WELCOME TO IWPRS TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 538, February 15, 2008 HOW BELGRADE ESCAPED GENOCIDE CHARGE Serbia appears to have exploited tribunal rules to avert a genocide conviction at the International Court of Justice. By Slobodan Kostic in Belgrade
NGOS DEMAND TRUTH-TELLING BODY Regional conference participants appeal for international funding to set up organisation to research war crimes. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade COURTSIDE: CLAIMS OF MUTILATION AND TORTURE IN MEDAK POCKET Horrific details of alleged crimes by Croatian forces revealed at trial of two Croatian army generals. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb LUKIC NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLINGS Witness in trial of six Serbian officials claims former police chief did not order killings of Kosovo Albanians. By Marija Radovanovic in Belgrade COURT HEARS MUJAHEDIN TOOK NO ORDERS Former Muslim fighter says El Mujahid unit in Bosnia had different rules from Bosnian army. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo WITNESS SPEAKS OF CLIMATE OF FEAR IN CROATIA Croatian Serb tells judges that the new Croatian government inspired horror in Serbs. By Simon Jennings in The Hague **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** NEW PUBLICATION: SYRIA PRESS MONITOR To find out more or subscribe to RSS feed please go to: http://iwpr.net/syriapressmonitor.html SAHAR JOURNALISTS ASSISTANCE FUND To find out more or donate please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/sahar.html COALITION FOR INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE (CIJ) TRIAL REPORTS ARCHIVE Milosevic and other ICTY Trial Reports as well as Sierra Leone Reports are now available at <http://iwpr.net/?apc_state=hen&s=c> NOW AVAILABLE IN FRENCH: Reporting Justice: A Handbook on Covering War Crimes Courts. Part I: http://iwpr.net/pdf/reporting_justice_p1_w_fr.pdf; Part II: http://iwpr.net/pdf/reporting_justice_p2_w_fr.pdf **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** TRIBUNAL UPDATE RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/tri/rss.xml RECEIVE FROM IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon grants and donations. For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** HOW BELGRADE ESCAPED GENOCIDE CHARGE Serbia appears to have exploited tribunal rules to avert a genocide conviction at the International Court of Justice. By Slobodan Kostic in Belgrade Belgrade has more than once invoked national security to stop the Hague tribunal sharing documents related to the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic with another international court, according to well-placed IWPR sources. The steps taken successfully blocked the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, from disclosing extremely sensitive transcripts of meetings the Serbian Supreme Defence Council, SDC, held between 1992 and 1995. It is widely believed that the transcripts, which record the meetings of top officials, contain evidence of Belgrades direct involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s. At the request of Belgrades lawyers, some parts of the SDC documents presented at the ICTY were kept confidential. Serbia apparently hoped that Bosnia would not then be able to use them in its genocide case against Serbia at the International Court of Justice, ICJ. Indeed, many Bosnians believe this confidentiality stopped Belgrade being found guilty of committing genocide in their country in the 1990s. Shortly after the parliament of the then federation of Serbia and Montenegro appointed a Council of Ministers on March 17, 2003, a session of this body was held in Podgorica, chaired by the federations president Svetozar Marovic, to discuss cooperation with the tribunal. After persistent pressure by the ICTYs Office of the Prosecutor, OTP, the ministers decided at this session, held in early April, to amend the existing law on cooperation with the tribunal. According to our sources close to the former federal administration, a consensus was reached at the meeting on defining the scope of this cooperation, primarily when it came to documents from military archives which had to be handed over to the tribunal. The Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro decided it would do everything it could to prevent the disclosure of documents that might jeopardise national security. If the Council of Ministers or governments of member states conclude that fulfilling the tribunals requests would jeopardise sovereignty or national security, the Council will order the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to inform the ICTY about this and to file an appeal in accordance with the tribunals Rules on Procedure and Evidence, states one article from a new law which enabled Serbia and Montenegro to request protective measures for SDC transcripts demanded by prosecutors for the case against Milosevic. As a next step, said our source, a special legal team was formed within Serbia and Montenegros ministry of foreign affairs, headed by Goran Svilanovic, who was also president of the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. This group of experts was simultaneously handling three processes that were of vital importance to the country: its cooperation with the tribunal; the genocide cases by Bosnia and Croatia against Belgrade at the ICJ; and Belgrades own lawsuit against NATO for the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia. The team was led by Tibor Varadi, who was also Serbia and Montenegros legal representative