1 Wednesday, 5 November 2003

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

7 WITNESS: WITNESS B-1531 [Resumed]

8 [Witness answered through interpreter]

9 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

10 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. 1531, independently of the fact that you say

11 that you know nothing about Cengic's interview, the one that I quoted,

12 tell me, please, what was the first knowledge you had about the arming of

13 Muslim forces in Foca? Since what he says here, that from the 1st of

14 August there were forces which possessed automatic rifles, machine-guns,

15 mortars, and so on, the 1st of August, 1990, in fact he quotes, six months

16 prior to the formation of the Patriotic League itself. So please tell me

17 what you know about arming.

18 A. I answered that question yesterday, and all I can say is that I

19 really knew nothing about arming at that time, nothing at all.

20 Q. And when did you learn about it?

21 A. Yesterday when you told me that you had read the interview.

22 Q. Well, when did you learn of any Muslim arming at all? When was

23 the first time you learnt about that at all?

24 A. I never learnt anything in concrete terms in view of the fact of

25 what I said yesterday in private session when I explained the specific

1 features of my role.

2 Q. All right. Now, do you know that after these events that took

3 place in Foca, the ones you're testifying about, Halid Cengic went to

4 Visoko where he was one of the main initiators of the exodus of the Serb

5 population in that area?

6 A. What you have just said I was not aware of it, but I did learn

7 through the information media, the writings in the press, that he assumed

8 an important position in the Bosnia-Herzegovina army in that small town.

9 Q. Now, do you know precisely what kind of ethnic cleansing was

10 conducted in that small town as you call it?

11 A. No, I don't.

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 MS. PACK: Your Honour, might I remind the accused that we're

17 presently in open session.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Don't worry, Ms. Pack. I won't say

19 anything that would point to this witness's identity.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. In your statements, Witness, you depict the following picture, if

22 I understand it correctly: You say that the Serbs were arming themselves

23 and preparing for war, whereas the Muslims were not arming themselves or,

24 rather, that you knew nothing about any kind of preparation for arming,

25 even after the large rally that took place, rallying over 100.000 people

1 as you yourself said, in Foca, and the SDA activities along those lines.

2 Is that right, Mr. 1531?

3 A. Yes, that is right. I told you what I knew, and I can't tell you

4 what I don't know about and haven't got any arguments to put forward on

5 something that I have not been kept abreast of.

6 Q. Well, of course I'm not going to go into the details of your

7 statement because I really don't know what all the things that could have

8 been going on there, but I would like to focus on certain portions where

9 you say some things which quite simply I'm just not able to understand,

10 and I would even say they sound rather ridiculous and even grotesque.

11 For example, in the last paragraph on page 2 of your statement of

12 the 25th of June, 1996, (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted); then we have Petko Cancar and Miro Stanic. So the

20 president of the Serbian Democratic Party in Foca who, by the by -- who,

21 by the way, were being seen together. They came to Foca together from

22 Sarajevo. And generally speaking, they were public personages,

23 representatives of the Serbian Democratic Party, in fact.

24 Now, they were having a meeting, as you say, in a church in Foca.

25 Tell me now, please, Mr. 1531, isn't this - how shall I put this?

1 - a ridiculous assertion that personages of that rank could meet anywhere

2 they like, and they were seen publicly around town, they all had public

3 offices, now suddenly they have to organise some clandestine meetings in a

4 church in Cerezluk, and just the two of them who would usually be seen

5 around town in public. Isn't that nonsense?

6 JUDGE MAY: If, 1531, you wish to go into private session to

7 answer that question, you may.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I would, please.

9 [Private session]

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Pages 28608 to 28615 – redacted – private session.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 [Open session]

23 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

24 Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:

25 Q. [Interpretation] Witness, could you please look at paragraph 5 of

1 your statement. It is marked with the number 5. It is page 3 of the

2 B/C/S version. The first paragraph. Page 3, first paragraph of the

3 B/C/S, paragraph 5. It's at the top of that page. Page 3.

4 MS. PACK: This is, I assume, the --

5 JUDGE MAY: Which statement? Which statement?

6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Tab 3.

7 JUDGE MAY: Which date, please, so we can get it.

8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] 25th of June, tab 3, received

9 from the OTP. Tab 3.

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 A. In order to give a more detailed answer to this question, I would

14 ask Their Honours to allow for a private session.

15 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I will not ask

16 anything that could reveal his identity.

17 JUDGE MAY: If he's worried about it, though, he can go into

18 private session. Yes.

19 [Private session]

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Page 28618 – redacted – private session.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 [Open session]

2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] In that same statement --

3 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. In that same statement, look at paragraph 15, please, in which you

6 talk about the armed attack on Foca. And you say that a Serb woman was

7 wounded. Would you explain to Their Honours, please, who carried out that

8 attack and how that Serb woman was wounded on the 8th of April, 1992.

9 A. I said that fire from Serbian paramilitary forces were opened on

10 the 8th of April, and that is when that woman was wounded close to the KP

11 Dom, the prison. And this place is known as the Ivanovici houses, that

12 is, the houses of the Ivanovic family, and sniper fire was opened from

13 there. The telephone lines were working, and it was reported by people

14 who have houses nearby, as well as companies, that the woman had been hit.

15 They knew the woman, and I was called up by the president. I think -- I

16 think we have to go back into private session if I have to elaborate on

17 this.

18 JUDGE MAY: No need to do that unless you want particularly,

19 Mr. Tapuskovic, any more detail about this.

20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] No. Since I have to economise

21 with the time.

22 Q. Paragraph 29 again, please. You say -- you talk first about Serb

23 paramilitary units that were directing artillery and machine-gun fire. I

24 think this is in the fourth sentence. And then later on you say: "There

25 was some resistance in those parts of town, but it was sporadic and of a

1 limited nature."

2 Could you explain what the resistance was like and who was putting

3 up that resistance.

4 A. I said what I could hear from where I was, that is, sporadic

5 shooting with infantry weapons as opposed to artillery fire towards those

6 areas.

7 Q. Then you went on to say: "The Muslims who lived there had very

8 little weapons, and later on all ethnically mixed parts of town were

9 exposed to sniper fire."

10 How do you explain that that fire lasted simultaneously towards

11 the parts of town in -- with mixed populations, where both Serbs, Croats

12 and Muslims lived? Was this some sort of a conflict that was going on

13 there and then those involved in the conflict didn't pay any attention to

14 where which civilians were living?

15 A. No. There were sniper nests held by Serb paramilitary units, and

16 in mixed environments, the situation was under control.

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

25 [Private session]

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Page 28621 – redacted – private session.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 (redacted)

2 [Open session]

3 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I must apologise first. I must

4 ask you, did you say that the area in which you lived, did Radivoj -- did

5 Radovan Karadzic come there? Did you say that yesterday? I just want to

6 check.

7 A. No, I didn't mention Karadzic in that context.

8 Q. So he was never there?

9 A. I don't know.

10 Q. Yes, but here in paragraph 35 you said --

11 A. Could we go into private session, please?

12 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. What is the question?

13 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, in this paragraph,

14 there is a description of the situation in Foca and that the orders came

15 directly from Radovan Karadzic.

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Go into private --

17 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] He told me --

18 JUDGE MAY: Go into private session to answer that.

19 [Private session]

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Page 28623 – redacted – private session.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 Page 28624 – redacted – private session.

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 [Open session]

24 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

25 JUDGE MAY: Witness B-1531, that concludes your evidence. Thank

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 you for coming to the Tribunal to give it. You are now free to go. If

2 you would just wait for the blinds to be lowered.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, too, Your Honours.

4 [The witness withdrew]

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

6 MR. NICE: The next witness is Mr. Harland who is to be recalled.

7 He is, I gather, ready to come in.

8 JUDGE MAY: Very well. While we're waiting for him, I've been

9 asked to clarify the position of about an exhibit. It's the Pale speech

10 which was marked for identification. I think it was Exhibit 569, tab 9.

11 I will be told if I'm wrong. In any event, it's some days ago, and the

12 registry want it clarified. I don't remember myself why it was marked for

13 identification.

14 MR. NICE: I think this is the one that was produced in two parts.

15 Mr. Groome can deal with it, and I think I mentioned it yesterday, it's

16 now in a comprehensive format.

17 JUDGE MAY: All right.

18 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, if you recall the testimony of

19 Mr. Donia, the Prosecution marked for identification the entire Assembly

20 minutes but just introduced excerpts. During the course of the

21 cross-examination, the Chamber indicated that it would be helpful to have

22 the entire -- entirety of this session translated and introduced into

23 evidence, and that is what we provided the Chamber on Monday.

24 JUDGE MAY: Very well. So this is -- the exhibit is no longer

25 marked for identification, Exhibit 538 tab 9; it becomes an exhibit.

1 Thank you.

2 MR. NICE: I assume the usher is collecting the witness. When

3 she's brought him in, I'll get her to put the Sarajevo map back in the

4 position it was if it's thought helpful.

5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Harland, if you'd like to take a seat. You, of

6 course, remain under the declaration which you took on the last occasion.

7 WITNESS: DAVID HARLAND [Resumed]

8 THE WITNESS: Will I have a set of the documents that were

9 submitted?

10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, you should have the documents.

11 Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You've got just over two and a half hours

12 left.

13 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

14 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Harland, since your testimony was

15 interrupted, I have to say in advance or, rather, I would like to make a

16 reservation in advance. I'm not quite sure that the notes that I took

17 during the examination-in-chief always referred to what you yourself were

18 saying. Perhaps they refer to another witness. So please, would you tell

19 me if I make some mistakes, because it's very difficult when testimony is

20 heard in two parts for me to find my way in my notes and documents. So

21 please would you bear that in mind, because I won't intentionally be

22 asking you questions which you didn't refer to and didn't testify about.

23 Quite simply, it might just be a mistake on my part because of the

24 interruption that has occurred, the two-part testimony.

25 We started by looking at the map and the comments made with regard

1 to this Sarajevo map, and most of your testimony referred to Sarajevo, in

2 fact. So it would be a good idea, since you spent a long time in Sarajevo

3 yourself, you had many contacts with people, you knew everything about the

4 Serb positions and the Muslim positions, so it would be a good idea if you

5 were to compare that map and what you knew about the deployment of forces

6 in Sarajevo with this map that I have here. It is a map of Sarajevo

7 showing -- and it says, it's in English, "Ethnic map of Sarajevo on the

8 basis of the population census of the Socialist Federal Republic of

9 Yugoslavia of the 31st of March, 1981." That's the title of the map

10 itself. And you can see on it what the ethnic make-up of Sarajevo looked

11 like at that time.

