WELCOME TO IWPRS TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 530, December 14, 2007 DEL PONTE SLAMS SERBIA IN LAST REPORT TO UN Chief prosecutor pulls no punches in her assessment of Belgrades cooperation with the tribunal. By Oliver Bullough in London
CHIEF PROSECUTOR PLEADS FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Del Ponte tells her farewell press conference that prosecutors cannot function without international support. By Simon Jennings in The Hague COURTSIDE: SARAJEVO SIEGE GENERAL GETS 33 YEARS Bosnian Serb general whose troops besieged the city receives one of the toughest sentences issued by the tribunal. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo CROATIAN COURT HEARS OF CHILLING ORDER Protected witness said she heard soldiers say they had been ordered to kill all the inhabitants of her village. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** NEW PUBLICATION: SYRIA PRESS MONITOR. Weekly round-up of news and opinion from the Syrian national and diaspora press. 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For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** DEL PONTE SLAMS SERBIA IN LAST REPORT TO UN Chief prosecutor pulls no punches in her assessment of Belgrades cooperation with the tribunal. By Oliver Bullough in London Carla Del Ponte accused Serbian officials of willful obstruction and told world powers they lacked the will to arrest fugitives from justice, in her last statement as chief prosecutor of the Hague tribunal. Del Ponte has repeatedly thought the captures of Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Ratko Mladic and Radavan Karadzic were imminent, but leaves office after eight years with them still at large. Despite the Serbian authorities' declared commitment to fully cooperate with my office and improved procedures, there is no clear roadmap, no clear plan in the search for fugitives, no serious leads and no sign that serious efforts have been taken to arrest the fugitives, she said in her last report to the United Nations Security Council on December 10. This is a job that requires the full commitment of the State and of all of its relevant institutions. Unfortunately, we have seen that level of commitment only in words, not in deeds In short, there is no full cooperation with my office. She said Serbian security organs failed to cooperate with the Hague tribunal, or with each other, and she even accused officials of willful obstruction. Full cooperation would be shown only with the arrest and transfer of Mladic, who is accused of orchestrating the genocide of Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995. I urge the international community to seriously address this issue. I ask in particular the European Union Member States and the European Union's Commission to maintain their principled position by insisting on Serbia's full cooperation with the International Tribunal as a condition in the EU pre-accession and accession process, she said. The tribunals president, Judge Fausto Pocar, also addressed the UN Security Council this week and pleaded with it to let the court remain open until all fugitives are caught and tried. The Hague tribunal is due to shut down by 2010, even if four high-profile suspects remain at large. The tribunal should not close its doors before these fugitives are arrested and tried. I urge the Security Council to make it clear that the trial of these fugitives by the international community does not hinge upon the tribunal's proposed completion strategy dates, President Pocar said in his December 10 speech. He said the tribunal had improved efficiency and sped up its own operations, while helping courts in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia conduct cases. Courts in the three countries were now trying 13 suspects handed over by the tribunal, but were still under-resourced. There is a desperate need to ensure adequate detention facilities for remand and convicted accused. Much also remains to be achieved in the training of police and prison officers on due process and human rights standards, he said. He asked council states to assure money was made available to the tribunal to pay full pensions to its staff, some of whom where having to leave to get pensions in their home countries. If the tribunal failed to retain its judges, then it would struggle to get its work done on schedule, he said. Oliver Bullough is an IWPR editor. CHIEF PROSECUTOR PLEADS FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Del Ponte tells her farewell press conference that prosecutors cannot function without international support. By Simon Jennings in The Hague Carla Del Ponte, pleased but frustrated after eight years as chief prosecutor for war crimes in The Hague, said this week that international cooperation is key to catching the last fugitives from justice. International prosecutors cannot function without the support of states, without political support. We depend on their good will, Del Ponte told reporters at her final press conference before she stands down at the end of the month. Despite having taken 91 war crimes suspects into custody during her tenure, former Bosnian Serb leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic have eluded her grasp. Both men are charged with genocide in Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosniak civilians were killed by Serb forces in July 1995. The fact that Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are still at large is a stain on our work, said Del Ponte. The tribunal has achieved some important landmarks since she took up her post in September 1999. The court recognised the massacre at Srebrenica as genocide, and ruled that the siege of Sarajevo was a war crime. But Del Ponte feels she lacked the full support of the international community in bringing individuals to justice. And without such support she feels Karadzic and Mladic will never face trial for their crimes. It is extremely important that the European Union put political pressure on Belgrade to arrest [them], she said. Brussels has linked potential Serbian membership of the EU to Belgrades continuing cooperation with the war crimes court: a policy it calls conditionality. I hope that the European Union will continue to support this institution and maintain its conditionality until that happens. The tribunal must not close its doors before all remaining fugitives are brought to justice. However, Del Ponte confirmed that her office was making preparations with war crimes prosecutors in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia for their judiciaries to be able to conduct trials of war crimes suspects. The most important result of all of this is that no one who has committed crimes should sleep peacefully, she said. Del Ponte said there were other lessons that could also be learnt from her time in The Hague. She advocated that the cross examination of victims be abolished on compassionate grounds and that the process of presenting evidence be speeded up by initially presenting it in written or visual form. The departing prosecutor concluded by paying tribute to the victims of the crimes heard at the tribunal. When we met with them we got the necessary energy and power to continue this work, she said. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. COURTSIDE: SARAJEVO SIEGE GENERAL GETS 33 YEARS Bosnian Serb general whose troops besieged the city receives one of the toughest sentences issued by the tribunal. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo The Hague tribunal this week handed down one of its toughest sentences so far, ruling that a former Bosnian Serb army general should serve 33 years in jail for his role in the last 15 months of the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo. Dragan Milosevic was found guilty of crimes against humanity and of a violation of the laws or customs of war. He was convicted on five counts of terror, murder and inhumane acts conducted during a campaign of sniping and shelling which resulted in the injury and death of a great number of civilians in the besieged Bosnian capital. Two counts of unlawful attacks against civilians were dismissed. At the time relevant to the indictment, Milosevic was a commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, SRK, of the Bosnian Serb army which besieged Sarajevo over a 15-month period, up to the end of the conflict in November 1995. Milosevic, 65, took up this post in August 1994. His predecessor, former Bosnian Serb army general Stanslav Galic, is currently serving life imprisonment for his role in the 1992-95 siege of the Bosnian capital. More than 10,000 people were killed in the Bosniak-held part of Sarajevo in fighting and sniper attacks during the siege. Thousands more lived in unbearable conditions, without any electricity, and with scarce food and water supplies. Some witnesses compared the siege of Sarajevo to the siege of Leningrad during World War Two. "The evidence discloses a horrific tale of the encirclement and entrapment of a city," said Judge Patrick Robinson in the summary of the judgment read out on December 11. "There was no safe place in Sarajevo, one could be killed or injured anywhere and anytime." The trial chamber also found that it was under Miloevics command of the SRK that modified air bombs were deployed, noting that these were inaccurate and served no military purpose. Each time a modified air bomb was launched [Milosevic] was playing with the lives of the civilians in Sarajevo, concluded the judges. According to the trial chamber, the effects of those air bombs were overwhelming, in terms of injuries, deaths, destruction and the psychological impact on the civilian population. Reading the judgment, Judge Robinson said that while the evidence shows that there were lulls in fighting between the armies and in the shelling of the city, it also shows that there was always a constant level of sniping. As one of the most horrendous incidents that took place during the time when Milosevic commanded the SRK, the judges highlighted the Markale Market massacre of August 28, 1995, which killed 34 civilians and wounded 78. In the summary of the judgment, they said that one of the police officers who investigated the incident described what he saw as "the last, deepest circle of Dante's hell". The trial chamber found that the market was shelled by the SRK, rejecting the defences argument that the massacre was staged by the Bosnian army, in order to attract the international attention and provoke NATO bombing of Serb positions around Sarajevo. As commander of the SRK, Miloevic held a tight chain of command ensuring that he was kept abreast of the activities of his units, said the judges. They pointed out one particular order issued by Miloevic on April 6, 1995 in which he instructed one of the brigades under his command to immediately prepare a launcher with an aerial bomb and transport the bomb for launching The most profitable target must be selected in [Sarajevo suburbs], where the greatest casualties and material damage would be inflicted. The trial chamber said that Miloevic made regular use of a highly inaccurate weapon with great explosive power: the modified air bomb. The court said it is clear from the evidence that the SRK knew well that these weapons were indiscriminate and inaccurate, and that they could only be directed at a general area, making it impossible to predict where they would strike. The president of the Federal Commission on Missing Persons Amor Masovic says this judgment is important because it finally puts an end on Serb allegations that the 1995 Markale massacre was staged by the Bosnian army. Merdijana Sadovic is IWPRs Hague tribunal programme manager. CROATIAN COURT HEARS OF CHILLING ORDER Protected witness said she heard soldiers say they had been ordered to kill all the inhabitants of her village. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb A woman told a war crimes trial in Zagreb this week how she overheard Croat soldiers, who were rampaging through her village, say not even a cat should remain alive. Giving testimony at the trial of two Croat generals, Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac, witness number 19, whose identity is kept secret for her own protection, said her 74-year-old aunt, who was deaf and blind, was murdered by the soldiers. She herself said she hid in some bushes. Shoot, you know that [Janko] Bobetko (the then head of the Croatian army command) and Ademi ordered that not even a cat should remain alive, one soldier told another, according to her testimony. Ademi and Norac are accused of having responsibility for the troops who pushed through the Medak Pocket, a small salient of Serb-held territory in Croatia, in 1993. It is alleged that Ademi, who was acting commander of the Gospic Military District, played a central role in planning, ordering and executing the operation on September 9-17, 1993. Norac was commander of the 9th Guards Motorised Brigade - the main unit involved and held the rank of colonel. According to the indictment, at least 29 local Serb civilians were killed and dozens seriously injured during this operation. The indictment also alleges that Croatian forces killed at least five Serb soldiers who had been captured or wounded. Witness number 19 said the murder of her aunt had been ordered by a soldier called Dragan, one of around ten soldiers who attacked the village in green uniforms and helmets. The presiding judge Marin Mrcela warned her that she had not implicated Ademi when talking to war crimes