17581
Tuesday, 11 March 2003
[Open session]
[The witness entered court]
[The accused entered court]
--- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.
MR. NICE: We're at the foot of page 5 of the summary, paragraph 25.
WITNESS: MILOSAV DJORDJEVIC [Resumed]
[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]
Q. General Djordjevic --
MR. NICE: Could we put tab 3 on the overhead projector.
Q. Was the coordination group of which you've spoken also involved in assisting in the establishment and organisation of the Krajina Territorial Defence?
A. Mr. Prosecutor, the coordination group did not engage in the formation of the Territorial Defence, but it did engage in providing assistance to the TO staff in organising certain structures and units of the Territorial Defence, such as the TO brigades in the first place.
Q. Looking at the --
A. Furthermore, we also assisted them in organising the zonal staffs of the Territorial Defence and the actual staff of the SAO Krajina. We helped them in constituting the units out of the existing lower-level units and manpower that they had at their disposal. 17582
Q. Just looking at the chart, tab 3, and at the orange colour at the bottom, show what that reveals of this part of the coordination office's work.
A. [Indicates]
Q. Thank you very much. You've just drawn the orange lines which reflect that you communicated with the General Staff of the JNA administration, JNA organisation administration; is that correct?
A. That's correct, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q. And that orders on organisation and structure then would have gone out from that body to the Krajina Territorial Defence.
A. From the administration for organisation and formation of the General Staff.
Q. Can we look, please, at tab 9. Overhead projector, page 1. Order on organisational formational changes in the units of Territorial Defence of the Republika Srpska. And then to page 2, which we have a document dated after your period of office, General, 2nd of March, 1992. Federal Secretariat for National Defence to the zone command of the Territorial Defence in Glina. "Please find enclosed order of the Federal Secretary for National Defence."
Third page, please. State secret 2nd of February 1992 from the Federal Secretary for National Defence. The order organisational formational changes, item 1: "Establish General Staff of the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Srpska Krajina ..."
Does this documentation reflect, although after your time, the work of the coordination office in assisting the organisation and 17583 structure of the Territorial Defence in the Krajina?
A. Precisely so, only this is a modification of what preceded it, because in this period of time, the Republic of Srpska Krajina had been inaugurated. In the meantime, it had -- it was the Serbian Autonomous Region. Now it became the republic and the staff was adjusted accordingly.
Q. Tab 3 again, please. Financial issues. Top of the chart. Can you summarise, please, the role of the coordination office in financial issues? We can see it in green to some degree.
A. [Indicates]
Q. Thank you. Tell us what the coordination office did so far as finances are concerned.
A. I should like to remind you, Mr. Prosecutor, that yesterday I mentioned that the TO brigades were financed within the framework of the command of the corps and operative groups when they were subordinated to them or, rather, when they were integrated within their system. They were exempted from the command of the TO staff. When they were not directly under their command, then financially they relied on their own Krajina staff.
However, about two-thirds of the members of the TO were outside the brigades. They were members of lower-level units. And since the monetary and fiscal system had collapsed over there, the people who were in the Krajina Territorial Defence did not receive salaries or any financial remuneration, and these were mostly reservists with families who had no livelihood. 17584 And then from the SAO Krajina staff, they appealed to us that we intervene with the government of Serbia and the Federal Secretariat for National Defence for a lump sum to be paid out to them, a one-time payment within reasonable limits.
We requested that the staff tell us the exact numerical strength in categories; soldiers and non-commissioned officers and officers, because their remuneration varied. Once they did that, my officers in the coordination group went to the financial administration of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence and set out the situation to them. And the financial body, the financial officer in the Defence Ministry, that is a permanent employee, contacted the Ministry for Finance and the budget in the Republic of Serbia. Then these two financial officials of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence and in the government of Serbia agreed on how they would contribute, each in providing financial assistance in accordance to the request we had received.
I didn't interfere any further with that because this was carried out by the officials in charge.
Q. You only addressed or were aware of contacts being made with the financial administration of the SSNO, but could that sector of the SSNO have made the decision on its own or must it have gone to the highest level for the decision to be approved?
A. It was necessary to go to a higher level. The head of the administration for finance and the budget could not decide such a matter on his own.
Q. Likewise within the Ministry of Finance for the Republic of 17585 Serbia, could that decision have been made without intervention of or approval by the Minister?
A. I assume they couldn't have without the approval of the government. And yesterday we saw a document - I can't remember the date - in which the Defence Ministry is addressing itself to the government.
Q. You only, because of the period of your office, you only know of the one payment, but the problem, so far as you could see, was that a problem that would inevitably continue and require further solution?
A. Yes.
Q. Was it forecast within your department or your office that a regular payment system would have to be implemented?
A. We assumed so, but this was beyond our terms of reference.
Q. Tab 10, please. One month after your termination of office, a document from the 2nd Military District Command, dated the 20th of January, from them to the 622nd Motorised Brigade, reading: "In dispatch with above mentioned mark and date, you requested explanation about the rights of families of killed members of Territorial Defence on the area of Croatia ..."
And then at the bottom of the block of text, just above Colonel General Kukanja's signature: "Considering that you've sent the marked dispatch to personal administration of the SSNO, it's to be expected that the problems will be seen at the whole and that the just solution will be found. We think families of killed Territorial Defence members on the territory of the Republic of Croatia should be entitled to all rights as well as the persons from the reserve forces units and the JNA 17586 institutions."
Does this reflect the way in which financial responsibility for those engaged in the territory of Croatia was shouldered?
A. Precisely so. The late General Kukanja, commander of the 2nd Military District - he died last year - he provides here an explanation in response to a request from below what his position is. And because it is addressed to the personnel administration, he says that he expects that a unified solution would be found.
Q. Tab 11, please. Again a month or five weeks or so after the end of office but nevertheless you can help us with it. From the Republic of Serb Krajina's Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia, in particular to Minister Sokolovic, a letter signed by Milan Martic, the last paragraph of which reads: "I inform you that there is a --" "I inform you that there is an amount of 380 million dinars in the SDK in Glina," which is the federal bookkeeping service, I think, if we look at the paragraph above. "These resources were earlier deposited for the Territorial Defence, but since the major part of the defence, the defenders, that is, were financed from the army budget, the above-mentioned resources have not been spent for some time. We ask you to influence that these resources be transferred to the account of the Ministry of the Interior of RSK."
So how does this relate to the Coordination Group? Does this reflect the activities of the Coordination Group in transferring money?
A. Allow me to explain. The social accounting service, or the SDK, in Glina, in Banja Luka, in Knin, and I can't remember where it was based 17587 for the Eastern Slavonia, received money which had been agreed on between the financial bodies of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Secretariat for National Defence. And this statement by Mr. Martic that certain funds had mostly been provided by the JNA I don't think is quite correct and that what is involved is only inefficiency or errors in the work of the bodies of the Territorial Defence of that particular zone which didn't go to the SDK, withdraw the money from it and distribute the funds to its members. But otherwise, it did affect us, of course.
Q. The money had come from Serbia?
A. From the SSNO and Serbia. And now what the ratio was between the two, I don't know, but I do know that both participated.
Q. Same general period, 8th of February, 1992. Going to the headquarters of the Territorial Defence of the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina for the territories of Knin and Lika, coming from the Republic of Serbia's Ministry of Defence and over the signature of Minister Lieutenant-Colonel General Marko Njegovanovic.
The bottom paragraph reads --
A. Lieutenant-Colonel -- Lieutenant-Colonel General.
Q. Yes. "The resources are transferred to the headquarters of the Territorial Defence for the territory of Knin and Lika in the amount of 500.000 dinars for the purchase of building material ..." Does this, although comparatively modest in amount, nevertheless match the system of coordination of office work on finance?
A. Yes, it does match. And this is actually evidence that these obligations continued to be fulfilled. 17588 BLANK PAGE 17589
Q. Thank you. Tab 3, please, on the overhead projector. In this chart, General, which you prepared or assisted in preparing, we see at the bottom right-hand corner, right at the bottom of the -- thank you very much. We see in the little black and white block reference to other tasks which haven't been presented diagrammatically, one of which was the preparation for the arrival of United Nations peace forces. In a couple of sentences, please, the function of the coordination office in relation to that.
A. Specifically, my offices were not involved in that with the exception of myself, as far as I can recollect, and of course the Minister of Defence. Upon instructions from the Minister, I went to the General Staff of the JNA, to the General headquarters, and I had a briefing there with the late Major General Slavko Jovic. He also died. General Slavko Jovic, during the Iran-Iraq conflict, was a member of the contingent of international peace forces, and for a cessation of hostilities there, and according to assessments at the time, he had a wealth of experience in the area. I presented to General Jovic the situation such as it was in Krajina as far as I was familiar with it, the rough distribution of forces and division of the territory and so on. And then he, knowing Mr. Marrack Goulding personally from the period I just mentioned, provided very brief instructions as to how steps -- which steps should be taken in Croatia or in Krajina to receive the international forces.
As far as I remember, though I didn't -- haven't kept the notes, there were three points that were raised. 17590
Q. I want to deal with this very briefly. Was this in November of 1991, and did you thereafter meet representatives of Serb Autonomous Region's government such as Babic, Hadzic and Dzakula?
A. Yes. I personally, in the presence of the minister, explained to them the instructions given to me by General Jovic as to what should be done in Krajina in that regard.
Q. And what was Babic's attitude towards the mandate of the forces that was explained?
A. I must admit that he wasn't enthusiastic about it.
Q. What was his concern about what the JNA might do if he didn't accept the --
A. The key cause of his concern at the time, fully understanding the function of the forces and their duties there, was that everything would be okay but what if the Croatian forces, the National Guards or their army, as it was called, launch an all-out offensive and Krajina had, in the meantime, demobilised its Territorial Defence? What then would happen to their autonomy, independence, and so on?
Q. Did he have any concerns about what the JNA would or wouldn't do?
A. And he linked that to his concern that they would be left to fend for themselves as the JNA would have to pull out from Knin, the 9th Corps, so that they would have no one to rely on. So that was his main concern, judging by the conversations we had at the time and as far as I can remember them.
Q. What was the belief or understanding on the part of the officers of the JNA as to the JNA's obligations to Serbs in the United Nations 17591 Protected Areas?
A. I cannot mention a specific document or a meeting or any particular decision, but I do know that communicating with the officers and generals, it was said that the Yugoslav People's Army was ready should such an attempt be made by the Croatian side to come to their help and to protect them and not to allow the war to flare up again.
Q. Next topic, very briefly: Volunteers. I don't think the coordination office dealt directly with the administration of volunteers. Correct?
A. Except for officers, no.
Q. On the 23rd of August of 1991, did the government of Serbia order a -- issue an enlistment order for volunteers into the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Serbia?
A. Yes, but may I make a correction? It's not mobilisation, because that makes it obligatory, but, rather, enlistment of those who volunteer. So it's admission of volunteers.
Q. On the 13th of September of 1991, by an instruction of the SSNO, was there a further order?
A. Correct. This instruction dealt with the acceptance of volunteers into JNA units.
Q. Was there an order banning political parties within the armed forces on the 8th of October, 1991?
A. Yes, there was. This order was taken precisely because of the earlier paramilitary forces which had mainly been formed by certain parties. 17592
Q. And the object of these orders, or one of the objects of these orders would have been to have brought to an end political parties having paramilitary organisations or military organisations. Do you know one way or another whether these decisions were fully implemented?
A. If I may first make a comment. There was another order, issued by the Presidency of the SFRY, on the obligation for the volunteers who were already within the armed forces to be included in regular units of the TO and the JNA, that they cannot exist in any other form, that they even had to be disbanded, et cetera.
But in order to your question, I think that this was not fully implemented as subsequent conflicts revealed later on as I was able to follow from the media.
Q. That's the document we can now look at, tab 13, please, which is dated the 10th of December. And if we'd simply go to the third page of this. That's it. Thank you very much. This is a decree on the registration of volunteers which regulates -- Article 1 regulates the registration of volunteers; the reinforcement of JNA, people's army, with volunteers is carried out in accordance with the regulations. At the foot of this page sets out Article 3, and: "The registration of volunteers in Territorial Defence is carried out in wartime, in the case of immediate danger of war and state of emergency, in order to fill units, headquarters, and institutions of Territorial Defence."
I was wrong when I said December. If you'd turn over three pages, you come to the date, which is the 14th of August, 1991. Thank you very 17593 much.
Is this the order you were speaking of, General?
A. Yes. This is an order issued by the government of Serbia. It was signed by the vice-president, Nikola Stanic, published in the Official Gazette of Serbia on the 23rd of August --
Q. Was any of those -- sorry.
A. -- and issued -- pardon? I didn't understand you.
Q. Sorry. I interrupted you. But implementation required declaration of one of the states, war and so on. Do you know if it was implemented in that way or not?
A. For the most part it was, but imminent danger of war was declared later, on the 4th of October.
Q. Tab 14. I don't think we need necessarily look at it. It's the 13th of September order. To save time, it's there. Perhaps it could be counted as produced, in the absence of any objection, and we'll move on to the next topic.
General, I want you to help us, please, with the Ministry of Defence briefly, Tomislav Simovic. Did you meet him occasionally, although he was always rather busy?
A. Correct.
Q. Did he receive reports about what your group was learning from the Krajina field operations and what it was learning about the needs of the Territorial Defence?
A. Depending on the time he had available, because he often had to attend meetings of the government, we would meet, as a rule, two or three 17594 times a week, because his office was in another part of town. I would come to his office, telling him that there were certain things I had to inform him about, or he would call me to come to his office and give him information and brief him.
Q. And did you also speak to, and I suppose, brief his deputy, Brana Kuzmanovic?
A. Only in the absence of the Minister of Defence if there was an urgent matter that had to be dealt with.
Q. Then you deal with other people who you worked with, including Colonel Mladenko Kovacevic, and a civilian called Hristoljub Cekic, but in addition to those two, there was Dobrila Gajic-Glisic, who was Simovic's chef de cabinet and she was in charge of all meetings with the Serbian government, I think.
