CR 2006/4
International Court Cour internationale
of Justice de Justice
THHEAGUE LAAYE
YEAR 2006
Public sitting
held on Tuesday 28 February 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 mardi 28 février 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: Presieitgins
Vice-PresiKntasawneh
Judges Ranjeva
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda
Bennouna
Skotnikov
Judges ad hoc AhmedMahiou
Milenko Kreća
Registrar Couvreur
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ - 3 -
Présents : Mme Higgins,président
AlKh.vsce-prh,ident
RaMjev.
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda
Bennouna
Sjoteiskov,
MM. Ahmed Mahiou,
KMrilenko 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 faculté 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, Masters 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, Directo
r
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. (Minneapolis),
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 Djerić, 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. (Minneapolis),
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. (Cambridge),
Ms Dina Dobrkovic, LL.B.,
as Assistants. - 9 -
M. Aleksandar Djurdjić, LL.M., premier secrétaire au ministère des affaires étrangères de la
Serbie-et-Monténégro,
M. Miloš Jastrebić, deuxième secrétaire au ministère des affaires étrangères de la
Serbie-et-Monténégro,
M. Christian J. Tams, LL.M. (Cambridge),
Mme Dina Dobrkovic, LL.B.,
comme assistants. - 10 -
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Ms Karagiannakis, you have the floor.
KMARs AGIANNAKIS:
P OLITICAL AND MILITARY PREPARATIONS
1. Madam President, Members of the Court, this afternoon I am going to address you on the
issue of political and military preparations. In the year leading up to April 1992, when the attacks
on non-Serbs commenced in Bosnia, organs of th e Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the
SFRY, made political and military preparations. In particular, the President of Serbia and other
senior officials of the SFRY, including those in the JNA, the Serbian Ministry of the Interior and
the SFRY Ministry of the Interior, provided i ndispensable political lead ership, arms, training,
funding and troops for the storm of violence that was to follow.
A. Political leadership
2. The ultimate aim of the President of Serb ia and his Serb associates in the SFRY, and the
Bosnian Serb leadership, was to achieve a Greater Serbia. The project of an ethnically-clean
homogeneous State formulated against a backdrop of mixed populations necessarily envisaged the
exclusion of the non-Serb ethnicities. This fundamental point is founded up on the conclusions of a
1
number of United Nations organs and h as been demonstrated in our Reply . For example, the
United Nations Commission of Experts stated:
“With respect to the practices by Serbs in Bosnia a nd Herzegovina and Croatia,
‘ethnic cleansing’ is commonly used as a term to describe a policy conducted in
furtherance of political doctrines relating to ‘Greater Serbia’. The policy is put into
practice by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and their supporters in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia... The doctrine is essentially based on ethnic and
religious exclusivity and the dominance of Serbs over other groups in certain
2
historically claimed areas.”
3. As explained yesterday by the Deputy Agent, this concept originated in Belgrade. This
strategic and political leadership was the first step in what would develop as the wholesale ethnic
cleansing of 70 per cent of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1
Reply, pp. 328-345.
Reply, p. 330. - 11 -
4. The fact that the Muslims were to be cleansed from Bosnia was confirmed by an account
of a meeting held in Belgrade at President Milosevi ć’s initiative. The details of the meeting were
provided by one of its attendees, Milan Babi ć. He was the President of the Serb Autonomous
Region in Croatian Krajina and subsequently b ecame the President of the Republika Srpska
Krajina, which is otherwise referred to as the RSK. He has pleaded guilty in the Tribunal to crimes
against humanity for his role in the targeting of non-Serbs in the RSK and has testified in the
3
Milosević case . Babić was to the nationalist Serbs in Croatian Krajina what Karadizić was to the
nationalist Serbs in Bosnia. Their political leader.
5. The meeting in question took place in July 1991, in Milosevic’s office in Belgrade.
Karadizić and Babi ć attended. At that meeting, Karadizi ć explained what was in store for the
Bosnian Muslims. Karadizi ć said that the Muslims would be expelled or crammed into river
valleys and that he would link up all Serb te rritories in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milosevi ć
responded to this explanation by warning Mr. Babić not to “stand in Radovan’s way” 4.
6. So what Milosević did was to tell Babi ć not to obstruct Karadzi ć in what was essentially
the implementation of the Greater Serbian plan in Bosnia through ethnic cleansing. At the
conclusion of the meeting, President Milosevi ć asked both Babić and Karadzi ć where they wanted
the army ⎯ meaning the JNA ⎯ to be deployed. Both responded with their requests about where
Milosević was to deploy the JNA. Karadzi ć responded, “on the borders with Croatia”. Milosevi ć
5
said, “fine” .
7. In summary, not only did Milosevi ć call the meeting in order to co-ordinate the activities
of his two henchmen in Croatia and Bosnia, but also offered them both the option about where the
JNA was to be best deployed for their activities.
8. There are at least 45 intercepts of conversations between the President of Serbia and
6
Karadzić, starting in 29 May 1991 until 10 February 1992 . Not every telephone that each of these
3
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Babić, Sentencing Judgment, case No. IT-03-72-S, 29 June 2004.
4Testimony of Milan Babi ć, Tuesday 19 November 2002, Transcript, pp. 13054-13058 in ICTY Prosecutor v.
Milosević case No. IT-02-54-T ( http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/021119IT.htm) and ICTY Prosecutor v. Milosević
(Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No. IT-02-54-T, 16 June 2004, para. 253).
5Ibid.
6(http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_006.php). See egs. in Exhibit P613 in Prosecutor v. Milosević,
case No. IT-02-54-T. - 12 -
men were using from 1991 onwards was intercepted, therefore, one cannot say how many times
they actually spoke about their strategic plans for Bosnia during the preparations period.
9. In any event, the intercepts that do exist show that President Milosevi ć and
Radovan Karadzić were in regular contact during the preparatory phases of the genocidal conflict.
It is apparent from these discussions that they knew that they were bei ng listened to, which led
them to be careful about what they said. Th e language of these discussions shows the relationship
between the two men. Karadzi ć is deferential and refers to Milosevi ć as “President”, or
“Mr. President”, or “Mr. Milosević”. Milosevic, on the other hand, often refers to Karadzi ć by his
first name, “Radovan”, or sometimes even by his nickname, “Raso”. Clearly, they both knew who
the senior partner in that relationship was. Th is overall leadership position of President Milosevi ć
has been confirmed by the Milosević trial chamber at the ICTY 7.
B. Arming
10. The JNA and the Serbian Ministry of the Interior and the SFRY Ministry of the Interior
armed the Bosnian Serbs of the Serbian Democratic Party ⎯ the SDS ⎯, Serbian paramilitaries
and Bosnian Serb territorial defence units, otherwis e referred to as the TO. This point has been
demonstrated in our Reply and the materials that ha ve come to light subsequently have only served
to reinforce this.
11. The Brdanin trial judgment has most rece ntly confirmed this with respect to the
municipalities in the Bosnian Krajina in Northern Bosnia and has made a number of relevant
8
findings in this regard .
12. The trial chamber found that, in Septembe r 1990, the JNA had ordered that weapons be
removed from the depots under the control of the te rritorial defence units and moved to its own
armouries, thereby concentrating arms with the JNA in Bosnia. The Serbian Democratic Party
received substantial support from the JNA. It systematically supplied light arms to SDS
committees in Bosnian Serb claimed areas, as well as to Serbian paramilitary groups. Serbian
paramilitary groups in this context means local Serb paramilitaries and paramilitary groups coming
7
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No. IT-02-54-T,
16 June 2004, paras. 249-256.
8See ICTY, Prosecutor v. Brdanin, Judgment, case No. IT-99-36-T, 1 September 2004, paras. 87-90. - 13 -
from outside of Bosnia. Distribution to Bosnian Serb civilians was carried out by the local
communes and was supervised by the SDS, with th e support of the JNA and the local police. The
arming of the Bosnian Serb villagers was well organized and involved the use of trucks and
occasionally even helicopters. The JNA also engage d in redistributing weapons to the Serbian TO
units in predominantly Bosnian Serb populated areas.
13. Obviously, this arming did not go unnoti ced. Muslims and Croats in Bosnian Krajina
also sought to obtain arms. However, the non-Serb efforts were nowhere near as successful as
those of the Bosnian Serbs, both in terms of nu mbers and quality. This was because they mainly
procured their weapons on an individual basis. These individual efforts fell far short of the
efficient, well-organized and large-scale arming efforts of the Serbs.
9
14. A similar pattern was confirmed in other parts of Bosnia, such as Brcko municipality .
15. This arming of the Bosnian Serbs was or ganized at the highest levels of the SFRY
Government and military. Senior officers of the JNA and senior officers of the Serbian Ministry of
the Interior participated, as we have demonstrated in our Reply. The participation of the Serbian
Ministry of the Interior in arms distribution to the SDS municipal leaders in Bosnia is apparent
from the insider account of Petar Janković, the SDS President of Kalesija municipality. According
to his diary, he went to Belgrade on a number of occasions, starting in July 1991, where he would
seek and obtain provision of arms to the SDS. These arrangements were made with Radmilo
Bogdanović, Serbia’s former Minister of the Interior and Jovica Stanisi ć, the Chief of the State
Security Service, otherwise referred to as the DB, of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior 10.
16. You have heard from the Deputy Agent about the important role that Mihalj Kertes, the
Deputy Minister of the Interior of the SFRY, had in arming the Bosnian Serbs. He armed the SDS
Serbs of Bratunać municipality through Miroslav Deronjić, who then went on to ethnically cleanse
parts of his municipality in conjunction with the JNA and paramilitaries from Serbia 11.
17. The President of Serbia was, yet again, also instrumental in the arming. In one
intercepted telephone communicati on between President Milosevi ć and Radovan Karadzi ć,
9
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No.IT-02-54-T,
16 June 2004, para. 149.
10
See Reply, Chapter 8, section 2.
11ICTY, Prosecutor v. Deronjić, Sentencing Judgment, case No. IT-02-61-S, 30 March 2004, paras. 53-54. - 14 -
Milosević ordered Karadzić to go to General Nikola Uzela ć, the JNA Commander in Banja Luka
and said to him, “Just call Uzela ć. Don’t worry, you will have everything. We are the
12
strongest . . .”
C. Training
18. In our Reply 13, we have demonstrated the significant role of the Serbian Ministry of the
Interior in other preparatory acts, such as partic ipating in the organization of an ethnically-pure
Bosnian Serb MUP for Serb-controlled areas and organizing the supply and training of Serbian
paramilitary forces. Both these types of forces woul d subsequently be engaged in the targeting of
non-Serbs in Bosnia.
19. These forms of preparatory involvement ha ve subsequently been referred to by the
Prosecutor of the ICTY in the indictment of Stanisić and Simatović, to whom I referred earlier. For
example, that indictment states that “training centres were established and financed by the Republic
of Serbia DB”, that is the State Security of th e Serbian MUP, and that “volunteers and conscripts
trained at these centres were deployed to special units of the Republic of Serbia DB or were
deployed to locations... in Bosnia where they were subordinated to the Bosnian Serb Army, the
TO or the local SDS units” 14.
20. Finally, it was not only the Serbian MUP that was engaged in training forces for the
coming cleansing of Bosnia. The JNA was also involved. One trial judgment of the ICTY has
found that, by the spring of 1992, Serb paramilitary groups had been formed in Bosnia or arrived
from Serbia. Some of these paramilitary groups were covertly trained and equipped by the JNA
and were closely associated with it or with the SDS 15.
12
Reply, p. 477.
13
Reply, pp. 596-612.
14ICTY, Prosecutor v. Josica Stanisi ć and Franki Simatovi ć, Amended Indictment, case No.IT-03-69,
9 December 2003, para. 4.
15ICTY, Prosecutor v. Brdanin, Judgment, case No. IT-99-36-T, 1 September 2004, para. 97. - 15 -
D. Turning the JNA into an ethnic Serb army and renaming it
21. In our Reply, we have shown at length how the second military district of the JNA was
turned into a Serb army in Bosnia 16. The Deputy Agent has already explained how General Mladić
was appointed by the SFRY Presidency as Commander of the second military district, just weeks
before its supposed withdrawal from Bosnia and how he seamlessly became the Commander of the
17
newly named Bosnian Serb army .
22. The Brdanin judgment has recently echoed this process and found that the JNA gradually
changed from being the Yugoslav Peoples’ Ar my and representing all ethnic groups and
nationalities in the SRFY to becoming a de facto Serbian army. According to the diary notes of
Borislav Jović, President of the SFRY Presidency, Miloševi ć anticipated that several Yugoslav
Republics would soon be recognized as independent St ates, and the Serbian President wanted to be
sure that the JNA in Bosnia could qualify as an indigenous Bosnian fighting force. It was
Slobodan Milošević who made the arrangements with the JNA to ensure that Bosnian Serb forces
could retain personnel and arms by ordering, on 5 December 1991, that soldiers who were natives
of Bosnia be transferred there and those who we re native of other republics be moved out. On
25 December 1991, a senior JNA officer reported to Milošević that these transfers were 90 per cent
complete.
E. Preparations by the Bosnian Serbs
23. On the Bosnian Serb side, prepara tions were also being made by Karadzi ć and his
associates in the SDS party.
24. Mr. Karadzi ć conveyed the Greater Serbia idea to his associates in the SDS. This is
confirmed by a leading member of Karadzi ć’s party, Miroslav Deronjić. He was the municipal
SDS leader and subsequent Crisis Staff President of Bratuna ć municipality. In an SDS meeting
that he attended in early 1991, Karadzi ć stated that if there was no longer a Socialist Federal
18
Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbs w ould only have one option left, a nd that was “Greater Serbia” .