investigators in 1999, only Bobetko. The devil knows, perhaps I did not. It was enough for me that Bobetko made that order. They were by the way in Gospic and were only ordering poor people to kill and plunder, she said. She said the looting and arson began only after the Croatian soldiers were ordered to retreat, under pressure from the United Nations peacekeeping troops UNPROFOR. She said UNPROFOR had called her in to identify the bodies of two killed Serb neighbours, Andja and Miro Jovic. Noracs defence objected to her testimony, calling it superficial and contradictory. She was followed by the testimony of Witness number 18, who is also from the village of Citluk, and who said not one shot was fired from the village at the Croatian soldiers. This was in contradiction to the defence team, which says Citluk was a launchpad for attacks on Gospic and other regional centres. The witness said no one who surrendered to the Croatians remained alive. The next day, on December 11, the court saw photographs showing partially-burned bodies in basements and some mutilated and disintegrated bodies. The photographs were taken by UNPROFOR after the action and show people in both civilian and military clothing among the dead. The photographs also showed destroyed and burned houses. Croatian forces systematically destroyed built objects during their delayed retreat. Houses were still burning when UNPROFOR entered for the first time in some areas; some corpses were still burning .the Croatian Army conducted a full-scale scorched earth policy, according to the UNPROFOR report prepared at the time, as read out by Judge Marin Mrcela. Noracs defence objected to UNPROFORs report because it didnt match the real situation. The rest of the week featured defence witnesses, who related that the Croatian military followed the international conventions of war laid out in the Geneva conventions. Miodrag Hecimovic, former commander of the 3rd battalion of Noracs brigade, said that he had only heard about the crimes in the Medak Pocket from the media. He described Ademi and Norac as two men who punished anyone who did something wrong. Hecimovic denied the existence of Sector one which, according to the indictment, was commanded by Norac. However, he confirmed that Norac had an isolated command centre in Bilaj where commanders briefed him after the operation and confirmed that everything was okay on the ground. The trial continues next week. WITNESS CLAIMS SESELJ WHIPPED UP XENOPHOBIC NATIONALISM Sociology professor says Serbian hardliner glorified Serb nation and exploited victimhood to morally justify collective violence. By Simon Jennings in The Hague A witness at the war crimes trial of a Serbian ultra-nationalist leader described this week how Vojislav Seselj deliberately whipped up Serbs fears to create xenophobic nationalism. Seselj made hundreds of speeches, broadcasts and appearances during the early 1990s, and witness Anthony Oberschall analysed more than 400 transcripts to build up a picture of his approach. The solutions he proposes admit of no compromise, said Oberschall, a professor of sociology at the University of Carolina. Seselj is charged by the Hague tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, extermination, murder and torture carried out in Croatia, Bosnia and northern Serbia between 1991 and 1993. He is charged with conspiring with late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to effect the permanent forcible removal of a majority of the Croat, Muslim and other non-Serb populations and with participating in a war of hatred against non-Serb people. In proceedings punctuated by incessant objections from the accused, who is the president of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, and is representing himself, Oberschall explained how Seselj used political discourse to spread nationalist propaganda without regard for truth or accuracy. The witness said Seselj exploited victimhood and glorified the Serb nation to morally justify collective violence. According to Oberschall, Seselj depicted Serbs as victims of crimes committed in the past by national minorities which again posed a threat that needed to be eliminated. As revealed in video clips of the SRS leader played by the prosecution, Seselj said the then-Croatian president Franjo Tudman posed a threat against the Serb population and suggested there could be a repeat of mass murders of Serbs which took place during the Second World War. The most important stimulus is a threat stimulus. This will raise the fear of the audience. People will then back action to remove the threat, said Oberschall. To demonstrate the impact of Seseljs political rhetoric the prosecution played a video tape of an SRS volunteer boarding a bus in Belgrade to go to the frontline. When I watch TV and see whats going on I want to help and its worth sacrificing my life, said the volunteer. During cross examination, Seselj sought to undermine Oberschalls credentials as an expert witness. He first tried to show that his knowledge of physics, which he studied before turning to sociology, was limited, by asking him factual questions about the subject. He then claimed the witnesss report was incomplete because he had not read some of Seseljs books, which he said proved that the popes of Rome are the main criminals and culprits for the war in former Yugoslavia. Oberschall said he did not read such science fiction and that the texts were not relevant to his expert analysis. Seselj responded, in one of several speeches rather than by conventional questioning, that the witness was burdened with stereotypes and that they were worlds apart. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** TRIBUNAL UPDATE, the publication arm of IWPR's International Justice Project, produced since 1996, details the events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, at The Hague. These weekly reports, produced by IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution process. The opinions expressed in Tribunal Update are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. Tribunal Update is supported by the European Commission, the Dutch Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges general support from the Ford Foundation. TRIBUNAL UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior Editor: John MacLeod; International Justice Senior Editor: Merdijana Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others; Project Director: Duncan Furey. IWPR Project Development and Support: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy & Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** IWPR builds democracy at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of professional journalism. 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