A. Correct.
Q. Turning now to the accused, you were not present, I think, at any meetings between Minister Simovic and the accused.
A. No. I wasn't present at any meetings, and I did not see or hear Mr. Milosevic for almost 15 years, including in that period.
Q. Did Simovic tell you whether he'd had any meetings with the accused about matters related to the work you were doing?
A. He did say things, but there are some things that I think we should not discuss openly, in open session.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, can we go into closed session very briefly?
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Private session. 17595 BLANK PAGE 17596
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[Open session]
THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.
MR. NICE:
Q. General Djordjevic, dealing with your talks with Mr. Simovic, the minister, did he ever let you know one way or another whether the accused was aware of the Coordination Group and its activities?
A. I was told very clearly that he had met the president of Serbia and probably some details about what we were doing, but I don't know what they talked about in detail specifically except that he briefed the president that such a group existed.
Q. From your discussions with the minister and from what was talked about in your department, did you form a view as to whether the accused 17600 had a close or less close relationship with the Ministry of Interior, the MUP, than with the Ministry of Defence?
A. Yes. This was obvious.
Q. Namely, what it was -- he was closer to the MUP than the Ministry of Defence. That was your judgement?
A. Mr. Zoran Sokolovic and Mr. Milosevic knew each other. They went a long way back. They had worked together in the League of Communists and maybe there was something else behind it as well.
Q. Did you have a discussion with Momcilo Perisic when he was chief of the General Staff of the VJ?
A. At the time when he was a chief, I met him twice. On one occasion when there was a reception on the occasion of the Day of the Army in the army club when we from the Association of Military Pensioners were also invited. This was a social organisation. And the other occasion was when he briefed retired generals and admirals in Topcider on current issues concerning the organisation of the J -- of the Yugoslav army, financial problems, and so on and so forth.
Q. Was something said at one of those meetings, perhaps the second one, about the comparative size of the budget of Serbia and the budget of the FRY?
A. Mr. Martinovic, I think his name was, his assistant, since General Perisic only announced what the topic would be, he informed us. And there was another general there who was probably in charge of logistics. When they completed their presentation, General Perisic threw the floor open for questions and asked if there were any proposals or 17601 suggestions concerning the topic that had been discussed. A few of us took the floor. I put some questions about the funding of the army of Yugoslavia. And in this plenary discussion among retired generals, I asked the following: "General, all of us can see through the media what the budget of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is and what the budget of the Republic of Serbia is. It is common knowledge that most of the funds from the budget of Yugoslavia go to fund the army, because that's what the structure of the budget was then and still is. It is also common knowledge that the Ministry of the Interior uses most of these funds. If we compare these two budgets, I can't say what the figures are now, we can see that far more funds are allocated to the police than to the army. Furthermore, we are all aware of the fact that the police carries only light weapons and that the army has heavy weapons - guns, tanks, ships, planes, and so on - and that the needs for funding cannot be compared. Besides this, in spite of the embargo and the difficult financial situation of Yugoslavia, the police are given three new uniforms, an official uniform, and so on, while the army cannot even get new insignia and buttons. What does this mean?"
Q. You made this statement to --
A. Just let me add something, please.
JUDGE MAY: Well, listen, General. Just -- would you be guided by the Prosecutor, please, because time is short, and he will know what's relevant to this case, which is what we need to hear.
MR. NICE:
Q. It's very helpful, General, what you've been telling us, and the 17602 BLANK PAGE 17603 picture you're painting is a very full one. Did you form a view yourself about what the accused was doing with his police and into what form of guard he was converting them?
A. At that time, they were becoming the praetorian guard, which is no longer the case today.
Q. And when you made these observations to Perisic, what was his reaction to you on behalf of the authorities or speaking on --
A. Unfortunately, his reaction was as follows: "General Djordjevic, don't say those things. That's what the opposition is saying nowadays."
Q. Before we part from this, can you just help me with a matter of detail: Who was the Minister of Finance at the time?
A. I don't know.
Q. Two short topics, General, and then I'm done. The coordination office, did it receive information about criminal behaviour of paramilitary groups, in particular from Milan Paspalj and Dusan Kasum?
A. Yes, we did get some very general information, such as there were certain incidents, and this all referred to the period of July, August, September. There was a man who had been a partisan from the Krajina who would come to our office and who spoke of individual incidents such as operation Cadet or Opel, I don't know what he called it. He said that a paramilitary unit had attacked a village - I don't know what village - and that the group leader said the best fighter will get a car because there is a new car in that village.
Q. Was there a report of an attack on an ethnically mixed village of Lika -- in Lika, I beg your pardon? 17604
A. There was no special report. I gleaned this from the conversations I'd had with the president of the Assembly, the Chief of Staff, and other people. But we sent on information in a general way to the General Staff that such things were happening.
Q. So notice went to the General Staff. Did it go to the minister, information of these crimes?
A. The minister was aware of this, and he responded.
Q. Did he issue a warning?
A. He issued an oral warning to the president of the SAO Krajina, Mr. Babic, and the commander of the TO of the SAO Krajina, and said that if such things happened, they would have to be dealt with by the courts that had been set up there.
Q. Tab 15, please. Last exhibit. Order of the 14th of October of 1991 by Blagoje Adzic, ordering JNA units to ensure international humanitarian law regulations are observed, to prevent looting, not to attack cultural goods.
Item 4, to submit breaches to the legal organs. This reflects a recognition of the existence of crimes having been committed, in your judgement?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. Final point. Totally different topic. Matter of detail. On the 26th of July of 1991, when the problems with Slovenia were at a critical stage, were you aware of whether there was any preparation to launch an airstrike against Ljubljana?
A. All the generals knew that preparations were under way for an 17605 airstrike because the conclusion had been reached that the Slovenian side was not complying with the agreement that had been reached on the cessation of hostilities.
Q. When you say preparations were under way, what quantity of aircraft are you speaking of?
A. I don't know officially, but I heard from a friend in the air force that they had a brigade ready with weapons but then they gave up the plan.
Q. A brigade, is that sometimes, in air force terms, called a wing?
A. No. It was misinterpreted. This is "wing" in Serbia, but that is a regiment or a brigade.
Q. Very well. In any event, these planes were on a state of readiness to go and bomb Ljubljana, and this is the sort of state of preparedness that should be reflected by documentation still available to the authorities.
A. I assume that's how it should have been, but I'm not sure.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, we -- that's -- this will prove to be an example of the ability of the authorities to respond to our now targeted requests, or another targeted request. We'll seek those documents immediately.
Q. Did the SFRY Prime Minister Ante Markovic go to Ljubljana in an effort to prevent that attack, to your knowledge?
A. Yes. It was publicly reported that Mr. Markovic went there to have talks with Mr. Kucan, the president of Slovenia, and also to be some sort of guarantee by his person that there would be no such attack. 17606
Q. And the attack didn't happen.
A. No, it didn't.
Q. Thank you. Wait there, please.
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, two administrative matters which we can deal with very briefly. The first is this, while we have it in mind: You provided a chart of witnesses or times last week to Judge Kwon and I when we were sitting alone. I don't think one was provided to Judge Robinson. Could you do that?
MR. NICE: Certainly.
JUDGE MAY: In due course. Together with, I think -- I'm not sure it was ever filed with the Registry, your observations. I've forgotten what it was called, but you produced a document on the same occasion.
MR. NICE: We produced a chart, a visual aid. I don't think I produced any speaking notes. I might be wrong.
JUDGE MAY: Very well.
MR. NICE: But I can remember the chart, and we can provide that if a copy didn't go to --
JUDGE MAY: Yes. There was a -- there was a list of remaining witnesses, but it may be that that was filed anyway. Yes.
MR. NICE: There was a list of witnesses which came with, I think, a letter to the Registrar, Mr. Holthuis, and the only other document was the visual aid.
JUDGE MAY: That's what I had in mind but certainly the visual aid should be supplied, if you would.
The other matter concerns this: That we ought to try and make 17607 progress with the Rule 92 bis witnesses for Croatia, which we made a start on but haven't got very far. What may be convenient is to find some time towards the end of the week, an hour or so, and try and get through some more. That will require, really, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff. I don't know if she's here today.
MR. NICE: She is here. It would be particularly convenient to deal with it at the end of the week. I shan't be here and we may have a witness gap problem. I very much hope not, but we already considered this morning raising 92 bis issues on Thursday or Friday. The amici, I know, have looked for a longer time period to deal with it but we would press them to be in a position to deal with them by Thursday or Friday.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. I don't want -- we've got the witness here, I don't want to enter into a lengthy discussion. What I'm simply asking is that Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff is present later in the morning, and we can go through, as it were, the next tranche of witnesses that we'll deal with so that everybody can have them prepared.
MR. KAY: It's only the Dokmanovic transcript witness statements that I'm waiting for. But as soon as I have them, I can finish what I've already done in draft within two days.
JUDGE MAY: I can tell you what I had in mind: Moving off Vukovar and going on to Dubrovnik and dealing with those witnesses at the end of this week.
MR. KAY: I can deal with all those 92 bis ones that were filed in January.
JUDGE MAY: And leaving the Vukovar transcripts to next week or so 17608 when we've all had more time with them.
Yes. Well, if she could be present later we could discuss it.
MR. NICE: You want her later today.
JUDGE MAY: Today, please.
MR. NICE: In order to prepare for later in the week. Certainly. I would use that opportunity to mention a couple of administrative things as well.
JUDGE MAY: We'll try to do that towards the end of the morning, or after this witness.
Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
Q. [Interpretation] General, at the beginning of your statement, you speak of the factors that -- or the events that preceded the armed conflicts in the territory of Croatia and as far as I was able to note, you mentioned first paramilitary formations; isn't that so?
A. No, it isn't, Mr. Milosevic. Your Honours, I divided the introductory part of my statement into two; first the political factors and, secondly, the military factors that led up to the conflict.
Q. I'm talking about the military factors now. If we're talking about military factors, then is what I say right or not?
A. No. That is taken out of context. If you are referring to paramilitary organisations in Slovenia and Croatia, which were legitimate but illegal, illegal in the sense that they were in contravention of the federal law, then you're right. 17609 BLANK PAGE 17610
Q. Well, what is the misunderstanding then?
A. The question is generalised, because the Serbs also had paramilitary forces which were neither legitimate nor legal.
Q. I'm talking about the things that I assume you're very well acquainted with. Do you know that those first paramilitary formations were those of Croatia? That is the first time we heard of such things. Then we heard of the National Guards Corps, the ZNG, and various foreign mercenaries who were coming. Do you know anything about that? Wasn't that the beginning of the conflict in Yugoslavia, viewing it from the military aspect?
A. In relation to the engagement of the Yugoslav People's Army, it was put in a situation to get involved in the conflicts because it was primarily that it was attacked first in Slovenia and then intensively and on a large scale in Croatia. But when we come to events in the SAO Krajina, then that's a different topic, when we're talking about paramilitary formations. The JNA was still there, a buffer, up until the time when I got involved.
Q. And tell me, what was the target of attack by all those paramilitary formations that were formed in Croatia at the time?
A. It's easier for me to answer what was not targeted.
Q. But please try and answer my question.
A. I've written all that in my statement, but I'll repeat that. There were attacks against the families, military personnel, kidnapping, arrests, murders, harassment of various kinds. Then cutting off water, electricity, heating for military barracks. Then it escalated into 17611 putting up barricades in front of the entrance to barracks. Then even machine-gun nests and then it climaxed with physical attacks against JNA barracks in Croatia.
Q. But tell me, General, the Serbian population in Croatia, was it jeopardised by those paramilitary formations?
A. Partially yes and partially no.
Q. And were the Serbs forced to organise themselves in their defence?
A. They started to organise themselves when members of the National Guards Corps and special units of the Croatian MUP tried by force to disarm certain police stations in Knin, Glina, Pakrac - I can't remember all those details - and the Serbs resisted this. And I think it is clearly stated over there that for the Serbs, the symbol of the chequerboard, the chequerboard symbol meant something quite different to them. It reminded them of events of the Second World War, of Pavlic's Ustasha state, and so on, and this logically led up to conflict, sporadic incidents. But when these became more large scale, then at the state level, at the level of the Federal Secretariat a decision was taken to establish a buffer zone to separate these conflicting groups; village guards, MUP, Croatian patrols and I don't know who else.
Q. That is true. That is not in dispute. But my question is: Were the Serbs forced to self-organise because they were attacked?
A. Mostly, yes.
Q. Thank you. You say that the civil war in Yugoslavia - this is on page 1 of your statement - led to a monoethnic state with the exception of Serbian Macedonia. You speak about that in your statement. And tell me, 17612 how did these Yugoslav republics manage to become monoethnic in nature? How did they become monoethnic?
A. Perhaps that is speaking too strictly, because in Slovenia there were about a hundred or 150.000 people of a different ethnicity. But they had become monoethnic over a period of decades. But now in the 1990s, by the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, and later on Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. So this process is common knowledge. Now, why this happened, that's another matter.
Q. Do you know how many Serbs lived in Croatia according to the 1991 census?
A. Approximately. Around 270.000.
Q. Very well. You don't know exactly.
A. Thirteen per cent of the population of Croatia, so I don't know the exact figure.
Q. You don't know the exact figure, but that doesn't matter. How did Croatia become a monoethnic state?
A. When the Serbs were expelled after the Storm campaign.
Q. And did you ever hear, because you were involved during the period that you're testifying about but also earlier, as a citizen, were you, as a senior officer in the JNA earlier on, had you ever heard, while the war was being waged in Croatia and also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, had you ever heard that the authorities in Serbia had expelled in any way a member of any ethnic minority?