16
Reply, pp. 553 et seq.
17
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No. IT-02-54-T,
16 June 2004, para. 270.
1ICTY, Prosecutor v. Deronjić, Sentencing Judgment, case No. IT-02-61-S, 30 March 2004, para. 52. - 16 -
Even at these preparatory stages Karadzić was disseminating the overall Belgrade-inspired aim and
passing the guiding principle down the line to his subordinates in the SDS party.
K2ar.dzić was advising the President of Serbia a bout what he and the Bosnian Serbs were
doing through the SDS party. In one important conversation held on 24 October 1991, the day that
the Separate Bosnian Serb Assembly was founded, Miloševi ć asked Karadzić as to how the work
was going. Karadzi ć replied that it was “going slowly”. He went on to make a number of
statements to Milošević during the conversation:
“We will establish Yugoslavia in all th e areas where we live... Yes, yes,
President, we hold power in 37 municipalities and have a relative majority in . . . about
ten municipalities . . . tell him [Izetbegović] that Karadzić and the others will not give
up on establishing an assembly and parallel orga ns of authority, . . . We will establish
full authority over the Serbian territories in Bosnia and Herzegovina and none of his
lawyers will be . . . able to show his nose there. He will not be able to exercise power.
He will not have control over 65% of his territory. This is our goal . . . Our steps are
calculated and we have to establish authority and control over our territories, so that
he doesn’t get his sovereign Bosnia.”
26. The Bosnian Serbs set up parallel institutions at their so-called republic level, at the
regional level and, critically, at the municipal level. The steps that were taken in this regard have
been set out most recently in the Brdanin judgment of the ICTY 1. They are also explained in
20
detail in the expert reports and testimony on the Bosnian Serb leadership and the Bosnian Serb
Crisis Staffs 21, which have been admitted into evidence in the Krajisnik case.
27. A ground-breaking step in the creation of the Bosnian Serb para llel structures was the
creation of a Serbian Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The inaugural session was held on
24 October 1991 after the SDS delegates walked out of the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Between its establishment and the founding of the Bosnian Serb
Republic on 9 January 1992, the Assembly legisla tively prepared the means and conditions for the
establishment of entirely separate structures for the Serbian people of Bosnia. In a speech given in
November 1991, Radovan Karadzić instructed SDS members to impos e complete authority in their
respective municipalities, regions and local communities. On 11 December 1991, the Bosnian Serb
19
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Brdanin, Judgment, case No. IT-99-36-T, 1 September 2004, paras. 65-79.
20Expert Report of Patrick Treanor, “The Bosnian Serb Leadership: 1990-1992”, Exhibit P64, ICTY,
Prosecutor v. Momcilo Krajisnik, case No. IT-00-39-T and Expert Testimony beginning Thursday, 19 February 2004.
21Expert Report of Dorothea Hanson, “Bosnian Serb Crisis Staffs”, herein after “H anson Report”, Exhibit P528,
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Momcilo Krajisnik, case No. IT-00-39-T and Expert Testimony, Tuesday, 1 March 2005. - 17 -
Assembly voted to recommend the establishment of Serbian municipalities, the aim of which was
to break up the existing municipalities where Serbs were not in the majority.
28. Another critical step in this process was the creation of parallel municipal institutions
pursuant to the Variant A and B instructions th at you already heard about yesterday. These
instructions were issued on 19December 1991 by th e SDS leadership to municipal leaders. The
22
highest numbered copy of these instructions discovered by the ICTY is copy No. 104 .
29. These instructions provided for the conduc t of specified activities in all municipalities
where Serbs lived and essentially mapped out th e takeover of power by Bosnian Serbs in
municipalities where they constituted a majority of the population, so-called VariantA
municipalities and where they were in a minority , the so-called VariantB municipalities. The
instructions mandated the creation of municipal crisis staffs which functioned as de facto municipal
governments.
M 3r.sleaonji ć attended a meeting in Sarajevo on or about 19 December 1991 which
was presided over by RadovanKaradzi ć and attended by the Deputies of the Bosnian Serb
Assembly and by Presidents of the municipal boards of the Serbian Democratic Party. It was at
this meeting that the “strictly confidential” Vari antA and B instructions were disseminated. The
contents of these instructions were explained to the participants at the meeting by Karadzi ć, who
warned them that they should be taken very seriously and that they should be absolutely
implemented on the ground. MiroslavDeronji ć went back to his municipality and took steps to
implement the instructions 23.
31. As a result of this meeting, Serb crisis staffs were formed in numerous municipalities
across Bosnia, including municipalities where some of the worst ethnic cleansing would take place,
24
such as Zvornik, Prijedor and Bijelina .
32. The crisis staffs had a very close relati onship with the JNA. They co-ordinated the
activities of the Serb military forces in their municipalities, including the local police, the territorial
defence or the TO and the army. The Variant A and B instructions mandated close co-operation
22See e.g., Exhibits P25 and P122 in ICTY Prosecutor v. Brdanin, case No. IT-99-36-T, Hanson Report, para. 13.
23
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Deronjić, sentencing Judgment, case No. IT-02-61-S, 30 March 2004, paras. 59-63.
24See Hanson Report footnote references and, in particular, footnote 9 for examples of crisis staffs. - 18 -
between crisis staffs and the JNA. In stage two of operations, the crisis staffs were obliged “to
mobilize all policy forces from the ranks of the Serbian people and in co-operation with the
command posts and headquarters of the JNA, ensu re their gradual subordination” and “through the
competent bodies, ensure that the order is put in to effect to mobilize JNA reserve forces and TO
25
units” . On 27March 1992, at the 14th session of the Serb Assembly, Karadzi ć stated that the
crisis staffs should organize territorial defence units and “if the JNA is there, they must be placed
26
under its command” .
33. On 9January 1992, the Bosnian Serb A ssembly proclaimed the Serbian Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This would subsequently be renamed the Republika Srpska on
12 August 1992.
34. At the end of March 1992, the Bosnian Serb leadership separated the Bosnian Serb police
forces and the non-Serb police forces, established the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs and put
the Bosnian Serb police under the Bosnian Serb ci vilian command. On 16 April 1992, the Serbian
Territorial Defence was mobilized and an imminent threat of war was declared.
35. According to the ICTY trial judgment in the Brdanin case, in April 1992,
Radovan Karadzić and his co-President of the newly declared public, Nikola Koljevi ć, showed a
map of the future Bosnia, according to which 70 pe r cent of the territory would be covered by the
Bosnian Serb Republic. A few months later this map was a reality, as the Bosnian Serb forces
controlled exactly those areas which according to the map would constitute the territory of the
27
Serbian Republic .
36. After the commencement of the ethnic cleansing campaign, the Bosnian Serbs publicly
declared their strategic goals. During the 16th session of the Serbian Assembly that took place on
12 May 1992, Radovan Karadzić articulated the six strategic goals of the Serbian people of Bosnia
25
Exhibit P25 from ICTY Prosecutor v. Brdanin, case No. IT-99-36-T.
26Transcript of the 14th session of the Assembly of the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27 March 1992,
Exhibit B6406, ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, case No. IT-02-54-T.
27ICTY, Prosecutor v. Brdanin, Judgment, case No. IT-99-36-T, 1 September 2004, para. 74. - 19 -
28
which defined what would be the ethnically clean borders of the State . These objectives were
also subsequently set out and published in the Official Gazette of the Republika Srpska.
37. The published version in the Official Gazette states the strategic objectives or priorities
of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are to:
1. Establish State borders separating the Serbian people from the other two ethnic communities.
2. Set up a corridor between Semberija and Krajina.
3. Establish a corridor in the Drina River Valley, that is, eliminate the Drina as a border separating
Serbian States.
4. Establish a border on the Una and Neretva Rivers.
5. Divide the city of Sarajevo into Serbian and Bosnian Muslim parts and establish effective State
authorities in both parts.
29
6. Ensure access to the sea for the Republika Srpska .
38. Significantly, the first of these goals was to “Establish State borders separating the
Serbian people from the other two et hnic communities”. RadovanKaradzi ć subsequently
explained what this first strategic goal meant. He said:
“We certainly know that we must give up something ⎯ that is beyond doubt in
so far as we want to achieve our first strategic goal: to drive our enemies by the force
of war from their homes, that is, the Croats and Muslims, so that we will no longer be
30
together in a State.”
39. This first goal was not new. It was the essence of the aim that had been raised in the
meeting with Milosevi ć, Karadzić and Babi ć in the Serbian President’s office in July 1991. The
third strategic objective was also not new. Later this afternoon you will hear more about the third
goal of establishing a corridor in the Drina Rive r Valley and eliminating the Drina as a border
between Republika Srpska and Serbia. Suffice to sa y at this point that the essence of the goal had
in fact been decided in Belgrade well before these strategic objectives were published.
28See “The Assembly of Republika Srpska, 1992-95: Highlights and Excerpts ” by Dr. Robert J. Donia, submitted
29July 2003; Exhibit No.537 ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, case No. IT-02-54-T, hereinafter “Dr. Donia Expert
Report”, pp.3-4; ICTY, Prosecutor v. Brdanin, Judgment, case No. IT-99-36-T, 1Se ptember 2004 and, in particular
paras. 75-77 and Exhibit P50. See generally paras. 65-79.
29A translation of strategic objectives as published in th e official gazette can be found as ExhibitP746a ICTY,
Prosecutor v. Krstić, Judgment, case No. IT-93-33-T, 2 August 2001, para. 562.
30Assembly of the Republika Srpska during the session on 18-19 July 1994 to be found in Dr.Donia Expert
Report, p.64; ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No.IT-02-54-T,
16 June 2004, para. 241. - 20 -
40. These strategic goals clearly encompassed ethnic cleansing in defined territories in
31
Bosnia . When the crisis staff President of Bratunac, a municipality on the Drina River bordering
Serbia, achieved the aims of the first objectiv e by cleansing Muslims from his municipality with
the JNA and paramilitaries from Serbia he was, quite literally, applauded by the Bosnian Serb
leadership 32.
F. Funding
41. Parallel to this process the financial structures were created resulting in a total monetary
integration of the SFRY and of the nascent economy of the Republika Srpska.
42. The Social Accounting Office, known as the SDK, was a payment service system used
within the SFRY for the transfer of funds with in and between the Fede ral Republics and the two
autonomous regions. When the disintegration of the SFRY began, the Serb-controlled regions in
Croatia and Bosnia carefully maintained connections between their part of the SDK system and the
SDK system of the Republic of Serbia. This continued connection was important for facilitating
ongoing payments. Without it, cash payments would have been the only alternative. Thus, the
SDK system was of fundamental importance for th e economic and monetary functioning of all the
Republics of the former Yugoslavia.
43. At an early stage of the disintegration of the SFRY, the Bosnian Serb leadership realized
the importance of taking charge of this monetary lifeline to the Yugoslav National Bank, in the
areas that they planned to control. A speech by Radovan Karadži ć at the Plebiscite of the Serb
People, on 1 November 1991, highlights the importance of the SDK:
“Be prepared soon to take over the SDK decisively. I mean, to appoint your
own man in the SDK. Prepare the ground and first talk to them, ask them whether
they’re ready to work in a moment that is not legal, in accordance with the laws and
regulations which you, as the municipal authority, will give them.” 33
44. This was echoed by the Variant A and B inst ructions. In stage two of implementation of
the instructions, VariantA municipalities where Serbs were already the majority, they were
required to “oblige branch offices of the SDK to speed up daily monitoring of transactions within
31
See also ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milosević, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, case No. IT-02-54-T,
16 June 2004, paras. 238-246.
32
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Deronjić, sentencing Judgment, case No. IT-02 61 –S, 30 March 2004, para. 114.
3Ex. P2466a. - 21 -
their regions and to prevent the withdrawal of hard currency and securities from the vaults under
their control at banks, post offices and other financial organisations”.
G. Conclusion
45. In conclusion, since our Reply our case, with respect to preparations, has only been
confirmed and strengthened. What is clear fr om this picture is the forward planning and
preparation that occurred before the targeting of non-Serbs began in Bosnia. What happened was
not spontaneous. There was a strategy and it was carefully implemented, it was carefully planned,
prepared and implemented from the highest levels of the Serbian leadership, through the Bosnian
Serb leadership, to the municipal leadership and to the Serb forces on the ground.
46. As Radovan Karadži ć said in the 40th Republika Srpska Assembly session held on 10
and 11 May 1994 “without Serbia nothing would have happened, we don’t have the resources and
we would not have been able to make war” 3. The Respondent’s organs and officials, in particular
the President of Serbia, the JNA and the Serbian SFRY MUPs were integral in these preparations.
They led the way politically, they provided the arms, the training, the funding and finally, the army.
Ultimately, it is the Respondent that bears the responsibility for what flowed from these actions.
Madam President, Members of the Court, that concludes my submissions. Would you now
please call on my colleague and the Deputy Agent, Mr. van den Biesen.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Ms Karagiannakis. I do now call upon Mr. van den Biesen.
Mr. van den BIESEN: Madam President, Membersof the Court, I plan to lead you through the
events which are directly related to the siege of Sarajevo during this part of our pleadings and I do
announce that we will try and have the benefits of modern times today by showing you sometimes
some graphs or pictures on the screen behind me.
