WELCOME TO IWPRS TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 531, December 21, 2007 CARLA DEL PONTE: SUCCESSFUL YET FLAWED Critics say more suspects could have been indicted under the chief prosecutors watch, but others argue her persistence kept war crimes issue high on the international agenda. By IWPR and RFE staff in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Belgrade, Zagreb and The Hague
CHIEF PROSECUTOR ON THE RECORD Del Ponte speaks to IWPR about the challenges and successes of her term in office. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo COURTSIDE DELIC UNDER HOUSE ARREST AFTER VIOLATING TRIBUNAL RULES Bosnian generals provisional release almost ended due to disregard for tribunal conditions. By Simon Jennings in London DEFENCE CLAIMS GENERALS WERE NOT IN COMMAND IN MEDAK OPERATION Witness claims the generals formally in charge of a Croatian operation against Serb forces were bypassed by the real command structure. 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 ******************************************************************** CARLA DEL PONTE: SUCCESSFUL YET FLAWED Critics say more suspects could have been indicted under the chief prosecutors watch, but others argue her persistence kept war crimes issue high on the international agenda. By IWPR and RFE staff in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Belgrade, Zagreb and The Hague Although Carla Del Ponte, the outgoing chief prosecutor at the Yugoslav tribunal, is justifiably proud that during her eight-year tenure, her team of prosecutors has succeeded in convicting dozens of Balkans war criminals, critics say she has let too many officials through the net who might have been found guilty. They say that under her watch, prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, failed to secure a speedy conviction against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, neglected to indict his suspected accomplices and were unable to bring high-profile suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to the dock. Since coming to office, Del Ponte has maintained relentless pressure on the countries of the region to surrender fugitives and her team has brought a total of 91 suspects into custody. Refik Hodzic, spokesman for the tribunal in Bosnia, credits her persistence for these successes. I am not sure that we would have otherwise been able to have all these trials at the Hague tribunal, which are of great importance because of the facts that have come up during the proceedings, he said. It is easy to forget quite how much the ICTY has achieved since Del Ponte took the job in 1999. The prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, that rape was used as an instrument of terror and should be considered a crime against humanity and that the crimes against civilians during the siege of Sarajevo merit the highest sentence, she herself said, when asked to list her main accomplishments. However, critics wonder whether the ICTY wont be remembered more for the ones that got away. Many believe Del Pontes dogged pursuit of Milosevic meant that other officials who controlled Serbia during the Balkan wars of the Nineties escaped charges. When the former president died in March 2006, four years into a long, overly complex trial, victims of the conflict were left bitterly disappointed. I think that as a manager of prosecutors and as a manager of the prosecutorial process, by any measure she has been terrible, said American historian Robert Donia. She tried to focus exclusively on the Milosevic case and tried to divide that amongst three teams who did not coordinate their efforts all that well, and so deprived not only the trial chamber but the general public of a holistic view of Milosevics intentions and actions as a leader of former Yugoslavia. This criticism was echoed by director of the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Centre Mirsad Tokaca. He said that while other prosecutors who came before her were also to blame, the fact that other Serbian top officials around Milosevic who were in power when Yugoslavia fell apart were not indicted is a huge failure for the prosecution, and Carla Del Ponte is certainly partly responsible for that. And the criticism does not stop there. Tactics employed against Milosevic by Del Pontes team of prosecutors were questionable too, according to Michael Karnavas, an American lawyer who is president of the Association of Defence Counsel at the ICTY. Milosevic was initially indicted for Kosovo, but then the prosecutors wanted to turn this not just into a trial of one individual for crimes that he may have been responsible for, but rather into a process aimed at finding some sort of historical truth - who started the war and how it started. They put the blame on him for just about everything, he said. The result, Karnavas said, was a mega-trial, which wasnt tried very well from the prosecution side. I think she turned this trial into a spectacle and thats regrettable, he concluded. However, most observers concede that Del Pontes ability to keep the ICTY in the public eye has been impressive. She