A. The authorities did not, but some did, and the authorities didn't intervene with enough resolve. 17613
Q. And who did this, then? Who expelled people?
A. The Vice-Premier of the government, as he used to be, and now a colleague of yours detained here in Scheveningen.
Q. So you're saying that the authorities did not intervene energetically and did not protect each and every citizen.
A. I cannot speak in absolute terms and say every citizen, but what was quite evident was that the Croats were being expelled from Srem. I'm not saying that they were killed but they were being harassed in various ways. And the Serbian authorities kept silent about it.
Q. So you have no information as to how the authorities protected members of other ethnic groups where they were in jeopardy. You know nothing about that?
A. I do know that police patrols were reinforced and a system of control intensified. I know that. But when a system of fear developed among those who were put in those -- in that position by those who were bringing pressure to bear on them and that were harassing them, all that was too late. But I'm not talking in general terms about the attitude of the Serbian authorities towards any particular ethnic group in Serbia. I'm just talking about these specific cases.
Q. And do you know that all the cases which the police in those days intervened to prevent were actually committed by refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and not by citizens of Serbia?
A. I don't know that.
Q. So you're not aware of that?
A. I am not. 17614
Q. Very well. Tell me, please, do you believe that secession from the federal state, first by Slovenia and then by Croatia, was the main cause of the break-up of the country?
A. I cannot answer that question with a yes or no. I can answer it in several sentences.
Q. Please do so.
A. De jure, Slovenia and Croatia violated the existing system of reaching agreement about such matters as the integrity of the country, separation, independence, and so on, whatever you like to call them. They did not respect that system. In Dr. Drnovsek's book entitled "Moja Resnica" in Slovenian, or "My Truth," he himself acknowledges this that Slovenia did not respect the procedure envisaged by the federal constitution, the laws, et cetera. However, at the same time, he justifies this by saying that with respect to the other side, let's say the Serbian side, a common language could not be found about the proposals that were coming from Slovenia in those days. He doesn't talk about Croatia.
And that is true too. But, Mr. Milosevic, it is also true that you and the leadership of the country at the time and the Federal Secretariat for National Defence - and I'm talking about the leadership - assisted this process, in speeding up this process, and you were not sufficiently responsible statesmen to find a solution modelled on the separation between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Q. Let's not start a debate about that Czechoslovakia.
A. But you're asking me -- 17615
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you ask him these questions. Whether they're relevant or not, we haven't stopped you. You don't like the answer, so you stop him. Let him finish.
Now, General, is there anything you want to add to what you've said?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. May, Your Honours, if I may use not my own personal evidence but a book that has been tendered here as a document of some kind -- I don't know exactly what kind, a book by Dr. Borisav Jovic, the closest associate of Mr. Milosevic. Page 160, pages 243, 257, 347, I repeat. On those pages alone, Mr. Boro Jovic gives the real truth, opinions, and assessments of all these questions. De jure it is the Slovenes and Croats who are at fault - I mean their leaderships - and de facto something quite different. So let Mr. Milosevic read this so I don't need to quote what is said on those pages.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Very well. Tell me, in your statement you speak about this. I understand your position. But in your statement, you say that the new Croatian authorities introduced new state symbols, coat of arms, flag, et cetera. Do you know that up until then, up until the amendment to the constitution in Croatia, the Serb people were treated in the constitutional sense as a constituent people and then were thrown out of the constitution? Do you know that?
A. Yes, I do. And that was one of the causes for the rebellion of the Serbs in Krajina, yes.
Q. And do you believe that this resurrected fascism and Ustasha 17616 BLANK PAGE 17617 policies is something that the authorities were to blame for and Serbia was to blame for?
A. No, Mr. Milosevic. But until all that happened, there were no reasonable steps taken or attempts for you in the leadership to come to some sort of an agreement. There were even malicious attitudes towards what was allegedly in preparation in Slovenia and Macedonia, et cetera.
Q. I think, General, that you know full well that we had no reason to be in conflict with the Slovenes.
A. The peoples did not.
Q. Nor the leadership.
A. I doubt that.
Q. And do you know that the leadership of Serbia was not even informed about the intervention of the army in Slovenia, which was the idea upheld by the then Federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic and his bodies?
A. The idea of Mr. Markovic, in order to protect legality and the functioning of the customs system, the frontier services and the rest was well-intentioned. However, the decision that he signed as the Federal Prime Minister, that was president of the government then called the Federal Executive Council, was exhorted from him. What Mr. Markovic had proposed to the Slovenes the Slovenes did not accept. And on the other hand, he was under pressure from the Federal Secretariat for National Defence and from several people in the federal authorities, the Presidency, et cetera. And then such a decision was taken which was a compromise. Let me call it that. 17618
Q. What did Serbia have to do with that? Did Serbia have anything to do with that? According to your own knowledge, your knowledge today and everything you knew from before.
A. According to my knowledge, and I repeat from the book of your personal friend Mr. Borisav Jovic, you had agreed -- discussed with him on the 27th of June, 1990, how to get rid of Slovenia, how to cut it off overnight. Slovenia and half of Croatia. That is the truth.
Q. Mr. Djordjevic, we can ask Jovic about his book. You don't need to explain his book. But I am asking you about your own knowledge and not about Jovic's book. You're not testifying about Jovic's book here.
A. According to my own knowledge, the Republic of Slovenia advocated an asymmetrical federation, the Republic of Croatia a confederation, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia favoured some kind of a loose federation. However, the Serbian side - but allow me - I personally also was in favour of a federation of a firm country, but that -- what we wish is one thing and when we come to a solution that would avoid war is another. But that is the politicians that are responsible for that.
Q. Without any doubt. The politicians bear the greatest responsibility. But when you mention a compromise solution advocated by Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, you're referring to that well-known formula Izetbegovic-Gligorov.
A. Yes.
Q. And do you remember that Serbia accepted the solution that they proposed, Izetbegovic, Gligorov? This was published in all the newspapers. 17619
A. If I say yes then I must add something else that I know and it's better for us not to talk about that. I think we're wasting time.
Q. Very well, Mr. Djordjevic. When discussing the responsibility of politicians, tell me, how was the Yugoslav crisis affected by the support of Germany and some other external factors for the secession of Croatia to be precise?
A. Totally destructively, as is well known.
Q. Do you know what assistance was provided to Croatia apart from political support and the urgent recognition which took place before political problems had been solved?
A. I know that they received instructors from Germany, that descendants of the Ustasha emigres came back to the country as well as various mercenaries, that they obtained weapons secretly from Hungary and by ship from other places. I know all this.
Q. Do you know something about the material assistance that these secessionists in Croatia received and the paramilitary units in Croatia and the regime received?
A. Yes. About 150 or 200 million dollars from somewhere. I don't know whether it was Germany or the USA or Austria but I know it was from abroad.
Q. I'm asking you this because the opposite side here has been asking you about 500.000 dinars given by Serbs to help Serbs. So I wanted to clarify whether you knew something about this assistance provided by Germans and from other countries. Let's not go into discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries now. 17620 Tell me what you know about who was in the National Guard Corps.
A. Yes, I know this. Should I explain?
Q. Yes, yes.
A. Members of the Croatian Democratic Union. The party that won the elections in 1990. And later on, this was legalised by the parliament which transformed these people into the National Guard of Croatia.
Q. The fact that the ruling party for the first time after World War II was the first party to arm its members, I don't know if anything like this occurred between World War II and this phenomenon in Croatia, after the political rhetoric and the constitutional changes, was this also a decisive factor that caused the Serbs to organise themselves and organise their defence?
A. Yes. It was one of the major factors.
Q. As you are a general, a very high-ranking general, tell me, do you remember how many barracks were attacked and how many officers and soldiers were killed in the first wave of violence that erupted on the territory of Croatia in an attempt to achieve secession?
A. Mr. Milosevic, I have forgotten the figures, but what is important is that not a single barracks or a single military facility in Croatia was not attacked. So that's a full reply.
Q. Yes, it is. Do you know that there were -- that there were plans to liquidate JNA officers and to retaliate against their families?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know that this was a general practice?
A. Yes, I do. 17621
Q. Do you consider that the National Guard Corps was in fact an anti-Yugoslav and especially anti-Serb formation, armed formation?
A. That's well known. But all extreme nationalist parties were the same, more or less, in other parts of the country as well.
Q. Since you say that the Serbs engaged in civil disobedience, is it true that they were disobedient to an illegally established state, and at the same time obedient to a country where for decades they had realised their rights and been respected?
A. Mr. Milosevic, Croatia was legally established at the elections, but it became independent illegally. These are two separate matters.
Q. I'm not asking about a state.
A. Yes, you asked me that.
Q. Tell me, how did the Federal Secretariat for National Defence respond to all these events?
A. I quoted from what General Blagoje Adzic, the Chief of the General Staff said when he briefed us in July 1991: "With deep concern." That's the answer to your question.
And another thing. The Federal Secretariat had a full picture of the events, and they also had evaluation -- an evaluation of the prospects for the future and what might happen. It wasn't fortune-telling, it was an evaluation of possible future events.
Excuse me. The constitutional court has nothing to do with it, but the Council for the Protection of the Constitutional Order of Yugoslavia and other bodies, and the minister spoke of this in public. And I'm not, however, called upon to analyse whether the SSNO and the 17622 military leadership actually did the right things based on all this.
Q. On page 4, you say that the SSNO asked the Presidency of the SFRY to take additional measures to raise the combat readiness of the JNA but that the Presidency rejected this proposal in spite of numerous problems and attacks on the JNA and the territorial integrity of the federal state. Why and how did the Presidency reject this proposal by the military top leadership?
A. Because they were bogged down. Tens of thousands of young people from Serbia and probably from other areas too had left the country. The mobilisation was collapsing. Whole units were leaving their positions. The Federal Secretariat was asking for additional mobilisation of I don't know how many thousand conscripts more than had already been called up, and the Presidency evaluated that this additional mobilisation would not solve the problems. That's how it was, more or less. That's why they rejected additional mobilisation.
There were some disputes between Mr. Jovic and Mr. Kadijevic about this. They were saying, "Do you need that much? Is this much sufficient? You asked for so many and that's not enough now." But this was between them, and I wouldn't like to go into that.
Q. Very well. Tell me, General, since you spoke here of volunteers --
A. Yes.
Q. -- the reasons you have just stated, were they also the reasons for the issuing of these decrees or other documents on the enlistment of volunteers in order to bring up to manpower levels the army units? 17623 BLANK PAGE 17624
A. Yes, but there were two orders issued by the Presidency. One, as far as I remember, was in January 1991 on the disbanding of paramilitaries. That is the ZNG. And they even referred to the Territorial Defence of Slovenia. But this second order refers to all paramilitary units, including those from Serbia who were going here and there with or without someone's knowledge. If they wanted to fight for a single state, they would have to enter the single system of armed forces.
Q. I hope you agree that this was the only proper thing to do.
A. Yes, it was the only proper thing to do, but it was probably not fully complied with. Not just probably but certainly.
Q. While you were in the Ministry of Defence of Serbia, while you were active --
JUDGE MAY: I'm going to interrupt. It's time for the adjournment now. We'll go on to that question afterwards.
We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.
--- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.
--- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. General, please make your answers as brief as possible because my time is limited.
Tell me in brief, what was the position of the staff of the Supreme Command of the JNA toward paramilitary formations?
A. Negative; they were to be eliminated.
Q. Were orders issued to that effect? 17625
A. Apart from the instructions of the government, there was also an order of the Federal Secretary and of the government.
Q. Do you know how imprisoned members of the JNA were treated in Bjelovar, Gospic, and so on?
A. Yes, I know.
Q. Can you tell us how they were treated?
A. According to my information, inhumanely. In Gospic, an officer had his throat cut in front of a line of ten of his soldiers in a barracks. And in Bjelovar, an officer of mine who used to serve under me in the Subotica, he was now the brigade commander in Bjelovar, he was -- his brigade was surrounded by the ZNG members. They couldn't shoot at them from the barracks because there were buildings all around. And they imprisoned the commander and two other officers, stripped them naked, and shot them. I think this illustrates what happened.
Q. Yes. Tell me, how were families of JNA officers living in Croatia treated?
A. There was a slogan that they were Serb Chetniks, that is, the JNA. That's how they treated their families too.
Q. Tell me, since from your statement I can see that you say that the HOS numbered over 250.000 soldiers at the time; is that correct?
A. Well, I did say that, but that's not reliable information because it varied between 200 and 300.000 soldiers, as General Kadijevic said.
Q. Is it true that the --
THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please slow down.
JUDGE MAY: You're both being asked to slow down for the 17626 interpreters. You speak the same language, there is a temptation to go too fast.
THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. May.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. According to your information, on the territory of the Republic of Croatia, how many members of the JNA were there?
A. I don't know exactly but I think it was between 12 and 15.000 members of the JNA.
Q. Very well. What was the role of the JNA at the time, or to be more precise, is it correct that on the basis of the decision of the Presidency of the SFRY the only role of the JNA was to create a buffer zone between the paramilitary formations of Croatia and the self-organised Serbs?
A. That's correct.
Q. In view of the circumstances you are aware of, is it true that in Croatia the JNA was forced to defend itself?
A. Mr. Milosevic, I have mentioned this in my written statement. They were to comply with the rules of the service. The commanders were obliged to use the combat rules if they were attacked.
Q. Were they forced to apply these rules because they were attacked?
A. At the beginning, they had to defend themselves only when it was necessary to -- to implement self-defence.
Q. Were there any operations on the territory of Serbia by the armed forces?
A. Three or four. Sid between Ilok and Backa Palanka, around the 17627 bridge in Backa Palanka, then in Apatin, and there was a terrorist group that crossed the Danube in armoured personnel carriers. That's as far as I know.
Q. Tell me what sort of attacks were these? What sort of units and weapons were used?
A. Everything from rifles -- from rifles to 350 or 55 millimetre guns near Sid.
Q. What was the response of the JNA and the government of Serbia to these attacks?
A. Serbia then decided to mobilise the Territorial Defence from several municipalities, and there were political protests, and I don't remember all the details.