THE SIEGE OF SARAJEVO
A truly multi-ethnic, multi-cultural city
1. Madam President, a very specific and very telling characteristic of the entire Greater
Serbia campaign period has been the siege of Saraje vo. For almost four years the citizens of the
34
This extract can be found in Dr. Donia Expert Report, p. 62. - 22 -
city were not only kept hostage by the Serb side, but during that period they were also the object of
the sustained use of deathly armed violence clearly aimed at the destruction, in whole or in part, of
the Bosniac population of this beautiful, historic, south-eastern European and Balkan city.
2. Sarajevo really was emblematic of what constituted Bosnia and Herzegovina: a truly
multi-ethnical, multi-religious, multi-cultural community of people, open to what the world at large
had to offer; and at the same time inviting and warmly welcoming the world to join in with the
values of its cosmopolitan life. For all of these features, combined with its geography, the city was
elected to host, as we all know, the Olympic Winter Games in 1984, an event which further defined
the open-mindedness just mentioned.
3. These characteristics, indeed, were reflect ed in the composition of the population of
35
Sarajevo. According to the 1991 census the composition of the population of each municipality
was, as you can see on the screen now ⎯ and we have chosen to show you this, what is called a pie
chart, because it makes so visual how the exact composition of the population was, the green colour
being the Bosniaks and the blue colour being the Bosnian Serb part. In the judges’ folder we will
include copies of all of these maps and we will al so include the statistics, which I am not going to
read now:
⎯ Sarajevo Centar 79,286, with 50.15percent Mu slims, 20.98percent Serbs, 6.85percent
Croats, 16.43 per cent Yugoslavs, and 5.59 per cent others.
⎯ Sarajevo Stari Grad 50,744, with 77.66percent Muslims, 10.15 per cent Serbs, 2.2 per cent
Croats, 6.65 per cent Yugoslavs and 3.32 per cent others.
⎯ Novo Sarajevo 95,089, with 35.65percent Muslims, 34.60percent Serbs, 9.25percent
Croats, 15.88 per cent Yugoslavs and 4.62 per cent others.
⎯ Ilijas 25,184, with 42.03percent Muslims, 44.97percent Serbs, 6.89percent Croats,
4.63 per cent Yugoslavs and 1.47 per cent others.
⎯ Hadzici, 24,200, with 63.60percent Muslims, 26.29percent Serbs, 3.08percent Croats,
3.48 per cent Yugoslavs and 3.55 per cent others.
31991 Census Population of Bosnia and He rzegovina, State Institute for Statistics of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Sarajevo, December 1993. - 23 -
⎯ Ilidza, 67,937, with 43.18percent Muslims, 36.84percent Serbs, 10.21percent Croats,
7.63 per cent Yugoslavs and 2.14 per cent others.
⎯ Novi Grad 136,616, with 50.82 per cent Muslims, 27.52 per cent Serbs, 6.51 per cent Croats,
11.40 per cent Yugoslavs and 3.75 per cent others.
⎯ Vogosca 24,647, with 50.71percent Muslims, 35.76percent Serbs, 4.35percent Croats,
7.02 per cent Yugoslavs and 2.17 per cent others.
⎯ Trnovo 6,991, with 68.52percent Muslims, 29.45 per cent Serbs, 0.23 per cent Croats,
1.03 per cent Yugoslavs and 0.77 per cent others.
⎯ Pale, 16,355, with 26.68percent Muslims, 68.99 Serbs, 0.79 per cent Croats, 2.42 per cent
Yugoslavs and 1.11 per cent others.
4. It follows, Madam President, from this overvie w that in the city of Sarajevo ethnicity or
religious background was not an issue before the all-Serbs-in-one-State propaganda, originating in
Belgrade, began to poison the very make-up of the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
5. The ethnical and religious diversity is not only shown in the census statistics, but it is also
reflected in the town itself by the prominent presence, the truly combined presence, of churches,
mosques and synagogues in the city of Sarajevo.
The beginning
6. Obviously, the developments in the rest of the former Yugoslavia did not leave the
Sarajevans untouched. The Greater Serbia propaganda did its work; the ethnic cleansing by the
Yugoslav army, the JNA, in Croatia did its work. The Vukovar pictures shocked the Bosnians,
while the hate speech from political leaders in Belgrade, combined with the hate speech from the
Bosnian Serb leaders, did not leave any true Bosnian, any true Sarajevan unaffected. For one
individual this all became too much: in Marc h 1992 a non-Serb, a Bosniac citizen of Sarajevo,
started shooting at a Serb wedding party outside Sarajevo’s old Serbian Orthodox Church. One
person was killed and several were wounded. The event was regretted by the Bosnian authorities.
7. The JNA responded to the outcome of the referendum on independence for Bosnia at the
beginning of March through brutal takeovers of ⎯ and I am just mentioning a few ⎯ Bijeljina on - 24 -
31March1992, Zvornik on 9April1992, Bratunac on 17April1992, Prijedor on 30April1992,
and so on, followed by the first ethnic cleansing on Bosnian soil of these municipalities.
8. In addition to this, in Sarajevo, the J NA attacked, on 5 April 1992, the Training Academy
in Vrace and, on 6 April1992, the central tramway depot and the Old Town district with mortar,
artillery and tank fire. At the same time the JNA took control of Sarajevo airport, and began to use
it as an exclusively military airport. This is all at the beginning of April, and it would take until the
end of November 1995 before the legitimate Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina would regain
control of its airport.
9. The Sarajevans left no doubt regarding their thinking about these developments. On
6April1992 a huge peace demonstration took place in the city centre. All ethnicities making up
the city were clearly present. It soon became also entirely clear which side did not like propaganda
for peace: when the demonstrators neared the Holiday Inn Hotel, where the Serb nationalists,
including Karadžić, had some weeks before converted the upper floors into their private quarters,
the Serbs within the hotel opened fire on the crowd. [On screen] When, Madam President,
yesterday I watched the news, the BBC news, these images came to my mind. When I saw the
pictures of mass demonstrations that took place in Belgrade in support of Mr. Mladi ć, calling upon
the Government of Yugoslavia not to transfer him to The Hague. So there is still a long way to go,
Madam President, and that is one of the r easons that we are here. In Sarajevo six people, after this
demonstration, lay dead on the street. Over a dozen were wounded, several of them badly. No
condemnation of this killing spree followed from the Bosnian Serbs nor from the Belgrade
authorities.
The beginning of the siege
10. The Belgrade authorities did not respond peacefully to the developing situation. As
mentioned a minute ago the declaration of Bosnia ’s independence was followed by the first ethnic
cleansing operations in Bosnia, conducted by a concerted combination of JNA, paramilitaries from
Belgrade, and Bosnian-Serb militia. The intern ational recognition of Bosnia’s independence was
followed by Belgrade ordering the JNA to have its tanks and heavy wea pons take up positions on
the hills surrounding the city. These tanks, these heavy weapons would not leave these positions - 25 -
until the end of 1995, except for a relatively eff ective four-month ceasefire brokered by the United
States at the end of 1994. [On screen] I am sorry that the sound does not come through, Madam
President, but the pictures were in itself telling and it showed how the heavy weapons were put
around the city on the hills. They just give you some impression of the destruction that they caused
in the time that followed.
11. The leadership of the independent Bosnia and Herzegovina was ⎯ I mentioned this
yesterday ⎯ not exactly ready to militarily defend itself against this overwhelming and brutal
armed attack. The Bosnian army was basically n on-existent: the only army present in Sarajevo
was the JNA, and the JNA was not about to ha nd over the command authority nor its military
equipment to the Bosnian presidency. Therefore, in April 1992 the so-called armed forces of
Bosnia were put together ⎯ they were put together from people who were able to carry a gun, and
were used to doing that for other purposes: local police, territorial defence units and armed people
under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior. In the beginning some of these units appeared to
have hosted armed professionals from lesser appreci ated circles: being the Sarajevan organized
crime. It took the Bosnian Government, indeed , some time to effectively get rid of their
participation.
12. It was not an easy task for the Bosnian leadership, at that point in time, to turn this exotic
mixture of groups into some sort of army, under so me sort of single command. Actually, although
steady improvements were made during the years of the war, the Bosnian army never succeeded in
creating a fully-fledged army which would as such be a match for the JNA, relabelled as the VRS
and the VJ, the Bosnian Serb army and the Yugoslav army.
13. But the important advantage which the Bo snian army had over the Serb army became
clearly visible when years passed by. Although the Bosnian army was no match equipment-wise
for the Serb army, it did have the advantage of the availability of large numbers of highly
motivated manpower. On top of that, it had the most important advantage: motivation and strong
commitment. From the very beginning onwards it was clear to the men in the Bosnian army that
they were fighting, not only for their lives, for their very existence, but also for a case worth
fighting ⎯ and, if need be, dying ⎯ for: a truly civilized society based on respect and tolerance.
The Army itself formed a clear inspiration for all of this: although, for obvious reasons, the - 26 -
majority of the fighting force was made up out of Bosniaks. Madam President, I explained
yesterday, what the term Bosniak refers to ⎯ it is the accepted denomination of the Bosnian
Muslims from 1993 onwards; now I am told that no distinction can be made in the French
language ⎯ like Bosniak in French is a problem for the French but Bosniak in French means
Bosnian and we are talking about Bosniaks when we mean Bosnian Muslims. I will leave it for the
translators to resolve this problem and can only say c’est la vie! ⎯ I think that is a job for them.
The Deputy Commander of the army of Bosn ia and Herzegovina was not a Bosniak ⎯ he was this
charismatic Bosnian Serb, General Divljak, and he stayed in Sarajevo during the entire war (and
after) and provided great leadership in assisting the citizens of Sarajevo to survive the ongoing
siege, the ongoing killing, in a dignified manner.
14. We are still in April 1992, Madam Preside nt. The JNA 2nd Military District still had its
headquarters in Sarajevo. General Kukanja ć was still the Commander of this Military District and
he was still in Sarajevo. Towards the end of April the JNA had completed surrounding the city.
15. Before the end of this month, on 24 April1992, the Belgrade authorities promoted
General Mladić to Chief of Staff of the 2nd Military District and to Deputy Commander of the
same district; meaning that if the Commander would, for example, be killed or if the Commander
would otherwise disappear, that Mladi ć would automatically become the head of the 2nd Military
District.
16. At that point in time the “Belgrade authorities”, also formally, implied only the
leadership of Serbia and Montenegro, since on 27 April 1992, the new Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia was adopted, through wh ich the FRY established itself as a State entity
made up out of Serbia and Montenegro.
17. The Bosnian Presidency then ordered the JNA, being a foreign army, to immediately
withdraw and also to leave arms, ammunition, mi litary equipment, etc., behind. None of that
happened in response to that request of the Presi dency, which was certainly an entirely legitimate
request.
18. However, on 30April1992, the Serb leadership convened in Belgrade. Present were
Branko Kostić (President of the Federal Presidency), Slobodan Miloševi ć (President of Serbia),
Momir Bulatovi ć (President of Montenegro), General Milan Pani ć (Chief of the JNA General - 27 -
Staff), Radovan Karadžić (President of the RS and SDS party), Momčilo Krajišnik (President of the
RS Assembly), Nikola Koljević (Vice-President of the RS), and Mr. Jovi ć (Serbian Member of the
SFRY Presidency).
19. At this top-level meeting it was decided that Mladić should take over the command of the
army in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that Kukanjać were to be dismissed.
20. These decisions became effective on 3 and 4May1992 and, ind eed, the JNA began to
withdraw from Sarajevo. Since they did ignore th e order of the legitimate Bosnian authorities to
leave their weapons and equipment behind and since they, on the contrary, tried to take everything
of that with them, Sarajevan militias blocked the withdrawal. And it was only because the JNA had
taken President Izetbegović hostage on 2 May 1992, upon his landi ng in Sarajevo airport, when he
was returning from peace negotiations in Lisbon, that the JNA, i.e. the Respondent, managed to
negotiate a withdrawal, which included all of the m ilitary equipment. Let us just realize, Madam
President, what we are talking about here: the President of an independent State returns to his own
country, to his own airport, after having negotia ted principles for a peace plan with, among others,
the Belgrade authorities; before he could even start thinking about discussing these peace
proposals with his people, one of the parties who was at the negotiating table decides to take him
prisoner and to use him as a hostage in order to keep the army’s equipment away from him, away
from Bosnian control, and in order to use that to strengthen the Serb military; that, Madam
President, apparently, was what Belgrade considered to be part of “good faith negotiations”. So
they did manage to take the JNA out of the city but it was not that they were about to withdraw all
of this to Serbia or to Montenegro: the need for taking the equipment was strictly related to the
JNA wish to prevent that the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina would get these weapons; once
withdrawn from the city the equipment was left in the hands of Mladić and his colleagues. When, a
couple of years later, in 1994, General Kukanja ć, who led this so-called withdrawal, received
criticism from his own people, from his Bosnian Serb friends, on the role he had played during this
so-called withdrawal he explicitly and precisely indicated what exactly he had done. He said: - 28 -
“Listen, when I was in command, not one single canon, nor a tank, was left to
the Muslims, nor did they get one . . . We gave you the arms . . . I must say that I left
the Serb part of Sarajevo captured for you.” 36
That is what the JNA did according to its commander.
21. This was, indeed, the reality. JNA, i.e. the Respondent, captured the predominantly Serb
part of Sarajevo and laid siege around the non-captured part. And when this new reality was put in
place, the pounding of the city began. This pounding, shelling and sniping would continue until the
very end of 1995, except for several ceasefire intervals.