at the ICJ, and operated under Svilanovics supervision. Svilanovic passed on all its internal decisions to the Council of Ministers. In 2001, the OTP requested from Belgrade permission for their experts to examine the state military archives. They were primarily interested in transcripts and records from 60 meetings of the SDC held between March 12, 1993 and October 28, 1997. However, Belgrade did not respond to those requests, fearing that these documents would be used in Bosnias genocide lawsuit. According to our sources in Serbia, Belgrade officials werent prepared to disclose this material until the ICJ case was over. Until spring 2003, Belgrade avoided handing over transcripts and records from the SDC meetings related to the indictment against Milosevic. The OTP then asked the trial chamber hearing Milosevics case to force Serbia and Montenegro to supply the transcripts of meetings held between March 1993 and the end of 1995, when the worst crimes in Bosnia were committed. At the beginning of June 2003, the trial chamber ordered Belgrade to submit the SDC transcripts. However, shortly after that the representative of Serbia and Montenegros government filed a motion requesting protective measures for these documents, referring to Rule 54 bis of the tribunals rules on procedure and evidence, said our sources. Under the rule, a State may, within fifteen days of service of the order, apply by notice to the Judge or Trial Chamber to have the order set aside, on the grounds that disclosure would prejudice national security interests. Prior to that, Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte stated in a letter to Svilanovic that she would not oppose Serbias requests for protective measures for certain documents, but insisted that these measures could be applied only under specific circumstances, and on limited parts of the material, and that they had to be in accordance with the tribunals rules. Belgrades confidentiality request was granted by the trial chamber on July 30, 2003. After that, officials handed over the first set of SDC transcripts to the prosecutors office. However, the prosecutors were obliged to comply with the judges decision to grant confidentiality to some parts of the SDC records, as Serbia and Montenegros officials requested. These records were then used in closed session in the trial against Milosevic. After the first decision of the trial chamber to grant protective measures to some parts of the material relating to SDC meetings, Serbia and Montenegro continued to request from the judges that other documents be kept confidential. Among them were the files of the Bosnian Serb generals, including top fugitive General Ratko Mladic, who were on the Yugoslav armys payroll during the war. These files were the first serious opportunity for the prosecutors to challenge Serbia and Montenegros request for confidentiality, so they filed a motion demanding that these documents be published. The OTP asked the tribunals appeals chamber to reconsider the trial chambers decision on confidentiality for those documents containing information on Bosnian Serb officers. The appeals chamber once again granted Serbias request to keep the military files confidential, but it also warned that all previous rulings by the trial chamber in which Serbia and Montenegro had referred to protection of national security interests were based on a false interpretation of the tribunals rules on procedure and evidence. After that, the OTP requested that the trial chamber reverse its decision on request by Serbia and Montenegro for protective measures based on Rule 54 bis. At the beginning of December 2005, the trial chamber did so. IWPR sources told us that only a few days later, Serbia and Montenegros legal representative filed an appeal to the tribunals appeals chamber, citing Rule 108 bis of the rules on procedure and evidence, which allows reconsideration of the trial chambers decisions only if they are dealing with issues of general significance related to the tribunals authority. Milosevic was already dead when, in April 2006, five members of the tribunals appeals chamber upheld Serbias request and decided that the minutes of the SDC meetings could not be revealed to the public. As a result of that decision, Bosnia was not able to use this evidence before the ICJ in its genocide case against Serbia and Montenegro. The ICJ, much to the anger of many Bosnian survivors who feel the case was a whitewash, ruled that Belgrade was not guilty for the genocide committed in Srebrenica in 1995, blaming local Serb forces instead. Slobodan Kostic is a Belgrade journalist. NGOS DEMAND TRUTH-TELLING BODY Regional conference participants appeal for international funding to set up organisation to research war crimes. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade Rights groups say they want to create a regional body to establish precisely how many people were killed during the Balkans wars of the 1990s. At the third Regional Forum on Mechanisms of Truth-seeking and Truth-telling about War Crimes Committed in the Former Yugoslavia held in Belgrade on February 11, the Documentation and Research Centre from Sarajevo, the Centre for Facing the Past from Zagreb, and Serbias Humanitarian Law Fund requested funding from abroad to help them realise their dream. These recommendations should be sent immediately to national governments, parliaments and the EU and UN institutions. This initiative will require strong international support, because local governments will not be able to deal alone with all the obstacles they face," said Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Fund. The conference heard that the region would never know lasting democracy and peace until the full truth about the crimes was revealed. Kandic said a full list of the wars victims in Bosnia had been compiled, and that the groups were now working on equivalent lists for Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo. We will work on the list of victims from Kosovo killed after 2000, because it is clear that this number is relevant, she added. It is very important to know what happened in Vukovar, in Prijedor, in Knin, in Istok. The war crimes map was as big as Yugoslavia was. Mirsad Tokaca, from the Documentation and Research Centre in Sarajevo, said that between 1991 and 1995 in Bosnia 97,207 people were killed - 57,523 of them were soldiers and approximately 10,000 of them women. He said his group had tried to ascertain the complete identity of every victim and thus to stop speculation about the number of people killed in the war, which can often be motivated by political reasons. Domestic calculations were of 150,000 to 300,000 victims. Foreign calculations were of 25,000 to 150,000 people killed. With this research we have stopped speculation and we upheld the dignity of the victims. It doesnt matter whether they were civilians or soldiers, he said. In clashes in Kosovo between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army from 1998 to the end of 2000, approximately 11,000 to 14,000 people were killed. According to the Red Cross, 2,040 people disappeared. Sandra Orlovic, from the Humanitarian Law Fund, said that the former Yugoslav states did not recognise the need to create a list of all the victims of the war. However, she added that her organisation would publish a Kosovo memory book in January next year. Up to now 4,650 witnesses and family members of the victims have spoken to our researchers. We have the biggest problem with family members of the victims who were policemen, said Orlovic. The organisers of the conference also brought in war crimes victims to speak of their suffering to show that there were victims from every nation in Yugoslavia. Participants heard painful accounts of how individuals had suffered in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, when Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians fought over territory, often committing appalling atrocities. Smail Durakovic from Vlasenica in Bosnia said Serbian soldiers in black uniforms and white eagles on the black berets captured his village in 1992. They interrogated him several times and then raped his wife in front of him, before sending him to a camp in Susica. Although a Serbian soldier nicknamed Car told him his wife was alive, and that they had sent her to Kladanj and on to Germany, it turned out to be a lie. Durakovic said his wife was murdered in September 1992, and the soldiers turned his house into a brothel. Today, I live alone and Im very ill, he said. I hope this will be an example for the future and we can learn something from this experience. I know the man who killed my wife, but I dont want revenge. Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. COURTSIDE: CLAIMS OF MUTILATION AND TORTURE IN MEDAK POCKET Horrific details of alleged crimes by Croatian forces revealed at trial of two Croatian army generals. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb A Zagreb war crimes court this week heard claims that Croatian soldiers mutilated corpses and abused prisoners during the 1993 Medak Pocket operation. The testimony was given in closed session via video link last week, but was not revealed to the public until Judge Marin Mrcela read the transcripts out in court. One witness, identified only as number 15, described finding a woman dead inside a house. She was lying on the flour, naked as if she was just born. Her head was cut off and a little separated from her body and her breasts were cut into slices. Excuse my expression, she was cut through, from vagina to breasts, the judge quoted the witness as saying. The testimony of such witnesses is central to the prosecutions case against Generals Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi, who are accused of commanding Croatian Army, HV, troops that killed prisoners and unlawfully destroyed civilian property during the operation. According to the original indictment, at least 29 Serb civilians were killed and dozens more wounded in the operation, which sought to regain control of part of Croatia held by Serb rebels. Many of the victims were women or elderly. Of the nine protected witnesses whose evidence was read out this week, eight now live in Serbia and one in Norway. Some of them were members of Serbian forces, while others were from the Medak area and were called in to identify their neighbours bodies. Their statements allege mass looting, killing and torturing by HV soldiers. Previous witnesses had spoken about such alleged crimes, but none had produced the same level of horrific detail. Witness number 15 went on to describe seeing how Croatian soldiers hanged a man from a tree. A few men practiced their knife throwing by throwing their knives at the man while he was hanging, said the testimony. I couldnt tell if the man was alive or not. Later I saw how they took him down from the tree, tied him to a car and dragged him around the village. Other witnesses described being beaten and abused after they were taken prisoner. Often, they said, the torture would continue when they were taken to prison in the towns of Gospic and Karlovac, or to the barracks in