Q. In your opinion, did the JNA want some sort of war?
A. No. Had the JNA wanted war, I would have taken off my uniform. I would not have left in the regular way that I did.
Q. Is it true that the Presidency of the SFRY under these circumstances on the 3rd of October declared that there was an imminent threat of war, in accordance with the constitution of the SFRY?
A. That's correct.
Q. What did the imminent threat of war consist of?
A. Potential threats of armed attack on part of Yugoslavia, that is, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina. But may I add in connection with that decision --
Q. Please do.
A. The decision of the Presidency, composed of six members out of 17628 eight -- six were present; the Slovenian representative, Dr. Drnovsek, and the president of Croatia, Mr. Mesic, were absent. So the Serbian four, conditionally speaking, were there from Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Metohija, and Montenegro. There was also Bogic Bogicevic of Bosnia and Vasil Tupurkovski, Dr. Vasil Tupurkovski of Macedonia. This decision was reached on that occasion, but as far as I know, the last two, from Bosnia and Macedonia, almost never turned up at meetings of the Presidency any more. And this was - I have to say what my opinion is - a manoeuvre to evade the Presidency rules of procedure which says that if five out of eight members vote in favour of a certain decision, then the decision is valid.
The six who were present declared an imminent threat of war, and in this way the Presidency was transformed into the Supreme Command. The Supreme Command does not have the same rules of procedure, so the same number of members is not required to be present. We, the generals and the citizens, have no idea how many members of the Presidency were meeting when something was announced, when a communique was issued, whether they were meeting as the Supreme Command or whether all of them were present. So that's how it was.
Q. In any case, when this decision was reached, six members were present?
A. Yes. So this decision was issued legally.
Q. Please, is it true that the Presidency of the SFRY requested that UN peacekeeping forces and European Union monitors come to the territory of the SFRY? Yes or no. 17629
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me, please, whether the Supreme Command of the JNA had direct command over the Territorial Defence of SAO Krajina.
A. No. Here and there perhaps the General Staff would address the TO staff of Krajina if there was a break in communications. But the command of the military district was there.
Q. Tell me, the Ministry of Defence of Serbia, did it carry out its tasks in accordance with the constitution of the SFRY and the constitution of Serbia?
A. Yes, it did. I stated that in my statement.
Q. Let us clarify one point, General, because when on page 16 you quote the constitution --
A. There's an error. Paragraph 3, 9, 119. That's a mistake. I tried to correct that later on. But the numbers are wrong, that's all.
Q. In any event, I don't wish to refer to your statement too often. You mentioned the competencies from the constitution of Serbia, and you failed to mention a particular article. And I don't take it against you, because it does not cover competencies, but it does have great significance because Article 135, paragraph 1, says: "The rights and duties which the Republic of Serbia, which is within the SFRY and which it has according to this constitution and which according to the federal constitution are implemented in the federation, will be implemented in accordance with the federal constitution."
A. That is exactly what it says.
Q. So let us now move on to what you said yesterday about your 17630 BLANK PAGE 17631 BLANK PAGE 17632 Coordination Group. As a Coordination Group, your task was to collect information about the situation in Krajina on the basis of, let us be specific, a task received, an assignment received from the Secretariat for National Defence; is that right?
A. That is how it should be, but I cannot assert that because I wasn't present when such a decision was taken. Not by the Republic of Serbia but the Federal Secretariat. So as to ease the burden on the commands, the ministry was given this task to coordinate.
Q. Does that mean that this group worked for the Federal Secretariat for National Defence, a part of the -- its duties which were increasing and which, in a sense, meant assisting the bodies of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence?
A. Yes, and partly also for the Republic of Serbia, which is quite normal as it was a body of Serbia.
Q. Is it true that the Ministry of Defence of Serbia did not take part in any operative planning?
A. I said that in my statement, Mr. Milosevic.
Q. That's why I'm saying it. The ministry assisted within the tasks of the SSNO. That is the Federal Secretariat. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. So the ministry did not -- was not engaged in the training of forces of Krajina.
A. No. Only that one case I mentioned when Captain Dragan came, and nothing came of it. I know of no other.
Q. And so this group was an ad hoc group, wasn't it? 17633
A. Yes.
Q. And you were assigned to that group by the personnel administration of the Federal Secretariat, the SSNO; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. I gathered from your live testimony here and the explanations you gave, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you had already handed in your request for retirement, but in view of the situation, you felt that it would not be right for you to retire because you could still be of assistance. Were those your motives for asking your retirement to be postponed, to be able to assist in the newly created situation which was extremely grave? Is that right or not?
A. That's right.
Q. And that was your only motive?
A. Basic motive. No other ambitions. And the direct cause was the killing of an officer, my colonel, that I attended his funeral, and this was the last drop that prompted me to take that decision. I had no ambitions of acquiring any orders or any honours or anything of that kind.
Q. As far as I understand it, your coordination group consisted of some 10 officers. You've said seven to ten. They were either retired or about to be retired.
A. They had already received a decree on retirement on the 31st of December or had already retired. So they were available.
Q. Their professional knowledge was being used in order to assist in gathering information, reviewing the situation and briefing the appropriate bodies of the SSNO about it; is that right? 17634
A. Yes. Since the Federal Secretariat for National Defence, in addition to its regular inspection service, the main inspection of National Defence, can also form separate professional bodies and teams for particular professional duties to assist the lower-level communities, and on those grounds, pursuant to the law on national defence, we as the professional body of the ministry were formed to establish contacts and address those problems to relieve the burden on the Federal Secretariat, the district commands, and so on.
Q. Very well. Is it right that Simovic informed me about the formation of that Coordination Group?
A. Yes. It is true that he told you or briefed you about it. He simply informed you about it.
Q. He informed me that such a group had been formed?
A. Yes.
Q. In accordance with instructions from the SSNO.
A. I don't know what he said to you, but I do know that he informed you about it.
Q. So I assume that if he informed me, he also told me that something had been formed and not that a body of Serbia had formed such a group.
A. No. He informed you that a Coordination Group had been formed. Now, what the explanation was that he gave you, I don't know.
Q. Very well. You listed several tasks that you had as a coordinating group. You said to implement requests for replenishment with officers, material assistance, assistance regarding the TO structure, and preparation of or, rather, their education and training to accept the UN 17635 forces, and also the question of salaries. Finances.
Q. Yes. Well, I included that under "material assistance."
Q. Did that group have any other tasks?
A. Not specifically. Tasks cropped up as unannounced people came from Krajina raising various problems, from personal problems to various others. A representative of the municipality or of the TO. And then Minister Simovic would draw the attention of the TO command in Krajina that all those requests and needs should be put in some sort of order and united, pulled together so that individuals would not come with those requests but that it should go through them.
Q. Very well. In connection with the meeting of these requests for officers, what was your role except to forward those requests to the personnel administration of the SSNO?
A. Either forwarding those requests in written form or I and my officers went there in person, or the head of the personnel administration would come to see us and we would arrange things together. Also, with the command of the military district, we inquired about people who were available, and we were a kind of link in all that.
Q. So can we infer that in view of the large number of requests and the large number of people coming to seek assistance, a great deal of pressure, some unrealistic demands, you were a kind of filter. You carried out a certain triage of all these requests.
A. As far as we were able. If we had had greater authority, maybe we would have done a better job.
Q. When talking about material assistance, is it true that all the 17636 logistics were the responsibility of the competent JNA commands in the particular zones?
A. In principle, yes, but there is a distinction that should be made. Food, medical supplies, things that are not, strictly speaking, military equipment. This was distributed among the municipalities. Manoeuvre structures, that is brigades of the Territorial Defence, relied logistically on the corps commands, the JNA commands of operative groups and their logistic bases.
Q. Is that in its entirety in accordance with the forces -- with the rules in force about the armed forces?
A. I said, Mr. Milosevic, that according to the law on national defence of SFRY and, maybe this is something I didn't mention, the law on the manufacture of weapons and military equipment and the distribution of the same, Article 60. The Federal Secretariat for National Defence has the exclusive competence in that area. This may be something that is difficult to understand. Every republic pays for the weapons, but it doesn't have the right to decide how many weapons it will purchase for a particular factory. Those funds are distributed by the Federal Secretariat.
Q. And this logistic reliance, as the whole of Yugoslavia was divided into three military districts at the time -- yes, districts --
A. No, four. But the fourth was annulled.
Q. No, the military naval one.
A. No; Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Skopje. But the Skopje military district for the ground forces was abolished, so three remained. 17637
Q. And they relied on the logistic bases of those military districts.
A. As far as I knew, that was how it was, yes.
Q. Very well. And according to your knowledge - I've taken this down, I just wanted to check the figure - in connection with these requests for officers, there were 20 to 30 officers sent to the staff of the TO in Krajina.
A. That is to the best of my recollection, but I'm not claiming that. Maybe a few more, but it would be easy to check from the documents that Mr. Nice has presented.
Q. So this was within the competence of the JNA.
A. The system was as follows: When we agreed on the number of personnel, the personnel administration would assign the officers to the TO staff, sometimes specifying to a particular brigade or a particular headquarters. As for the other officers with their names and surnames, the Krajina command of the Territorial Defence would assign to particular positions in the establishment. There was a combination of both systems.
Q. Some documents were produced here relating financial assistance, monetary assistance. Was it provided in accordance with the laws in force?
A. Yes and no. According to the law on national defence of the SFRY, the officer or commander who gives assignments to subordinate commands, if the planned funds which have been earmarked in advance for subordinate commands are insufficient, the difference up to the necessary amount is covered by the person issuing the assignment. So that is quite clear. Now, why I said also no: Because each republic, out of its own 17638 BLANK PAGE 17639 resources, finances the Territorial Defence, including weapons, without the part it earmarks for the federal budget and the JNA. So it is twofold.
Q. But what I'm saying is that both is in accordance with the rules.
A. Yes, mostly.
Q. And tell me, was the relationship between the Defence Ministry and the TO of Krajina a relationship of issuing orders?
A. Absolutely not. They gave advice, transferred guidelines, setting requirements but not as a superior but simply for us to analyse those requests and forward them on.
Q. In any event, you had no right of decision-making. The right of decision-making was with the Supreme Command.
A. That's right. In the field, some people demanded that a division of the Territorial Defence be formed, or a partisan division. But Milan Babic wouldn't hear of it because it reminded him of the partisans of the five-cornered stars and so on. He wanted something of his own. And then they consulted with us, and we told them, "You can do as follows: You have this option which has such consequences, this option has such-and-such consequences." But we didn't decide. It was up to them.
Q. So actually, your role was that of some sort of professional consultant.
A. I said a moment ago that we were a professional body attached to the Ministry of Defence along the line of the SSNO and the ministry of Krajina.
Q. So let us make that quite clear. You could not have any 17640 authority, or rather, the Ministry of Defence of Serbia had no authority to decide on the use of units of the TO of Krajina.
A. Nor with respect to the selection of personnel. The Minister of Defence of the TO of Krajina, a certain Tarbuk or something like that, I can't remember, had already been appointed by the government of Krajina. And as far as we knew, he was undesirable. He was not a suitable person for that position.
Milan Babic insisted on him retaining that position. However, neither Minister Simovic and myself still less had any authority to order him to replace him because this had to go through the Assembly and through the authorities. Whom they elected later on I don't know, but this is an example.
Q. Very well. Do you remember that anyone else apart from Milan Babic having that type of intervention for personnel selection? Was anyone bringing pressure to bear on you for someone to be appointed or replaced?
A. I can't remember regarding Mr. Hadzic. He may have intervened for one or two officers, but I don't remember.
Q. And is it now quite clear that the Coordination Group of the Ministry of Defence that you headed, and the Ministry of Defence of Serbia as a whole, could not have anything to do with deployment or operations in the territory of Krajina?
A. Yes, that's right. That's what I said in my statement. There were some disputes between the corps commands. Some wanted to have a brigade under his command, and the TO wanted it under their command, but 17641 they had to clear this up.
Q. On page 19, in paragraph 1, you said that you would occasionally receive information about illegal activities of certain Serbian paramilitary groups. Is that right?
A. Yes. I have testified about that. I think there's no point in repeating that. I spoke about that this morning.
Q. Did the ministry require proceedings to be instituted against such groups?
A. Yes. I said that General Simovic made a very sharp warning to President Babic and the commander of the TO of Krajina that such cases, should they arise, had to be processed. All the municipalities had courts to do this. It had to go through the courts.
Q. Let us make this quite clear: The ministry of Serbia could not have competence over them, but it did energetically issue warnings and insist and request that such illegal activities be halted and the perpetrators punished. Is that so?
A. Yes, that is so. And in a report to the General Staff, among other issues, we referred to that too in written form. And then came the orders on disbanding, on preventing parties to form units and so on.
Q. You say that such cases were mostly in August and September 1991. Later they were reduced in scope. What contributed to that reduction of undesired incidents?
A. With the exception of Vukovar, Slunj as towns and a little around Okucani, the rest was stabilised, the front was stabilised. The situation had stabilised. Authorities had been formed. The ZNGs did not enter 17642 these areas except where there was fighting in these three locations. There may have been some incursions elsewhere but I didn't have detailed information.
Q. So these measures contribute to the scope of those illegal activities to be reduced.
A. Yes, the overall situation contributed to that.
Q. While you were in the ministry, since you also mention the relationship between the minister and the ministry with me as the president of Serbia, was it based exclusively on limits required by the law?
A. I think so.
Q. Are you aware of the fact that I, as the president of the republic, at any time did I ask the ministry to implement any decision within the competency of the ministry?
A. I don't know about this period. Only when you had discussions on the law on national defence or the army of Serbia. I don't know what the exact wording was. I know that you postponed further work on this, but I don't know any details.
Q. Well, as regards legislation, it is the government that tables bills, and the text is prepared by the competent ministry; is that correct?