22. This pounding of the besieged city really demonstrated the true nature of the siege:
trying to destroy, in whole or in part, the Bosniak popula tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order
to at least break up the city into two “ethnically cleansed” sections: one exclusively for the Serbs,
the other section for the non-Serbs. This was ex actly one of the six strategic goals, to which
reference was made earlier ⎯ it was the fifth, to be precise, and it was about separating, dividing
Sarajevo in these two ethnically cleansed areas. Mladić was totally clear on how to implement this
plan. This is what he said in an intercepted telephone conversation with a VRC officer,
Mr. Mirko Vukašinović. Now we really do need the sound, Madam President. Well, we are not
going to wait for that, I will just read what he said: [On screen]
“Shoot at Velesci and also Pofalici, there are not many Serbs there... but do
artillery reconnaissance, so that they can’t sleep, to make them go out of their
37
minds.”
These are clear instructions to fire at civilians, to begin with, and these are clear instructions to fire
at the specifically defined group of the civilians, being the Bosniaks of Sarajevo, fired to the area of
where there were not many Serbs.
The PRESIDENT: Mr. van den Biesen, may I interrupt you for a moment to ask you the
following: could you please specify the origin of the translations into English which appear as
subtitles at the bottom of the screen?
36
My Guest ⎯ My Truth,” Interview on Pale TV, 12 July 1994, Annex 138 to Reply, 23 April 1998.
37Intercepted telephone ca ll between Ratko Mladi ć and Mirko Vukašinovi ć, 28a1y992,
http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_006.php - 29 -
Mr. van den BIESEN: The translations have been prepared by professional translators, who
also made the subtitles. I should have certified in writing the accuracy of these translations and
will do so forthwith.
23. What this meant, Madam President, became visible on Wednesday morning ⎯ this
strategy of aiming at civilians ⎯ Wednesday morning, 27May 1992. Due to the siege, food
shortage had become very pressing and basic needs became scarcely available. To get bread one
had to line up at the few points in town where this was made available. On this Wednesday
morning hundreds of people lined up at the distribution point on Vasa Miškin, which is in the midst
of Sarajevo. The besiegers of the city explicitly ta rgeted this breadline and they fired three mortar
shells. And this is the result of what they actually did. [On screen]
These images, Madam President, went across the world, showing what ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia looked like, showing what genocide in present-day Europe looked like.
24. Of course, the civilized world condemned this massacre in the strongest of language.
38
The Security Council, on 30 May 1992, passed a resolution , a resolution condemning the failure
of the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), including the
Yugoslav People’s Army, to take effective measu res to fulfil the requirements of an earlier
39
resolution 752 (1992) , which stated and ordered, among othe r things, the withdrawal of the JNA
from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the disbanding and disarmament of irregular forces. No
condemnation, however, from the Bosnian Serb le adership. Of course not. No condemnation
either from the Belgrade authorities. Of course not. To them this was precisely what this conflict
was all about.
25. The so-called withdrawal of the JNA entailed new labels, new letterhead and new
insignias. The Sarajevo region used to be assigned to the 4th Corps of the JNA. This corps was
renamed into the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps. Th e zone of responsibility remained the same.
Initially, the former JNA Ma jor General TomislavSipcić commanded the corps. Yet from
10September 1992 he was replaced by Colonel StanislavGalic, who would so on be promoted to
38
United Nations Security Council resolution 757 (1992) of 30 May 1992.
3United Nations Security Council resolution 752 (1992) of 15 May 1992. - 30 -
the rank of Major General; that is, Major General in the ranks of the Yugoslav Army, that is,
promoted by the Yugoslav authorities in September 1992.
26. In any event the JNA withdrawal was not completed after Kukanja ć left the country and
after the JNA headquarters in the centre of the city was abandoned. Only on 6 June 1992, the JNA,
still present under its own name and labelling, wit hdrew from the Marshal Tito barracks. The
Serbs tried to destroy the arms and ammunitions which they were not able to take, but the
Government forces managed to secure quite some ammunition and also several anti-tank
weapons 40. The revenge of the JNA for this was not exactly mild. Over the next two days, it
41
unleashed the heaviest artillery barrage to date against civilian targets in the city .
The siege
27. The fate of the city became clear, wo rldwide, through the extensive TV coverage,
through reports of civil society organizations and through multiple Unite d Nations reports. We
have in our Reply of 23April 1998 frequently u sed the excellent and extensive reporting of the
Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, TadeusMazowiecki, the
former Prime Minister of Poland. He went to th e country, he frequently visited the country and on
24 August 1992 he reported:
“The siege, including the shelling of population centres and the cutting of
supplies of food and other essential goods is another tactic . . . The city is shelled on a
regular basis, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to spread terror among the
population. Snipers shoot innocent civilians. The mission visited the hospital, and
was able to see many civilian victims. It was also able to see the damage done to the
hospital itself, which has been deliberately shelled on several occasions, despite the
42
proper display of the internationally recognized Red Cross symbol.”
28. Basically, there was not too much the Bosnian Government could do against this
continued killing of its citizens. The lack of proper arming was obviously the main reason for that,
especially since there was no lack of people willing to defend and liberate the city.
40Lučarević, The Battle for Sarajevo, pp. 128–129.
41United Nations, Final Report of the United Nations Comm ission of Experts established pursuant to Security
Council resolution 780 (1992), Annex 6, “Study of the Battle and Siege of Sarajevo”, June 6–9, 1992, pp. 202–204.
42United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, Economic and Social Counc il. “Report on the situation of
human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia submitted by Mr. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur of the
Commission on Human Rights, pursuan t to paragraph 14 of Commission re solution 1922/S 1/1 of 14 August 1992”,
August 28, 1992,” New York: United Nations Economic and Social Council, 1992. - 31 -
29. Creative Bosnian soldiers would try and ma ke up for this lack of ammunition by using
home-made projectiles. The “Bosnian cocktail” is famous in this respect: they would take a
Coca-Cola can and fill it up with explosives. A nd, indeed, in doing so they managed occasionally
to harm the enemy military targets with this sort of projectile. With the same sort of creativity, four
Second World War cannons were borrowed from a museum in the city and they were actually used.
But in reality all of this obviously was not worth much. The United Nations counted that the
Bosnian Serbs fired an average of 300 artillery or mortar rounds at the city every single day 43. This
only stopped for some time during the 1994 ceasef ire. According to the United Nations,
22 July 1993 was a record-breaking day: 3,777 impact s were counted in the city in one single day.
The former United States Ambassador, Herbert Okun, who was also a member of the missions of
United States Secretary of State CyrusVance ⎯ the missions to Bosnia ⎯ concluded in his
testimony at the ICTY in the Milosevi ć case: “For every projectile fired into Serb-held territory,
ten hit areas controlled by the [Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina] ARBiH.” 44 So it was one
to ten.
30. Occasionally, Madam President, the Serb side would send shell and mortar rounds
towards military targets in the city. But never did take this the size of a serious effort to actually
gain military advantages. Obviously not, since the international community ⎯ with a strong
presence within Sarajevo ⎯ had made it perfectly clear that an effort to capture the city would not
be accepted and would have extremely serious c onsequences for both the Bosnian Serbs as well as
for the FRY. Most of the Serb firepower was de liberately used to kill members of the group, to
cause serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group and to create conditions of life which
would serve to help destroy the group in whole or in part.
31. Targeting hospitals was part of this delib erate approach. Madam President, it is hard to
believe, but it was a Minister of Health who propagated the idea to destroy the hospital in Sarajevo.
During the meeting of the Bosnian Serb Assembly of 12 May 1992, the Minister of Health of the
freshly proclaimed Republika Srpska, Mr. Dragan Kalinić, took the following position:
43
CIA, Balkan Battlegrounds, 1: 307.
4ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosević, case No. IT-02-54, Testimony of Herbert Okun, 26February 2003,
pp. 16, 963. - 32 -
“Those who will be planning the Sarajevo operation, either of liberating
Sarajevo or of destroying the enemy forces in Sarajevo, will have to plan what to do
with the medical facilities. And [he goes on] let me tell you this right now, if the
military hospital is to end up in the hands of the enemy, I am for the destruction of
Koševo Hospital, so that the enemy has nowhere to go for medical help.” 45
32. No wonder that the ICTY trial chambe r found in December 2003, in the case against the
Commander of the Bosnian Serbs, Stanislav Galić:
“the evidence does reveal that, on occasions, the Kosevo hospital buildings themselves
were directly targeted, resulting in civilian casualties, and that this fire was certainly
not aimed at any possible military target . . . [T]hese direct attac46 on Kosevo hospital
constitute examples of the campaign of attacks on civilians.”
33. Targeting the major Bosnian, truly independent, newspaper, Oslobodjenje, in Sarajevo
was part of the deliberate approach. The impressive building was reduced to a ruin in a clear effort
to deprive all Bosnians of their own Bosnian public voice.
34. Targeting a treasure of Bosnian cultural heritage was part of the deliberate approach. On
the evening of 26 August 1992, Bosnia’s National Library was bombarded and set ablaze by a
tightly targeted barrage of incendiary shells, fired from multiple Serb artillery positions on the
heights overlooking the city. Clearly, clearly the object was to make sure that its contents ⎯ the
contents of the library ⎯ would be turned into ashes. The library burned through the night,
together with its rich collections that embodied Bosnia’s history and cultural memory. An
estimated 1.5million volumes, comprising the bulk of the National Library’s collections, were
consumed by the flames in this, what must be called the largest single incident of deliberate
47
book-burning in modern times .
35. Targeting the major supply lines for water, electricity and communications while the city
was packed with civilians was part of the deliberat e approach. It certainly did not serve any other
purpose than severely damaging the civilian members of the particular group and it certainly was
calculated to bring about conditions of life which would destroy the Bosniaks in whole or in part.
45ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć, case No. IT-02-54, “The Assembly of Republika Srpska, 1992-95:
Highlights and Excerpts”, Expert Report of Dr. Robert J. Donia, 29 July 2003, Exhibit 538 ID.
46ICTY, Prosecutor v. Stanislav Gali ć, case No. IT-98-29-T, Judgment and Opinion, 5 December 2003,
para. 509.
47
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć, case No. IT-02-54-T “ Destruction of Cultural Heritage in
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1996 ⎯ A Post-war Survey of Selected Municipalities”, Andras Riedlmayer,
Exhibit No. P486. - 33 -
36. Targeting mourning crowds at funerals of the victims of earlier shelling; that was part of
the deliberate approach. What other message was sent here than telling the citizens of Sarajevo,
“we are serious about killing you”?
37. Targeting whatever they saw moving w as the apparent task set for the snipers ⎯ the
snipers who randomly, but deliberately, aimed at the civilian population. They brought death,
maiming and psychological terror to the non-Serbs locked into this city. [On screen]
38. Madam President, Mladi ć said: “Shoot at the Bosniaks.” 48 Kukanjać said: “I left you
49 50
all the arms.” The Minister of Health said: “Go destroy the hospital.” And this is, I need to
add, what Karadzić said on 13 October 1991: “ In just a couple of days, Sarajevo will be gone and
there will be five hundred thousand dead, in one month Muslims will be annihilated in Bosnia and
51
Herzegovina . . .”
39. It is just amazing that the Sarajevans kept their dignity and managed to keep a living
society going. A society which celebrated its principles and which practised respect and tolerance
to all people who made it up, regardless of their ethnic designation.
40. While the Serbs side blew up mosques and catholic churches, after they had captured the
next municipality, the leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina succeeded in maintaining a climate in
which every citizen was free to practise a religion of choice. What follows on the screen are Easter
services in Sarajevo in 1994. Just to show that Sarajevo was not an exception here, we have also
added some images of the same in Tuzla. [On screen] You are looking here at pictures of
General Dudejak whom I mentioned just a minute ago, who is talking to the people after the visit to
the church.
48Intercepted telephone call between Ratko Mladi ć and VRS officer Mirko Vukasinovi ć, 28 May 1992,
http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_006.php
49“My Guest ⎯ My Truth,” Interview on Pale TV, 12 July 1994, Annex 138 to Reply, 23 April 1998.
50ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć, case No. IT-02-54, Bosnian Serb Assembly, 16th Session,
12 May 1992, Dragan Kalinić, Exhibit 538 ID.
51
http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_006.php; ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć,
caseNo.IT-02-54-T, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal,16 June 2004, para. 241, Exhibit 613, tab89
(intercepted communication with Momcilo Mandić, dated 13 October 1991). - 34 -
Victims
41. In the city meanwhile, the death toll rose steadily, but surely. The Office of the
Prosecutor at the ICTY commissioned several studies on the amount of victims of the siege. These
52
reports were produced in the case against Galić . I mentioned him before.
42. The picture which emerges from these reports results in some 10,000 war-related deaths,
among which at least 5,000 civilians. And the am ount of wounded civilians would be between
three and four times the amount killed.
43. Thus, the number of war-related civilian casualties adds up to more than 20,000 in
Sarajevo alone.
44. The figures available also show that roughly half of the civilian victims fell in the first
nine months of the siege. This corresponds with figu res with respect to the re st of Bosnia. It also
corresponds with the notion that the Bosniaks we re not able to, militarily, defend themselves in
1992 and 1993, which situation was used ⎯ as publicly announced by Karadzi ć ⎯ to try and
annihilate the non-Serbs of Bosnia.
45. These figures are impressive and frightening, but they do not reflect the true horror of the
intentional targeting of the civilian population. Dead bodies on the street were an all too familiar
sight in Sarajevo, especially in the earlier years of the siege, 1992 and 1993. Judged on the basis of
the statistics, 1994 looks somewhat less horrible than the preceding years. But that is just statistics.