has kept up media pressure on the Balkans countries and worked closely with the European Union to ensure that these new states chances of accession to the bloc were tied to their willingness to cooperate with the ICTY. This remorseless style has characterised all that she did, said Jovan Spaic, head of the Bureau for Relations with the Tribunal in Republika Srpska, the Serb-ruled entity of Bosnia. She was quite aggressive when she tried to acquire evidence for her teams in the countries that were not willing to cooperate with the tribunal. But that is a characteristic a prosecutor should have in certain situations, he said. Her persistent pressure on Serbia over the years to extradite war crimes suspects, especially General Mladic, has meant Del Ponte has never been popular there. She is perceived as a bully and earned the nickname New Gestapo. However, her supporters and opponents alike agree that without this kind of pressure, it is unlikely Serbia would have become more cooperative with the tribunal to the extent that it has over the last few years. Donia said that Del Pontes single greatest achievement has been to keep the issue of the indicted [persons] at the centre of the international communitys attention. Even Karnavas agreed the chief prosecutor had found herself in an unenviable situation, having to negotiate with Balkan states to accommodate the tribunal. During the last few years of her mandate, Del Ponte was widely criticised for allegedly striking a deal with Serbia to acquire archived minutes from meetings of the Serbian Supreme Defence Council, SDC, held in the early Nineties, so that they could be used in the prosecution case against Milosevic but with the proviso that certain parts be kept confidential. While her office has firmly denied these allegations, saying that any claim that the prosecution is involved in hiding evidence is completely false, the rumours persist nonetheless. Donia said he believes Del Ponte failed to do enough to ensure confidentiality was lifted from these documents and to ensure that other documents critical to war crimes trials were handed over to prosecutors. I dont think the public is at all aware of the importance of the fact that Serbia has withheld not only critical portions of the minutes of the SDC meetings, but, in general, the records of the Yugoslav Peoples Army and the Ministry of Defence, that would tell us so much about what went on in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the Nineties, he said The chief prosecutor, he said, made a mistake by focusing too much on the extradition of fugitives, while putting the issue of the documents to one side. During the last eight years, increasing numbers of war crimes trials have taken places in national courts in the Balkan states, and experts say that much of the credit for that is due to Del Ponte. When the ICTY completes its work at the end of this decade, courts in the region will take over. Everything that has been achieved at a national level regarding war crimes trials has been achieved during Carla Del Pontes mandate, said Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade. Without her persistence, I do not think there would be any organised international pressure on the former Yugoslav states to initiate prosecuting war crimes in their own courts. Vladimir Todoric, an advisor to Serbias vice-president, said it was too early to judge her legacy. Nevertheless, he agreed that it is thanks to Del Ponte that the question of processing war crimes has remained at the very top of the list of political issues in all the countries of former Yugoslavia. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, the countries in the region have improved their relations by slowly but steadily sending their worst war crimes suspects to the tribunal, he said. By doing that, they paved the way for new generations to establish new cultural, economic and political connections between these countries. CHIEF PROSECUTOR ON THE RECORD Del Ponte speaks to IWPR about the challenges and successes of her term in office. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo In an exclusive interview with IWPR, outgoing Hague chief prosecutor says her teams achievements include proving that genocide happened and that there can be no impunity. Q: Why haven't you asked the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia] judges to lift confidentiality from the transcripts of Supreme Defence Council, SDC, meetings that are currently in the possession of the tribunal? You've asked only that confidentiality be lifted from Serbia's motions in which it demands that these documents remain confidential, and from the judges' decisions granting that request. Is that true? A: The Milosevic case - the case in which these documents were used - is closed. At this time, the decision [by prosecutors] was made to request the disclosure of two decisions by the judges in the case [in which they granted Serbias demands]. The reason this request was made is because we believe it is in the interest of justice that the public is informed about the decision-making process at