A. Yes, and the Assembly adopts legislation.
Q. The Assembly debates and adopts legislation. So the enactment of legislation or, rather, the preparation for the enactment of legislation is within the competency of the ministry; is that correct? 17643 You say that I met General Simovic on only three occasions while you were holding your office.
A. I can't be quite sure, but as far as I know, yes.
Q. How many months did you work in that group?
A. Two months.
Q. Does that mean -- that means I met him a little more than once a month. Does that seem logical to you?
A. Well, I don't know if it's logical, but I think there's no point in discussing this. It's a question of leadership style. It might be more logical to meet more often. I know while I was the Secretary for National Defence during peacetime, there was hardly a month when I did not visit either the Presidency or the Council for the Constitutional Order or some other body, so I don't think that's important now. Two or three times a month.
Q. Well, you say that I didn't care about the Ministry of Defence very often because I didn't esteem Simovic enough; is that correct?
A. That's my personal opinion. I assume because soon after his appointment General Simovic was transferred from that duty and this was at a crucial point.
Q. Well, how do you know that I didn't esteem General Simovic enough?
A. Mr. Milosevic, because you allowed him to be moved to a less important duty, a less significant one.
Q. General, when the appointment of generals is at stake, it's the SSNO that -- whose opinion is asked.
A. Can we pass over this question, for your sake? 17644
JUDGE MAY: Wait a moment. Why? Can you give us the answer to the question? The question is, and perhaps you can help us with the answer, help the Trial Chamber, General, with the answer: When the appointment of generals is at stake, it's the SSNO whose opinion is asked. Now, can you give us the answer, please.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, formally that is so, but in reality it's not like that. Mr. Milosevic required his generals to tell him what generals could be counted on and which ones couldn't be counted on. I don't know what the exact formulation was. He'd say, "Let's discuss the generals who are still in the JNA." At that meeting at Mr. Milosevic's, while I was the Secretary for National Defence, Mr. Bogdanovic, an associate of mine, was sitting there with his notebook when these two generals came in. The Ministry of Defence of Serbia reminded Mr. Milosevic by saying, "Mr. President, I cannot give you an objective assessment because these are comrades of mine. I might be wrong in either a positive or a negative way if you ask me about any of them. I suggest that you talk to the SSNO, to the personnel administration. They know which general served where, what his assessment was, his character, his characteristics, and then you will get an objective picture." The same moment, Mr. Milosevic interrupted the conversation and said, "Oh, let's have a whisky. We won't talk about this any more." Thank you for asking me this, Mr. Milosevic.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. You're welcome. I'm happy to oblige. But this has nothing to do with the appointment or dismissal of Simovic, nor does it explain this 17645 BLANK PAGE 17646 question.
Tell me, please, was the relationship between me and Simovic, the Minister of Defence, an official, professional one in view of the offices we held at the time?
A. Probably, yes. But the conversation I have just described shows how much you trusted him, whether he was your man or not.
Q. I don't know what "my man" means.
A. It means obedient to you in this case.
Q. I never considered -- I always thought that everybody was his own man, and if he wasn't, he couldn't do anything worthwhile.
A. General Simovic was his own man.
Q. Tell me, the Ministry of Defence of Serbia, did it have any role to play or any influence on the events? We've already discussed Croatia, but any influence on the events in Slovenia or Bosnia-Herzegovina?
A. We had nothing to do with Slovenia at the time, either physically or in organisational terms. As regards Bosnia and Herzegovina, I had no contacts in connection with any issues concerning arming or preparations or whatever.
Q. General, is it beyond doubt then that all these events and everything that was done at the time fell within the competency of the federal organs, the Presidency of the SFRY, the General Staff, and the Secretariat for National Defence as the highest civilian and military authorities?
A. That's how it should have been under the law.
Q. Doesn't this explain my infrequent contacts with Simovic? There 17647 was a vertical chain of command, and as you know, the republican officials, including the presidents of the republics, had no competency there. Is that correct or not?
A. It's correct, but it doesn't explain what you asked.
Q. I'm glad that's how it is. Whether it explains my question, that's another matter.
Please, let me just look, since your statement is quite voluminous. I've made a note here.
A. It's voluminous where we speak of the causes of war. The rest is relatively brief and concise.
Q. You say, on page 20, paragraph 3 -- I want you to clarify this. In connection with these issues, it even refers to the Territorial Defence of each republic, including Serbia. You say -- I'll read the whole paragraph: "The Territorial Defence was directly subordinated to the republics. At lower levels, such as zones, regions or municipalities, it was subordinate to the local presidents of municipalities. One should bear in mind that although the TO was subordinate to the presidents of the republics, they did not -- they did not, I repeat, issue direct decisions as to the deployment of the TO. The commander of the TO would do this, and he was subordinate to the staff of the Supreme Command (the SSNO and the General Staff)." Is this correct?
A. Yes, it is, but I wish to introduce a correction.
Q. Yes. Go ahead.
A. Yes. These are my question [as interpreted], but it's not deployment, it's use. The use, not the deployment of TO units. So the 17648 issuing of wartime assignments, not simple deployment.
Q. Even better. Thank you for this clarification. So the Territorial Defence was fully integrated or, as you soldiers will say, completely networked into the chain of command. And there was singleness of command.
A. If part of the territory was on temporarily occupied territory, that is cut off by enemy units, then there was an exception. Then the -- the authorities in that part of the territory would command.
Q. So the authorities, the local authorities on the occupied territory?
A. Well, "occupied" is not the right word. It wasn't recognised in the constitution, but it was a temporarily captured territory.
Q. We have already discussed this, so I won't quote. You say the minister had no competence to punish any group, and he would apply to the competent --
A. There are some repetitions here because there were two investigators and when I was nearing the end of my statement, the second investigator, who wasn't fully informed of what the first one had asked, would ask me some questions again. But it doesn't change anything.
Q. Tell me, in connection with what you say in your statement on page 23, you say that some political parties started criticising the JNA. They started establishing their own paramilitary units and sending them off to Serbian areas in Croatia where they were at first welcomed by the local TO. Later, this changed when they started looting and killing.
A. Let me emphasise. This is in the past in relation to my office. 17649 I am not speaking of the second half of November, the second half of December. This is it.
Q. Well, I'm not talking about the time here. But it says that paramilitary units -- General, I want to establish here the fact that it was not the leadership of the Krajina that could be held responsible for a paramilitary formation somewhere on the ground in the maelstrom of war. Do you know that they tried to drive them out of there because various groups were roaming around, looting and murdering? They were not people who had come to really assist in defence. Is this correct or not?
A. I'm not sure that's exactly how it was, but I have no reliable information. I know that there was cooperation. I don't know whether they were expelled. I don't remember anything like that, but I can't say for certain.
Q. Well, I had hoped you would be able to say more about this because here we keep coming across attempts --
JUDGE MAY: He can say no more, so there's no need to comment on it.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Let's clarify this point now. It is not clear to me, General, your explanation, that is, about Radmilo Bogdanovic. I understood you to say that Radmilo Bogdanovic, when he was no longer a minister, continued in a way to perform this office indirectly. From what you said, that's what I conclude, and I want to have this clarified because this is not correct. 17650
A. Well, that's not what I said. He was a kind of shadow minister. He was an advisor -- not a shadow minister, he was an advisor. He didn't command the police of Serbia at that time, no way. But as Zoran Sokolovic was simply not a man who was up to the job, he had no experience, it was natural for Radmilo Bogdanovic to go there so that they could consult and so on and so forth.
Q. Let's clarify this. You used a rather strong term when you say that Zoran Sokolovic was not up to the job.
A. I don't want to insult him but this was not his profession.
Q. Profession is one thing but function of minister is a political office.
A. I agree, but usually --
Q. General, are you aware of the fact that Zoran Sokolovic held a much higher office than Radmilo Bogdanovic and that in no way could Radmilo Bogdanovic have controlled Zoran Sokolovic?
A. I didn't say he controlled him.
Q. Zoran Sokolovic, if you remember, was the secretary of the Central Committee at the time when Bogdanovic was the Assistant Minister of Defence at the republic level, which means a secondary level. And later on, he was the speaker of parliament. So in no way could Radmilo Bogdanovic have had authority over him.
A. Mr. Milosevic, Zoran Sokolovic is dead. Let's not insult the deceased. I have been quite clear. Please let's not go into this. Authority. Of course he was an authority for Zoran. Radmilo was in the SUP regional community, he was a minister in three or four or five terms, 17651 the Minister of Defence; he knew the territory, he knew the people, he knew the circumstances, he knew the security situation in Serbia. Zoran dealt more with party work. That's what I meant to say. If you're looking for something else, I don't know.
Q. I just wanted to clarify this one point. After he ceased to be Minister of the Interior, he was no longer able to carry out this job either directly or indirectly.
A. No, he wasn't.
Q. Certainly not through Zoran Sokolovic with whom he was not in a close relationship.
A. I won't go into that.
Q. Let's discuss some other matters, General. You made some corrections to your statement, and you say paragraph 24. I don't know where it is but that's what it says here. The Federal Secretariat for National Defence asked the Presidency of the SFRY to have the republics of Serbia and Montenegro undertake to provide material support for the armed forces. Why did you introduce this correction?
A. Because in the original text, it appeared that the Presidency was asking this, but it was actually the general -- it was actually General Kadijevic asking this of the Presidency.
Q. Of the Presidency. Not of Serbia and Montenegro but of the Presidency that Serbia and Montenegro should fulfil their --
A. Yes, their material obligations to fund the JNA, because the other republics had stopped investing in the budget, had stopped putting money into the budget. 17652 BLANK PAGE 17653
Q. Well, let's talk about the budget now. You said that the budget, the federal budget, was spent mostly on the army and the republican budget mostly on the police. General, would you allow that you do not know this?
A. I don't have specific information.
Q. The army is federal, and 90 per cent of the federal budget was spent on the army -- 70 per cent. And the republican budget, of any republic, had to finance health care, education, public services, interventions in the economy, and so on and so forth. Can you say that you do not know that most of the budget and that the share of the expenses of the army in the federal budget cannot be compared with the share of the police in the republican budget?
A. Mr. Milosevic, let's not weary the Chamber or the public. I do not have precise information, figures, at my disposal. But if you're talking about health care, it was a very small fraction, or other forms of expenses. Most of the funds were spent on the police, just as in the federal budget most of the funds were spent on the army. But there was a disproportion between the Serbian budget and the Yugoslav budget.
Q. Very well. That's what you discussed at the meeting of retired generals with Perisic. I just wanted to establish whether you know this at all. And it's not hard to find the appropriate figures.
A. I don't need them.
Q. It's not even necessary to establish them. You said that I paid more attention to the police than the army. But I was the president of the Republic of Serbia, therefore I could not have any competency over the army, and certainly I did care about the police as it was the police of 17654 the Republic of Serbia. So what's strange there if I take care of what is my duty to do and don't take care about things that it is not my job?
A. Mr. Milosevic, as a citizen of Yugoslavia, I feel ashamed to say to you that the police, for the past I don't know how many years, shall we say from the time when you came to power was better equipped materially, better taken care of than members of the army of Yugoslavia. Even today the situation, unfortunately, is not much better. Those are facts. And don't fatigue me now with the figures, whether it's this much or that much, when the entire public in Yugoslavia is aware of that.
Q. I'm asking you this because don't know that.
A. I'm sorry, I do.
Q. You don't know these things. I just asked you in view of your allegation that I concern myself with the police and not with the army. Serbia did not have an army for me to take care of them. I took care of the army when I became president of Yugoslavia and when that was my duty. Is that right or not, General?
A. Yes, it is, but Serbia was preparing the police to be transformed into the army.
Q. That is not true. Do you have any evidence to corroborate this?
A. The quantity of weapons given by the army to the police is not necessary under normal conditions. That is one of the parameters. Another is financing. And I don't want to enumerate because of the shame I feel of all that was done and what the army suffered.
Q. I think that no one in Serbia, at least when the authorities are in question, had a negative attitude to the army. 17655
A. In principle, no, but I'm talking about the funding, as a result of which our soldiers had dry food three times a day, no heating, no uniforms, they couldn't keep the equipment in good repair and things like that.
JUDGE MAY: One at a time. One at a time, and remember the interpreters.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise, Mr. President.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. General, do you know that the other day I quoted here when I was accused of giving instructions to finance and provide funds outside the budget to finance the army of Yugoslavia, and then I asked, So what if I assisted the army of my state, of my country? How can you then say now that I had a negative attitude to the army, for heaven's sake?
A. I'm not saying that it was negative by the Serb people or by you.
Q. But you testify against me here and you're saying my attitude towards the army. Do you believe that I had a negative attitude towards the army?
A. Mr. Milosevic, let me say first of all that I have not come to testify against you. I have been invited and the federal government on the 3rd of March gave me permission to appear here to testify about the things I took part in and what I know from that period. Whether this will be relevant for the Court against you or in favour of you, I don't know that. So please don't make me say that you hated the army. You did not. But you did not respect it in -- to the extent to which you could have to assist the army. 17656
Q. How do you know that I didn't assist it as far as I was able? How do you know that? How did you know that I didn't assist as far as I could? Do you have any information about that?
A. Not as much as you could but as much as was needed as compared to the funds earmarked for some other purposes.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, let us not allow this to be transformed into a political debate. Let Mr. Milosevic put specific questions to me.
JUDGE MAY: We will make sure it's not a political debate, but this question about support for the police or support for the army may be an important one which we have to consider. So if the accused has any more questions about it, then he's entitled to ask them. Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You've got half an hour left, if you want it. You don't have to use it.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I know that that is the customary position taken.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. You have been shown here many exhibits concerning finances. I was unable to register all of them, nor do I consider it important, but for instance, they asked you to comment on Martic's letter to Zoran Sokolovic to the effect that certain funds from the SDK in Glina be transferred to the Ministry of the Interior which, as he says --
JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Just identify it. Tab 11, let the witness have it.
THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that's Prosecution 406. 17657
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Do you need anything?
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. I'm asking you, so what if the Minister of Defence of Krajina writes to the Minister of Defence of Serbia, therefore his colleague, and appeals to him to intervene for certain funds which are already there to be transferred? What's a mistake?
A. The Minister of the Interior to the Minister of the Interior.
Q. Yes, I'm sorry, I made a slip of the tongue. The Minister of the Interior of Krajina, the Minister of Interior of Serbia. So these are Ministers of Internal Affairs. When the minister of Krajina appeals to his colleague the minister in Serbia to intervene so that these funds be transferred to them which are on a particular account. Do you, in view of your knowledge, experience, and the facts at your disposal from those times, see anything in law -- illegal, suspicious, or criminal in that?
A. Mr. Milosevic, that was not raised at all by me, nor did I hear a question to that effect being put to me. Then I was asked whether this document is authentic, but let me explain.
The Minister of Internal Affairs of Krajina, Mr. Milan Martic, asks for funds, financial funds, resources, which had already been allocated to the Territorial Defence in the social accounting service of Glina SDK and which had not been used, which had not been spent. And he's asking Minister Sokolovic for these funds to be transferred to him. I don't see that there's anything unjustified in this request. I was just asked whether this can be linked to the financing of the Territorial Defence. I apologise, Mr. Nice [sic], maybe you can repeat your question. 17658 I don't know what is in dispute here.
Q. And the police of Krajina, was it then acting in defence of Krajina?
A. I don't know why you're asking me something that is quite obvious.
Q. Since it's obvious, that's why I'm asking. Isn't all this logical?
A. I didn't criticise this document. I don't know why you're asking me that.
Q. I am glad to hear it.
A. I just commented on it, saying that these were funds which had already been earmarked by Belgrade for Krajina. They were on an account in Glina. They had not been spent. Martic knew about it, and he asked for them.
Q. Very well. Please look at tab 15. General, I put a question to you about the treatment for captured prisoners or, rather, officers and soldiers of the army of Yugoslavia.
THE INTERPRETER: The microphone has been switched off.
JUDGE MAY: Can you put your microphone on again, please.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is on.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Do you remember when I asked you the question about the treatment of captured soldiers and officers of the JNA in Croatia in 1991?
A. Yes, I remember.
Q. And you answered, if I remember well, I didn't note it down, that they were treated inhumanely. 17659 BLANK PAGE 17660
A. Correct.
Q. You have here an order of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces of the SFRY under the heading "Strict observation of international humanitarian law."
Would you be kind enough, General, to comment on this order. The best idea would be for you to read out what you consider to be essential from that order, to read it out loud.
A. For me, the most important is paragraph 4, or point 4. "All breaches of the regulations of international humanitarian law," et cetera, "should be reported with documentation to proper legal military organs who will take adequate action as envisaged by the law against the perpetrators."
Q. I thought it was not necessary to read it all out.
A. Why do I think number 4 to be the most important? Because all the rest under number 1, 2, 3 and 5 can be considered as something that was already well known to the officers of the Yugoslav People's Army, because at the military academy, the staff academy, especially the School of National Defence, they had separate subjects, topics in strategy and tactics under the heading "Procedure and care of prisoners of war." That was the heading in short. But those lectures were based on the regulations signed or proclaimed by decree by the president of the Presidency of SFRY - I think it was Lazar Mojsov - in 1988. I'm not wrong about the date. I'm not sure if he was still the president of the Presidency at the time.
And in accordance with that decree, the Federal Secretary of 17661 National Defence issued regulations about the implementation of international humanitarian war law, the Geneva Conventions, The Hague Conventions, the Customs of War, and all these relevant documents are enumerated. In other words, the Chief of Staff by this order is reminding of the officers of something that they should have known and gives them order that what is written in those regulations should be implemented to the letter.
Q. But what is important here is the date, the 14th of October, 1991.
A. Yes.
Q. So that was the time when, for several months if not for a whole year by then, General, there were various horrific crimes being committed against members of the JNA, bestial crimes, and also against Serb civilians in Croatia, and the order is being given by reminding of all those provisions that each breach - each; there is the word each and every here, or all: "All breaches ... in the area of the unit's activities must be reported and documentation available submitted to proper legal military organs who will take adequate action against the perpetrators as stipulated by law."
I'm asking you now, General, whether the JNA as a whole complied with these obligations and the stipulations of this order regarding humanitarian law.
A. As far as I know, it did, but I cannot assert that there were individual excesses or deviations in relation to the rule.
Q. General, there may always be individual excesses. I'm not asking you about them. I'm asking you, as you were active at the time, you were 17662 a general and you know this, whether the JNA, the armed forces abided by these rules prescribed.
A. They did, as far as I know.
Q. Thank you. I have no further questions.
MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:
Q. [Interpretation] General, at the end of today's examination-in-chief, you were answering questions from Mr. Nice, and one of the last questions by my learned friend had to do with the attack of the air force on the capital of Slovenia, which never took place. I would like to ask you to answer a number of questions so that we might assist Their Honours to understand that situation, and that is why I will have to read out a very short paragraph from the statement you gave to the investigators before I put any question to you.
In that statement, you said the following: "The unconstitutional formation of paramilitary forces that were called the ZNGs by members of the party that was in power, the HDZ, the illegal and unlawful import of weapons in 1991 in Croatia, there were already 60.000 members of the ZNG under arms and about 7.000 armed policemen. In Slovenia, close to Maribor, there was an inspection group consisting of 30.000 members of the Slovenian army, which was a paramilitary formation outside the structure of the armed forces of the SFRY in 1990. Those armed forces were prepared to be ready to violate the constitutional order of the SFRY. General plans were devised for these formations to attack JNA units on the territory of Croatia." 17663 A moment ago, in answer to a question by Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, you told us what happened, but you also said here that already then plans were being made for liquidation of JNA officers and other plans linked to the attacks on the JNA. Is what you stated then correct or not?
A. Yes, only maybe it's not written quite correctly. When I talked about an inspection group, it would be better to say that there was a review of members of about 30.000 members.
Q. And these were all armed members of the Slovenian army?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Now we come to my question, the first question I would like to put to you in that connection. You spoke about Mr. Jovic's book, Borisav Jovic's book, not Slobodan, I'm sorry. But you also are familiar with Veljko Kadijevic's book and you've read it?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. I have only one question in that connection. Did the Supreme Command know, as is written in this book, that there were plans outside, abroad, and also inside the country either to provoke the army to act first in a certain way and to then respond with these paramilitary units, or to actually directly attack the JNA first if the first option is not successful? General Kadijevic writes about that in the first part of the book. Did you know about that?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. The federal government of Yugoslavia, headed by Ante Markovic -- this is also contained in your statement --
A. Yes, the Prime Minister. 17664
Q. -- had decided to retake the border so as to prevent incursions in the first place of armed units from abroad, from outside the country.
A. Perhaps that point was overemphasised. It should read as follows: "The federal Executive Council and its president, Ante Markovic, took a decision to establish the customs regime, the functioning of payment transactions, and to provide customs duty in accordance with the federal laws."
However, as there was information that certain small groups may break in from Italy or Austria to assist them, not to carry out aggression but simply to make it known that they had friends in those countries, it was decided that the JNA should re-establish its control over the border posts.
Q. Yes. Fine. That's what it says. But you go on to say that the federal government took a decision and through the SSNO, 1.990 soldiers were sent to retake the border posts, the external borders of the country.
A. Yes.
Q. The task was carried out, but the newly formed Slovenian armed units, numbering about 35 to 40.000 men, attacked small military columns and groups and border posts - these were posts on the border with Austria and Italy - and 43 JNA soldiers were killed. Is that right?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Now, my question is: The attack that was prepared by the JNA and was halted, should it have happened after all this?
A. You mean the air raid? Yes, it should have taken place if these incidents were not halted after the agreement reached in Ljubljana, 17665 because there were some more attacks after that date. Mr. Tapuskovic, after the agreement reached in Ljubljana between Mesic, Ante Markovic, Kucan, Stane Brovet, I don't know who else was there on behalf of the JNA, on the immediate cessation of fire for another two or three days, the Slovenian territorial units opened fire in individual cases. And then there was the possibility of attacks not on Ljubljana but transport routes, weapons warehouses, relay stations, which would cause certain losses, material losses, to force a collapse in Slovenia and to force it to abide by the agreement.
Q. But that did not happen, and after that, Croatia attacked several rail convoys carrying equipment.
MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, it's time for the break, but I would have a few more questions to cover with this witness, one other topic.
JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn now, twenty minutes.
--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.
--- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Tapuskovic.
MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I would like to ask the witness Mr. Djordjevic to explain a few other points to the Chamber in connection with the way the law on national defence of Serbia was implemented.
Q. You spoke about this during the examination-in-chief. I would like to ask you to explain to the Chamber under what circumstances the law on all people's defence was implemented and under what circumstances you 17666 were active within the scope of the body you were working in. You may not have it in front of you, but I assume you know it by heart. The Article 1 of the law on all people's defence speaks of the functioning of all people's defence and provides for the circumstances. First, in case of an attack on the country. This was not the case. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. The second provision is if there is imminent threat of war. From the 3rd of October onwards, imminent threat of war was proclaimed; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Another provision states that if there are emergency situations, this can be implemented.
A. Yes. A state of emergency is mentioned that's similar to what you said.
Q. In any case, these are unusual circumstances?
A. Yes.
Q. In the statement you gave to the investigators, you described the circumstances under which you were working even before an imminent threat of war was proclaimed. You mentioned the arrival of refugees from Croatia, including retired military, young men who were of an age to serve in the army, also reservists whose units had been disbanded in Croatia. First, would you tell the Chamber whether at that time, before October 1991, there were refugees and to what extent. Not only retired officers, but how many refugees there were already in Serbia at that time. 17667 BLANK PAGE 17668
A. I don't have the numbers, but the numbers grew from month-to-month.
Q. Until the final number was reached after Operation Storm?
A. Yes.
Q. You also say that a large number of wounded arrived, families of people who had been killed, and that help to be given to these people and these families.
A. Yes.
Q. Then you mention the hardships suffered by members of the JNA in the barracks and the inhumane treatment of their families in places where they lived in Croatia; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. I'll just give one more illustration: Deserting from some units and refusal to help the surrounded and imperilled units in Croatia. In other words, everybody wanted to preserve Yugoslavia, but they were only paying lip-service to this?
A. Yes, and General Veljko Kadijevic also mentioned this in his book, the Federal Secretary.
Q. Could you explain to the Chamber what exactly you were referring to when you spoke of the implementation of the constitution of the Republic of Serbia. You said there were three main tasks that you were in charge of. This is on page 15 of your statement, where you say: "The first task under the constitution was the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia. Second, the defence and security of the Republic of Serbia, and also other relations of interest 17669 for the Republic of Serbia." And then you say that the Republic of Serbia maintained connections with Serbs living outside the Republic of Serbia in order to preserve their national and cultural and historical identity.
A. Yes. Mr. Tapuskovic, I listed three out of 30-odd tasks.
Q. These are the major ones?
A. Some of the major ones. For example, I didn't mention developing the plan of defence by the ministry, participation in the plan of defence of the republics, organisation of the leadership of republican organs, coding and so on.
Q. Were these the tasks that you were in charge of?
A. Yes.
Q. In connection with this, my question is: Do you know that there was a plan? Do you know of any plan or any decision connected to territorial pretensions that Serbia might have had toward any other republic?
A. No, except for what I read in Boro Jovic's book and also Veljko Kadijevic's book.
Q. But a particular decision?
A. In public, in the bodies of government, Greater Serbia was never mentioned, nor did we as officers count on this. What was spoken of was Yugoslavia among us officers, up to the Karavanke alp mountain range. And Boro Jovic, Milosevic - I apologise for pointing with my finger - when they spoke among themselves, they did not mention a Greater Serbia, they spoke of Yugoslavia and those who wanted to live in it.
Q. Everybody who took part in these events is writing books now. But 17670 what I want to know is, did the Assembly of Serbia, the parliament or any other organ of government issue any decisions containing pretensions of Serbia towards the territory of others?
A. No, not as far as I know.
Q. You said here that these were megalomaniac requests.
A. Yes.
Q. What I want to know is do you know of any assistance that can be expressed? Do you know how these requests were resolved, how they were answered?
A. No, because there was a special officer who was in part of the financial aspect.
Q. So you know of no documents showing how much money went from Serbia?
A. Except for what I have seen now.
MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
Q. And thank you, Witness.
A. Thank you too.
MR. NICE: A few matters arising. Re-examined by Mr. Nice:
Q. What have you now learnt from Jovic's book about Greater Serbia that you didn't know before?
A. Sir, if one is to believe the words of Mr. Boro Jovic, in several places in that book, and I have mentioned the page numbers, he states that in conversations between Boro Jovic and Veljko Kadijevic, the two of them alone, tete-a-tete without Mr. Milosevic, they talked about how Slovenia 17671 could be driven out of Yugoslavia. This was in June 1990. Because the Slovenes were preparing decisions on independence. In other words, they could not find common ground as to how the SFRY was to be reorganised. And then Boro said, "I would do it, but what do you think?" And Veljko Kadijevic, at that time, wasn't thinking in that way and he was trying to avoid a direct answer. And then Boro added - I'm referring to Dr. Borisav Jovic - he said, "I would also cut off half of Croatia. Not half, but I would leave the Krajinas where the Serb population lives so that that part remains in Yugoslavia and let the others secede." But no clear decision was reached.
A few days later, he called Mr. Milosevic. Dr. Jovic is now talking to Mr. Milosevic about the same topic, and he says more or less Slobodan Milosevic - he doesn't say "Slobo," he says Slobodan Milosevic - was very enthusiastic and put forward two ideas. First, cut off Slovenia over night so that it is no longer part of Yugoslavia; and two, he put forward the same idea with the Krajinas that Boro Jovic had, but Mr. Milosevic asked Dr. Jovic, "I don't know how the army will behave. Would they agree to secure those future borders in that case?" That's what they said in June 1991 again, but that is something that I have read in Dr. Jovic's book. I cannot confirm it.