12 And my question is very short one. It is this: Roughly, or to

13 what extent, to the best of your knowledge, does the deployment of Serb

14 and Muslim positions coincide with this map? I assume the question is

15 clear. Please go ahead. And all the explanations are given in English on

16 the map, the text isn't long, so I'm sure you'll be able to find your way

17 around it.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May we have the map placed on the

19 overhead projector, please.

20 THE WITNESS: Right. The map of ethnic distribution only very

21 partially reflects the final confrontation lines. In general, certainly

22 the Serbs secured the areas around Sarajevo, the less densely inhabited

23 areas in which they had been a majority. Many of the mixed areas, mixed,

24 predominantly Muslim and Serb but also with some Croat areas, in the urban

25 part of Sarajevo were secured by the -- by the Serbs at the beginning of

1 the war. So, for example, though of course it's ten years ago so you will

2 excuse me if I don't have the exact figures, I recall that Ilidza, in the

3 urban area, the large part in the west, the urban area of Sarajevo --

4 JUDGE KWON: If you would point out on the ELMO.

5 THE WITNESS: The area here. The Serb -- Serb forces secured that

6 area and removed the Muslim population or it fled despite the fact that

7 that area had a similar number of Muslims and Serbs immediately prior to

8 the war, and in fact, I think, even a slight -- slightly larger number of

9 Muslims.

10 The same, I think, is true of some of the areas immediately north

11 of the city. Vogosca and Ilijas, these areas were --

12 JUDGE KWON: If you could point on the ELMO so we can see on

13 the --

14 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. If you can't see what the regions indicate, you have a number on

17 each municipality, to designate each municipality, and then you have the

18 names of those municipalities. The Serb territories are blue; the lighter

19 blue areas where the -- where the relative majority is, the darker regions

20 the absolute majority, and the Muslim areas are green and yellow.

21 A. Yes. First of all, this map -- and it doesn't mark who controlled

22 which territory, it marks which population was the greater in 1981. It

23 also doesn't have the names, it just has a series of numbers for most of

24 the areas. Just a second.

25 It's actually much easier for me to work off the big map, if

1 nobody objects.

2 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Do that. It will be much easier for everybody.

3 THE WITNESS: So prior to the war, the Muslims were a large

4 majority in the municipality of Stari Grad, and that was held by the

5 Muslims during the war. Almost all of the other downtown municipalities,

6 that is Centar, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, and Ilidza were -- were heavily

7 mixed, roughly equal in terms of their Muslim and Serb populations. And

8 this area, of course, became divided by the confrontation line. The

9 confrontation line came around here, around the municipality of Stari

10 Grad, which was entirely held by the Muslims, and then the Grbavica

11 section of Novo Sarajevo was held by the Serbs more or less down to the

12 Miljacka river, cutting right through some of the buildings here on what I

13 think is Ljubljanska Street.

14 And then up here again the Muslims controlled these settlements.

15 The Serbs controlled a part of Dobrinja. The Serbs controlled the airport

16 at the beginning the war, and then, by agreement, allowed UNPROFOR to use

17 it. And in the surrounding areas, which were mountainous areas, the Serbs

18 in general were much more numerous than Muslims prior to the war, and

19 those areas were held by the Serbs throughout the conflict.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. [No interpretation]

22 JUDGE MAY: No translation.

23 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the English?

24 JUDGE MAY: Can you try again.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I will repeat.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Mr. Harland, looking at this map which shows where the Serbs live

3 and the Muslims live, because this is just a map of Sarajevo, can we say

4 that mostly the forces deployed during the war were distributed in

5 conformity with the territories on which each of the parties lived, more

6 or less? Of course, it is impossible to have this coincide exactly, but

7 predominantly so, that each side held its territory?

8 A. No. No, that would not be true, because particularly in Sarajevo,

9 particularly in the urban area, the populations were entirely mixed. And

10 in a way, the larger ethnic map only gives you a sense of who is in which

11 area, but of course the overwhelming bulk of the people actually lived in

12 the urban area of Sarajevo, and that area was almost randomly mixed. Not

13 entirely randomly; Stari Grad had a much larger Muslim population, some of

14 the Stup settlement had a larger Croat population, but in general the

15 urban population was mixed. And where -- where Serb forces took control

16 of that, parts of that territory during the war, they did remove or kill

17 or force to flee almost the entire non-Muslim population.

18 Q. All right. On this map, could you point out what the Serbs had

19 occupied, what territory they had occupied where they did not live? The

20 one on the overhead projector, what is it that they took control of and

21 where they didn't themselves live, the areas not populated by them?

22 A. Yes. I must say I don't like working from this map, because first

23 of all it doesn't show the city of Sarajevo, it only shows ethnic groups,

24 and it largely only has -- it has only numbers representing the

25 geographical locations. But --

1 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Harland, let's deal with it this way: Since

2 you're a witness in a court --

3 THE WITNESS: Yes.

4 JUDGE MAY: -- and of course you must be accurate, if you feel

5 that you cannot do justice on that map, then you should say so. If you

6 can, of course, if you can answer, well, so much the better, but if you

7 feel that it really isn't possible properly to answer, then I think you

8 should revert to your other map. It's up to you how you feel about it.

9 JUDGE KWON: My understanding is that the names of the cities

10 appear on the -- over the page. Rear side.

11 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. That makes it particularly difficult to

12 deal with it when it's on an overhead projector. Why don't I just refer

13 to the large map.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Whatever you feel more comfortable with. If you

15 can mention particular areas by name, then it might be easier,

16 particularly any areas which the Serbs took over where they weren't a

17 majority or something of that sort before, the areas you were referring

18 to.

19 THE WITNESS: Sure.

20 The built-up areas of Ilidza, of Novo Sarajevo, Grbavica

21 settlement, of Vogosca, and just off the map, Ilijas, would have been

22 areas where the population would have been mixed prior to the war, that is

23 that no one population of the three ethnic groups, main ethnic groups of

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina, would have had more than a third of the population, or

25 would have had more than half of the population, anyway. And in those

1 areas which were taken over by the Serbs which did not previously have a

2 Serb majority, the -- the Serbs would have removed or caused to flee the

3 non-Serb population.

4 So I would mention Ilidza, Novo Sarajevo, Vogosca, and Ilijas in

5 that category.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Very well. Now, if we were to place this map over Sarajevo and

8 the distribution of force if it were in the right ratio, do you have an

9 idea of what percentage would not coincide with respect to the territory

10 that belonged to them, and would there be a percentage that would be

11 different regardless of movements up and down?

12 A. Yes. In geographical size, I couldn't tell you very exactly, but

13 approximately -- approximately 100.000 non-Serbs, Muslims, Croats. Mainly

14 Muslim but also Croats and people of mixed marriage found -- Sarajevans,

15 found themselves in territories that by May of 1992 were controlled by

16 Serb forces, and those people, some were killed but a larger number either

17 fled to the Muslim-controlled part of Sarajevo or, in some cases, were

18 able to flee the country altogether.

19 So I would say the area of overlap, as you call it, would be an

20 area affecting about 100.000 people of the total Sarajevo population of

21 400.000 or 500.000 people.

22 So there was some overlap, yes. You are correct when you say

23 there was some overlap between the Serb-held areas and the areas

24 previously inhabited by Serbs. And similarly between Muslim-held

25 territory and the territories previously inhabited by Muslims. But

1 territory on which lived about a hundred thousand people would not be in

2 that general statement.

3 Q. And what about the 150 Serbs from Sarajevo? 150.000 Serbs, I'm

4 sorry? What about the 150.000 Serbs from Sarajevo? What happened to

5 them?

6 A. First, as you point out, many of them -- the great -- a majority

7 of them were in territory which was immediately taken by Serb forces. So

8 they were, as it were, within their -- the territory controlled by armed

9 forces friendly to them.

10 For the -- for the remaining Serb population, by the time I

11 arrived in Sarajevo, which was in late May of 1993, we estimated that

12 approximately 40.000 Serbs remained within the confrontation line, that is

13 within the area controlled by the Muslim forces. Many of those people

14 reported that their relatives had either fled at the beginning of the

15 fighting or -- and many of those who remained did wish to leave the city

16 but were not able to.

17 Q. But they weren't able to. They weren't allowed to leave town; is

18 that right?

19 A. That is correct.

20 Q. So the Serbs did allow the Muslims to leave part of town which

21 they held under their control, whereas the Muslims did not allow this to

22 take place with respect to these 40.000 Serbs. They didn't allow them to

23 leave the part of town they were in. Isn't that right, Mr. Harland?

24 A. I think the first part of your statement I wouldn't characterise

25 like that, when you say the Serbs did allow the Muslims to leave. In

1 fact, in most cases, they initially forced them to leave. But the second

2 half of your statement I would have to acknowledge is correct, that many

3 of the Serbs who were caught in the fighting and caught on the Muslim side

4 of the confrontation line wished to leave and were not allowed to do so by

5 the Muslim authorities.

6 Q. As you were an international official, I assume you know that it

7 is the -- that the authorities must -- it is their duty to allow the

8 population to leave a territory where a conflict is being conducted, and

9 that that is a serious violation of the law if they keep the population

10 back, the civilian population back in areas where conflicts are going on,

11 this is a serious violation of the law, isn't it?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. From the positions you held, the United Nations in Sarajevo, did

14 you take any steps to enable the population to take refuge and leave the

15 area of conflict, to allow them to leave the area, those of them who

16 wished to leave, and to go to where they wished to go?

17 A. Yes. And I should say that from our perspective, it was not that

18 we wanted freedom of movement for Serbs or for Muslims, but just we wanted

19 -- we believed that freedom of movement for the civilian population at

20 large was something which we should advocate for.

21 And when I say that many of the Serbs, because we were talking

22 about Serbs, in Sarajevo wished to leave, the Serb civilian population

23 living in the Muslim-controlled area, I should also say that many of the

24 Muslims and Croats and people of mixed nationality also wished to leave

25 but were unable to. That doesn't change the general correctness of your

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 statement, but it's worth clarifying.