46. On the morning of 5 February 1994 the Markale market was busy as ever. This was the
place where food was to be obtained, if it were available at all. Hundreds of people would be going
to this market, which in itself was a well-known fact as well. And just after noon the market turned
into living hell. [On screen]
The result of this horrendous, nasty attack was over 60 persons killed and over 140 injured 53.
47. One single mortar shell caused this massacr e. The Bosnian Serbs showed their not so
unusual impertinence by bluntly stating in public that “the Muslims” had shelled their own
population.
52ICTY, Prosecutor v. Stanislav Gali ć, case No. IT-98-29-T, PopulationLosses in the Siege of Sarajevo
10September 1992 to 10 August 1994, Expert report submitte d by Ewa Tabeau, Marcin Zoltkowski and Jakub Bijak,
13 May 2002.
53ICTY, Prosecutor v. Stanislav Galić, case No. IT-98-29-T, Judgment and Opinion, 5 December 2003, para. 439
and footnote 1556. - 35 -
48. Immediately after the shelling two sets of investigations were launched, one from a local
team and one from the United Nations. These investig ations resulted in several reports that were
part of considerations by the trial chamber of the ICTY in the Galić case. Galić was found guilty of
unlawfully spreading terror among the civilian population by means of acts of violence, murder and
inhumane acts.
49. Apart from the reports just mentioned, th e trial chamber also considered an additional
report produced by the defendant himself. In its judgment the trial chamber gave due
considerations to all of these reports as well as to various witness statements with respect to this
matter. The trial chamber concluded, by majority , that, indeed, the Serb side had launched this
appalling attack and it further found that it would not only be totally unlikely that Bosnian Muslim
forces would have fired on their ow n civilians but it established that that would go also contrary to
the material facts proven.
50. Again, these images of the massacre went across the world and shocked the conscience
of mankind. This also led to strong United States pressure on the Serb side and to negotiations led
by former President Carter. He managed to broker a ceasefire on 20December 1994, which
brought some relief to the citizens of Sarajevo.
51. Only some, since the siege as such continued and moving in and out of the city remained
virtually impossible. The only lifeline was creat ed by the Sarajevans, who had constructed a
800-m long tunnel, which would provide for some traffic in and out of town.
52. The tunnel was constructed underneath the airport and connected the city to the road on
MountIgman, which was still under Bosniak cont rol. The Serb side responded to this by
frequently shelling the Mount Igman passage, which again cost many lives.
53. Later on during 1994 the heavy weaponr y, which was pulled back under the Carter
Agreement, slowly but surely was put back in place on the hills overlooking the city. After that
had happened Vojislav Kostunica visited the frontline of the siege. He, the current Prime Minister
of the Respondent, followed the example of Vojislav Seselj, who is currently here in Scheveningen
in the ICTY detention facility. This is what those visits looked like [On screen.].
54. These images are self-explanatory and it is very telling that these political leaders would
come at all to visit the troops at the frontline, one would say. But it was clearly meant as signs of - 36 -
solidarity, signs which are not really appreciated, Madam President, by the Applicant in this case.
It is also not very encouragi ng that Kostunica was one of those visitors. It stresses Bosnia’s
position that it, indeed, is necessary that the Court does set the record straight.
55. The heavy shelling resumed in 1995 and this basically continued throughout the rest of
the year. 28 August 1995 saw another shelling of the Markale market. This time it cost 37 civilian
deaths and approximately 90 injured persons. A confidential report to the UNPROFOR
Commander concluded that five rounds had been fire d from the Serb-held area of Lukavica, to the
west of Sarajevo 54.
56. Since this second Markale market assau lt happened shortly after the Srebrenica
massacre, the international response became str onger and led to NATO’s bombing Serb positions
around the city. Still, this did not effectively deter the Serbs. On 18 September 1995, they
launched a counter-offensive on the city in r esponse to NATO’s bombing. Arkan’s men from
Belgrade and other paramilitary groups joined the Serbs in this offensive.
57. Madam President, the siege of Sarajevo was laid by the Yugoslav army in April 1992,
when it was still named the Yugoslav National Army , JNA. As we said before, the so-called
withdrawal did not change substantive matters. That is why we also conceded towards the end, in
September 1995, Belgrade sent Arkan and his men actively to participate in the mentioned
counter-offensive.
58. Belgrade was never absent during this long est siege of a European city. There is no
doubt that the siege of Sarajevo squarely is covered by the specific and most imperative
prohibitions laid down in the Genocide Convention. Thank you very much.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. van den Biesen . The Court will take a short recess now
and the sitting will resume in ten minutes time.
The Court adjourned from 4.30 p.m. to 4.45 p.m.
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Mr. van den Biesen.
5United Nations General Asse mbly, Fifty-fourth session, 15 November 1999, Report of the Secretary-General
pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35, The Fall of Srebrenica, para. 438. - 37 -
Mr. van den BIESEN: Thank you very much, Madam President
SREBRENICA ,OR ETHNIC CLEANSING OF EASTERN BOSNIA
Context
1. Madam President, Members of the Court, the Srebrenica massacre is the best known and
maybe by now the best documented episode of the prolonged period of ethnic cleansing, which is
central to our case. Also, it seems to be genera lly accepted that “Srebrenica” fully falls within the
provisions of the Genocide Convention. As is well known the ICTY has found in two cases that,
indeed, genocide was committed in Srebrenica in the month of July 1995.
2. It is obvious that we will spend time on Srebrenica during the course of these ora
l
pleadings. We will elaborate on what we have stated in our Reply of April 1998. The Memorial of
April1994, obviously, does not mention this massacre since it had not occurred at that point in
time.
3. Before I go into a more focused description of what actually happened in July1995, I
would like to provide some more context. If we want to give Srebrenica its proper place in the
ethnic cleansing campaign that to a large extent destroyed the typical Bosnia and Herzegovina of
before 1992, we need to look at a larger picture.
4. “Srebrenica” was not a goal in itself, it w as merely the finale, the climax, the completion
of what had been the plan all along, at least since the beginning of 1991. We are today discussing
part of that earlier plan. This earlier plan didnot focus on Srebrenica alone but related to all of
eastern Bosnia.
5. Yesterday and earlier today we have clarified how the Serbian project was prepared.
How, beginning in 1991, the Serbian leadership in Belgrade organized the arming of Serbs in
Croatia as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how parallel political structures were created to
assume governmental authority when the hour would have come. We explained that this happened
in all areas with substantial Serb populatio ns, although this was expressly not limited to
municipalities with Serb majorities.
6. Eastern Bosnia, also referred to as the Drina Valley was part of the arms distribution
project, which project aimed to exclusively arm the Serb population. - 38 -
s[crenen]
7. This is the area which is referred to basically as the Drina area. The 1991 census provides
for the following demographic picture of eastern Bosnia. And you can see here again that most of
this part was a truly mixed population, Bosniaks as well as Bosnian Serbs.
s[crenen]
8. The ICTY case against Mr.Miroslav Deronji ć provides for a clear view on the broader
picture. Deronjić was accused of and sentenced for persecutions in Glogova, near Bratunac 55. It
appears from his judgment of 30 March 2004 that he was a career politician: his first position was
that of President of the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDS) and his career
led him, in 1996, to become Vice -President of the SDS under Karadži ć, until he resigned in 1997.
Due to these political functions, Deronji ć was involved in the impl ementation of the Serbian
project from the very beginning onwards. That is why Mr.Deronji ć was called to a meeting in
Belgrade towards the end of April1991. Deronji ć was to meet with Mr.Kertes, the Deputy
Minister ⎯ the one we heard about before ⎯ the Deputy Minister of the Interior of the former
Yugoslavia, who would latter on keep the same function under the new Yugoslavia. The topic of
the meeting was the delivery of arms to the Bratunac Serbs.
9. According to Deronji ć, at that meeting Kertes said that “the decision of the political and
State leadership of the former Yugoslavia ⎯ the decision of the political and State leadership of the
56
former Yugoslavia ⎯ was that in area of 50 km from the Drina would be Serb” . And the meeting
resulted in the establishment of an arms distribution centre in Mili ći, which, according to Deronjić,
57
was formed in the autumn or at the end of the summer of 1991 .
On this map of Bosnia we have indicated what was the approximate reach of this 50km
zone.
s[crenen]
10. This 50 km decision of the Belgrade leader ship clearly fitted the Greater Serbia project,
which was aimed at creating a future Yugoslavia wh ere all Serbs would be united in one State.
55
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Miroslav Deronjić, case No. IT-02-61-S, Sentencing Judgment, 30 March 2004.
56
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Miroslav Deronji ć, case No. IT-02-61-S, Testimony of Miroslav Deronji ć,
27 January 2004, para. 54.
57Ibidem., p.123. - 39 -
One year later, this 50km notion found its way in to the six strategic goals discussed earlier this
afternoon. Strategic goal 1 and 3 read as follows:
“1. Establish State borders separati ng the Serbian people from the other two
ethnic communities”
“3. Establish a corridor in 58e Drina Rive r Valley, that is, eliminate the Drina as
a border separating Serb States.”
s[crenen]
Implementation
11. The implementation in the Drina River region of these two strategic goals has been a
continued occupation for armed Serb forces throughout the entire 1992-1995 period of ethnic
cleansing. When I am referring here to “Serb fo rces”, this includes forces from both sides of the
Drina River. Among these, besides Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav forces, paramilitary forces, special
police units and so-called volunteers. This continue d occupation is reflected by the fact that a very
substantial amount of ICTY cases deal with wa r crimes committed in precisely this region of
Bosnia.
12. This region has been the continued object of the ethnic cleansing campaign, the earliest
one beginning in Bijeljina on 31 March1992; e xpanded through Foča on 8April1992; Zvornik
was attacked on 9 April 1992, Višegrad 14 April 19 92 and Bratunac 17 April 1992. We will look
in more detail into these specific events tomorrow.
13. Srebrenica was, as th e Prosecutor in the Miloševi ć pre-trial brief stated: “between 1992
to 1993, [was] on many occasions attacked. Shelling came from the immediate vicinity around the
enclave and from positions in Serbia.” And he goes on: “Further, air strikes were conducted
59
against Srebrenica, following which the aircraft we re observed flying in the direction of Serbia.”
The Srebrenica municipality had a predominant Mu slim population according to the 1991 census:
about three quarters of the population was Bosniac, about one quarter Bosnian Serb.
[On screen: 73.2 per cent was Muslim, 24.7 per cent Serb and 0.1 per cent Croat]
58
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic, case No. IT-98-33-T, Exhibit Number P746 (a).
5ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Miloševi ć, case No. IT-02-54-T, Prosecution’s Second Pre-Trial Bief,
31 May 2002, para. 919. - 40 -
In the beginning of the Serb campaign many, but by far not all, of the Muslims of Srebrenica
were taken to Bratunac where they would be deta ined, where they would be subjected to serious
abuse, including torture and killing. On 6May 1992 the Bosnians resisting the Serb occupation
regrouped and on 9 May 1992 they succeeded in regaining control of the municipality.
14. So Srebrenica managed to remain under Bosn iac control. This was not the case for most
of eastern Bosnia, which was largely cleansed. The predominantly Muslim population of eastern
Bosnia was, if not killed, forced to seek refuge elsewhere. And many of them ended up, precisely,
in Srebrenica, Goražde and Zepa. Actually, at times the Bosnian Government forces began to be
rather successful in their efforts to recapture territory.
15. The Serb side put up a strong military force to respond to this new, unusual, situation.
And this is reflected in a further intensified inte gration of the military endeavours from both sides
of the Drina River, and this campaign needed intensified harmonizing between the Bosnian Serb
Drina Corps ⎯ that is at the left-hand side of the river ⎯ and the Yugoslav Užice Corps ⎯ at the
right-hand side of the river. Actually, Madam President, Yugoslav forces remained seized of the
eastern Bosnian region throughout. Recen tly, on 16January 2006, we have submitted
76 documents to the Court and many of these are rela ted to the events in this area and to the Serb
military campaign. I will just highlight a few of those documents.
16. In November 1992 reorganizations of the military structure in the eastern part of Bosnia
were underway. In his letter of 26 Nove mber 1992 (doc. 34) Captain Vinko Pandurevi ć, a captain
in the Yugoslav army, who at the same time was Captain of the Bosnian Serb army, reports back to
the Drina Corps Headquarters on hi s efforts to form a new brigade. From his letter it becomes
clear that the organization of such a new brigade ta kes place in close concert with the headquarters
of the Yugoslav army, which agreed on “supplies and establishment of the war-time structure of the
brigade”. In other words, the Yugoslav army head quarters was in concert with the Bosnian Serb
army engaged in bringing the brigade up to wartim e readiness. Also, the conscripts apparently
needed to come from the Respondent’s territory, th e territory of Užice municipality, while it looks
like the Serbian Ministry of the Interior was suppo sed to do the paperwork. The letter goes on to
say: “We anticipate that initially we may not coun t on a mass response, but we will take all legal - 41 -
steps” ⎯ that is, to get the conscripts on board ⎯ “and we expect maximum support of the bodies
of the Republic of Serbia”.