Q. Thank you for that.
MR. NICE: Your Honours the whole issue of Jovic's book will arise for consideration later. We've had a number of witnesses speaking of its factual accuracy on certain points. The question of Jovic giving evidence will also, of course, in one format or another arise. 17672
Q. But can you help us with this, General: Forgetting the books for the time being, just yes or no, did you ever hear the phrase "Greater Serbia" used publicly, and if so, just when did you first hear it referred to? That's all I want. Referred to in public.
A. Sir, this was used almost exclusively by Dr. Vojislav Seselj in public, the president of the Serb Democratic Party. I did not hear anyone else use that phrase in public. Their party even had a magazine entitled "Greater Serbia."
Q. Thank you. Now some short questions, I hope. Short, probably. The bombing of Ljubljana, as it was translated in an answer to a question from Mr. Tapuskovic, you said that the bombing of Ljubljana, I think, should have happened. Are you saying that in your judgement as a military man it's something that should have happened or are you saying it's something that would have happened?
A. I didn't say should have happened, I said it might have happened. It had been prepared. But not Ljubljana as a city.
Q. That's all I needed to know. It may well be it was a translation technical problem.
Breach of humanitarian law by the army and the fact that the document you looked at showed that they were supposed to bring breaches of humanitarian law to the attention of the legal authorities. Were you aware of any trials taking place reflecting breach of humanitarian laws by JNA soldiers or officers?
A. No. I'm not aware of any, which doesn't mean that there weren't any. 17673
Q. Thank you. That's fine.
A. This was not something that we were interested in.
Q. You spoke of the JNA's compliance, to your knowledge, with the requirement of humanitarian law. You were out of office at the end of December 1991. Is it to that period that you were referring or to any other period?
A. To that period. As for the rest, I don't know.
Q. You were asked about the significance of a crime of the transfer of funds in the way that you've helped us with. What you've described is money raised in Serbia being spent, from what you've shown from the documents, on forces operating in another country, the republic -- or another republic, the Republic of Croatia. Do you know one way or another anything about the legality of using money in that way?
A. If you're referring to the Territorial Defence of Krajina, or are you referring to something else?
Q. [Previous translation continues]... of Krajina, yes.
A. I have to repeat, sir: Under the law on national defence of the SFRY, the commanding officer, and in this case I'm referring to the Federal Secretariat for National Defence to which the Presidency of the SFRY transferred authority to command the armed forces, both the JNA and the TO, the commanding officer assigning tasks to lower-level commands, if the funds already planned for these lower-level commands are not sufficient for the performance of the task, the commanding officer has the duty to secure the necessary funds. That's as concerns the law on national defence viewed from this aspect. 17674 BLANK PAGE 17675 Each of the republics of the former Yugoslavia set aside 0.4 to 0.6 per cent of the GNP to finance its own Territorial Defence; equipment, weapons and so on.
Q. [Previous translation continues]... General. Croatia was independent as from October of 1991, and the document we were looking at was, I think, January 1992. Do you have any comment to make about the legality or otherwise? It may be outside your area of expertise, the legality or otherwise of financing operations in the Krajina as at that date.
A. It's very difficult for me to answer this.
Q. Very well.
A. The federal parliament, I don't know when exactly, issued a decision that decisions on the independence of Slovenia and Croatia were not to be recognised. On this basis, the federal council did not view these countries as independent countries. And conversely, Croatia and Slovenia experienced themselves, on the basis of their parliamentary decisions, as legally inaugurated states. They were to be recognised only as of January 1991 and not by every country at the same time. So that simply I am not qualified to assess this. A lawyer might give you a better answer.
Q. You made the comment and the accused was concerned about this, or was challenging you about this, that the police had been converted or was being converted into the praetorian guard and that you were ashamed as a citizen that the police were better equipped and that Serbia was preparing to convert the police into an army or the army. 17676 No motive has been suggested to you by the accused for why you should be making this up or not giving an honest account of your perceptions, but help us with this: In those passages of your evidence, were you giving your experience as a citizen, your experience as a soldier? Just what was it in telling us about the development of this praetorian guard?
A. As a citizen.
Q. Thank you. You spoke about the meeting of the Presidency, or you were asked about the meeting of the Presidency that declared the imminent threat of war. Do you actually know yourself who was present there? It's been suggested to you there were six people and it was legally properly composed, but do you actually know that yourself?
A. I don't know myself in the sense that I was there or that I received an official report about it, but it was common knowledge who the six members present were, and the decision taken then was a legal one by a majority of Presidency members regardless of the fact that members of the Presidency from Slovenia and Croatia were not present. However, immediately after that, that Presidency did not meet again as six or eight members, but it started acting as a four-member body. And since a state of imminent threat of war had been proclaimed, then it acts, in relation to defence, more as a Supreme Command. And for the Supreme Command, there is no explicit requirement that all eight members of the Presidency have to be present or only three of them for a decision to be taken. And that is why I expressed the suspicion that this might have been a kind of manoeuvre. 17677
Q. Yes. And on the topic of the Supreme Command, the Supreme Command can only come into effect after a proper declaration of threat of war or imminent threat of war. Would it have been proper or improper to operate through a Supreme Command before such a declaration?
A. The Presidency is transformed in relation to defence matters in three situations; immediate threat of war, emergencies, or a state of war.
Q. The question is very simple: Would it be proper or improper to operate through a Supreme Command before a valid declaration of one of those three states?
A. In principle, no.
Q. Thank you. Can we just look, lastly, then, at tab 3 once more to deal with a number questions that have been asked of you, but I really have only got one to deal with.
The accused has asked you a number of questions suggesting that all decisions were really being made by the SSNO as a republican -- as a federal body. We see from this diagram that your coordination was within the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, and indeed you've told us it was at one stage in the building of a ministry in Serbia. If the requests for assistance, money, or officers were properly made, was there any reason why they shouldn't simply have been made directly through to the SSNO's relevant sectors?
A. There's -- there's only a practical reason, because the SSNO was overburdened with the control of command of the armed forces which had been transferred to it by the Presidency, and so we acted as a kind of place for selecting, sifting through those requests and passing them on. 17678
Q. Yes. I follow that, but the Chamber may be interested to have your comment on this: These were requests coming from Serbs outside Serbia. Indeed, they were coming from a place that had now declared its independence. They were channeled through a body that was within Serbia and indeed within the Serbian Ministry of Defence before it goes to the federal bodies for action and approval. Was there significance in the fact that it was Serbian requests coming through this Serbian body in the state of Serbia, do you think?
A. Yes, but the Federal Secretary for National Defence does have the legal possibility to transfer a part of his competencies to professional or other teams to act on his behalf and to carry out specific tasks. That is one thing.
Secondly, you said that they were already independent states. At the Brioni conference on the 7th of July of the same year it had been agreed that decisions on independence be postponed by three months, and this meant sometime around the 7th of October. I can't remember all the interventions made by the European Community and other international factors. And at the last meetings at the top political leadership level, there were discussions to calm things down for a while and to wait so that the SSNO, we in the army, did not really treat them then as de facto independent states. So I simply cannot give you an answer along the lines of your expectations perhaps.
Q. And two last questions, one very short and one probably even shorter. You spoke of malicious attitudes towards what was in preparation in Slovenia and Macedonia. On whose part were there malicious attitudes? 17679 If you can't remember the phrase, I'll simply move on to the last question.
A. If you're referring to this separation or secession of individual republics, there was a principal thesis within the Serbian leadership and also in the Presidency of the SFRY. The position was that the Serbs should remain living in a common state, which meant the SFRY, as there are some in all the republics though in small numbers in Slovenia, but in all the others.
However, in response to this thesis, I quoted a position upheld by the Chief of Staff on the 4th or 5th of July when he briefed us in the centre of high military schools when he explicitly said that such a position would lead to bloodshed, because all the republics are inhabited by various ethnic groups and such an aim cannot be achieved without battle, and this would be conducive to a bloody conflict, and a political solution needed to be found. That was the gist of it.
Q. My last point is this: At the break when you were in the company of the usher, perhaps misunderstanding the learned Judge's directions, you looked as though you wanted to either show me something or speak to me and I said no, we couldn't speak. Was there some point of the evidence that you were concerned that you wanted to amplify at that stage? And if so, if you tell us what the topic is and I'll see if there's any further I would like you to answer.
A. No. No. For the Court, nothing.
MR. NICE: Nothing else. Thank you.
JUDGE MAY: General, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for 17680 coming to the International Tribunal to give it. You are free to go.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
[The witness withdrew]
MR. NICE: Before we turn to the next topic which may be Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff's discussion about 92 bis, can I mention two or three very short administrative things?
JUDGE MAY: Well, I wonder if it would be convenient to hear the witness first and then deal with administrative matters later.
MR. NICE: Yes. Mine will be very short.
JUDGE MAY: You want to go.
MR. NICE: I have arranged things to do this afternoon as well. They're just these: Mr. Marinovic is, as you know, on videolink next Monday. There are a number of exhibits. I'm having them produced, including one very large map. I'll have them prepared in advance so that if the Chamber wants to do any pre-reading, including of the large map, it will be available on Friday, and we've made arrangements that there can be both a large map and an overhead projector where his video conference camera will be, matching what we have here. So I hope that one way or another his evidence will be able to be taken quickly but with the best visual aids, and I'll make that arrangement available in advance. And there's one topic that I'd like to mention in closed session for literally two minutes that I didn't touch on in the discussions last week but I invite the Chamber's assistance on. It will literally only take two minutes, if Your Honour would be good enough.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. 17681 BLANK PAGE 17682
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[Open session]
THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
[The witness entered court]
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
JUDGE MAY: If you would like to take a seat.
WITNESS: ZANA BACA
[Witness answered through interpreter]
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Uertz-Retzlaff, we'll go on until quarter to two with the witness. We'll then spend five minutes on the administrative matters after that.
Examined by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff:
Q. Would you please state your name for the record.
A. Zana Baca. 17685
Q. What is your profession?
A. I'm an art historian and an archaeologist.
Q. During the relevant period, did you work at the Institute for Protection of Cultural and Historic Monuments for Dubrovnik; and if so, in what function?
A. I did, in the conservation department in Dubrovnik, as an associate art historian.
Q. And you are, meanwhile, the director of that same institute; is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. You gave a statement to the ICTY on the 27th of June and 19 December 2000. Did you review this statement while you were here and confirm it in a legal proceeding last week?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And did you make a small addendum on a minor point?
A. Yes, there was a correction. Instead of "midnight," it should have been "noon."
Q. Yes.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the Prosecution would like to tender the 92 bis statement.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let it have an exhibit number.
THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, it will be marked Prosecutor's Exhibit 407.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, while the witness gave the statement, she provided a huge amount of documentation, but for practical 17686 reasons we deal with the documentation here. We did not combine it with the 92 bis statement. It was for practical reason only.
Q. Witness -- Ms. Baca, when did Dubrovnik become a world heritage site?
A. In 1979 Dubrovnik was included in the list of world heritage sites.
Q. And was the old town protected in its entirety, including the walls?
A. Yes, it was. The whole town within the walls and the walls themselves.
Q. Did you -- are you aware of the nomination documentation that dealt with this issue? Did you discuss the documents, that is, the request to have this -- to have Dubrovnik be included in the world heritage site list?
A. Yes. I am familiar with all the documents.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, in this regard, the Prosecution would like to tender four documents, and these are actually tabs 6, 7, 8, and 9 in --
JUDGE MAY: These are the UNESCO documents.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: UNESCO documents. It's actually a huge amount of documents altogether, and tabbed.
JUDGE MAY: Let's deal with the exhibit number first for it.
THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the five binders will be marked Prosecutor's Exhibit 408.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. 17687
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. And actually, I don't think we need to put it to the witness. The witness has actually reviewed the documents. Tab 6 is the documentation, the cover page of the documentation. Tab 7 is the convention concerning the protection of the world cultural heritage, the heritage list actually describing Dubrovnik and how it is included in the list.
Q. And just in relation to that, Ms. Baca, the justification for inclusion of Dubrovnik in the world heritage list is described under paragraph 5 and refers to the complex of Dubrovnik as it has retained over the hundreds of years. And also on that same topic it says in the report, "emphasis is laid upon the importance of the fortified walls." Does that mean Dubrovnik was included because of its unique layout?
A. It was included on the UNESCO heritage list not only because of its appearance but because of its urban matrix which was observed from the early Middle Ages, confirmed by the statute from the beginning and end of the thirteenth century, the provisions of which determined the exact method of construction of the town, the width and length of streets, the size of buildings, the method of construction, and everything else of relevance for the existence of a town of that kind. And also, there were provisions regarding its expansion. And this urban matrix, this method of construction was retained up to the present day despite the fact that Dubrovnik, in the seventeenth century, suffered a serious earthquake, in 1667, to be precise, and despite of the damage inflicted, through provisions of the Dubrovnik statute, Dubrovnik was renovated pursuant to 17688 BLANK PAGE 17689 the same medieval matrix, which was fully observed, and the same provisions covered the walls.
The Golden Age of Dubrovnik --
Q. Let me interrupt you --
JUDGE KWON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, if you could tell me: Paragraph 5 of what?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Paragraph 5 of tab 7, and it's page 7 of this document. You find the justification of why this town is included in the list. And tab 8 is actually the original request to have it included. And tab 9 is also related to that same process, the justification on why it is to be included.
JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
Q. And I would like now to go to the UNESCO Convention. Are you familiar with the UNESCO Convention from 1972?
A. Yes, I am.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, that is tab 3 of that binder.
Q. And in relation to this document, my question is, this Convention, does it in particular refer to obligations of the state in which the protected property is situated?