Rijeka. From these beatings I fell unconscious and when I came back I saw a Croatian soldier had doused me with water. Afterwards we got beaten with bats as well, one witness was quoted as saying. At one moment a soldier and policeman entered and chased all the others out saying to them that they mustnt beat us. The defendants repeatedly interrupted Judge Mrcelas reading of the transcripts, saying that the Croatian forces had not behaved in that way. After the HV took the Medak Pocket, whence Serbian artillery had shelled Croatian positions for two years, it came under strong international pressure to withdraw. Eventually, they agreed to hand over control to the United Nations UNPROFOR troops. This week, the court was shown video footage shot by the Reuters news agency during UNPROFORs arrival in the area. It was clear in the film that the villages had been completely destroyed. The cameraman also filmed graphic images of the bodies of around 50 dead Serbs, while their relatives and neighbours tried to identify them. The film also showed how the Croatian troops had blocked the advance of the UN force. The then UNPROFOR commander, Canadian Ove Nielsen, was shown telling reporters that the HV would not let his troops through. One HV officer insisted that his superior officers had to be present during the retreat and, while arguing with UNPROFOR, mentioned Norac by name as one of the commanders he was waiting for. Norac told the court it was impossible that the HV officer on the film was waiting for him because I didnt have jurisdiction to communicate with them (UNPROFOR). Another UNPROFOR officer, Marc Rouleau, told the camera crew that they had clashed a few times with the Croatians when entering Medak but that no one had died from the shooting. He also said how UNPROFOR had given the HV an ultimatum to pull back to the agreed line or come under fire. A third officer, who was not identified, told the camera, We found completely destroyed property in this area and found the remains of 10 bodies. He confirmed to the reporter that some of the civilians appeared to have been executed around 24 hours before UNPROFOR entered the area. When speaking about the destruction of property, the officer said he thought it was planned in the sense that it was committed before we came, absolutely, I think they wanted to be sure that nothing would remain before we entered. The trial continues on February 20 this year when Nielsen should take the stand followed by six other former UNPROFOR officers. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR reporter in Zagreb. LUKIC NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLINGS Witness in trial of six Serbian officials claims former police chief did not order killings of Kosovo Albanians. By Marija Radovanovic in Belgrade A Serb policeman said this week that his former boss was not responsible for killing Albanian civilians or shipping their bodies out of the province. Cedomir Sakic, a member of the Serbian interior ministrys security unit, was testifying in the trial of former head of the Serbian interior ministry in Kosovo in 1998-9, Sreten Lukic. The former police chief is accused alongside five other high-ranking officials of war crimes, murder, persecution and seeking to drive out most of the Albanians living in the province to ensure it remained part of Serbia. Also on trial are former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, former deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic, ex-Yugoslav army chief of staff Dragoljub Ojdanic, and army officials Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic. This week, Sakic said that orders to ship Albanians bodies out of the province in a refrigerated truck had not come from Lukic, as was previously stated by a former prosecution witness. Sakic told judges that the orders came from another officer. He also described talking to a police officer loading the bodies into the truck, who apparently said, The shqiptars were killed by their own side, by NATO, using a derogatory expression for Albanians. Sakics testimony that Lukic did not order the disposal of the bodies contradicted that of former prosecution witness Bozidar Protic. Sakic explained the discrepancy between their accounts was the result of a post-war falling out between Protic and Lukic over the ownership of a flat. Sakic claimed to have heard Protic tell the general that he would testify against him in The Hague, and would bury him. This week, former police officer Dragan Paunovic, and former deputy head of the Serbian state security centre in Pristina, Ljubivoje Joksic, also testified in the trial. They both denied that Lukic bore any responsibility for the activities of the Red Berets, the Serbian governments elite police force, which was set up to arm, train and coordinate the activities of Serbian paramilitary groups. Joksic said the Red Berets were under orders from the chief of Serbian state security, and that Lukic had no operational control over them. In further testimony, he denied that the interior ministry had persecuted Albanian nationalist leader Ibrahim Rugova, who would go on to become the first president of Kosovo, or his close associate, Adnan Merovci. He said that the house arrest of these two men had been ordered for their own protection against the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA - the guerrillas fighting Serbian rule. He even refused to call this house arrest, since they could move freely about the house, thereby contradicting previous testimony from the two men themselves. Joksic went on to accuse