2 Now, we did take a number of measures. First, we -- we sought to

3 tell all sides about their obligations under international law towards the

4 civilian population, and we also sought to negotiate what we called Blue

5 Routes, that is routes from Sarajevo to the outside world where both

6 parties, both the government of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

7 Muslims, and the Serbs would agree to allow certain numbers of civilians,

8 usually, unfortunately, on a basis of a sort of ethnic equation they would

9 make up between them, to allow them to leave the -- leave the city. And

10 these so-called Blue Routes were open at various times.

11 We also made provision so that people who were what we called

12 humanitarian cases, people who were either very sick or who had been

13 wounded, could in some cases be evacuated by us from the airport which we

14 controlled.

15 Q. Tell me, please, Mr. Harland, do you know why the conflict broke

16 out between Muslims and Croats at the beginning of your term in Bosnia and

17 Herzegovina?

18 A. I certainly heard the views at great length of the leaders of both

19 the Muslim and the Croat communities, because that -- that conflict was

20 just beginning on my arrival and was very much on the minds of both our

21 Muslim interlocutors and our Croat interlocutors, yes.

22 Q. You were there virtually throughout the time of the conflict

23 between Muslims and Croats. It started when you arrived, and it went on

24 for quite some time.

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Do you know that it was precisely during those conflicts that the

2 Serbs made it possible to save many thousand Croats where they were

3 threatened with destruction by the Muslim forces?

4 A. That -- that was not true in my experience, except in some limited

5 cases. It is true that we saw that the Serbs provided weapons to the

6 Croat enclave of Kiseljak. The Serbs had a small access to the Croat

7 enclave of Kiseljak I think at a village called Kobiljaca. And they

8 provided weapons, including tanks, we were able to observe moving there.

9 Also, after the Muslim forces took, captured the Croat enclave of

10 Vares, it is true that the Serbs provided access through their territory

11 to Croats fleeing by bus from that area.

12 So, yes, I was aware of some assistance provided by the -- by the

13 Serbs to the Croats during that period.

14 Q. For example, you mentioned only Vares. Let me not mention the

15 others, but you could mention them. How many thousand Croats did the

16 Serbs evacuate so that they wouldn't be the victims of the Mujahedin in

17 those days? They made it possible for them to leave across their

18 territories, to go where they wanted, to avoid certain destruction and

19 extermination in those enclaves of theirs.

20 Well, let's look at Vares alone. How many thousand Croats?

21 A. I no longer recall the exact number of Croats evacuated from

22 Vares. I -- to Kiseljak. I would believe it was probably in the region

23 of 5.000.

24 I should -- I should add, though, that the people -- the people

25 who stayed -- and we had a lot of opportunity to observe this. The Croats

1 who stayed in territory controlled by the -- by the Muslims, their

2 treatment varied a lot. There were some, as in Tuzla, for example, who

3 did not seem to experience negative treatment. When you said, you know,

4 were they victims -- you know, that they were victims of the Muslims,

5 that's -- there certainly were areas where Croats were expelled from their

6 homes and their homes were burnt and some Croats were killed, and I myself

7 saw some of that in -- after the fall of Kakanj with the activities of the

8 7th Muslim Brigade, but in most places that I visited where there were

9 Croat communities living on Muslim-held territory, they were -- they were

10 probably the object of discrimination, but they were not, in my

11 experience, in physical danger except in a few cases.

12 So it's actually not good to make a direct comparison between

13 their condition, for example, and the condition of non-Serbs in Serb

14 territory. In most of the places I visited in Serb-held territory, those

15 who remained, the non-Serbs who remained, would have been in serious

16 physical danger except in a few places, perhaps Banja Luka and Bijeljina.

17 Q. Very well, Mr. Harland. So as not to waste any time, you're

18 saying that only in a few places where Serbs were in control, the

19 non-Serbs lived normally. Only in a few places, is that what you're

20 saying?

21 A. Correct.

22 Q. And also, you're claiming that during the Muslim-Croat conflicts,

23 the Croats lived normally in places held by the Muslims?

24 A. It was a mixed picture, but in some places they were able to

25 continue with normal life and to some extent, like in Sarajevo and in

1 Tuzla, as normal as the conditions of the war allowed. But in some

2 places, particularly the smaller communities of Central Bosnia, there was

3 ethnic cleansing by the Mujahedin or the 7th Muslim Brigade. I was able

4 to see that.

5 Q. And according to the information available to you, how many Croats

6 were killed in Central Bosnia and how many were ethnically cleansed by the

7 Muslims from areas in which they had lived?

8 A. The numbers killed we believed to be relatively low compared to

9 the casualties of the other communities in the war. Perhaps a couple of

10 thousand.

11 The numbers ethnically cleansed or fleeing in front of Muslim

12 advances was -- was much higher, certainly in the tens of thousands.

13 Q. Very well. Let's not waste time about the figures. There are

14 figures available about this, and there will be occasion to ascertain

15 them.

16 When making your statement, as I can see, you spoke to the

17 investigators, Todd Cleaver and Stephen Upton, and as far as I can see

18 from paragraph 15 of your statement -- let me just find it for a moment.

19 Actually, that is the first paragraph of your chronology, the beginning of

20 your chronology.

21 So tell me, please, within the framework of that chronology, are

22 you providing your comments to documents presented to you by these

23 gentlemen that you were interviewed by?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Very well. So these are your comments on documents presented to

1 you by them.

2 Is it true that this chronology is not exhaustive and that it

3 doesn't cover all events?

4 A. Certainly.

5 Q. And, Mr. Harland, is it true that particularly lacking are reports

6 on incidents provoked by the Muslim side, that is Muslim violations of

7 cease-fires agreed on the Sarajevo battlefront, as well as reports on

8 crimes committed by the Muslim side against the Serb civilians and the

9 army of Republika Srpska? Am I right in saying that?

10 A. No. That is not correct. On the contrary, in fact. We had -- we

11 suffered, as perhaps all onlookers suffer, from only being able to report

12 what you saw, and we were overwhelmingly able to see what happened on

13 Muslim-controlled territory. So in fact, when -- when there was a

14 violation of the cease-fire by the Muslims, we were much more likely to

15 see it than when there was a violation of the cease-fire by the Serbs.

16 And similarly, when there was a human rights abuse by the Muslims,

17 we would often see it very directly. We all lived in Sarajevo, which is a

18 rather small geographical area. There were many thousands of us on

19 Muslim-controlled territory. There were very, very few of us on

20 Serb-controlled territory. So in general, we were only able to record the

21 abuses on Serb-held territory when we encountered people who were

22 ethnically cleansed from Serb-held territory who were arriving in the

23 Muslim-controlled areas where we were stationed.

24 In fact, it was a particular source of grievance with the Muslim

25 authorities, that they felt that we were constantly holding them to a

1 higher standard in terms of abuses of human rights and cease-fire

2 violations than that to which we were holding the Serbs. In fact, I think

3 we were not prejudiced against the Muslims, but it probably is true that

4 we saw more of their wrongdoing, of their misdeeds, both in terms of

5 cease-fires and in terms of human rights than we saw of the Serbs. So our

6 reporting measured against an objective recording of the events somewhat

7 later would probably show more attention focused on Muslim cease-fire

8 violations and other actions than would be statistically merited.

9 And we did undertake a little study of this -- of this nature

10 which broadly confirmed it.

11 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, I'm going to interrupt now. It's time

12 -- past the time for the break.

13 We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.

14 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.

15 --- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Mr. Harland, could you please continue giving me as concise

18 answers as possible, because I don't have too much time.

19 From what you're saying, it follows that in view of the fact that

20 you were in the centre of town held by the Muslim forces that you were

21 able to note every cease-fire violation by the Muslim side. Does that

22 mean that you did actually report on each of those violations?

23 A. My particular role was political reporting, but yes, UNPROFOR

24 certainly had a deployment of UNMOs, military observers, whose principal

25 job was to count the shells and to note what type they were and where they

1 were coming from and going to, and, yes, that was part of UNPROFOR's daily

2 work.

3 Q. Very well. In paragraph 16, you mention the weekly political

4 assessment for Bosnia-Herzegovina number 24, dated the 16th of July,

5 referring to a meeting of the newly-appointed commander, General

6 Briquemont, Viktor Andreev, and yourself with Radovan Karadzic; is that

7 right?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And in the report you mention that, "Karadzic noted that even

10 though Republika Srpska had supported exchanges of population, the Serbs

11 recognise the right of people of different ethnic origin to remain or

12 return to their homes if they so wish." Was that his position, the one

13 that he advocated?

14 A. That's what he said.

15 Q. You also say that you raised the issue of ethnic cleansing,

16 particularly in Bijeljina, and that Radovan Karadzic would seek

17 justification for ethnic cleansing. Is that your comment? He would seek

18 to justify it.

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Since you talk about Bijeljina, are you familiar with Radovan

21 Karadzic's order dated the 1st of January, 1994, relating precisely to

22 Bijeljina? And since I have it here in the Serbian language, signed and

23 with a stamp, the 1st January 1994 number 01-0894, and it says, "To the

24 Ministry of Defence of Republika Srpska and President of the Supreme

25 Military Court. According to information about the work of the military

1 prosecutor's office in Bijeljina --" I am mentioning this order because it

2 refers to Bijeljina that you referred to -- "indicates many missions being

3 made, particularly the release of persons who are suspected of serious

4 crimes. Such an attitude has worsened the security and political

5 situation in Brcko and Bijeljina. The situation requires that the

6 military prosecutor office's work be examined and any errors and omissions

7 be established made by the prosecutor. It is your duty to act according

8 to this order and to report me about your findings."

9 This was written by Dr. Radovan Karadzic and signed by him.

10 Are you familiar with this document?

11 A. No.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would like to tender this into

13 evidence, please, Mr. May.

14 JUDGE MAY: Let us see the document.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] From what I have read out, and I

16 read it accurately, I hope that is not at issue, it should be beyond doubt

17 that Radovan Karadzic advocated the more efficient work of the military

18 prosecutor's office in Bijeljina.

19 JUDGE MAY: We'll mark this for identification next Defence

20 number.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 JUDGE MAY: The document will get the next number. The map, which

23 I see the registrar still has, can be returned to the accused.

24 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, the document is Defence Exhibit 212,

25 marked for identification.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. So he's advocating that persons who have committed criminal

3 offences should not be released from detention, and he says that this

4 worsens the general security situation in Bijeljina. And he's instructing

5 urgent intervention and inspection of the work of the military

6 prosecutor's office specifically in Bijeljina.