A. Yes, that's right. All the basic provisions of that Convention were complied with except the law on the protection of cultural goods, which is in charge of the preservation of cultural values throughout Croatia. There are also special laws relating to Dubrovnik. In addition to the conservation department in Dubrovnik itself, there is the Institute 17690 for the Reconstruction of Dubrovnik, attached to which there is a professional and advisory commission which actually monitors the reconstruction work.
Q. Yes. Witness, we wouldn't need to know all the details. Just the Convention, the UNESCO Convention, as I call it for short reference, is not actually an additional convention in relation to armed conflicts. It's more related to the state, what a state has to do with its property, cultural properties; is that correct?
A. The most important thing is to preserve cultural heritage, to cultivate and care for it constantly in accordance with the methodology of the profession, to seek to revitalise buildings, to bring them back to life, to preserve Dubrovnik as a live city, and as much as possible to preserve it with traditional materials, traditional methods, all in accordance with the methodology of the profession.
Q. And in going further with the UNESCO documents, are you familiar with the list, the world heritage list?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And, Your Honour, it's tab 12.
Q. The heritage lists confirming actually that the old city of Dubrovnik is included. Are you familiar with this list?
A. I know that a list exists. I know that Dubrovnik is included in the list, but of course I couldn't tell you by heart all the towns on the list.
Q. Yes. And there is another document that concludes it actually, tab 13, establishment of the world heritage list. In this document, there are actually the criteria for the inclusion of cultural property in this 17691 list and the proceeding; is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Is the old town of Dubrovnik also protected by the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of an armed conflict? Do you know that?
A. Yes, it is protected.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, that's tab 2 of the -- of Exhibit 408.
Q. And I just would like to ask you one question in relation to this. Article 4, respect for cultural property, is actually referring to both sides of a conflict, regarding protection, and it says that the high contracting parties, by refraining from any use of the one party by refraining from any use of the property and its immediate surroundings or of the appliances in use for its protection for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict, and the other party by refraining from any acts of hostility directed against such property.
And in relation to this, I would like to ask you, are you aware or do you know whether any military facilities or military units or police units were stationed in the old town?
A. No. There were no such units stationed in the old town.
Q. And were you in a position to make such observations? Did you move around in the old town?
A. All the time. We moved through the old town all the time, drawing up documentation on the war damage. All my colleagues visited almost 17692 every street, almost every house all the time we were there, throughout the time within the historical nucleus of the town.
Q. And in relation to The Hague convention, in paragraph 5 -- in chapter 5, rather, there is also described the distinctive emblem that is to be used when flagging such -- such buildings, and it's actually also the sign as such is here, drawn in here. My question is: Did you erect such flags and can you tell us something about the sites of these flags and their visibility?
A. We erected such signs all over the area for which our conservation service was charged and in the old town. Whenever we erected such a sign, we took photographs, and this is part our documentation. Of course, The Hague Convention was complied with, and the signs were always put up in the most visible places on the buildings. We did this during August and September 1991. And the sign itself is well known. It is a blue and white shield-shaped sign with a blue triangle and a blue rhomboid shape with two white triangles at the sides.
Q. And how big is it?
A. 150 by 120 centimetres.
Q. You just mentioned that you did that in summer. Did you actually get a letter from the Ministry of Education and Culture asking you to do that?
A. Yes, that's correct. We received a letter from the Ministry of Culture and our director followed the instructions in it. She called on all the associates, all the employees who were on vacation at the time to come back to work, including me, and we set about putting up these signs 17693 and also protecting movable cultural values within the old town and also in the entire area.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's tab 1 of the binder, this letter dealing -- this letter from the 22nd of August, 1991, asking -- asking for protecting the cultural monuments in certain places.
Q. And finally, one question in relation to the protection: Are you aware whether the SFRY ratified both Conventions, that is the UNESCO Convention of 1992 and the Hague Convention? Do you know that?
A. Yes, I do know that. This is noted in our literature, or rather, it was part of the exam I had to take at the university.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we have also included in the exhibit binder tab 4, that's the ratification of The Hague Convention in January 1956; and tab 5, that is the ratification of the Cultural Heritage Convention, February 1975.
Q. Ms. Baca, we do not have to speak about the attack as such. That was done by other witnesses. I only want to speak with you about your damage assessment after the various bombings and shellings, and first of all, after the shelling of the old town in October, did your institute make a damage assessment and prepare a report?
A. Yes. Our institute prepared a report on the damage, and the report was sent to the Ministry of Culture.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this report is tab 17, and I would like to show to the witness just page 5.
Q. You did review this document during your preparation for the testimony? 17694
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. And here indicated by dots, black dots, are the buildings that were hit, and you have also indicated what the buildings actually are, a synagogue, Sponza Palace. Some are not so visible. "Old Port" it says here, and what are the other words?
JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Let's see if we can find this.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It's tab 17.
JUDGE MAY: Tab 17.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Tab 17, and it's the -- the pages are not numbered, but it's the fifth page when you start from the cover.
Q. Maybe you can put it on the ELMO, Ms. Baca. Can you put it on the ELMO?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It's actually both B/C/S and English. Most of all on the same page or the following page, but it's the map just showing the layout of Dubrovnik with the dots in it.
Q. And you have indicated here synagogue, Dominican monastery, Sponza Palace, Old Port, but some of the words are not so visible. Can you read the other words? What is it?
A. This is the Franciscan monastery, the Bokor fortress, the Rupe museum containing the ethnographical museum and the ethnological museum. This is a residential building, this is the synagogue, the Dominican monastery, as you've already said the Sponza Palace containing the state archives.
Q. We -- thank you very much. We do not go into the details of the damage found at that time. It's documented in the report. 17695 I would like to ask you now about the shelling of the town in mid-November 1991. After this shelling of the old town, did your institute again examine the damage and make a report of this as well?
A. That's correct. We did it again. That was our duty, to document, record, make lists and report to the appropriate services. We did make such a list -- rather, report.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, that's tab 18. That's the report of November 1991, and it's also a combination of B/C/S and English.
Q. And I would like to show to the witness also the map, the town layout again. It's -- it's the first -- it's the first town map that you see. It's around page 10.
And you have here these dots, again the black dots. And what do they indicate? Is that the impacts of shells?
A. These are direct hits by shells.
Q. Uh-huh. Yes. We do not need to go into the --
A. Their precise locations.
Q. Yes. Thank you. That should be enough for these reports, because we have a final huge report that we will come to. Did UNESCO observers arrive in Dubrovnik in November 1991 to monitor the situation and to help your institute assess the damage?
A. On the 28th of November until the 20th of December, representatives of UNESCO, Mr. Bruno Carnez and Colin Kaiser stayed in Dubrovnik, and this was the first time the Director General of UNESCO sent a mission to a war-affected area. They were accommodated with us, and they worked in our offices. From that time on we worked together with 17696 BLANK PAGE 17697 them. Our work was joint work.
Q. On a daily basis?
A. Yes, on a daily basis.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, that's -- the letter actually dispatching Colin Kaiser and his colleague is tab 10 in the documentation. The witness was aware of this fact here.
JUDGE MAY: If you're moving on, would that be a convenient time to stop?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. Yes.
JUDGE MAY: Ms. Baca, we have to adjourn now. Would you remember during the break not to speak to anybody about your evidence until it's over. And that does include members of the Prosecution team. Could you be back at half past ten tomorrow morning. We have another witness to deal with before then, but we hope to get to your evidence as soon as possible in order to try and conclude it tomorrow. So could you be back, please, at half past ten tomorrow. If you would like to go now.
[The witness stood down]
JUDGE MAY: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, to let you know what I have in mind --
THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
JUDGE MAY: To let you know what we have in mind, on Friday it may be convenient to take an hour or so to try and deal with as many of the applications under Rule 92 bis for the admission of witness statements. And so that everybody can know what to prepare, I have in mind to finish the Vukovar statements which we hadn't finished last week when Judge Kwon 17698 and I, you remember, were sitting alone, and we reserved C-1165, C-1164. So we ought to finish those two.
Outstanding, I notice, C-1149. There is another Vukovar witness, C-1171, but I think there seems to be an application for his transcript to be admitted. So we will deal with him when we deal with the transcripts. And it might be convenient to deal with all -- any remaining Vukovar and locality witnesses after we've dealt with the application in relation to the transcripts, which we should do next week. We ought to attend to that.
Yes, Mr. Kay.
MR. KAY: Can I raise one matter? And it's matter of convenience. I had a pre-existing commitment from a long while ago to attend something on Friday, and this is an aspect of the evidence that I have dealt with solely. It would be virtually impossible for Mr. Tapuskovic to take it over.
JUDGE MAY: Let's move it to Thursday. I can't see any great difficulty in doing that.
MR. KAY: Thank you.
JUDGE MAY: We'll move it to Thursday. And going on with the matters we should consider, there is an application of the 26th of February for two witnesses, a Mr. Josipovic, C-1156. It may be convenient to deal with them separately.
It then would be convenient to make a start, at least, on the Dubrovnik witnesses, and I'm going to list them as I understand it, and we'll note if we've made -- we've made any -- left any out. Apologies to 17699 the interpreters. There's a list coming up, but I'm afraid I've only just written out.
The list is: C-1066, 1082, 1083, 1088, 1092, 1095, 1105, 1112, 1122, 1127, 1133, 1139, 1150, 1159, 1173. Those are the ones which I've noted as related to Dubrovnik, and it may, as I say, be convenient to deal with them together.
Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, one matter you may want to consider is whether you really need this amount of witnesses. You might consider pruning them. Perhaps you could give some thought to that by Thursday, because there are 20-odd witnesses. We've had quite a lot of evidence about Dubrovnik.
The other matter is one other I've noted which I think we've dealt with, and perhaps you could help me. It's B-1732, and it's Mr. Doyle or -- he may be an army officer. You mentioned something about, and I'm afraid it slipped my memory as to what you said.
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. We actually have withdrawn our request for the time being because the witness will be called in the Bosnia case.
JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you very much. We'll then deal with those at a convenient time on Thursday.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just a comment, a general comment with a specific example. What does 92 bis mean? Look here, the witness who has just got up and who will continue testifying tomorrow is a 92 bis witness, and here five binders have been put on the table relating to her 17700 testimony. There is no doubt that 92 bis is being used exclusively to introduce enormous piles of documents which no one can read even theoretically let alone have any kind of serious discussion about them. This cannot be looked at in even a hundred times the time that you have given.
It is quite clear that this is simply an attempt to make it impossible to respond to anything delivered in this way, especially --
JUDGE MAY: One practical matter: Is there any dispute that there was this damage to the old town? Is that in dispute at all?
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You know what's in dispute, Mr. May? What is in fact not indisputable; that Serbia has nothing whatsoever to do with Dubrovnik.
JUDGE MAY: That, if I may say, is a totally different issue. And if that's the issue we've got to try, let us not spend a lot of time arguing about whether a particular place was damaged or not. If you're not disputing it, then the matter can be dealt with rapidly. Of course there is an issue, as you say, as to whether Serbia or whether you had anything to do with it. That may well be the central issue which we have to decide. It would really clarify things and make things simpler for everybody if we could get on with this evidence with the destruction without having to go into great length about it. But can I say we have in mind the problems which you have with this documentation, that's why I ask you whether there's a dispute about it, and if necessary, you'll have time to look at these things. But as for this particular one, I can't see any great necessity. 17701
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I'm not talking only about this particular case. It is the responsibility of the opposite side, on the basis of The Hague Conventions that Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff just quoted, using historical monuments to provoke an army, the army of one's own country at that time, and make them shoot. That's what's in dispute; who caused the damage. That is the essential question, although it has nothing to do with Serbia and me. It does concern the JNA, however. The question is was the JNA responsible or the other side which made use of everything that it was not allowed to use in order to provoke this and create a centre for media propaganda in connection with their secession and international recognition. That's what it's about, Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Thank you for clarifying what the particular issues are. Now, as far as these documents are concerned, there doesn't seem to be any prejudice in admitting them. If, however, we come to a time when there's prejudice to you in admitting documents because you haven't had the notice or the time to deal with them properly, you will get the time. Let me clarify something. Wait a moment. Wait a moment. Have these documents been disclosed before, any of them?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. These actually were part of Baca's statement, and they were actually, therefore, all disclosed. What we do here, it was part of -- Ms. Baca's statement were an even bigger amount of exhibits, and we have actually excluded those that are not of interest. And this is why we do this exercise here in a very cursory way, just saying this is a report dealing with the old town, that is a report with the old town, and here is the main report with the old 17702 town and we are not going into the details.
JUDGE ROBINSON: When would it have been disclosed?
MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It was disclosed in May of last year, but it was also given two days before now in this other fashion.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Now, we've got to finish fairly soon.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, but just a brief question, Mr. May. If I remember well, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you instructed the report to be provided to you by the opposing party regarding the quantity of documents that they are encumbering this whole case with. I don't believe that you have received that report. I haven't seen it. And we still have -- we're still waiting for a reply to the question when you - I'm expecting your answer to that question - when you imagine it is possible to read those hundreds of thousands of pages that have been produced so far, thousands of videotapes and thousands of audiotapes. When do you feel this can be done and how long this should take?
JUDGE MAY: Let us deal with it this way: First of all, in relation to the -- any statements which are admitted under Rule 92 bis, we will ensure that you're not taken by surprise and that you have adequate time to prepare. And if there are a lot of exhibits -- I don't anticipate that there are many exhibits attached to these statements, from what I recollect of them. They're mainly straightforward statements. I'm grateful to the registrar who has given me the report which the Prosecution have produced dated the 12th of February. You should have 17703 a copy of that. It's Registry page 19564, so you can find that. And in due course, we'll deal with it. We haven't at the moment dealt with it. There are other matters which we are dealing with, but we have this under consideration. But you might like to find it. As I say, it's 12th of February.
Now we'll adjourn.
--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.00 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 12th day of
March, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.