the ICTY when it came to these documents. Q: Knowing how relentlessly you pressured Serbia over the years to hand over remaining war crimes suspects, many were surprised you gave the green light to Serbia to initial the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, even though the key precondition - arresting Mladic and other fugitives - hadn't been met. Why did you do that, and do you think that move sent the wrong message to Serbia? A: The European Union made the decision to initial the SAA agreement. It is not my decision to make. At the time, I had reported certain progress in the cooperation of Serbia [with the tribunal]. This progress had to do with the outstanding obligations in terms of access to important documents and archives, not the search for fugitives. The European Union has made it clear that signing the SAA agreement will depend on the full cooperation [of Serbia] with the ICTY. Full cooperation means [Bosnian war crimes suspect General Ratko] Mladic in The Hague, and I hope that the European Union will maintain its principled position. Q: How do you explain the fact that other Serbian top officials who were very close to former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, such as Blagoje Adzic, Veljko Kadijevic, Borisav Jovic and Dobrica Cosic, have never been indicted? Veljko Kadijevic was even mentioned as a member of the joint criminal enterprise in the indictment against Milosevic, and yet he was never charged with war crimes. What are the chances that will ever happen? A: Many decisions had to be made over the years in terms of resources and time. When the tribunal was instructed to implement its completion strategy, we had a deadline. This resulted in a number of investigations being closed before they were finished. That is the perverse effect of the completion strategy. However, another consequence of this strategy is increased cooperation with the national prosecutors in the former Yugoslavia. Over the past few years, my office has established excellent working relations with the judiciaries in the former Yugoslavia we are in constant working contact with the war crimes prosecutors in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and, as of recently, Montenegro. My transition team is working with the local prosecutors on a daily basis to transfer investigative materials we have gathered over the years to assist the local judiciaries in their efforts to conduct proceedings against war crimes suspects. We have also fostered regional cooperation between prosecutors as an extremely important part of the efforts to prevent impunity. The most important result of all of this is that no one who has committed crimes should sleep peacefully. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes and all victims must see justice. Q: A couple of days ago, Bosnian daily Avaz quoted your interview with Der Spiegel in which you apparently said that the ICTY prosecution has evidence that former Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic paid mujahedin to fight in Bosnia. Did you really say that? If yes, why hasn't that evidence been presented in any of the cases against Bosnian army officers including General Rasim Delic? If not, why haven't you responded to the letter from Bakir Izetbegovic - Izetbegovic's son - in which he demands that you either prove or deny these allegations, which he says are completely false? A: As part of the Delic trial, we have evidence that mujahedin fought in the war and were paid. I do not have evidence that Izetbegovic personally made such payments. Q: There are some experts who believe that the indictments against Bosnian army officers are very weak, because it is almost impossible to prove command responsibility for isolated crimes when there was no preconceived plan to commit them, and when their number is relatively small. Knowing all the problems you'd have in proving command responsibility in such cases, why have you decided to indict the very top of the Bosnian army? Don't you think that such a prosecution strategy only strengthened the myth that all sides are equally guilty? A: First of all, my mandate from the [United Nations] Security Council is to prosecute those believed to be the most responsible for the most serious crimes. Secondly, I proceed on the basis of evidence I have available. All of the indictments issued by the Office of the Prosecutor are confirmed by a judge of the tribunal. The judgements speak for themselves. We do not deal in myths, only evidence. Q: Why, in your opinion, was former Bosnian Serb parliamentary speaker Momcilo Krajisnik acquitted of genocide charges? Some observers say the prosecution didn't even try to prove his responsibility for genocide. In the case against Milosevic, you had witnesses who were giving evidence of the role of the political elite in genocide. But that was not the case in Krajisnik's trial. Why have you given up on him so easily - you didn't even appeal the judges' decision to acquit him of genocide charges. A: The Trial Chamber concluded that the requirements for the actus reus for genocide were met by all the crimes