7 Do you know what the status of Muslims was in the area of

8 Bijeljina at the time when you were there?

9 A. During the -- during the war, there were some Muslim communities,

10 some Muslims in the town of Bijeljina and some small Muslim communities

11 around Bijeljina which had remained there until -- at least until 1995.

12 Q. Very well. So they remained there under normal living conditions.

13 They were treated in a non-discriminatory fashion. Is that -- does that

14 correspond to your knowledge?

15 A. No. They -- first of all, there were -- there was a constant

16 stream of people from Bijeljina and the Bijeljina area who were being

17 ethnically cleansed. There were some communities -- I remember in

18 particular representatives of one village came to us and said that they

19 were obliged to pay large amounts of money, or at least large by their

20 standards, as a sort of protection racket. If they paid off the local

21 authorities, military and civilian, then they could expect some degree of

22 protection. So there was a residual Muslim minority there, which made it

23 different from other places, you know, such as Visegrad or Rogatica, other

24 places in Eastern Bosnia.

25 But it would be wrong to describe their lives as normal.

1 I should also -- I know you want me to be brief and that's right,

2 but we had a particular problem with Dr. Karadzic's utterances, both in

3 writing and spoken, that there was, in general, a very large variance

4 between what he would say to us and even what he would write and say that

5 he had issued as orders and what actually happened. He would constantly,

6 when we complained about, for example, a cease-fire violation, say, "It's

7 okay. I have given written orders." And he would sometimes even show us

8 the written orders. And then we would see one of the military commanders

9 affected by those orders, and they would say, "Oh, no, we didn't really

10 get them," or, "They certainly weren't carried out and it wasn't

11 Karadzic's real intention that they were carried out." So I would view

12 with some caution his written order, and I wouldn't take it as evidence

13 that whatever he suggested in that letter actually happened.

14 I don't know this particular case and I don't know what the

15 military court was doing, but I would be careful.

16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Harland, if you could tell us who specifically he

17 was who said that -- who didn't get the order from Karadzic or they didn't

18 carry out what was ordered by Karadzic.

19 THE WITNESS: Yes. First of all, I should say that there are a

20 lot of such cases, but one which stays in my mind is during the siege of

21 Gorazde in the spring of 1994 - I suppose it's April 1994 - when we were

22 with Dr. Karadzic in Pale while Serb forces in the field were operating a

23 few dozen kilometres to the east of us. And Dr. Karadzic assured us that

24 he had ordered a halt to the advance of Serb forces and that he had

25 ordered a cease-fire. And when it was reported to General Rose, I

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 remember, at one of these meetings in Pale by his people on the ground

2 that the Serbs were in fact continuing to fire, Dr. Karadzic went and said

3 he was sending -- he repeated the order, and he was sending also a written

4 order.

5 Then later, at the next meeting, we saw General Mladic, and we had

6 already seen him on television in Gorazde, and when we asked him about

7 that, even in the presence of Dr. Karadzic, he laughed about it and said

8 that he was -- he had not received orders that he should not continue to

9 prosecute his attack and that he should do so. And then Dr. Karadzic

10 didn't even say that he hadn't lied, he just came up with a different

11 story. He said, "Well, actually, Lord Owen promised us up to the river in

12 Gorazde." Another fact which he just made up. "And so all we're doing is

13 taking that part of Gorazde which is rightfully ours."

14 And it was so appalling all this business with Karadzic making up

15 facts as convenient, that I was with -- at this time with Vitaly Churkin,

16 who was a representative of the Russian Federation, and he came outside

17 and said, "I give up. I can't negotiate with him any more. I've never

18 heard more lies than I have heard here in the last 48 hours."

19 I could give many such examples.

20 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. In paragraph 18, you refer to a meeting held on the 5th of August

23 at Pale with Briquemont, Hayes and Andreev, and that meeting was held at

24 Karadzic's initiative. Isn't that right, Mr. Harland?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. As this doesn't correspond to your statement that he keeps doing

2 something other than he says, is it true that Karadzic made proposals for

3 the withdrawal of forces of the army of Republika Srpska from Mount Igman

4 and establishing secure routes in and out of Sarajevo and cooperation for

5 the restoration of public utilities? Isn't that right?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Did that indeed happen? Is it true that the army of Republika

8 Srpska withdrew from Igman, et cetera, in accordance with this agreement?

9 Isn't that right?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. He wasn't forced to withdraw, but he did withdraw in agreement

12 with you, that is your commanders, and this area was taken over by the

13 UNPROFOR forces. Isn't that right?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Is it true that on the 14th of August, 1993, upon Karadzic's

16 initiative that I now mentioned, a safe area was established in the

17 territory of Igman and Bjelasnica?

18 A. It was a demilitarised zone, not a safe area, yes. I don't

19 believe it was the initiative of Karadzic.

20 Q. Yes, yes. Demilitarised. It was his initiative, a demilitarised

21 zone. Was a component part of that agreement that the Serbs withdraw from

22 13 checkpoints which were to have been taken over by UNPROFOR and that the

23 Muslim forces could not take over that area? Wasn't that the agreement?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. However, is it true that the Muslims only a month later, without

1 being prevented by UNPROFOR at all, did capture those points though they

2 had been ceded to UNPROFOR? And on that occasion, that is during this

3 offensive and the takeover of points, they killed 37 and wounded 34

4 soldiers of the army of Republika Srpska? Surely you're aware of that.

5 A. I don't know the exact numbers, but it is true that Muslim forces

6 were consistently and over a long period of time and on a substantial

7 scale in violation of the Mount Igman agreement.

8 Q. And in this chronology which you have produced, is there any

9 reference to this event and the cheating by the Muslim side and the

10 passiveness of the UNPROFOR command which did not react to that at all?

11 A. First of all, yes, there are references, principally in the

12 section on 1994, as you will see.

13 I must also object to the idea that UNPROFOR was passive. In

14 fact, you have -- you've illuminated an important point, which is that in

15 general, the Muslims did not want the status quo. They did not want a

16 cease-fire with the lines that existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the

17 time. They opposed a general cease-fire, and when they made a cease-fire,

18 they did often break that cease-fire. And the commander of UNPROFOR

19 forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, General Rose, did argue very

20 vigorously with the Bosnian Muslim leadership, particularly with Dr.

21 Ganic, who he felt was the principal advocate of this policy of violating

22 cease-fire agreements, and he -- he even sought to threaten them with the

23 use of air attacks by NATO forces on occasions if they would not comply.

24 No such airstrikes ever took place and would not have been agreed to by

25 NATO, it was felt, but UNPROFOR was certainly trying to stabilise the

1 situation, and General Rose was very aware of and very concerned by

2 violations from the Muslim side, particularly with respect to this

3 agreement which we're discussing now.

4 Q. And did the UNPROFOR command indirectly enable the Muslims to take

5 control of these points which the Serbs had voluntarily abandoned in the

6 interest of bringing the Muslims back to the negotiating table, that is,

7 in the interest of shifting the events from war to peace negotiations?

8 A. No. UNPROFOR certainly didn't enable them to it -- to do it, and

9 in fact, the Muslim forces made considerable efforts to try and avoid

10 detection by us. I recall sitting with the commander of the French

11 battalion which was responsible for that area and going over with him the

12 night vision photographs taken by intelligence officers, showing some

13 degree of infiltration into the zone by -- by Muslim fighters who were

14 trying to -- trying to avoid detection by us.

15 Q. So you are refuting the statement that you enabled them to do

16 that. But the second part of my question had to do with the reasons for

17 which the Serbs left Igman or ceded Igman. Will you confirm that at

18 least? The aim was to bring the Muslims back to the negotiating table,

19 that they should switch from the tracks of war to the tracks of peace

20 negotiations. Is that part correct at least?

21 A. That is correct, yes.

22 Q. That is the point. In paragraph 22 you referred to the 15th of

23 October and a meeting between Andreev, Briquemont, De Mello, with Karadzic

24 and Krajisnik at Pale. Is it true that at that meeting Karadzic said that

25 he had issued orders to shop the shelling and sniping, but at the same

1 time, he said that artillery and sniper fire from the Muslim side was a

2 major problem? Isn't that right?

3 A. Yes, he said that.

4 Q. Tell me, please, do you have any knowledge that Karadzic did

5 indeed order units of the army of Republika Srpska to stop shelling or

6 sniping or at least to use it only proportionately?

7 A. I see here in paragraph 22 that General Briquemont said that he

8 had seen no evidence of Muslim preparations for an attack on the Serb

9 areas but that the Serb shelling of civilian areas was increasing. And in

10 general, I would say that one of the complications of UNPROFOR's work was

11 that the -- the Muslim authorities did have -- see themselves as having an

12 interest in breaking the cease-fires, if necessary, in order not to allow

13 the confrontation lines to stabilise when they, who were about half of the

14 population of Bosnia, were then only living on 18 per cent of the

15 territory.

16 So they -- that created a problem for us. And a sort of opposite

17 problem for us was that the Serbs had an interest in keeping as much

18 military pressure on the Muslims as possible without actually attracting

19 any negative attention.

20 So in a way, both sides were deceiving us though for rather

21 different reasons.

22 Q. Very well. But if the Serbs favoured a cease-fire, the

23 cease-fire, and I think you'll agree, Mr. Harland, isn't a political

24 solution. A cease-fire enables the sides to seek a settlement through

25 negotiation and not through loss of life. I assume that is what you

1 advocated for, to have the peace fire -- cease-fire observed.

2 A. It is. And the problem we had with the Presidency of Bosnia and

3 Herzegovina was that they felt that if there was a general cease-fire in

4 which the population under their control, about half of the total

5 population of 4 million of the country, if that -- if they were left on 18

6 per cent of the territory of the country and the cease-fire stabilised but

7 there was no successful outcome to the talks, then they would be left in a

8 very difficult position. So we felt that they were publicly saying that

9 they wanted a cease-fire because it's a hard thing to say you don't want,

10 but in fact were often working to undermine those cease-fires.

11 On the other side, the Serbs genuinely did want the situation to

12 stabilise because they had so much territory, but they also wanted to make

13 life as miserable as possible, through shelling and sniping, of the Serb

14 positions -- of Muslim positions, and Dr. Karadzic even told us that

15 directly, that the sniping and the cutting off of the water serves a

16 purpose.

17 So UNPROFOR was in a particularly difficult position between those

18 two parties.