17. Document6 is also very telling: on 25January 1993 the Commander of the
Respondent’s Užice Corps, the Yugoslav army, in forms his Bosnian Serb counterpart about the
progress the Užice Corps is making ⎯ and I have the full quote in my pleadings here, but I will
just paraphrase it. He is informing his counterpart ⎯ his Bosnian Serb counterpart ⎯ that the
Užice Corps is making progress, he is informing hi s counterpart that the Užice Corps is now in the
line of the zone of attack and he is outlining where he is exactly:
“1.We are informing you that the forces of uzice corps until 1100 hours of
25.01.1993 emerged on the line:
⎯ tg ⎯ 1 (tactical group): village radijevci, strazevac (tt.931)
⎯ tg ⎯ 2 (tactical group): gradina (tt.830) village (illegible)
⎯ tg ⎯ 3 (tactical group): village pale, village skajici
2. In the zone of attack of uzice corps to lines: village jagodnja, village osmaca,
village Radosevci, enemy forces are of one battalion strength.
main forces are grouping on direction villa ge osmace, jezero, village skelani, and
backing forces on directions village poznanovici, jagodnja, village osmaca, village
gladovici.”
18. This is January 1993, this is the Respondent’s army involved in the implementation of
the 50 km plan, also known as strategic goal No. 3. And in the same message of 25 January 1993,
he goes on to say:
“3. Please, for the purpose of organizing co-ac tion, deliver to us the schedule of your
forces with status at 1200 hours.
4. We are suggesting that we do exchange of information on daily basis with status at
1400 hours.”
19. Apparently the Respondent’s side was not alone in feeling the urgency for improving the
structures. One day later the head of the Bosn ian Serb Bratunac Brigade sent his message to the
Commander of the Bosnian Serb Drina Corps:
“In view of the number of Bosnian Se rb and Yugoslav (VRS and VSRJ (VJ))
Units,” ⎯ apparently there were quite a bit of them ⎯ “I suggest you form a Corps
IKM (Forward Command Post) (Main Staff) in Bratunac, which would consolidate the - 42 -
operations in the Drina River Valley (Zvornik, Bratunac and Skelani), because it is no
60
longer possible to go on this way.”
20. In the case against Milosevi ć the ICTY Prosecutor has commissioned several reports to
be produced by military experts. One of those reports was produced in October2003 by
Mr. Reynaud Theunes and Alan Borrelli, both military analysts. Later on during our pleadings we
will refer back to this report.
21. On 15 February 1993 the Command of the Drina Corps orders ammunition from the
Independent Skelani Battalion. The order, it says “very urgent” in the heading, is submitted to your
Court as document 26, together with document 25, whic h document is a more or less similar letter.
However, this time it contains some additiona l information. The information is that the
Independent Battalion Skelani, which is just at the Bosnian side of the river Drina, had its
warehouse in Bajina Bašta. And that is interesti ng because Bajina Bašta is at the other side of the
river, i.e. on the territory of the Respondent. Bo th the Respondent and the Bosnian Serbs, clearly,
did not consider the Drina River to be separating two independent “States”.
22. Apparently, Madam President, lots of similar orders are, at the time, also sent directly to
the Respondent’s army. This became too annoying to the Chief of the General Staff of the then
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Not that he was annoyed by the requests as such, but his
displeasure was caused by the undisciplined manner in which these requests were submitted. On
10March1993 the Commander of the Drina Corp s instructs his brigades to stop submitting
individual requests to the General Staff of the FRY army for material supplies and combat needs.
The brigades are further instructed to which address they need to send further requests and they are
informed that the border crossings should take place according to regulated procedures (doc.14).
One week later, on 17March1993, the same issue is addressed again, this time from the highest
level. The Supreme Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army instructs its lower headquarters ⎯ not
on its own initiative, as we can read from this le tter, but “Pursuant to the Yugoslav Army Supreme
Headquarters’ Instructions (No.156-2) of 18Fe bruary1993”. And he instructs them to stop
approaching the Yugoslav Army Supreme Headquarters independently (doc. 36).
6ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosević, case No. IT-02-5OTP Military Analysis Team, Report submitted
Reynaud Theunes and Alan Borrelli
by , Exhibit Number 643, Tab 1, Part III (by Alan Borrelli), p. 21. - 43 -
23. From the letter it becomes clear that the displeasure of the Yugoslav Supreme Command
had, indeed, translated into an order sent by Belgrade to the Bosnian Serb leadership.
24. Not only successes of the Bosnian forces in trying to recapture cleansed territories caused
the need for streamlining combat communications and supply of military equipment. The actual
context of these communications was formed by an extended military operation, through which the
Respondent’s armed forces tried, in close harm ony with the Bosnian Serb forces, to take over
Srebrenica.
25. The ICTY has, by now, dealt with various cases related to Srebrenica. In the case against
Blagojević, the Commander of the Bosnian Serb Brat unac Brigade, the trial chamber has,
meticulously and thoroughly first established all rele vant facts, before it began to consider and to
appreciate the exact role of the accused. The facts established by the trial chamber in its judgment
61
of 17 January 2005, include the 1993 period, which I am describing to the Court just now .
26. This is what the Tribunal found:
“By March 1993, Bosnian Serb forces we re advancing rapidly, causing more
civilians to flee. During this offensive, the Zepa enclave was separated from the
Srebrenica enclave. Bosnian Muslims from neighbouring villages sought refuge in an
area of approximately 150 sq km around Srebrenica town. At one point the population
in this area reached 50,000 to 60,000 people. As the Bosnian Serbs advanced, they
destroyed Srebrenica’s water supply and the town’s electricity supply; the population
increased, while the supplies of fo62 and water ran low and public hygiene and living
conditions deteriorated rapidly.”
27. Madam President, we can see that many, many thousands of victims of the ethnic
cleansing operation in the 50km area had sought shelter in Srebrenica, which municipality was
soon turned into a Bosnian Muslim island, entirely encircled and besieged by the Serb side.
28. On 11 March 1993, UNPROFOR Commande r Morillon visited Srebrenica. He
witnessed the desperate situation and promised the Muslim population that the United Nations
would protect them. This gave, indeed, hope to the population and for some time General Morillon
was a hero to the people of Srebrenica. This promise led to the United Nations declaring
Srebrenica, as well as Goražde and Zepa a safe area.
61
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojević and Dragan Jokić, case No. IT-02-60-T, Judgment, 17 January 2005.
6Ibid., para. 98. - 44 -
29. However, Morillon’s promise did not impress the Serb side. The Serbs had clearly
decided to just go ahead and finish the job. This is what the United Nations reported on
16March1993: the report says that on 13March 1993 United Nations personnel observed three
bomber planes flying across the Drina River, coming from the FRY to drop several bombs on
Gladovici and Osatica, two small towns southeast of Srebrenica 6. Let us look at the date here,
Madam President. The bomber planes were observed on the very same day on which Morillon left
the enclave.
30. In his report the ICTY military expert Borelli mentions:
“Furthermore, a report from the Bajina Basta, Serbia Detachment for Special
Purposes (JPN) (A department within the Serbian MUP) notes that war booty seized
from ‘territories where combat operations are taking place’ were to be transferred
from Skelani. This certif icate to transfer goods acr oss the border was issued ‘on the
basis of the Order of the TG1 (VJ Tactical Group1) Commander,
General Mile MRKŠIĆ, dated 12 March 1993’.” 64
In other words, the Respondent’s army orders its men, fighting in the territory of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, to transfer “war booty” from the terri tory of Bosnia to the territory of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia.
31. On 20 March 1993, UNPROFOR reports:
“The Serb attack on Srebrenica enclave continues unabated . . . they [the VRS]
have received a lot of support from across the border in Serbia during this offensive.
The Serbians have supported the BSA (VRS) with artillery fire, aircraft-bombers, and
ammunition resupply convoys, as well as having allowed the Serbs to stage from
within Serbian borders to attack from the east and south of the enclave.” 65
32. So, in March 1993, the Respondent is fully engaged in a large military operation,
attacking Srebrenica, a town packed with refug ees, victims of the ethnic cleansing campaign. A
campaign which turned a pretty Bosnian town, effe ctively, into a prison camp, where survival was
the main concern for the people involved.
s[crenen.]
It does look like a prison camp does it not? Ma dam President, this was exactly the situation
that existed when this Court, on 8April 1993, issued its first Order in the current case. I said
63
Borelli, ibid., p. 21.
64
Borelli, ibid., p. 21, para. 44.
6ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć, case Number IT-02-54-T, “HQ BH Command (Main) Kiseljak
Special SITREP (Srebrenica) to HQ UNPROFOR, Zagreb, 20 March 1993, Exhibit Number B8644. - 45 -
yesterday that the Respondent chose to ignore th is Court’s decision. Likewise, it bluntly and
entirely ignored the resolution of the Security Council of 16 April 1993, adopted one week after the
Court’s Order, in which, among other things, th e Security Council demanded that “the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia immediately ceases the supply of military arms, equipment and services to
the Bosnian Serb paramilitary units in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina” 66.
33. On 6 May 1993 the commander of a Bosnian Serb tactical group sent an urgent request
to the Commander of the Drina Corps (doc.29). In the request he mentions the presence of
“Franko”, also known as “Frenki” in Skelani. Skelani ⎯ I mentioned this before ⎯ is at this side
of the Drina River. It is noteworthy that “Frenki” would be there, he is Franko Simatovi ć, he was
at the time the Head of the Yugoslav State Securi ty Service. Another person mentioned in the
same letter is “Borić”, which is Mr. Bozović, and he is from Serbia’s Security Service, specifically
from the Unit Special Operations. Frenki and Bozovi ć are, according to this letter, in command of
a unit from the Bosnian Serb Skelani Battalion. Simatović is indicted by the ICTY and he has been
in prison here in Scheveningen, but he has also been temporarily released from the jail, awaiting his
trial ⎯ now in Belgrade. According to this docum ent “Frenki” was in command of a group called
67
Crvene Beretke, or Red Berets .
34. Meanwhile, the undisciplined ordering of materials from the Yugoslav Army apparently
continued in spite of the earlier orders of the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb military leadership. On
24October 1993 Mladi ć again orders his officers to stop directly communicating with the
Yugoslav arms providers; it only indicates that it was possible for them to do so. He sends the
order also ⎯ not on his own behalf ⎯ he sends it also on behalf of the Yugoslav army Chief of
Staff (doc. 72).
35. Through his letter of 4 February 1994 the Drina Commander informs the General Staff of
the Bosnian Serb army about the enormous am ounts of ammunition which the Drina Corps alone
obtained from the Federal Republic of Yugosla via during only two months, the months of
November and December 1993. The letter is incl uded in the documents which we have submitted
(doc. 13). It provides for a grim picture of the value which the 50-km zone apparently represented
66
United Nations Security Council resolution 819 (1993) of 16 April 1993.
67 - 46 -
for the FRY: millions of bullets are listed, thou sands of mortar shells are listed and the picture
becomes even grimmer when, further down in the same letter, the Commander informs its
headquarters that precisely the same amounts of amm unition were actually used and spent in those
last two last months of 1993.
36. The Yugoslav presence con tinues unabated and is reflected in other documents we have
submitted. One of them, dated 26February 1994, through which the Drina Corps Command
convokes the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) of Serbia (FRY) to a meeting to discuss the
co-operation between both the MUPs of Serbia and of Republika Srpska (doc.30); another
document, a document dated 12 July 1994, through which the same Command requests Belgrade to
send a particular person “to help us with his expertise in development of the operative map
intended for special purposes and exploitation” (doc .75). So, the operative maps needed to be
produced by the Yugoslav specialists. All of th ese documents, Madam President, have in common
that they all demonstrate the joint-effort nature of these undertakings.
37. Meanwhile the United Nations Monitors keep registering Yugoslav helicopters crossing
the Yugoslav-Bosnian border throughout 1994 and also 1995 68. In other words, it is clear that all
along, from 1992 through 1995 the armies at the two sides of the Drina River continuously engaged
in all sorts of military activities which were all re lated to the initial plan: turning a 50-km-wide
region west of the Drina in a purified Serb region, as part of the new Yugoslavia.
38. Madam President, I have tried to explain to the Court how the Drina area was the object
of continued, harmonized endeavours of the combined Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav forces. I have
tried to clarify the context, now it is time to turn to the events which are directly connected to the
Srebrenica massacre.
The months leading up to the massacre
39. We have shown the Court already in our Reply the events that developed on the Trnovo
battlefield in June and July 1995 69. Trnovo is situated 30km south of Sarajevo on the road to
Foča. At the time, fierce fighting took place in many regions in Bosnia, since the Bosnian army at
68
Borelli, ibid., p. 21, para. 45.
6Reply, Chapter 8, Section 6, paras. 227-232. - 47 -
that time became much better organized and much better equipped and was, indeed, rather
successful in recapturing areas which had been ta ken over, which had been cleansed by the Serb
side in 1992. The Trnovo battlefield is relevant for the Srebrenica massacre, although Trnovo is
quite a distance to the east of Srebrenica.
40. As we have shown in the Reply the Trnovo battle was, at the Serb side, fought by a
coalition of Bosnian Serb forces and various forces of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) of the
Respondent. At least three Serbian units, units fro m Belgrade, were involved: “Kajman”, “Plavi”
and “Skorpija”, the latter being notorious by now under the name “Scorpions”. Their involvement
follows from a report dated 1 July 1995, issued by the Police Brigade Commander and sent to his
70
superiors . The full text of the report is to be found in the Reply.
41. Also, the Trnovo battle provides for a clear example of concerted operations executed by
the three Ministries of the Interior: the Respondent’s Ministry, together with those of Republika
Srpska and of Republika Srpska Krajina. And th is follows from a letter of the Republika Srpska
71
MUP, dated 6July 1995, to the Bosnian Serb police forces . Again, the full text of this is to be
found in the Reply.
42. It is telling to see that, also in 1995, MUP forces from Srpska Krajina, which is in
Croatia, would be involved in actual fighting in east ern Bosnia. At first sight, this may seem odd,
but, Madam President, it is not odd at all: all th ree entities, the Respondent, the Republika Srpska
and the Republika Srpska Krajina were together e ngaged in one single effort, aimed at the creation
of a new, ethnically pure, Serb Yugoslavia.
