects given to you by the Office of the Prosecutor,
is it not the case that you actually visited Srebrenica?
General DANNATT: That is indeed correct. I did. I visited Srebrenica. I visited all the
sites where it was alleged at the time that victims of the alleged massacre had been buried. I also
visited the sites where the killings were alleged to have taken place. I also visited the sites where
the reburials had taken place, when the bodies ⎯ which were initially buried in a number of sites
were dug out some two or three months later and reburied in a larger number of more dispersed
sites. I visited not all, but most of those major sites over a visit extending to several days.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Now, did you manage to talk to any former officials of the
Republika Srpska?
General DANNATT: Madam President, on that occasion I did not. I was there to view and
to see, to form a visual impression, to give my self a backdrop for the evidence that I was going to
be presenting from documentary evidence.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Now, you have s hown considerable surprise at the fact that
one State should get assistance from another State. Is it not a part of your experience as a soldier
that States often lend troops or give assistance to other military forces of friendly States? Is that
not quite common?
General DANNATT: Madam President, of course that is common: but it is common in the
context of more than one government having the same operational objectives, the same intent. I
give you the obvious example, the United Stat es-led coalition operation to Iraq in 2003 was
supported by the British Government and the British army was substantially involved, as were a
number of armies. This was not a surprise, this was legitimate activity, because the government
policies of both the United States Government and the United Kingdom Government and other
nations were at one, and therefore this was a joint enterprise.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Now, could I just ask you a very leading question. If you
accept ⎯ you may not ⎯ that in 1991-1992 there was a disintegration of a fairly long-established - 39 -
federation in the region. The JNA was a federal ar my; at rather short notice the situation changed
radically and in at least one of the documents there is a reference to the fact that the Yugoslav army
found itself very rapidly in areas where it was no longer expected to stay, to say the least. Given
the situation and the ethnic background, what woul d you have done had you been in charge of
logistics forming part of the group discussing wh at to do, and you were the military element, you
were part of the chiefs of staff, together with politicians, deciding how to redeploy ⎯ what to do?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I can se e where this question is going. My answer
is that if I was commanding the British army, and it was operating in an area from which we were
going to withdraw, resources are that tight that I would not have willingly and voluntarily left
equipment and supplies behind for the use of anot her army; I would have taken every measure
possible to recover that back to my own country for the use of my own army. Indeed, had I not
done so, I would probably have been personally accountable for the misuse of the equipment and
for the failure to properly look after it. And there is no question that I would have left it for the use
of anybody else and therefore, by extension, the fact that the supplies that Mr.Brownlie refers to
were left behind, were left behind with the intention that they should be used by the army that was
staying behind to use them.
Mr. BROWNLIE: In that slightly complicated geographical scenario you have just given us,
how do the Serbs of eastern Bosnia ⎯ were they in their own country ⎯ where were they
supposed to go?
General DANNATT: Bosnian Serbs in east ern Bosnia would quite properly, Madam
President, be expected to stay in their own country.
Mr. BROWNLIE: So, it would not be surprising if Bosnian members of the JNA decided to
join the armed forces of the Serbian area in Bosnia?
General DANNATT: No, that is completely unsurprising, Madam President. If I was an
inhabitant, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina a nd I was a Serb and the JNA that I was part of
was withdrawing, I would then be faced with a choice of either withdrawing with the JNA and
going to live in Belgrade or somewhere, or of st aying in my home territory, in which case I would
have left the JNA. And if another army had b een set up and I was minded to serve in it I would
have offered myself for service in it. - 40 -
Mr. BROWNLIE: Are you aware that in the Muslim areas and also in Croatia a very similar
process took place with the first separation taking the form of territorial defence units?
General DANNATT: I am very much aware, Madam President, and as I endeavoured to
explain earlier this afternoon, this is an activ ity that I would have expected based on a
long-standing doctrine of “All-People’s Defence” –– that a village, a town would raise its own unit
for local protection. Of course, the reason that “All-People’s Defence” as a doctrine was put in
place was not to conduct operations such as were conducted from 1992 onwards but were to play a
part in the event of external aggression by othe r nations into Yugoslavia, as it was then. My
contention would be that the [inaudible] of “All-Pe ople’s Defence” was used, I would go so far as
to say misused, towards local militias based on ethnic groupings which were then most regretfully
and disastrously used for internal conflict purposes.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. General Dannatt, if I could take you to one or two of the
documents that you have used to present to th e Court, I look at document 2 with the title
“Provisional Service Regulations” of the army of the Republika Srpska and this was quite early on
in this chronology. Have you any reason to disb elieve that they were not the provisional service
regulations of the army of the Republika Srpska?