19 Q. Well, when I ask you whether you know if Karadzic ordered the

20 units of the army of Republika Srpska to reduce or stop their operations,

21 I have in mind a document to the Main Staff of the army of Republika

22 Srpska, the command of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps and the commanders of

23 the brigades. That's who it is addressed to, of the Sarajevo-Romanija

24 Corps, which means from the Main Staff down to the corps command and the

25 brigade commands. The date is the 7th of February, 1994, where it states:

1 "There is proof and evidence that on Muslim artillery provocations, the

2 Serb side is responding inadequately, sometimes even 20 to 30 and even 70

3 times more. The international community does not criticise us for

4 responding, but that too much force is being used, and the Muslims are

5 provoking us to use our ammunition without effect. The Muslim side is

6 very skillful in ascribing its artillery shelling in town to us, which

7 causes great damage to us and threatens us the loss of our state."

8 And then it says: "I order strict control in responding to

9 provocations and to respond only when we are under threat ourselves and

10 when there is full military justification for doing so. Respond by

11 targeting only military facilities and respond exclusively pursuant to the

12 commander's orders, and respond in the ratio of one to one with the

13 strength of the provocation used." And then it says in figures, "1-1."

14 "Second, exclude any shelling out of control. Control conduct

15 and sanction misdemeanors urgently and on the basis of the law. For corps

16 artilleries, the corps commander shall be responsible to me directly, and

17 the brigade commander for the brigades. Please inform me immediately of

18 any incidents. The Supreme Commander, Dr. Radovan Karadzic." And the

19 signature is his, the stamp says Republika Srpska, the header is Republika

20 Srpska, the president of the Republic in Sarajevo, and so on.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation]

22 So, Mr. May, I'd like to tender this into evidence.

23 JUDGE MAY: Before you do, the witness can answer or give a

24 comment about it.

25 Have you ever heard of this document, Mr. Harland?

1 THE WITNESS: No, I haven't heard of this document, but -- and I

2 should say Mr. Milosevic has jumped forward a few months in time. We're

3 now at the beginning of 1994, after the Markale shelling. And I should

4 say that the document is almost certainly a true copy, because at that

5 time, the Serbs were very concerned that as a result of the marketplace

6 massacre, NATO might intervene against them, and they did call us to say

7 that they had passed orders of this type. So I think it is almost

8 certainly correct.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, if it could be handed in. Marked for

10 identification.

11 THE REGISTRAR: D213, MFI, Your Honour.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Just a comment on this. It is precisely Karadzic which is

14 indicating this response which isn't in kind and to the same ratio, and he

15 draws the attention of the parties that it should be on a one-to-one ratio

16 and that he is seeking strict control in responding to the provocations,

17 strict supervision of that response. Isn't that right?

18 Now, Mr. Harland, does this coincide and compare with what

19 Karadzic said at the 15th of October meeting, 1993? May we hear your

20 comments on that, please.

21 A. The commitments that the Serbs gave us to a cease-fire in October

22 of 1993 were not observed. They continued their military activity. And

23 we kept a daily record, as I said before, of the shooting which largely

24 confirmed this. They may have passed the order, but the order was not

25 significantly obeyed if it was passed at all.

1 The situation which you have just referred to, however, was very

2 different. By February of 1994, the Serbs did seem genuinely to want a

3 stabilisation of the situation around Sarajevo, and they did stop

4 shooting. And in fact, they did so -- they reduced the amount of fire

5 coming from their side of the confrontation line from February of 1994

6 right through till the autumn of 1994 to a very low level.

7 Q. Practically from the beginning of 1994, in fact, until the end of

8 the autumn of 1994; isn't that right?

9 A. Yes, beginning almost immediately after the so-called Markale

10 incident.

11 Q. We'll come to the Markale incident. But in paragraph 26, you say

12 that in your weekly political assessment of the 3rd of November of 1993,

13 mention that in the forward command post, forward headquarters, there were

14 two Muslim snipers who were active and who even shot at UN staff members

15 and the passersby, and that the 1st Corps, the one holding Sarajevo,

16 claimed that it was individuals that had -- belonging to a man called

17 Caco, this gang of individuals under the command of Caco; is that right?

18 A. Yes, that's what they said.

19 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, may I assist you?

20 It is tab 4.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Just to compare facts, Mr. Harland, this man Caco, was that a

23 nickname for Musan Topalovic who had under his control the left bank of

24 the Miljacka river on the territory of Stari Grad municipality in

25 Sarajevo? Was that who he was?

1 A. Yes, though he was dead by the time of this claim, of course.

2 Q. And do you know that this man Caco, for which the ABiH 1st Command

3 claimed was a renegade, that he was a commander of a Mountain Brigade of

4 the BH army and so at no event could he have been a renegade, in actual

5 fact? Is that correct, Mr. Harland?

6 A. I believe what it -- what it says is that is that the snipers who

7 were acting at this time were -- they reported to us that these were

8 renegade supports of Caco. In other words, the period which is being

9 reported here is the period immediately or some weeks after the death of

10 Caco. Caco was killed by Muslim forces in Sarajevo. And when we were

11 complaining about the activity of Muslim snipers in Sarajevo who appeared

12 to be firing at targets within Sarajevo itself, other Muslims, they -- BH

13 1st Corps, they recognised that these incidents had happened, but they

14 said that this was not part of their policy, this was the act of these

15 so-called renegade supporters of Caco.

16 Q. Yes, supporters of Caco, who was commander of the Mountain Brigade

17 the BH army. So he couldn't have about a renegade at all.

18 And now, do you know that these formations perpetrated mass

19 killings of Serbs in Bisipoto [phoen], Popodija and Kazani on the slopes

20 of Mount Trbevic in Sarajevo? Do you have an awareness of that?

21 A. Yes, and we made some efforts to establish the events surrounding

22 those -- those events.

23 Q. Well, did you establish it?

24 A. Yes. There certainly had been Serbs from Sarajevo killed and

25 their bodies put in the pits of -- of Kazani above Bistrik barracks, and

1 that the people who did it were certainly associated with -- with Caco.

2 Q. And do you know that in a television programme --

3 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the English?

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. -- Alija Izetbegovic referred to Caco as his son? He called him

6 "My son."

7 A. I don't recall that.

8 Q. Well, wasn't it Karadzic at a meeting of the 15th of October who

9 indicated the danger from Muslim sniper fire?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And is it true that General Rose, at a meeting with Ganic, for the

12 umpteenth time indicated the mortar fire that was coming from the Muslim

13 side from a mortar installed on trucks, mortars on trucks, and sniper fire

14 opened by the Muslims at their own people? Isn't that right, Mr. Harland?

15 A. Yes, General Rose did make that protest, and it was our concern

16 that certainly some elements and probably including the leadership of the

17 Bosnian Muslims did not wish to stabilise the situation around Sarajevo,

18 and that was very frustrating for General Rose.

19 Can I just add, though, that concerning the killings of the people

20 at Kazani and Caco's actions, Caco was the commander of -- of a brigade

21 and was very ruthless in the way he dealt with Muslims. He was certainly

22 also a murderer in the way he dealt with Serbs. My sense, however -- I

23 met him, and I met the authorities who dealt with him. My sense was that

24 whatever President Izetbegovic may have said, the Muslim leadership

25 generally considered him dangerous, and ultimately they did kill him on, I

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 think, towards the end of October 1993. So I would not make a line of

2 questioning that suggests that there was a general policy to kill Serbs in

3 Sarajevo. And although the numbers, perhaps several dozen, were shocking,

4 it was really in no way comparable to the crimes that were being committed

5 by the Serbs. And I don't know if it was the intention to make an

6 equation, but that would be a wrong conclusion to draw.

7 Q. So it wasn't the general option. How come so many Serbs were

8 killed in Sarajevo then?

9 A. I think that most Serbs who -- most of the Serbs who were killed

10 within the confrontation lines of Sarajevo were killed by Serb fire coming

11 from outside the confrontation line, either by snipers or by shelling.

12 We kept a rough tally of the number of people killed in Sarajevo

13 by visits to the morgue, by taking reports from family and by our own

14 observations, and our impressions were that although the crimes of Caco

15 were very horrible, they were relatively limited in scope and that most of

16 the Serb casualties in Sarajevo were not caused by actions from the --

17 from the Muslim authorities.

18 Q. All right, Mr. Harland. The killing of Serbs in Sarajevo, do you

19 exclusively link that up to this group of men around Caco or do you allow

20 for the possibility that that was done by many more groups, units, members

21 of the army, the so-called army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, et cetera?

22 A. It was not exclusively done by Caco, though I would -- from the

23 figures that came to us, I would guess that perhaps most of the Serbs

24 killed in Sarajevo by Muslim groups were killed by groups associated with

25 Caco. But there were certainly -- you're correct. There were certainly

1 other Serb victims too, though I hope during this whole line of

2 questioning we are again clear that there is no equation in numbers or

3 even in order of magnitude between what was happening in Sarajevo and what

4 was happening in Serb-controlled territory around it.

5 Q. I don't know why it can't be compared. Perhaps there were a

6 thousand of you there in Sarajevo. But we don't have time for that.

7 Anyway, in your weekly political assessment of the 9th of

8 February, in paragraph 26, you speak about the tragedy that took place at

9 the Markale marketplace, the 5th of February, 1994; is that right? That

10 report.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Well, through force of circumstance that your testimony was

13 interrupted, in fact, and in my material, the documents that I received,

14 along with Lord Owen's testimony, who completed his testimony here

15 yesterday, in those CD-ROM materials there is part of a BBC programme

16 which was attached to Lord Owen's book, and the title is "Jankovi the 30th

17 of October, 1995, BBC Panorama, Peace Without Honour, The Propaganda War,"

18 and it quoted a UN document. So I'm asking you here and now whether you

19 remember that. It was quoted in the document that I was disclosed: "Most

20 immediate code restricted 8th of February, 1994 [In

21 English] From UN Command Sarajevo to UN New York. Judging from the

22 trajectory, experts thought -- experts thought that range is more likely

23 -- that the range is more likely to be under 2.000 metres than 2 to

24 4.000 metres, putting it in Muslim territory rather than Serb."

25 [Interpretation] Tell me now, please, in view of the position you

1 held and this report which I assume you know about, would it be true that

2 there was a lot of information pointing to the fact that that was fired

3 from the Muslim side, in fact?