the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, of aiding and training the KLA through its Kosovo Verification Mission, KVM, which was set up to monitor the situation in the region. He also blamed German intelligence for the mass exodus of Albanian civilians. Fourth defence witness General Zoran Mijatovic, the ex-deputy head of the Serbian secret service, told the court that no-one from the interior ministry knew about paramilitary units operating in Kosovo. He said the KLA stepped up its campaign against civilians and police officers after the OSCEs mission withdrew in March 1999. Mijatovic insisted that the interior ministry had acted entirely within the law, and blamed the army for many of the crimes the police are accused of. Some military officers insisted on taking over services, which according to the law they should not have taken over, he said, although he did not know who these officers were. He also said KLA guerrillas had worn Serbian police and army uniforms to commit crimes against civilians in order to provoke NATO into attacking Serbia. However, he gave no evidence to back up this assertion. Marija Radovanovic is an IWPR reporter in Belgrade. COURT HEARS MUJAHEDIN TOOK NO ORDERS Former Muslim fighter says El Mujahid unit in Bosnia had different rules from Bosnian army. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo The war crimes trial of a former commander of the Bosnian army heard this week that foreign Muslim volunteers managed their own units and had a council that could over-rule government orders. Aiman Awad, a Syrian citizen and former member of the El Mujahid unit of mainly foreign Muslim fighters, told judges in the trial of Rasim Delic that the volunteers had even tried to stop the Bosnian government signing the 1995 peace deal to end the war, and only reluctantly agreed to go along with it. Delic is accused of failing to prevent or punish crimes committed by El Mujahid members, who executed and mistreated dozens of captured Serb and Croat soldiers in 1995. Awad, who testified at special hearing held last week in Sarajevo, told judges that the El Mujahid unit governed itself during the conflict. The unit had internal rules that were not those of the BiH army, he explained. The Shura was a body made up of members of the unit that decided on every issue. Even when the army command would issue an order, the Shura would decide if we would take part in the attack or not. According to the witness, the Shura had so much power that they considered continuing the fight even after the Bosnian army had given the order to stop. It was decided that we would not continue because of our good relationship with the Bosnian Muslims. However, if the Shura hadnt decided that, it wouldnt have happened, he said. The witness said he came to Bosnia at the start of the war in 1992 in order to fight to help the Muslims here. He claimed his motivation for coming came from delivering humanitarian aid to Muslim refugees in Croatia and seeing the horrible things they had been through. According to Awad, the El Mujahid unit was formed in the summer of 1993 at the request of foreign fighters that came from Islamic countries to fight in Bosnia. He claimed that he personally translated the request from Arabic to Bosnian and took it to the command of the 3rd Army Corps. The order to form the unit came in June or July 1993. Im not sure if it came from the army headquarters or the 3rd Corps Command, he said. Prosecutor Daryl Mundis played video footage of the formation ceremony of the El Mujahid. The tape was played several times and it showed Abu Haris, the commander of the unit, saying, Bosnia and the army headquarters have confirmed this El Jihad unit as a regular army unit. Aiman Awad explained that El Jihad was another name for El Mujahid. According to the indictment, Delic in August 1993 ordered the creation of the unit within the armys 3rd Corps. The witness also stated that the formation of this unit was important because there was a group of Bosniaks, along with the foreigners, that left their units in order to join ours, and they didnt want to be considered deserters. Also, we wanted our unit to be legitimate, and not considered a paramilitary force. He claimed that he worked as a translator inside the group, and so was present at meetings between the command of the 3rd Corps and the command of the unit, when orders were being given. Awad went on to give detailed explanations of military activities, as well as the role of the El Mujahid unit. According to the indictment, in July and September 1995 the unit attacked the Krcevine and Vozuca villages in the Zavidovici municipality. During these attacks, large groups of hostages were taken and placed in the Kamenica camp for detainees, where they were subject to torture and murder by the mujahedin soldiers. Delic is charged with knowing about these activities, being in a position to stop them, and not doing so. During his cross examination by the defence, the witness admitted there were members of the unit that left before the end of the war who had committed some horrible crimes. He smiled throughout much of his testimony, and even joked about certain questions he considered unimportant. He was also seen to wink at Delic during breaks in proceedings. When he was asked to speak about the end of the war and the disbanding of his unit, Awad burst into tears, and the hearing had to be stopped for several minutes. On regaining his composure, Awad then testified that Alija Izetbegovic, the then-president of Bosnia, had told his unit the news about the end of the