General DANNATT: No, I believe, as I suggested earlier on, I think it is entirely likely that
they were. I think it is, in my view, important for the information of this Court that such
documentary evidence is provided in order to show what would otherwise be an assertion that the
former regulations of the JNA formed the basis of the army of the RS. I presume that you would
wish to see documentary evidence that indeed was the case.
Mr. BROWNLIE: If I could move on to item 6, which has the title “Analysis of the Combat
Readiness of the army of Republika Srpska” and is dated 1992, is there any reason to think that that
document is not a report on the combat readiness of the army of Republika Srpska?
General DANNATT: Madam President, there is no doubt at all that it is indeed what it says
it is. What is interesting about it and why I offered it for the information of the Court is not the fact
that the document is what it says it is, it is what it says within it and, in other words, the points that
it makes to illustrate a number of the points that I thought the Court would find it useful to be
aware of. - 41 -
Mr. BROWNLIE: Now if I could move to document 8. That is the document affecting the
affairs of the then Colonel Krstic and he is as king for improvements in his housing arrangements.
Now it is addressed at the top to the Main Staff of the Republika Srpska army.
General DANNATT: Because at that stage, Madam President... Mr. Brownlie, are we
talking about the same thing? Top left, it talks about head of staff of Drina Corps and then, yes you
are quite right, it is addressed to the main staffin Republika Srpska, so my eye caught the wrong
place. This is indeed correct. This is Colonel Krstic putting his application up, through the correct
chain of command, to the command of the army of Republika Srpska. What is interesting, and this
is what I brought out earlier, was that the army of Republika Srpska could not have granted his
request. After all it did not own the territory of Kosovo where his wife was living, it did not own
houses in Belgrade where he wished his wife to move to and therefore he had to send it up the
chain of command of Republika Srpska in the full anticipation that it would then be passed, as
paragraph 4 says, through the 30th staff centre, whic h is a VJ staff centre set up specifically for the
handling of administration and personnel matters of VJ officers currently serving with the VRS. So
I do not see anything unusual about where he sent his request to and, in his terms, I do not see
anything unusual about this being submitted throu gh the 30th staff centre. What I do find unusual
is that two armies had such close relationship.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Now I would like to move to document 18, which is one of a number of
documents relating to forms of co-ordination betw een the two armies and there is a reference there
to operations affecting Skelani. Can you tell me where Skelani is?
General DANNATT: It is in the Drina valley area. It is bracketed here with Zvornik and
Bratunac, which are broadly in the same sort of area.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Do you know anything about the offensives by Mu slim forces lasting
from late 1991 up to early July 1995?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I do not claim to know in great detail about those
particular operations, but I do kn ow in general terms–– and I fi nd it completely unsurprising––
was that in that Drina valley area, there were not only –– as is being suggested here –– attacks by
Serb forces, but there were also counter-attack s and other offensives launched by the Bosnian
Muslims. Indeed in a war situation it is comple tely unsurprising that both sides in the conflict - 42 -
should not, from time to time, launch attacks on each other, particularly where a territory is at
stake.
Mr. BROWNLIE: I think it is true, but you can confirm it or otherwise, that the villages
were raided out of the undemilitarized enclave of Srebrenica over a long period. It think you
actually mention this fact in your evidence in the Krstic case. Can you confirm that?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I certainly can confirm that. The area of Srebenica
was supposed to have been demilita rized, but there is evidence th at members of the 28th Division
of the Bosniak army were still imprisoned within the Srebenica enclave. They should not have
been there, but the United Nations force that was pr esent in the Srebencia area, either as a result of
its mandate not being strong enough or the number of troops there not being strong enough, did not
eject and disarm those forces. Because they were there I find it completely unsurprising that they
from time to time carried out attacks into the neighbouring Serb areas.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Thank you. Would you accept that in 1995 –– I believe it was April ––
there were joint operations by Srpska forces and forces from the other side –– the Serbian side of
the Drina involving Skelani?