4 A. Yes, I am familiar with that document, but I am not familiar with

5 the BBC broadcast you refer to.

6 With respect to the first Markale massacre, and I should say that

7 there is controversy surrounding who fired the shell in both the first

8 Markale massacre and the second Markale massacre, but in respect of the

9 first one, which we are discussing now, the UNPROFOR conclusion was that

10 it could not be determined beyond reasonable doubt who had fired the first

11 -- the shell for the first Markale massacre.

12 The report that you have just quoted was a very preliminary report

13 which is, in the normal course of events, followed up by a full ballistic

14 analysis.

15 Now, the more comprehensive report, which followed a couple of

16 days after the one which you have in your hand, concluded in fact that the

17 range from which the mortar was fired, the possible ranges from which the

18 mortar is fired crossed the confrontation line to the north-east of the

19 Markale marketplace. In other words, it was fired from close to the

20 confrontation line, but it was not possible for us to determine whether it

21 was fired from the Muslim side or the Serb side.

22 And in fact, there is -- there is a factual error in the

23 calculations made for the first report which was noted in the fuller

24 report that followed a few days later.

25 Q. So the finale of it was, the conclusion was that nothing can be

1 said with absolute certainty. The first indications showed that it was

2 from the Muslim side, and then the finale of it was that one couldn't make

3 an absolutely correct assertion. Isn't that right, Mr. Harland?

4 A. That is correct, and I should say that that was often the case.

5 For any given shell, it was very difficult for us to say where it came

6 from. Only some shells could it be confirmed with great accuracy where

7 they came from.

8 When we were able to determine, then in almost a hundred per cent

9 of cases we were able to determine that shells landing on the Muslim side

10 of the confrontation line came from the Serb side of the confrontation

11 line. We had mortar detecting radars, which the Serbs tried to destroy.

12 We had military observers who --

13 Q. Mr. Harland, I'm just asking you about this specific instance. So

14 you needn't tell me that there were shells fired from the Serb side. What

15 we're talking about is the Markale marketplace. The first report was that

16 it came from the Muslim side; the final conclusion that nothing definite

17 could be established; and third, that there was a general anti-Serb

18 hysteria that it was the Serbs who actually perpetrated this crime.

19 That's right, isn't it?

20 A. No, that's not right. I must say I have sometimes accused General

21 Rose of things, but I've never accused him of anti-Serb hysteria. On the

22 contrary. I think that --

23 Q. No, that's not what --

24 JUDGE MAY: Let him finish.

25 THE WITNESS: I think that there was -- there was, in a way, in

1 fact, in certain parts of UNPROFOR a certain sympathy with the Serb

2 military, because I think because the Serb military more closely

3 represented a military like that from which they came. So it was

4 certainly not my experience with UNPROFOR that the reporting of UNPROFOR

5 reflected any anti-Serb hysteria. On the contrary; my experience with

6 that reporting was that it went out of the way to give the benefit of the

7 doubt to the Serb side.

8 And in this case, it was determined by engineers who, as far as I

9 remember, had no obvious political views at all, that it could not be

10 determined who fired that shell, and that remains the UNPROFOR position,

11 though I feel it is also fair to put in the context that that was often

12 true, we could not confirm, and in almost a hundred per cent of the cases

13 where we could confirm where a shell came from, landing on the Muslim

14 side, it came from the Serb side.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Mr. Harland, you have made an inversion of theses. I never

17 intimated that General Rose launched an anti-Serb hysteria. I wasn't

18 watching, maybe the translation wasn't quite accurate. On the one hand

19 you had reports that it had come from the Muslim side and then the final

20 conclusion that it was not possible to determine where it had come from.

21 Whereas on the other hand there was a worldwide media propaganda along

22 anti-Serb lines that the crime had been committed by the Serbs. I'm not

23 saying that the source was General Rose. On the contrary; I think that he

24 was quite objective.

25 A. I lost translation. First it got very small and then I lost

1 translation. Okay. Let me try.

2 First of all, I -- I don't believe that the reporting from

3 UNPROFOR was anything other than objective. And from your own reporting,

4 from your own comment from the BBC, they are willing to present a

5 preliminary report which is really very favourable to the Serb view of

6 that event, but they do not, at least as you've described the show, appear

7 to discuss the conclusive report. So I don't think that this media

8 hysteria went as far as the BBC.

9 In fact, I remember quite by coincidence several years later

10 listening to a BBC correspondent, Nick Gowing, who is still a

11 correspondent, a presenter, talking about that incident and saying how it

12 was actually the Muslims who had done that. In fact, he was thereby

13 perpetrating as a fact something which really wasn't known by any of the

14 people who had investigated the incident on the ground.

15 We could -- we wished as much as everybody else that there was a

16 clear answer to the question, but the fact was there was no clear answer

17 to the question. It is still not able to be determined on the basis of

18 the ballistic evidence who fired that shell.

19 Q. Mr. Harland, well, that is the whole point. I'm not saying that

20 you were a source of information, and especially not General Rose. But

21 what I am saying are -- I'm referring to certain coincidences. On the one

22 hand, you were not a source of the information that the Serbs had fired

23 the shell, whereas there was an anti-Serb media hysteria that the crime

24 had been committed by the Serbs. And this programme, which is on a CD

25 together with Lord Owen's book, was broadcast on the 30th of October,

1 1995, so it's much later. And I read out to you from that programme a

2 document that you said you were familiar with and which says that the

3 range was within 2.000 metres and not between 2 and 4.000 metres, which

4 seems to point to the Muslim side.

5 But before that telegram of the 8th of February that I quoted

6 from, there's another telegram that is quoted dated the 6th of February,

7 and it is quoted in the same documents that were attached to Lord Owen's

8 testimony. It is also --

9 JUDGE MAY: I don't know if the witness can follow all this

10 detail. I really don't think we're going to get much further with this.

11 The witness has given you what sounds to be an objective account, that

12 nobody is certain, he says, as they understood it, where the shell came

13 from.

14 Now, going over and over this again with a witness who can't

15 himself say, of course, where the shell came from seems to me -- just a

16 moment -- seems to me to be a waste of time, and we need to move on to

17 some other point.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am moving on to something else,

19 namely the witness said that he was familiar with this dispatch that I

20 quoted from, and now I am asking him about another dispatch that doesn't

21 relate to Markale but was sent on the same time -- at the same time from

22 Zagreb to New York, on the 6th of February, and it refers to a matter of

23 principle.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. And it says: "Care is particularly important -- [In English] Care

1 is particularly important given the fact that UNPROFOR is almost hundred

2 per cent sure that the Bosniaks on at least two occasions during the past

3 18 months have been the origin of shelling that caused casualties in

4 Sarajevo."

5 [Interpretation] Are you familiar with that report? You probably

6 remember it too.

7 A. I believe that was sent from Zagreb, but I am familiar with the

8 assertion and the evidence on which it's based, which came from Sarajevo.

9 Q. And are you familiar that the assertion regarding the massacre in

10 the bread line in Vase Miskina Street on the 27th of May, 1992, that that

11 too was provoked by the Muslims, and for propaganda purposes, and it was

12 successful, because three days later the Security Council adopted

13 Resolution 757 enforcing sanctions against Serbia. Are you aware of that,

14 Mr. Harland?

15 JUDGE MAY: Wait a minute. Let the witness answer these

16 questions. If it's 1992, it sounds as though it may have been before your

17 time, Mr. Harland.

18 THE WITNESS: It was before my time. I'm familiar with the place

19 and with the incident and with the claim by both sides that the other side

20 fired it. But Mr. Milosevic has raised the -- the question of who fired

21 which shell, so if I can just add, to clarify, that about a half a million

22 shells were fired at Sarajevo during the course of the war. Sometimes we

23 were able to determine very exactly where they came from and sometimes we

24 weren't. In nearly a hundred per cent of the cases, that is with the

25 exception of two or three, when we could confirm, we confirmed that they

1 came from the Serb side. And I think that all of our discussion is

2 basically going around that point. Are there some particular shells which

3 are in the grey zone? Yes. Is this one of them? Yes.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Harland, Mr. Harland, Mr. Harland, regarding this bread line

6 about which there is evidence that the shot was fired by the Muslims, and

7 relating to Markale for which there is evidence that the Muslim side fired

8 it, this provoked the worst possible consequences for the Serb side. So

9 it is very difficult --

10 JUDGE MAY: We've been over this point. It's pointless going on.

11 Let's move on to something else. The time is limited. Your time is

12 limited, and the Court's time is limited, and to go over the same argument

13 trying to make the same points and trying to argue the witness into some

14 position or other is a waste of time. Let's move on to something else.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Mr. Harland, do you know that, for example, the London Independent

18 in August, the 22nd of August, a Saturday, published an article entitled

19 "Muslims Slaughter Their Own People"? Are you familiar with that

20 article?

21 JUDGE MAY: It doesn't matter what the London Independent said.

22 It's not a matter for the witness.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But mention is made here of various

24 incidents.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes, there may be, and you can give evidence about it

1 and you can try and put it before the Court, if you want, that the Muslims

2 were killing their own people. You can make your case. But it's

3 pointless going on asking the witness about matters which he's dealt with

4 in evidence as best he can. He's given you the best answer which he can.

5 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I hesitate to interrupt, but of course on

6 these particular issues, the Court will have evidence before it different

7 from the material before the witness and to the extent necessary and

8 possible will be invited to make its conclusions in due course, and that

9 does make this exercise by the accused really unfortunately wasteful.

10 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

11 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Harland, you were going to say something?

12 THE WITNESS: I was going to say, I mean, I can't talk about the

13 Independent, first because I didn't read that article, and second because

14 it referred to a time when I was not there. But I was in Sarajevo for

15 most of the war and was familiar with a large number of cases, and in

16 every case where the firing point could be confirmed for a shell that

17 landed in Sarajevo, in almost every case, it was confirmed as having come

18 from the Serb side. And --

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Yes, we've heard that.

21 JUDGE MAY: No. Let him finish. Yes.

22 THE WITNESS: In all cases which I could speak about - I mean we

23 could go through them one by one at great length - are either certainly

24 fired from the Serb side or it's unclear.

25 This one which we happen to be discussing now is one which is

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 unclear. When we come to Markale 2, I think the case is less unclear.