of murder and extermination as well as some instances of cruel or inhumane treatment. However, it was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that any of these acts were committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Bosnian Muslim or Bosnian Croat ethnic group. The genocidal intent of the perpetrator is an essential element to prove genocide. The chamber properly considered the factual circumstances of the crimes, such as the large number of killings, the number of killings relative to the population in the village or detention centre where the killings took place and the selection of the victims. It also considered the surrounding circumstances, such as the words uttered by the perpetrators and other persons at the scene of the crime and official reports. On its analysis of the evidence as a whole, it was unable to find whether his co-perpetrators had genocidal intent. [In light of this], a genocide conviction against Krajisnik was not legally possible. In simple terms, even if Krajisnik himself intended to commit genocide, if his co-perpetrators do not share his intent when they committed the underlying crimes, he cannot be convicted of genocide. Q: You recently said you're 80 per cent sure Mladic will be arrested by the end of this year. Do you still believe that and what do you base your prediction on? The Serbian government has promised Mladic's arrest several times before, but nothing ever happened. Do you think the situation is any different now? Do you personally think former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Mladic will ever be arrested? A: I still believe they will be arrested some day. However, as I reported to the Security Council, my optimism that this will happen soon has waned considerably. In my assessment, though, there is a clear, declared commitment in Serbia to cooperate with the tribunal. We see that level of commitment only in words and not in deeds. There are serious deficiencies in the leadership that is supervising the civilian and military security services. There is no strategy or proper analysis, which is why actions taken are unsystematic, not well prepared and uncoordinated. Decisions taken at the higher level are not always followed up. Specific information transmitted from my office is not always acted upon, properly checked or expeditiously processed. Important operational decisions are not implemented or are implemented too slowly or postponed indefinitely, for reasons which are not always clear. The civilian intelligence service is unwilling to cooperate more closely with its military intelligence counterpart and continues to refuse to provide full and comprehensive reports. Despite the Serbian authorities declared commitment to fully cooperate with my office and improve 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. I cannot deny that steps are taken, but they are slow and inefficient they definitely do not match the urgency of the moment. Q: If they do get arrested, where will they be tried if the tribunal closes down in 2010? And what will happen after that? Do you think the regional war crimes courts will be able to carry on from where the ICTY left off and successfully prosecute war crimes suspects, even the highest-ranking ones? And do you think having a regional war crimes court in the Balkans would be a good idea? A: It is my strong belief that the tribunal must not close its doors before Mladic and Karadzic are brought into custody. They cannot be prosecuted at the local courts in the region and I do not see the point in creating another institution to deal with the same cases. I trust that the Security Council will allow the ICTY to fulfill its mandate. Q: What do you think should happen to the ICTY archives? Do you support the initiative launched by Bosnian authorities that the archives should be moved to a UN-run facility in Sarajevo after 2010? The question of what will happen with the archive after the ICTY closes its doors has been raised by many. A working group has been set up at the tribunal, under the direction of [former chief prosecutor Justice Richard] Goldstone, to determine, among other matters, where the archives should be located. This working group will present a set of proposals on the future of the archives early next year. It is my hope that these documents be accessible to practitioners, prosecutors who continue to conduct war crimes trials domestically, and to the victims. Where they are physically located may have symbolic consequences. I believe it is crucial that the vast amount of documents be easily accessible and made available to those interested from this region and that the original documents are stored in such a way so as to prevent any possibility of tampering with or destruction of this important material. Q: What do you think of the tribunal's completion strategy? Some say it's already hugely affecting the fairness of the trials, because the cases have to be sped up. They also claim the UN and the whole world is trading justice for convenience in their decision to close the tribunal so soon. Do you agree? A: I have expressed