General DANNATT: Madam President, my unders tanding is that that is the case, but I do
not have detailed knowledge of those. If the next question is going to be a detailed question, I will
not be in a position to answer it.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Do you realize that Skelani was one of the few villages in the area which
had not been conquered by Muslim forces?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I will take Mr Brownlie’s word for that.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Do you have the view that joint operations between two armed forces are
somehow undesirable?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I do not sh are that view at all. Joint operations
between two armies are often necessary and, if ne cessary, then desirable. But, as I suggested
earlier with the rather simplistic example of coa lition action in Iraq in 2003, these operations are
entirely legitimate when the political intentions and political ambitions of two governments are one
and the same. I, in a previous appointment tw o or three years ago, was commanding the Allied
Rapid Reaction Corps and 17 different nationalities were under my command. Implicit in that is - 43 -
that the operations I might have conducted woul d have had the tacit agreement, no, the full
agreement of 17 governments in carrying out tho se operations. Nothing unsurprising or critical
about joint operations as such.
Mr. BROWNLIE: Madam President, that ends my cross-examination.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr.Brownlie. Well, I think MsKorner, given the way the
time has panned out, if you wish a very short re-examination, you may.
Ms KORNER: I would just like to return to th e very last topic. General Dannatt, you have
been asked a number of questions about joint operations and you have explained that they are often
necessary and desirable providing the political intentions of the governments are the same. Is there
any difference between that and what you have been describing to th e Court of those three joint
operations: Srebrenica, the Drina 1993 and what was called Operation PAUK?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I think the obvious difference between the kind of
joint operations that I was describing, and the joint operati ons that we were referring to this
afternoon, is that the intention of those joint operations principally by Serb forces of one type or
another was all in fulfilment of the wider political intent to create a Serb State of Serb people,
greater than the geographic boundaries of the then Repub lic of Serbia. And in my view, that is the
kind of joint operation that is unhelpful, probably ill egal, and this rather characterizes the conflict
in this troubled [inaudible] in what we now refer to as the former Yugoslavia. I think it is one of
the shames of the 1990s that that country whic h had hitherto been successful was [inaudible]
broken up into its respective republics and without reso rt to the force of arms. And therefore those
joint military operations had a very ugly aspect to them because the intent behind the joining of the
forces was –– I think probably it would be improper if I described it any further: I think I rest the
point there.
Ms KORNER: Thank you very much, Ge neral Dannatt. Thank you very much,
Madam President.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. The Court will now retire, but the Parties and
General Dannatt should remain in the vicinity of th e Great Hall of Justice. If the Court wishes to
pose questions to the General, it will return to the courtroom within the next 15 minutes. Should - 44 -
the Court not so wish to put any questions, it will not return to this courtroom and the Registry will
inform the Parties and the expert and the public accordingly. The Court now rises.
The Court adjourned from 5.10 to 5.35 p.m.
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Could Gene ral Dannatt be invited to rejoin us. Thank
you. General, we do have a small number of questions for you, and I will begin with one I would
like put to you. Do you think that the military of the VRS, operating in Bosnia, was operating on
the basis of a specific control and instructions in regard to particular operations from the authorities
in Belgrade, or were they acting under a general control with a margin of discretion? And on what
basis are you led to the answer that you will give us?
General DANNATT: Madam Preside nt, I believe that the main intent, as I have referred to
during this afternoon, was an intent that originat ed from Belgrade. And earlier this afternoon, I
alluded to the changes, for example, made with in the JNA to set up the possibility of the VRS
being a potentially independent army, operating within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So
I think the overall intent was a joint intent betw een the leadership of what became the Serb
Republic and what was the Bosnian Serb Republic . The degree to which the VRS acted in an
independent way, I think I would say that in part it did, but its actions were framed by the overall
intent and that therefore the operations that the VRS carried out were, if you like, as an agent of the
overall purpose. So I think day-to-day operationa l control was exercised by GeneralMladic and
the Main Staff of the VRS, but the overall purpo se was a purpose initially framed in Belgrade and
certainly initially in the war ⎯ 1992-1993 ⎯ shared with the Bosnian Serb Presidency particularly
in the person of Mr. Karadzic. I think later in the war, there is evidence of disagreements in
political intentions between Karadzic and Milosovic but, in a sense, that is almost irrelevant when
one reflects on the frequent visits that General Mladic made to Belgrade for discussions and
conversations with Milosovic. So I think we do see a degree of delegated operational control from
Belgrade to the VRS, as one would expect of an apparently independent army, but both armies
were operating to a common intent, originally orchestrated and predominantly orchestrated from
Belgrade. - 45 -
The PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. If I can come back to the second element of my
question. Beyond the frequency of the visits you ha ve mentioned, what would be the bases that
have led you to the answer you have given?