43. The relevance of the Trnovo battle for the Sr ebrenica massacre is, at least, twofold. For
one thing, it demonstrates the extent of the summer offensive of the Serb side, aimed to secure the
50-km region east of the Drina. Secondly, more im portantly, it demonstrates the presence of the
MUP forces from Belgrade, which forces on 10 July 1995 received an order; they were directed to
Srebrenica. Why? To reinforce the troops which we re taking over the enclave. This is what the
10 July order says:
70
Ibid., para. 230.
7Ibid., para. 231. - 48 -
“1. Detach a part of the RS MUP forces that are taking part in combat operations on
the Sarajevo front and send them sometime tomorrow, 11 July 1995, as an
independent unit to the Srebrenica sector.
(It is about RS MUP/Republika Srpska forces here. The letter continues:)
2. The unit shall consist of the 2nd Special police detachment from Sekovi ći, the
1st company of the PJP/Special police unit/of the Zvornik SJB, a mixed company
of joint RSK/Republic of Serbian Krajina, Serbian and RS MUP/Republika Srpska
Ministry of the Interior/forces and a company from the training camp at Jahorina.
(It continues:)
4. During the night withdraw the company of joint RSK, Serbian and RS MUP forces
from the Trnovo battlefield. Assemble un its on 11 July 1995 by 1200 hours in
Bratunac, in front of the SJB except for the 2nd Special police detachment, which
shall proceed towards its destination on 11 July 1995 in the afternoon.
5. On arrival at his destination the unit commander is obliged to make contact with
72
the Corps Chief of Staff, General Krstic.”
He apparently received the command of three MUP forces.
44. Madam President, the plan for the final a ttack on Srebrenica must have been prepared
73
quite some time before July 1995 . The United Nations food convoys to the enclave were, from
January 1995 onwards, increasingly obstructed by th e Bosnian Serb forces, while in the spring of
1995 also convoys to supply the United Nations forces, i.e. DutchBat, were increasingly obstructed.
For this reason the humanitarian situation in th e enclave became even worse than it had been
before. On top of that, the shelling of the enclave intensified, and also sniper fire, which was aimed
at the besieged town in conformity with the Sarajevo siege recipe.
45. The actual planning, as far as we can te ll from documents, began at the latest in the
beginning of March 1995. We know this from the ICTY case against Momir Nikolić, who was the
commander of the Territorial Defence staff in Bratunac.
46. In November 1992, after he had spent several months in Serbia, Nikoli ć was promoted to
become the Assistant Commander and Chief of Se curity and Intelligence of the Bratunac Brigade
of the Bosnian Serb army.
At the time of the Srebrenica massacre he had been further promoted and had become
Captain First Class.
72
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojević and Dragan Jokić, case No. IT-02-60-T, Exhibit No. P358 tab 194.
7Blagojević, ibidem., paras. 106-118. - 49 -
N4i7. li ć was accused of having been a member of a joint criminal enterprise, which had
as its objective:
“to forcibly transfer the women and childr en from the Srebrenica enclave to Kladanj,
on 12 July and 13 July 1995; and to capture, detain, summarily execute by firing
squad, bury, and rebury thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys aged 16 to 60
from the Srebrenica enclave from 12 July 1995 until and about 19 July 1995” . 74
48. In the Nikolić case the trial chamber established this, among other things, with respect to
the planning stage:
“1. At a meeting between the UNPROFOR Commander and Mladi ć on 7 March 1995
in Vlasenica, Mladić expressed dissatisfaction with the safe area regime and
indicated that he might take military action against the eastern enclaves. He gave
assurances, however, for the safety of the Bosnian Muslim population of those
enclaves.
2.On 8 March 1995, the Supreme Commander of the RS Armed Forces,
President Karadžić, issued a Directive for Further Operations, which was directive
No. 7: It said: ‘Planned and well-thought-out combat operations’ and they need to
create ‘an unbearable situation of total insecu rity with no hope of further survival
or life for the inhabitants of both enclaves’. The separation of the Srebrenica and
Zepa enclaves became the task of the Drina Corps. As a result of this directive,
General Ratko Mladi ć on 31March1995 issued a Directive for Further
Operations, Operative No.7/1, which furt her directive specified the Drina Corps’
tasks.” 75
49. In the Blagojevi ć case the trial also established additional facts with respect to the
planning stage and there is found that:
⎯ “On 4 July 1994, Colonel Ognjenovi ć, the then-commander of the Bratunac
Brigade, sent a report to the units of the Bratunac Brigade. In this report, he
outlined that the ‘final goal’ of the Bosnian Serb army was ‘an entirely Serbian
Podrinje. The enclaves of Srebrenica, Zepa and Goražde must be militarily
defeated.’”
And the report continued:
“We must continue to arm, train, discipline and prepare the RS Army for the
execution of this crucial task ⎯ the expulsion of Muslims from the Srebrenica
enclave. There will be no retreat when it comes to the Srebrenica enclave, we must
advance. The enemy’s life has to be made unbearable and their temporary stay in the
enclave impossible so that they leave en masse as soon as possible, realising that they
76
cannot survive there.”
74ICTY, Prosecutor v. Momiro Nikolić (et al.), case No. IT-02-60/1-S, Amended Joinder Indictment, para. 30.
75
Blagojević, ibid., paras. 103-106.
76Blagojević, ibid., para 103. - 50 -
50. Clearly, the “final goal”, described here as an entirely Serbian Podrinje, is in conformity
with the May 1991 50-km region. The rest of th ese findings of the judges of the trial chamber is
self-explanatory.
51. Given the fact that in July 1995 the size of the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica
amounted to approximately 40,000people 77, it is clear that the planners, referred to in the
Blagojević judgment, were up to a huge undertaking.
The takeover
52. Madam President, DutchBat had around ten observation posts close to the perimeters of
the besieged area. In June 1995 one of those was attacked by the Bosnian Serb forces and this led
to the withdrawal of this observation post by DutchBat.
s[crenen]
When we say DutchBat, Madam President, many associations come to our minds. One of
them relates to what you have just been seeing ⎯ you have been seeing one of the APCs de-armed
vehicles of DutchBat in the enclave. All of those were stolen from DutchBat after the takeover was
finished. And the next image you were seeing were the same APCs, this time repainted, and part of
the Yugoslav army in Kosovo. And I had asked the Dutch Ministry of Defence to find out ⎯
because there was the message on TV, when those images were first broadcast ⎯ to find out
whether it was true that indeed these were the sa me APCs, and I got a clear confirmation from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as of Defence that indeed it was so. Armed vehicles, captured
in Srebrenica, end up as being used by the Yugoslav army. It is just a detail, but it is not an
unimportant detail, of what we are about to show you here.
53. The first days of July, Madam President, we re used by the Serb side to get their troops
ready for the attack. All troops in the wider ar ea were notified that the attack would begin on
6July1995, early in the morning. From 6 July through 10 July the actual attack developed.
Srebrenica town was heavily shelled again. The Serb side even deployed a tank to fire at
Srebrenica town. Obviously, the targets of all of this were civilian.
77
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstić, case No. IT-98-33-A, Judgment, 19 April 2004, para. 15. - 51 -
54. Several DutchBat observation posts were easily dismantled and the Dutch UNPROFOR
withdrew to its headquarters in Potocari.
s[crenen]
55. It is clear from these images that Mladić was in charge here. Apparently, he was also
authorized to be in a command position with respect to the units from the Respondent, which units
were operating alongside the Bosnian Serb forces.
56. Was he, indeed, alone in his command position? Maybe, maybe at certain points in time
on the battlefield but he was certainly not on his own when one looks at the troops he was
commanding. As we have seen, the Respondent’s forces were included, as well as troops from the
Serbian Krajina. Also, it is a well established fact that Mladi ć, in general, was a frequent visitor to
Belgrade 78and that he was in Belgrade on 7 July and 15 July 1995, which is twice in the midst of
79
the takeover and the massacre .
57. In any event, the orders in Srebrenica were clear: men had to be separated from women.
The women were put on buses to be transported to Tuzla, the men were herded together and taken
elsewhere. Madam President, the phrase “separating men from woman” comes back very often in
this case. Before we get used to this as just a nother sentence it may be useful to see what this
exactly means. This is the story of one of th e mothers from Srebrenica; she delivered this as a
witness in the Blagojević case. [On screen]
“When we were halfway through, I heard a voice say, Popovi ć, look out for this
one and I immediately realized that he was referring to my child. But then there were
other children there as well. There was my sister-in-law’s child and some other
people. Then the soldiers insisted and I felt paralysed at one point. But I mustered
some courage to whisper in my son’s ear a nd to tell him, ‘Don’t worry, sonny. Just
go. Keep going.’ We walked for about 50m, and then from the left column one of
their soldiers jumped out, and he spoke to my child. He told us to move to the right
side, and he told my son, ‘Young man, you should go to the left side.’ And then he
said, ‘Why me? I was born in 1981.’ But he repeated what he had said, ‘You people
should go to the right-hand side.’ He had some kind of bags in his hand, and the
soldier told him to throw the bag to the right side and to go to the left, but I grabbed
him by his hand and I ⎯ he kept repeating, I was bor n in 1981. What will you do
with me? What do you want me do? And then I begged them, I pleaded with them.
Why are you taking him? He was born in 1981. But he repeated his order. And I
held him so hard, but he grabbed him. A nd then my son threw out that bag, and the
78
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevi ć, case No. IT-02-54-T,testimony of Dr.Michael Williams,
24 June 2003, p. 22908 and of Rupert Smith, 9 October 2003.
7Peace Journey, by Carl Bildt, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999 pp. 51-54 and pp. 60-64. - 52 -
soldier picked up the bag and threw it on a p ile on the right-hand side, and he took my
son’s hand, and he dragged him to the left side. And he turned around, and then he
told me, ‘Mommy, please, can you get that bag for me? Could you please get it for
me?’ That was the last time I heard his voice.” 80
Madam President, this boy was 14 years old.
58. Around the United Nations compound of Potocari some 25,000 people were assembled.
From 12 July onwards they ⎯ except for the boys, except for the men ⎯ were put on buses to be
transported to territory under the control of the Bosnian Government. In the Blagojevi ć case the
trial chamber established that, obviously, a large number of buses were us ed. More importantly,
for the purposes of our case, the judges also f ound that the enormous amounts of buses included
buses from Serbia proper, i.e. from the Respondent. Together with the Bosnian Serbs the
Respondent engaged in this forcibly transferri ng of the non-Serb, i.e. the Muslim population of
Srebrenica, which, as we have seen, included many Muslim refugees from the entire Drina region.
59. The buses were to be escorted by UNP ROFOR, according to an agreement made
between Mladić and DutchBat. This only worked out for the first convoys. Soon after that the
Bosnian Serbs would not any longer let the United Na tions board the buses. On top of that they
simply stole some 16 DutchBat jeeps, which pr evented any additional United Nations escorts from
81
materializing .
60. The DutchBat personnel who were able to escort the first convoys have testified that
frequent stops were made on the orders of Serb soldiers who would check the buses and take out
men, who initially had succeeded in getting on board the bus. Also, they testified that they passed
a football field near Nova Kasava, where 2, 000 to 3,000 Bosnian Muslim men were herded
together and who were sitting w ith their hands behind their heads. Heavily armed Serbs guarded
them. When the DutchBat personnel returned on their way back to Potocari the next day, the
football field was empty, empty except for one dead body and a pile of burning personal
belongings.
61. Certainly, murdering this boy fits in the pattern and demonstrates in its given context the
intent to “destroy in whole or in part”; “killin g” is, obviously, at stake here, but also “causing
serious mental harm”. This, if we restrict ourselves for a moment to Srebrenica, obviously does not
80
Blagojevic, ibid., para. 651.
8Blagojevic, ibid., para. 184. - 53 -
only apply to the one woman whom we just saw on the screen, it applies to all of the survivors of
this extremely cruel massacre.
62. All of this happened as part of the implem entation of the stated objective of the takeover
operation, which was executed under the code name “Krijava 95”; the objective reads: “to
separate and reduce in size the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves, to improve the tactical position of the
forces in the depth of the area, and to create conditions for the elimination of the enclaves” 82. What
this should lead to becomes clear from the orders that were given to Miroslav Deronji ć, who was,
on 11 July 1995, appointed by Karadzi ć as the “Civilian Commissioner for the Serbian
Municipality of Srebrenica”. Deronjić testified at the ICTY on these orders and he clarified:
“As soon as conditions were ripe, after the evacuation of the Muslims, we were
to go into Srebrenica to establish the first government structures, with the primary task
of protecting all types of properties, state, social, and all other property, and to make
sure that Serbs may return to this area, Se rbs who had been dislocated, and of83ourse,
to try to repair and restore the infrastructure in and around Srebrenica.”
Clearly, under the sections “repair” and “protect ” of this order, in practice an exception was
made. An exception was made for the mosques in Srebrenica. While the images at the time of the
takeover demonstrate that the minaret of the Pe tric Mahala mosque, which had been built so
recently that the scaffolding around it was still present ⎯ that is the picture on the left. Images
made one year later show that the minaret has be en blown into pieces. A similar fate awaited the
84
mosque on the central square of Srebrenica .
s[crenen]
63. On 14 July 1995 the command of the 5th Engineering Battalion sent his regular combat
report to the command of the Drina Corps. We have submitted this document together with the
others (doc. 10). The report actually documents wh at this battalion was ordered to do. In the first
paragraph the report reads as follows: “A larger group of the enemy inserted [intruded] in the
region of Pobudja brdo and Konjevic Polje, the units of the 5th Engineering Battalion and Ministry
of the Interior successfully responded to the enem y.” The report continues to explain what this
82
Blagojevic, ibid., para. 137.