war and that Delic had been present at the meeting. Members of the El Mujahid unit tried to convince President Izetbegovic that he shouldnt sign a peace accord, but he kept saying that the war has to end, stated Awad. The witness also recalled the farewell dinner that was organised in honour of the disbanding of the unit. Rasim Delic was present there, and he expressed his gratitude to the members of the unit for all their help, he said. The witness testified in Sarajevo instead of The Hague, because he lacks a passport and wouldnt have been able to return to Bosnia had he left. The trial will continue on February 14 in The Hague. Denis Dzidic is an IWPR reporter in Sarajevo. WITNESS SPEAKS OF CLIMATE OF FEAR IN CROATIA Croatian Serb tells judges that the new Croatian government inspired horror in Serbs. By Simon Jennings in The Hague A witness in the trial of a politician charged with inciting Serbs to ethnic violence said the accused was unknown in Croatia when the clashes started. The witness confirmed the view of the defendant, Vojislav Seselj, that the government of the newly independent Croatia inspired horror in Serbs, who were certainly afraid by [the then President Franjo Tudjmans] statements. Seselj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, is charged by the Hague tribunal with making inflammatory speeches in the media, during public events and during visits to the volunteer units and other Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, instigating those forces to commit crimes between 1991 and 1993. The witness, whose identity was hidden for his own protection, said he was a member of the Serbian Democratic Party in Croatias Serb-populated region of Western Slavonia. He is giving evidence under a pseudonym and with the use of voice distortion technology because he wanted to protect his family following certain unpleasant incidents on the streets of Belgrade. Seselj remains politically influential, and his deputy in the SRS was narrowly lost out in presidential elections this month. The witness told the court that he heard about crimes committed against Croats by both SRS volunteers and Serb extremists living in Croatia in various villages in Western Slavonia during 1991 and 1992. According to him, Croats were killed and beaten in the villages of Vocin, Cetekovac and Balinci, among others, while their houses as well as Catholic churches were razed to the ground. Sometime towards the end of 1991, we heard about crimes committed in Western Slavonia. A number of them we ascribed to volunteers up there to the north of Vocin. Those around Pakrac were ascribed to Serbian extremists among the local population, the witness told the court. But when asked by the court, he denied that Seseljs rhetoric had helped to spark the first violent clashes in 1990. He was completely unknown to Serbs in Croatia at the time, he said. In his cross-examination of the witness, Seselj tried to establish reasons, other than his own rhetoric, for the crimes committed. He asked the witness to describe the political atmosphere in Croatia during the early 1990s. The witness explained that Serbs were afraid of the new Croatian government because of memories of ethnic persecution in World War Two, when Croatia was ruled by the fascist Ustashe. He said that Tudjmans regime was perceived as the rehabilitation of the Ustashe state. The Serbs in Western Slavonia had misgivings about Tudjmans authority, his behaviour, his rhetoric, the provocation that ensued, he said. I remember at all meetings we had, people only shouted, Give us arms, give us arms, because they were so frightened about seeing the new Croatian army on television. The indictment against Seselj alleges that he instigated his followers and the local authorities to engage in a persecution campaign against the local Croat population. Seselj has countered that the Croats created the animosity in the political climate of newly independent Croatia. To demonstrate his point, Seselj asked the witness about the enormous number of camps for Serbs in Western Slavonia where torture was allegedly regularly conducted by the Croatian authorities. The witness concurred with Seselj that according to a survivor from one such camp, Serb prisoners were tortured with electric shocks and ordered to cut each others ears and then eat them. Seselj then went on to try to absolve himself of responsibility for the SRS volunteers that fought in Croatia. Although he is not actually charged with such direct responsibility, he explained that after Belgrades troops joined the conflict in September 1991, the volunteers came under central control. A jocular Seselj embarked on a relentless line of questioning to show that SRS volunteers were put on an equal footing with national soldiers - being paid by the government, receiving the same military benefits and a military funeral back in Serbia. The witness confirmed all of his statements about the structure of Serb armed forces in Croatia. But the indictment against Seselj refers less to the coordination of SRS volunteers during combat and more to the way he allegedly instigated violence and was responsible for acts of propaganda. He is accused of inciting hatred towards non-Serb people, rather than with failing to prevent war crimes - a charge that would be more relevant for a military commander. 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; Project Manager: Merdijana Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others. w: 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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