my concerns over the completion strategy and the decision of the judges in some cases to reduce the scope of the indictments. I am also concerned when I see the judges drastically limiting the time given to the prosecution to present its evidence. It remains to be seen what effect these developments may have on the ongoing cases. Q: In your opinion, what are your greatest achievements as the chief prosecutor, and what are your biggest mistakes? A: My team and I have achieved a great deal. We have issued initial indictments against 63 individuals, and 91 accused [have been] brought into the tribunals custody. More than 80 people have been put on trial and dozens and dozens have been convicted. We have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, that rape was used as an instrument of terror and should be considered a crime against humanity, that the crimes against civilians during the siege of Sarajevo merit the highest sentence, and many other very important facts about the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and the individual responsibility of those convicted. Bringing Milosevic into custody was certainly a great achievement we demonstrated that there can be no impunity. This is never the work of one person. It is the work of a team of highly professional and dedicated individuals. As for the mistakes, I will let someone else conduct that analysis. Q: And finally, what can the International Criminal Court, ICC, learn from ICTY? A: I believe the ICC has already benefited from the experience of the ICTY. Tribunal experts have contributed a great deal to the initial discussions on creating this institution. I will leave it to my colleagues at the ICC to tell you more about what they see as useful for them. Merdijana Sadovic is IWPRs Hague tribunal programme manager. COURTSIDE DELIC UNDER HOUSE ARREST AFTER VIOLATING TRIBUNAL RULES Bosnian generals provisional release almost ended due to disregard for tribunal conditions. By Simon Jennings in London Bosniak war crimes suspect Rasim Delic has been placed under house arrest after he broke the terms of his release by discussing his case with a senior Bosnian politician. Judge Wolfgang Schomburg made the order at the prosecutions request after Delic broke conditions set out by the court that he was not at liberty to discuss his case with anyone other than with his counsel. Delic was granted provisional release by the tribunal in November. The accused was permitted to return to Bosnia for a month from December 11. A number of other suspects were also granted temporary release which Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte recently criticised as Christmas presents. On December 13, Delic met Haris Silajdzic, the Bosniak member of the Bosnian presidency, which also includes a Croat and a Serb. According to a statement from Silajdzics office, the politician enquired into the proceedings against General Rasim Delic. Silajdzic expressed his hope that the tribunal will complete the proceedings in the case based on presented evidence and facts, without any political influence, said the statement. Delic headed the Bosnian armys staff during the 1992-95 war in his homeland. He is charged with failing to prevent atrocities committed by foreign Muslim volunteers who came to fight on behalf of Bosnian forces as autonomous military units. The atrocities included the capturing, beating and execution of Serb soldiers at the Kamenica camp near the Bosnian town of Zavidovici. The prosecution contends that Delic has been particularly imprudent in meeting Silajdzic since the latter was foreign minister of Bosnia in the period during which the crimes were committed. Political analysts, meanwhile, said the meeting was a stunt to gain Silajdzic support from Bosniak voters and also to rile Serbia. The war here is not over yet, it is just being fought with other means, said analyst Slavo Kukic, echoing criticism from Bosnian Serb politicians. Rajko Vasic, a Bosnian Serb politician and executive secretary of the Association of Independent Social Democrats, said Silajdzic was trying to present a distorted version of the past. These are efforts to artificially convince people that Bosniaks were innocent in the civil war and that the guilt falls on the Serb side only, he said. Other Serbs also felt the meeting was a severe insult to those who were abused and killed by troops under Delics command. This sends to the world an ugly image of Bosnia at the very moment when the tensions caused by the political crisis have been subdued. It feels as if the aim of this totally unacceptable meeting is to raise tensions again, said Branislav Dukic, head of the Bosnian Serb Union of Former Camp Detainees. Despite these reactions, Delics defence team contended that the terms of his provisional release had not been breached. It argued that Delic did not reveal any information about the case, and the mere fact of Silajdzic having asked a question should not be sufficient to result in a finding that a discussion has occurred. Delics lawyers said their client had not been informed that a statement would be released. They also emphasised his history of cooperating with the tribunal since he voluntarily surrendered to as soon as he knew of the indictment against him. The judge confirmed that any further breach of the terms of his provisional release would lead the court to reconsider Delics leave from The Hague. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. DEFENCE CLAIMS GENERALS WERE NOT IN COMMAND IN MEDAK OPERATION Witness claims the generals formally in charge of a Croatian operation against Serb forces were bypassed by the real command structure. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb A Zagreb war crimes court heard this week that the two generals accused of presiding over crimes in the 1993 Medak Pocket operation were not really in command at a time civilians and prisoners-of-war were murdered. According to defence witnesses, generals Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi, who have been indicted for their role in commanding the so-called Medak Pocket operation in 1993, were only nominally in command of the area where the operation took place. However, they were bypassed by orders from Admiral Davor Domazet Loso, said the witnesses. According to the indictment originally brought by the Hague tribunal, at least 29 Serb civilians were killed and dozens injured during the Croatian army operation, which ran from September 9 to 17, 1993, and was held to reclaim the Medak Pocket - a Serb-held piece of land. It also alleges that Croatian forces killed at least five Serb soldiers who had been captured or wounded. More than 300 homes and barns were destroyed in villages in the Medak area after Croatian forces took control of the area, and most of the destruction took place between September 15 and 17. While Loso has been investigated by international war crimes investigators, he has not been charged. In September, he confirmed to the court that he had been present during the operation, but said he had only made suggestions to the field commanders. Franjo Feldi, former assistant to the Croatian chief of the general staff, Janko Bobetko, said Loso had been tasked with transmitting orders from the high command and ensuring they were followed. [Bobetko] personally gave him authority to command and lead the operation. According to a diary which I saw while the Hague [tribunal] investigators questioned me, he directly commanded the operation from the Operational Centre and had a direct connection with the high command, Feldi told the court. Bobetko said, Domazet is there, I sent him, he knows what to do, said Feldi. According to Feldis testimony, Ademi and Norac had no direct lines of communication to Bobetko, while Loso did. Prosecutors claim that Ademi, by virtue of his high-ranking position as a brigadier and acting commander of the Gospic Military District, played a central role in planning, ordering and executing the Medak Pocket operation. At the time of the events in question, Norac was commander of the 9th Guards Motorised Brigade - the main unit involved in the operation and held the rank of colonel. Prosecutors say Norac commanded the Croatian armys Sector One, a combat group set up specifically to conduct the operation. During the trial, Norac has sought to argue that Sector One never existed, while Ademi has tried to prove that a parallel line of command operated, meaning that orders did not come through him. This week, Feldi testified that Sector One did exist and that Loso commanded it. Later in the week, defence witness Vladimir Lelas, the former head of infantry in the Gospic area, also said that Loso commanded the operation. The action was led by someone from the top and not by Ademi and Norac, he said, before adding that Loso had been present in the Operational Centre and had controlled the operation. As for civilian casualties, Lelas denied there were any non-military personnel in the region, saying that the area hosted Serb artillery that bombarded the town of Gospic. They may have been in civilian clothes but they were soldiers, he said. I know that because they hit our positions every day. Gospic was under fire every day for two years. Earlier in the week, the trial was marred by an argument outside the toilet between Noracs lawyer Zeljko Olujic and Ademis wife Anita. Olujic said Ademis wife addressed him with inappropriate words and in an elevated tone, leading the judge to warn the court that communication between the public and trial participants was forbidden. Outside the court, Anita Ademi said Noracs lawyers had been coaching the witnesses in what to say. Olujic dismissed the allegations, saying he had been a lawyer for 35 years, so it is just stupidity to say that I would, in the courts corridors and the toilet, exhort the witnesses to say something. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR journalist in Zagreb. **** 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. IWPR programs provide intensive hands-on training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building, development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a voice. 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