83Blagojevic, ibid., para. 135.
84First image taken from IKON, Dutch television, in collaboration with NRC Handelsblad and Channel4:
Srebrenica, July 1996 (DVD 4). The footag e was originally made by the Belgrade freelance reporter Zoran Petrovi ć on
11 July 1995 and can be found in full at: http://www.domovina.net/srebrenica/page_014.php. Second image taken from
VPRO, Dutch television, Lopende Zaken, 23 June 1996 (DVD 8). - 54 -
successful response entailed and who the enemy was; it says: “Arrested and killed were around
1,000 to 1,500 enemy civilians and soldiers.”
Further down, the report stipulates: “The batta lion is executing ordered tasks.” And, then, a
long list of performed tasks follows. Towards the end it says that the battalion will: “continue
organizing ambushes for the fight against the en emy which was inserted on the hill Pobudje, and
aim for the fight against them, to destroy the enemy as soon as possible and free Pobudje brdo.”
I mentioned that the report stated “arrested and killed were around 1,000 to 1,500 enemy
civilians and soldiers”. The report also states that the battalion itself had no losses. So, Madam
President, this report is talking about “successf ully responding to the enemy”, while apparently
nothing like a serious fight took place but they just went ahead and killed “around 1,000 to 1,500
enemy civilians and soldiers”.
64. The report also states what the “pontoon troop” had accomplished; the “pontoon troop”
had also executed orders and it says that it was engaged in “securing ferry passage places on river
Drina in village Osamsko, village Fakovici, village Petric and village Sopotnik”.
s[crenen]
So, on top of the existing bridges that were al ready there at the Drina River in Skelani, on
top of that, in apparently four additional crossi ngs, bridges were realized by the “pontoon troop”.
Apparently they were needed for military pu rposes. The Bosnian Government never gave
permission to construct these passages into the neig hbour State. Apparently, and on the contrary,
the Respondent did. The explanation for the need of these additional crossovers is clear. We are
talking here about a well planned campaign which involved lots of military traffic across the Drina
River between Serbia proper and Bosnian territory.
65. Madam President, we just discussed the men and boys being separated from the women
and that the men and boys were being taken elsewhe re. This was on 11 July 1995. By now, it is
common knowledge that this “being taken elsewhere” meant that the men were taken away to be
killed. The killing started immediately 85.
85
Blagojevic, ibid., paras. 193-202. - 55 -
The massacre
66. DutchBat soldiers, on 12 Ju ly 1995, found the bodies of ni ne men, dressed in civilian
clothes. They were all shot in the back. They were found 500m from the United Nations
compound. Seven hundredmeters from the co mpound they found another group of nine or
ten bodies lined up behind the so-called White House, a ll in civilian clothes, shot in the back or in
the back of their heads. One DutchBat soldier actually witnessed a summary execution: four Serb
soldiers holding one civilian and killing him with one single shot through the back of his head.
Also on 12July, a witness saw piles of 20 to 30 bodies behind the bus station. Their necks had
been slit. Other witnesses have testified that th ey had seen additional groups of bodies in the same
location. All in civilian clothes, among them six women.
s[crenen]
All the Bosniak men you saw on the screen were all killed.
67. This was only the beginning of the facts th at have been established by two ICTY trial
chambers, those who decided the Nikoli ć and Blagojevi ć cases, and they allow me to show the
Court a picture of what happened next with the people from Srebrenica ⎯ a picture that shows that
the killings were systematic, planned and carried out in cold blood. I will summarize some of these
facts now:
⎯ On 13 July 1995 in the town of Bratunac, some of the Bosnian Muslim men who were detained
there were taken from their places of detention, including schools, hangars and buses, and they
were all summarily executed.
⎯ At Branjevo Military Farm, approximately 1,200 Bosnian Muslim men who had been captured
from the column were executed by automatic weapon fire.
68. Madam President, along the route between Bratunac and Zvornik, the names which
previously were used to mark settlements and co mmunities or places of learning, culture and work
or geographic features are now used to identify mass execution sites: Jadar River, Cerska Valley,
Kravica Warehouse, Petkovci School, Pilica Cultur al Centre, and the villages of Tisca and
Orahovac. I will now continue to draw from those two cases.
⎯ At the Jadar River, on 13 July 1995, 16 Bosnian Muslim men who had been captured from the
column ⎯ the column we just saw on the screen ⎯ were lined up alongside the river and they - 56 -
were killed by four Serb soldiers who had escorted them ⎯ they killed them with their
86
automatic rifles .
⎯ In Nova Kasaba, again on 13July 1995, one witness testified that he saw “about 200 to
300 Muslim men lying down, guarded by Bosnian Serb soldiers” 87. Throughout the day, 1,500
to 3,000Bosnian Muslim men captured from the column were held prisoner on the Nova
Kasaba football field. In July 1996, a team of forensic investigators under the direction of
Dr.WilliamHaglund exhumed four, so-called, pr imary, undisturbed graves in the Nova
Kasaba area. The graves, located in two fields, contained the bodies of 33 male victims, who
died as a result of gunshot wounds 88. In 1999, 55 more individuals were identified and at least
43 had died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds 89.
⎯ Also on 13July 1995, between 1,000 and 4,000Bosnian Muslim men captured from the
column were detained in the Sandi ci meadow, located on the Konjevi ć-Polje-Bratunac road.
There is evidence that so me prisoners were killed 90but the number is not specified. At least,
91
there was one execution and approximately 30 men were taken away at that particular spot on
92
a truck and were not seen again .
⎯ Still on 13July there was an execution of at le ast 1,000Bosnian Muslim men. They were
taken to the Kravica warehouse by foot or by bus from a meadow near Sandici where they had
been detained since their capture earlier that day. Soldiers started shooting as soon as the
warehouse had filled up with people. They shot their infantry weapons, they shot their
machine guns through the doors, through the wi ndows and they also just threw hand grenades
93
into the warehouse .
86
Ibid., para. 293.
87
Ibid., para. 253.
88
Ibid., para. 255.
8Ibid.
9Ibid., para 242.
9Ibid.
92
Ibid.
93
ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojević , Dragan Jokić, case No. IT-02-60-T, Judgment, 17 January 2005,
paras. 296 et seq. - 57 -
⎯ Within a five-day period, approximately 6,0 00Bosnian Muslim men, who were escaping in
“the column” from Srebrenica, were captured, detained and executed in various locations in the
Bratunac and Zvornik municipalities.
69. This Momir Nikolić, in his statement of facts, furthermore describes his role in the initial
stages of planning the murder operation, including the detention of able-bodied men and the
selection of execution sites. I am just summarizing the main points:
⎯ In the morning of 12 July, this Nikoli ć met with Lt. Colonel Vujadin Popovi ć, Chief of
Security of the Drina Corps, and Lt. Colonel Kosori ć, Chief of Intelligence, Drina Corps. At
that time Popović told Nikolić that the thousands of Muslim women and children in Poto čari
would be transported out of Poto čari toward Muslim-held territory near Kladanj and that the
able-bodied Muslim men within the crowd of Muslim civilians would be separated from the
crowd, detained temporarily in Bratunac, and killed shortly thereafter.
⎯ Nikolić was then told that he was responsible to help co-ordinate and organize this operation.
Kosorić reiterated this information, and appropriate locations to detain the Muslim men prior to
their execution were discussed.
70. Several specific areas were identified including: the old elementary school “Vuk
Karadžić” (including the gym), the old building of th e secondary school “Duro Pucar Stari”, and
the Hangar (which is 50 m away from the old secondary school).
⎯ There were long columns of hundreds of capture d Bosnian Muslim men being marched in the
directions of Konjević Polje and Sandici on 13 July 1995.
⎯ Later that day as he travelled along the Konjevi ć Polje-Bratunac road Nikoli ć saw many
prisoners being marched in both directions. And he says “I also saw dead bodies lying on the
side of the road near Pervani and Loli ći. I saw groups of three or so bodies at a time. At
Sandići, I saw about 10 to 15 corpses and a large mass of prisoners in a meadow.”
⎯ Nikolić learned of the execution of the detainees held at the Kravica warehouse the day after
the executions were carried out. Nikolić is aware of murders that were carried out in Bratunac,
including the murder of approximately 80-100 men near the Vuk Karadžić school on the
evening of 13 July. - 58 -
⎯ Nikolić stated that on the night of 13 July, he was ordered to travel to the Zvornik Brigade and
informed the Zvornik Brigade Security Officer, that “thousands of Muslim prisoners were
being held in Bratunac and would be sent to Zvorni k that evening. Colonel Beara, the Chief of
Security of the Bosnian Serb Main Staff, also told Nikoli ć that Muslim prisoners should be
detained in the Zvornik area and should be executed”. Nikoli ć indicates that on the night of
13July1995, discussions were held in Bratunac at the SDS office during which the “killing
94
operation was openly discussed” .
71. The Blagojević trial chamber also found:
“At a meeting on 13 July, General Mladi ć informed the MUP that the Bosnian
Serbs resumed with the military operation towards Zepa, and was ‘leaving all other
work to the MUP’. These tasks included ‘evacuation of the remaining civilian
population from Srebrenica towards Kladanj (about 15,000) by bus [and it also
included the], killing of about 8,000 Muslim soldiers [as he called them] . . . blocked
in the woods around Konjevic Polje’ and [it included] ‘security of all essential
facilities in the town of Srebrenica’.” 95
This refers back to the Petric issue which I have been discussing earlier. The army would do the
takeover and the real ugly work would then be transferred to the MUP and to the paramilitaries.
72. Madam President, it is well established now that in total 7,000 to 8,000 men and boys
from Srebrenica indeed were killed in July 1995 96. Also, it is clear that these killings were not the
result of any military confrontation. Even if, even if there had been soldiers or former soldiers
among the men killed, they may not be consid ered as “regular” war casualties, given the
circumstances of this brutal, reckless, rücksichtslos murdering for which, again, given the
circumstances, there is only one word available: genocide.
73. The amount of men being slaughtered, the sheer size of this criminal undertaking, shows
its premeditated character. Apart from that, we know from the quotes that I have given earlier to
you that, indeed, the order was: “kill them all”.
94ICTY, Prosecutor v. Momir Nikoli ć, case No. IT-02-60/1-S, Senten cing Judgment, 2 December2003,
paras. 32-35.
95Blagojević, ibidem., para. 226.
96ICTY, Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstić, case No. IT-98-33-T, Appeal Judgment, 19 April 2004, para. 2; ICTY,
Prosecutor v. Momir Nikoli ć, case No. IT-02-60/1-S, Senten cing Judgment, para. 32; ICTY, Prosecutor v.
Dragan Obrenović, case No. IT-02-60/2-S, Sentencing J udgment, 10 December 2003, para. 30; Blagojević, ibid.,
para. 569. - 59 -
74. The next step in the organization w as the burial for which sufficient quantities of
excavators, shovels and the like were ready. Clearly, decent burials were not part of the plan.
However, there was a plan with respect to these burials: it was called reburial.
75. In September and October 1995 the shovels we re set to use again, that is a couple of
months latter 97. The mass graves were opened and the purpose was to move the bodies to
numerous new graves in order to hide the existen ce of mass graves. The result of that operation
has been that very often now ⎯ during the meticulous exhumation process which is going on for
years already ⎯ the remainders of one man are found a nd recovered from two or three different
mass graves. There is only one word for this: genocide.
76. The level of planning we have seen with respect to these burials and reburials was, I have
said it before, also visible at the actual killing stag e. The job, clearly, entailed killing, killing of all
boys and men fleeing from Srebrenica. This meant that in the second half of July the Serb side had
its troops combing the woods for boys, for boys and men they might have overlooked.
77. After this afternoon’s session, Madam Presid ent, nobody will be surprised to hear that
the Respondent, also at this stage, was actively involved. As we know, it was the Respondent who,
in May 1991, could use this 50 km plan known to the Bosnian Serbs through its Deputy Minister of
the Interior. Now we know also that troops from this same Ministry of the Interior finalized the
Srebrenica massacre in the woods of Mount Treskavica near Trnovo. The presence of the
Scorpions from the Respondent’s MUP is by now also acknowledged by the authorities of
Republika Srpska who authorized recently the special report on Srebrenica (doc. 76).
78. And this, Madam President, this is wh at the truly shocking reality looked like:
premeditated, calmly, cowardly, brutally, crimina lly killing of boys, who had done nothing wrong
but being Bosniak.
s[crenen]
In a way, Madam President, I feel I may have to apologize for showing you these images but
then the question is: do I need to apologize?
97
Blagojević, ibid., para. 383. - 60 -
79. Madam President, Members of the Court, in 1991, the population of Srebrenica counted
29,198 people, 21,361 being Bosniak. In 1997, the population of Srebrenica counted 7,442, seven
98
of them were of Muslim ethnicity .
Thank you very much.
The PRESIDENT: The Court now rises. The session will resume at 10 o’clock tomorrow
morning.
The Court rose at 6.20 p.m.
___________
9ICTY, Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milošević, case No. IT-02-54-T, Decision on Motion for Judgment of Acquittal,
16 June 2004, para. 202.
Public sitting held on Tuesday 28 February 2006, at 3 p.m., at the Peace Palace, President Higgins presiding