General DANNATT: Madam President, I think I would refer back to some of the practical
aspects that I gave evidence of this afternoon, of personnel support, equi pment support, logistic
support in particular, and then the existence of these joint operations. If it was considered
appropriate and necessary for elements of two or th ree armies to operate together, I think they are
frequent examples of a continuing desire for the inte nt to be delivered through joint operations and
ongoing support by the VJ to the VRS.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. I now call upon Judge Koroma to ask a question.
Judge KOROMA: General, I am grateful to you for giving your military perspective on this.
Now in your testimony, you stated that it was the intent of making Serbian territory contiguous that
led Yugoslavia into difficulties. Could you please expl ain to the Court what you have in mind, or
what you mean by that? Thank you.
General DANNATT: Madam President, what I mean by that is there was a stated intent that
all the people who were Serb by ethnic origin s hould like in a piece of the former Yugoslavia,
which has contiguous boundaries. The territory was one parcel of territory and, by extension, that
parcel of territory, that piece of territory, was going to be bigger than the historic boundaries of the
Republic of the former Yugoslavia, which was the Serb Republic. Hence, I drew attention, for
example, to the Drina River area and the 50km. on the Bosnian side that it was hoped would
become exclusively Serb . There is evidence ⎯ and I did not allude to it this afternoon ⎯ of a
stated desire that the Drina River should not be the boundary, that the boundary should be set some
way inside the territory of Bosnia. So my point really was that the desire was for the Serb nation to
occupy a geographic area and create a third State la rger than the confines of just the Republic of
Serbia.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. I now call upon Judge Tomka to put a question. - 46 -
Judge TOMKA: Thank you, Madam President. General, I would like to thank you for
sharing your expertise with us. And, as I unders tand it, you specialized in commander control in
the military and you have not only theoretical but in particular extensive practical experience. So, I
have two questions for you. The Yugoslav Na tional Army, being the federal army, was it,
according to your knowledge, from late 1991 until the end of 1995, subordinated to the government
authorities of the Federal Re public of Yugoslavia, or ⎯ perhaps, also ⎯ subordinated to the
government authorities of Serbia, which was one of the constituent units of the federation? And,
second, are you aware of any orders given by the government authorities of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, or those of Serbia, to the commanders of the army of Republika Srpska, the VRS?
Thank you.
General DANNATT: Madam President, if I coul d answer the first question. I may have too
loosely used the term when referring to Serbia as opposed to the former Republic of Yugoslavia,
but in my readings and preparations for this case, I don’t see any useful distinction between
separating Serbia and the former Republic of Y ugoslavia, particularly bearing in mind that
Montenegro was really the only other cons tituent part and the dominant personality was
Mr. Milošević, almost irrespective of whatever appointment he was holding in Belgrade within the
confines of the Republic of Serbia or within the former Republic of Yugoslavia, therefore including
Montenegro. So I think I do not draw too much of a distinction other than to repeat that I believe
that the dominant personality was that of Mr. Milošević.
And then your second question, I believe MadamPresident, was whether I have any
evidence of orders being issued directly. No I do not. But I would not expect to see such orders. I
would offer two comments, both by way of reiteration of what I have already said: in the four-step
construct of converting intent to tactical activity, it does not requi re detailed orders to be passed,
but merely an intent to be formulated that is th en translated. And I would say that intent at the
highest level was then developed at the military strategic level of both Republika Srpska and the
Serb Republic and on down to th eir operational levels, until the activities on the ground. That is
one strand of my answer. My second is, over and above that, I point once again to not only the
frequent visits of General Mladi ć to Belgrade and his conversations with Mr.Miloševi ć, but also
then I was referring to Operation PAUK ar ound Bihac, in 1994-1995, I mentioned - 47 -
General Novaković, the commander of operational group PAUK appeared to make frequent visits
to Belgrade as well. So it didn’t require orders to be issued, but clarification of the intent, I believe,
was being given on a regular basis, and th at was then being developed down the two
countries-chain or indeed the third, if you add the Republic of Serb Krajina in as well.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. I would like to thank General Dannatt for appearing before
the Court. That brings to an end the hearing of the experts called by Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Court meets on Wednesday 22March2006 at 10 a.m. to begin the hearing of witnesses and
witness-experts called by Serbia and Montenegro. The Court now rises.
The Court rose at 5.50 p.m.
___________
Audience publique tenue le lundi 20 mars 2006, à 15 heures, au Palais de la Paix, sous la présidence de Mme Higgins, président