2 But I think I have nothing to add on this one. It was -- it was unclear.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Particularly in connection with what you are now saying, what was

5 clear and what was unclear, General Rose, in his book, and I will quote

6 very briefly from the book, you were there at the same time: "The Serbs

7 whom we could clearly see in their trenches on the slopes behind us

8 covered with fir trees completely halted a Muslim attack. That is when

9 they used their artillery and mortars to respond to the Muslim fire, whose

10 mortars were distributed all over town and one of them within the Kosevo

11 Hospital compound. The Muslims opened fire at the Serbs, hoping that they

12 would respond with blows on built-up areas which would be another cause

13 for the international community to condemn the Serbs and take their side.

14 The history will be the best judge of the Muslim leaders for resorting for

15 such inhumane tactics."

16 This was written in his book by General Rose. Do you consider him

17 to be telling the truth or are you constantly repeating that the Serbs

18 were shelling Sarajevo? We know that the Serbs were shelling Sarajevo.

19 We condemned the Serb shelling of Sarajevo.

20 JUDGE MAY: You're not here to argue. You're merely here to ask

21 some questions. The accused -- I'm sorry, the witness of course can

22 answer and comment on that passage.

23 THE WITNESS: I think -- I think that is both an accurate

24 statement of General Rose's position at the time as I recall it, and it is

25 certainly also an accurate statement of what was going on, yes.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Very well. Is it true that on the 9th of February, 1994, at a

3 meeting between General Divjak on behalf of the BH army and General

4 Milovanovic on behalf of the army of Republika Srpska, an agreement was

5 reached, a cease-fire, in the territory of Sarajevo?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Is it true that in your weekly report of the 17th of February,

8 number 54, you stated that the Serbs had agreed to withdraw their weaponry

9 from around Sarajevo, that the process of withdrawal would be supervised

10 by the UN, that UNPROFOR exchanged liaison officers with the Serbs, that

11 they speed up the procedure for granting approval for humanitarian

12 convoys, that UNPROFOR appoint its men on key border crossings, that more

13 Muslims leave Sarajevo than ever before, that they allow humanitarian aid

14 to be brought in in a greater measure than before? Is all that correct,

15 Mr. Harland?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. What did the Muslims agree to, Mr. Harland? I've enumerated all

18 the arrangements agreed to by the Serbs. What did the Muslims agree to?

19 A. First of --

20 Q. Please go ahead, Mr. Harland.

21 A. First of all, we use in this courtroom, for convenience, the terms

22 Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, but of course the actual general who was

23 making the agreement on behalf of the army of Republic of Bosnia and

24 Herzegovina was General Divjak who is, of course, not a Muslim, he's a

25 Serb, but I will continue for simplicity's sake to refer, as you do, to

1 Muslims, Serbs, and Croats.

2 The Muslims were bound by the same --

3 Q. Mr. Harland, I was quoting you, to make myself quite clear. I was

4 quoting from your statement.

5 A. It would be a mistake to refer to General Divjak as a Muslim. I

6 hope that my report doesn't do it, and I'm sure it doesn't.

7 Q. No.

8 JUDGE MAY: One at a time. Now, let -- let the witness finish

9 what he was going to say.

10 THE WITNESS: Now, the Muslim side, that is - to avoid confusion

11 because it is General Divjak - the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

12 agreed to the same four points, which was a cease-fire that was meant to

13 start on the 10th of February, the interposition between the two forces of

14 UNPROFOR, the withdrawal of heavy weapons or their -- or for the Muslims

15 their cantonment in certain sites in Sarajevo and the creation of a joint

16 commission to investigate problems. Both sides were bound by the same

17 four points.

18 The difference was that the Serbs were required to withdraw

19 weapons whereas the Muslims had nowhere to withdraw weapons to. So they

20 were required to put them into cantonment facilities in Sarajevo under our

21 control, which they would not have access to.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Mr. Harland, are you familiar with the fact that the Muslim side,

24 in the period from the 28th of March until the 1st of July -- I don't know

25 what's happening with your headphones.

1 A. It's fading away.

2 Q. I see the transcript is working. Maybe it's your headset.

3 So I was saying, do you know that the Muslim side in the period

4 from the 28th of March until the 1st of July, that is over a period of

5 only three months in 1993, violated the cease-fire 196 times, and from the

6 10th of February to the 27th of April, 1994, 318 times they violated the

7 cease-fire?

8 A. I don't recall the exact figures, but that sounds about right.

9 Q. Very well. Are these figures of violations of the cease-fire by

10 the Muslims frightening? 196 times in three months and then later on 318

11 times; doesn't that sound frightening?

12 A. It was certainly very frustrating for our commander, General Rose,

13 who was trying to stabilise the situation. And the Muslims certainly

14 understood that when they fired out, whether they -- of the city, that

15 would provoke a large Serb coming -- incoming fire, which would make

16 normal life in the city impossible. So, yes, it was very -- it was very

17 disturbing for us.

18 Q. Did you have the figures how many soldiers of the army of

19 Republika Srpska were killed as a result of that fire or wounded seriously

20 or lightly? Did you have any such figures and did you review them, take

21 them into consideration?

22 A. In general, we had almost no independent source of information on

23 what was happening in Republika Srpska. The Serbs very often complained

24 to us that they were not treated fairly in the media, and we proposed to

25 them that they just allow journalists to move freely on their territories

1 and that they allow us to move freely on their territories so we could see

2 these incidents, these alleged incidents in which bad things happened.

3 However, they did not do that. Presumably they had their own other

4 reasons for not wanting us to see what was going on, and so we were simply

5 left in the position of having to report information which they gave us,

6 which, when we could verify it, often turned out to be false.

7 I don't say that the other sides did not also produce false

8 information, but the advantage of working on the Muslim side is we could

9 basically go wherever we wanted to, right up to the trench lines. So we

10 were able to double-check what the Muslims claimed was happening, and we

11 did so very aggressively, to their frustration. We were not able to do

12 that on the Serb side. So I can't tell you much about how many Serbs,

13 military or civilian, might have been killed by these cease-fire

14 violations, but obviously, yes, there would have been some.

15 Q. You say that you were not able to establish how many Serbs were

16 killed, but you were present at the spot from which the fire was fired.

17 So you know, for instance, how many shells were fired by the Muslims from

18 their positions and artillery at Dobrinja, Lukavica, Rajlovac, Vogosca,

19 Ilidza, Nedzarica, Mrkovici, Ilijas, Hadzici. So all these places and

20 settlements and small towns which were held by the Serbs, you were able to

21 establish that as you were in the location from which the fire was coming.

22 So you must have very clear records of that. Did you have such records?

23 A. Yes. I think we had a record probably of every shell fired.

24 Q. How, then, is it possible that there is nothing about that in your

25 report? I have listed ten parts or areas around Sarajevo - Grbavica,

1 Dobrinja, Lukavica, Vojkovice, Rajlovac, Ilidza, Nedzarici, Mrkovici,

2 Ilijas and Hadzici. How is it possible that there is no reference to any

3 of that in your report and statement? And it wasn't one shell that was

4 fired at each of these places or these parts of the town where the Serbs

5 were. How would you explain that, Mr. Harland?

6 A. Well, as you can see, the documents which you are quoting from are

7 weekly political assessments. There were also what we called Daily

8 SitReps, sort for situation reports, and there was a military observer

9 called "Shoot Reports," that is, they were counts of how many weapons were

10 fired and of what sort and by which side. There was rather full

11 reporting. And our general conclusions were that there were casualties

12 from these violations of the cease-fire that you're talking about. In the

13 global sense, about 90 per cent of -- we estimated about 90 per cent of

14 the civilians killed around the Sarajevo area were killed within the

15 confrontation line, that is, they were killed on the Muslim side of the

16 line. That might have included Muslims and Serbs and Croats, but about 90

17 per cent of the casualties were inside the confrontation line.

18 But I would certainly accept that firing out of the city,

19 including these violations you've mentioned, could have killed up to about

20 10 per cent of the total casualties from the conflict around Sarajevo from

21 the evidence given to us by Serb hospitals, from the Ministry of Health

22 and so on.

23 Q. Very well. You say you were issuing weekly assessments. Are you

24 familiar with Radovan Karadzic's order of the 2nd of July, 1994, that

25 Yasushi Akashi should be daily briefed about the violations of the

1 cease-fire because the disturbing figures of those violations were

2 absolutely unacceptable. And it says here, "I order that Akashi should be

3 briefed directly on a daily basis on all Muslim violations of the

4 cease-fire and occasionally make public statements." So not regularly

5 make it public but inform Akashi on a daily basis. And when Akashi is

6 mentioned, it is because he is at the top of the UN pyramid. So the

7 reference is to your entire structure. So you had daily reports on

8 cease-fire violations, didn't you, Mr. Harland?

9 A. Not every day, but most days, they did. It was part of a Serb

10 effort to -- to get what they felt would be greater balance in the media.

11 But it was all rather undone by the fact that they would not allow us

12 access to what was actually going on or allow access to the journalists.

13 Their press person who did the briefing was very able, Dr. Zametica, a

14 very clever man, but even he recognised that they were not likely to get

15 more positive coverage until the journalists could go and see for

16 themselves, otherwise, people would tend to discount it, because

17 unfortunately, all three sides were rather given to -- to lying.

18 JUDGE MAY: That's a convenient moment. We will adjourn now.

19 Twenty minutes.

20 --- Recess taken at 12.16 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 12.40 p.m.

22 JUDGE MAY: You have 40 minutes left, Mr. Milosevic, which will

23 give about ten minutes each to the amicus and the Prosecution should they

24 want it.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'll try and be as short as

1 possible to enable Mr. Tapuskovic to have some time for his questions.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. But I should like to ask you, Mr. Harland, also to be as concise

4 as possible. Your answers tend to be quite lengthy.

5 Is it true that on the 9th of April a meeting was held between

6 General Rose, Andreev, Victor Jakovich, US ambassador to the BH, and

7 American envoy Charles Redman and then Rasim Delic and Vahid Karavelic on

8 behalf of the BH army and Mladic, Gvero, Tolimir on behalf of the army of

9 Republika Srpska? And you refer to that in paragraph 36 of your

10 statement.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Is also true that on the occasion Mladic tabled a draft agreement

13 which was very similar to that tabled by the UN?

14 A. It may well have been, yes.

15 Q. And is it true that Delic agreed to sign just a part of the

16 agreement, whereas Mladic came out in support of a cessation to

17 hostilities, a complete cessation to hostilities on all fronts? And that

18 was the only difference, in fact, between the proposals?

19 A. Yes, I believe that's correct.

20 Q. Is it also true that there was a lull during which Redman, the US

21 envoy, left the meeting, that there was a break for him to consult with

22 Izetbegovic?

23 A. I don't recall.

24 Q. In his book, General Rose says about this that, "Redman went to

25 see Izetbegovic and said Izetbegovic's office, that information trickled

1 that Redman secretly advises Izetbegovic to change his mind because if the

2 war were to be stopped when the Serbs held 70 per cent of the territory,

3 it would be impossible to establish peace." Was that the explanation?

4 A. That was one of the main Muslim objections to the cease-fire, and

5 it was the main motivation, presumably, for violating the cease-fires when

6 they were made, yes.

7 Q. Well, wouldn't a cease-fire enable matters to be resolved without

8 bloodshed, through negotiation, rather than having a loss of lives?

9 A. Yes. That was one view. There was also a view, not just held by

10 the Muslims, that it would be very difficult to secure a Serb withdrawal

11 from large amounts of territory which they held, and that for there to be

12 an agreement, they would have to first be pushed off the land, and that's,

13 of course, what ultimately happened. The Dayton Agreement agreed on a

14 51/49 per cent division of the country, but they didn't begin negotiating

15 until the battlefield had already produced a result that was roughly 51

16 per cent to 49. So there was a view that the cease-fire would not lead to

17 peace if there was a gross imbalance in the territories held by either

18 side.

19 Q. On the contrary. It was part of the peace plans, and many Serbs

20 accepted that, and it could be seen that the territory was far smaller

21 than that 70 per cent in several of the plans, in fact, accepted by the

22 Serbs before the war, up to the European Union plan which spoke about a

23 completely different demarcation, delineation. Do you remember that?

24 A. Yes, I think that's right. Though I think there was a large

25 question in the minds of many as to whether or not those agreements could

1 be implemented if the Serbs were actually sitting on those large

2 territories with their armed forces. And Dr. Karadzic, in fact, did make

3 statements to that effect, that we would have trouble - and Mr. Krajisnik

4 - we would find it impossible to evacuate territories, as they put it,

5 that had to be ceded to the other side in case of these agreements even if

6 we signed them. That's what they told us.

7 Q. Well, they offered having the territories -- territories for

8 peace. It was the subject of all negotiations conducted in Geneva between

9 the three parties led by Karadzic, Boban, and Izetbegovic. I assume you

10 remember that.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. In paragraph 37, you mention your assessment of the 16th of April,

13 weekly political assessment, and you say that, "At about 1500 hours

14 yesterday, Bosnian lines to the north of Gorazde suddenly collapsed." Is

15 that right?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. So Gorazde was not in fact a demilitarised zone and in that sense

18 where armed installations were prohibited within a circumference of three

19 kilometres, radius of three kilometres.

20 A. No.

21 Q. Therefore, they did have the right within that protected area to

22 have all the weapons they wanted to. Isn't that right, Mr. Harland? Is

23 that your explanation of it?

24 A. Under Security Council Resolution 824, I believe that it called

25 upon all parties other than those of the government of the Republic of

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Bosnia and Herzegovina to withdraw to a distance from which they ceased to

2 be a threat to the safe areas. So we considered that the forces held by

3 the army of Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Gorazde were there

4 legitimately, though we did try to enter into demilitarisation agreements.

5 Q. So you just attempted an agreement on demilitarisation, but it was

6 never actually reached or drawn up; right?

7 A. For Gorazde, not until after the Serb offensive in the spring of

8 1994; that's correct.

9 Q. And is it contested that the refusal to sign the peace agreement

10 of the 9th of April and the attack of Muslim forces on Gorazde at Serb

11 positions represented a synchronised activity which should set the war

12 machinery into operation.

13 A. That was the Serb position. I'm not sure now whether we were in a

14 position to confirm that.

15 Q. Very well. If you cannot confirm that, let's move on. And tell

16 me this, please: Is it true that on the 14th of August, 1994, at Sarajevo

17 airport an anti-sniper agreement was signed?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And when we're talking about sniping, look at paragraph 105 of

20 your statement and tell me is it true that Muslim snipers targeted

21 civilians more than the Serbs did?

22 A. As I said before, the Serbs did not allow us direct access to

23 their side for most of the conflict, so -- or for much of the conflict, so

24 sometimes we were having to take their word for it. But for the conflict

25 as a whole, over 90 per cent of the sniper casualties were on the Muslim

1 side.

2 If we're talking specifically about this period in the late summer

3 of 1994, sniping was at a low -- generally a low level, and I believe that

4 the agreement here was -- was violated by the Muslim side on a number of

5 occasions.

6 Q. You say in paragraph 105: "Both sides targeted civilians, and

7 when we could monitor sniper activity in Grbavica, it would appear that

8 the Muslims were sniping more civilians than the Serbs." That's what you

9 say in your own statement.

10 A. Yes. I think that is referring to this period in the late summer

11 of 1994. Yes.

12 Q. All right. Now, do you know about, or if not did the investigator

13 Todd Cleaver indicate a document that is in his possession or, rather, Mr.

14 Nice's side, and it is an order to the 3rd Motorised Brigade of the BH

15 army with respect to more effective use of snipers, and it is date the 5th

16 of March, 1993, the number is 23/1-82, signed by Esad Paldum, and it says

17 that "The use of snipers should be planned and organised and under the

18 control and supervision of battalion commanders." And it is attachment 5

19 in 2560308. The document number is 166. Are you familiar with that?

20 A. No.

21 Q. In paragraph 41, you say that the anti-sniper agreement functioned

22 quite well for a time but there was some difficulty with command and

23 control that the warring parties had over their snipers; is that right?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Now, this document that I've just quoted to you and which I was

1 disclosed here on -- in CD-ROM form, I assume we can see that from the

2 document of the 3rd Motorised Brigade there was suspicions and doubts as

3 to who was being -- who was in control and there was no control and

4 monitoring over the use of snipers, in fact.

5 A. Yes. That would be consistent with what we knew. In general, we

6 felt that command and control was better on the Serb side than on the

7 Muslim side, in general.

8 Q. Well, I'm indicating quite the opposite document that that other

9 side has over there, which speaks about control on the Muslim side with

10 respect to the Motorised Brigade of BH.

11 A. Yes. I haven't seen that document, but I'm -- it sounds a very

12 plausible document.

13 Q. In paragraph 52, you speak of General Rose's meeting with Karadzic

14 on the 1st of December, 1994, at Pale, and that was linked to the

15 deterioration of relations between UNPROFOR and the Bosnian Serbs with

16 respect to the captivity of UN members; is that right?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Well, do you know that it was precisely Serbia and I myself who

19 intervened to effect the urgent freeing of those men and to have them

20 returned? Do you know about that, Mr. Harland?

21 A. I don't recall, but there were several occasions on which the

22 UNPROFOR leadership, particularly Mr. Akashi, would try to use the

23 influence that you exercised over the Bosnian Serb party to bring about a

24 result, and on a number of occasions from Gorazde right through to the

25 fall of Zepa, anyway, and the Dayton Agreement, that was something, it

1 seems, that you were able to do.

2 Q. Well, we're not challenging the fact that I used all my influence

3 to stop the war. I don't think that can be disputed at all. However, let

4 me just find this next portion.

5 General Rose, in his book, writes the following to the Assistant

6 State Secretary Richard Holbrooke on the fourth visit of Bosnia to see the

7 progress that was being made by the United Nations. He said to Andrew

8 Ridgway that he didn't like meetings and that he would raise the question

9 with respect to Central Bosnia and the consequence of the sanctions on

10 importing weapons, et cetera, et cetera. Andrew explained to him --

11 "Andrew explained to him that the Muslim army was responsible for the

12 largest number of violations of the cease-fire in Western Bosnia and that

13 lifting the bans on arms import would fan the flames of war and split the

14 federation once again." Do you know about that?

15 A. Yes. That was a view also strongly held by General Rose.

16 Q. I assume that you don't doubt General Rose's objectivity.

17 A. I believe that he -- he was very honestly committed to a -- to an

18 approach to the war, and he was very frustrated when events conspired to

19 make it difficult for him to pursue that result. I think that in general

20 in pursuit of that strategy, he was very objective and very -- very

21 effective commander, but there were -- there were some points, as I guess

22 there always are, of disagreement between him and those around him.

23 Q. But for the most part, based on the fact that he tried to be -- he

24 tried to be objective and stop the war, would that be your impression, the

25 general impression, because you were one of the people around him?

1 A. Yes, certainly. He was very committed to stabilising the military

2 situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to allow humanitarian aid to flow, and to

3 allow time for peace negotiations to reach an effective conclusion. That

4 was his approach. I believe that it may have been mistaken, but I think

5 that was his objective pursuit.

6 Q. All right. And is it true that the fragile truce in Sarajevo was

7 upset once again by the Muslim side with a mortar attack on the 18th of

8 September, 1994, at -- targeting positions of Bosnian Serbs in Eastern

9 Sarajevo? And General Rose says, "Already on the 18th of September all

10 our efforts to establish trust and confidence to continue the peace

11 process were toppled. Along with support from mortars, the Muslim army

12 moved ahead in a large-scale artillery attack on Serb positions in Eastern

13 Sarajevo. I returned from Brussels two days earlier, and today with

14 Viktor spent the day in Pale."

15 A. Yes. I don't have the book in front of me, but that sounds right.

16 It accords with what I remember.

17 Q. And then he goes on to speak of other things after that, the fact

18 that they opened fire, the Muslims opened fire targeting the Serbs in the

19 hope that the latter would respond with attacks in built-up areas which

20 would be a cause for the international community to condemn and blame the

21 Serbs. I assume you remember that.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Is it true that NATO, on the 30th of August, 1995, once again

24 launched an air attack on the positions of Bosnian Serbs around Sarajevo?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. I should like now to draw your attention to another document.

2 Mr. Akashi and myself - and I assume you're aware of that - endeavoured to

3 find or arrive at an initiative, rather, to have the conflict stopped, and

4 you say, "Finally Smith showed me a copy of the letter, and he emphasised

5 that this initiative was borne during talks between Akashi and President

6 Milosevic." And that was our joint initiative to do three things; to stop

7 the attack on the Bihac-Gorazde-Sarajevo and Tuzla safe area