WELCOME TO IWPRS TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 542, March 14, 2008 SERBIA: IS MORE POSITIVE LINE ON ICTY IN THE OFFING? If a pro-European government is elected in May, Serbias cooperation with the tribunal could be bolstered. By Simon Jennings in The Hague and Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade
COURTSIDE WITNESS TORTURED BY SESELJS VOLUNTEERS Survivor from the Vukovar hospital recalls abuse of Croat prisoners at Ovcara farm. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo LAWYERS CLAIM GOTOVINA HELPED END WARS But prosecutors say his tactics resulted in a scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes. By Simon Jennings in The Hague BRIEFLY NOTED POCAR: RETAIN COURT AFTER 2010 President says closing down tribunal altogether in 2010 could give impression that impunity is tolerated. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo BOSNIAN CROAT LEADERS DENIED PROVISIONAL RELEASE Judges uphold prosecution motion that if release granted, defendants likely to abscond. 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By Simon Jennings in The Hague and Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade While Serbias political crisis over Kosovos declaration of independence makes cooperation with the Hague tribunal look like a distant prospect, the government collapse may prove a long-term blessing. President Boris Tadic this week dissolved the Serbian parliament and called new elections after Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, furious about European states recognition of Kosovo, refused to agree to keep moving towards European integration. And public feeling about Kosovo is running high. The Hague tribunals chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, was forced to cancel his first official visit to Belgrade last week following street protests prompted by the February 17 declaration of independence. According to director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy Ivan Vejvoda, it is now unlikely that there will be visible cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, until after parliamentary elections are held on May 11. It will require a government in place, whatever government, to see movement on that, he told IWPR. I dont think well see anything until a government comes in, in terms of big arrests. The government collapse came at a crucial time for the tribunal as it races to persuade Belgrade to hand over indicted Bosnian Serb war crime suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic before it is scheduled to close down in 2010. The two former Bosnian Serb leaders are accused of orchestrating the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica during which more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed. European states, led by Belgium and the Netherlands, have blocked any closer ties between Serbia and the European Union until the two men are captured. We want to make absolutely clear that genocide should never again be allowed on European soil, Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen told IWPR. We have to put into practice European values and standards. Thats especially important if we want to have closer ties with new countries of the European Union. But as Serbia heads for elections which are being billed as a choice between a European future and severing ties with the 27-member bloc altogether, ensuring effective long term cooperation with the tribunal seems a distant prospect. In Serbia, they are still trying to figure out whether or not they even want to join the EU so Im sure that cooperation has moved even further down their list of priorities, if it was ever there in the first place, Param-Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch told IWPR. Being able to cooperate with Belgrade on tracking down its fugitives seems dependent on a pro-European government being elected in May. In a similar scenario to Februarys presidential elections, Serb citizens are divided between two main options: the pro-European Democratic Party; or Kostunicas nationalist bloc, which wants to turn away from the EU because many of its members recognised Kosovos independence. Many Serbs consider Kosovo their cultural and historical heartland and regard recognition of the Albanian-dominated region to be illegal under international law. The domestic scene will be a direct struggle between the pro-European bloc and the patriotic bloc. This will be more difficult [than in the presidential elections] because its going on after Kosovo declared independence, said Jelica Minic, the former deputy president of the European Movement in Serbia. But despite the public unrest at the loss of Kosovo, there is hope for Serbias European future and the possibility of full tribunal cooperation being revived. Serbian citizens priority is their quality of life, no matter how they feel about the Kosovo situation, Svetlana Logar, a political analyst in Belgrade, told IWPR. Serbia currently conducts 60 per cent of its trade with EU member countries and is surrounded by states that are taking steps towards European integration. Most people feel strongly about the Kosovo situation and its declaration of independence but on the question of whether Serbia cuts diplomatic ties or continues towards the EU, they say they are against any isolation, said Logar. The EU, meanwhile, is still hopeful that Serbia will solve its internal issues and look towards Brussels. It has drawn up plans, still to be approved by member states, to offer a package of measures including relaxed visa requirements and investment in transport infrastructure. "We are ready to move on once Serbia is ready to do the same," European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has told Belgrade. Even the Dutch and Belgian governments were happy for the EU to offer political dialogue to Serbia last month with a view to taking the first steps towards membership once the fugitives are in The Hague. The meaning of this offer was to make it clear to the Serbian people that it is our view that the future of Serbia is within Europe and within the European Union, Verhagen told IWPR. But although Kostunicas government rejected the agreement, Minic said such offers from the EU are of vital importance if Serbia is to be encouraged to choose a European future. She says Kostunica would not have rejected the dialogue if the EU had appeared more sincere and had not offered it at the last minute before the crucial second round of presidential elections. The offers came too late during the presidential elections and it is not the best time to give these offers. If they had come before then even Mr Kostunica would have reacted in a different way, said Minic. Serbia feels like a loser, like its permanently the bad guy and there is no really sincere willingness from the EU side to integrate Serbia. This is the feeling of frustration. This time around, during parliamentary elections, Serbias pro-European forces are looking for a very careful, very delicate policy from the EU, added Minic. Considering that Serbia is constantly on the tipping point [of the EU], its the practical implementation or the future vision thats been the problem, not the strategic orientation. Meanwhile, from the point of view of The Hague, Param-Preet Singh believes there is little Brammertz can do to bolster cooperation until Serbia has made its decision to move on European integration. They are so focused on whats going to happen with the government that any discussion about cooperation would not be hugely productive because there are all these larger issues at stake, said Singh. If they decide to turn to the EU, once theyve made that decision, then the leverage is back And thats when the ICTY cooperation will really come into play. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Belgrade. COURTSIDE WITNESS TORTURED BY SESELJS VOLUNTEERS Survivor from the Vukovar hospital recalls abuse of Croat prisoners at Ovcara farm. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo A Croatian ex-soldier, testifying at the Hague tribunal this week, described how members of a party headed by a radical Serb politician on trial for war crimes brutally tortured him. Witness Vilim Karlovic, a former member of Croatian National Guard, said he was only saved by the kindness of two Serb officers, and that he never saw the other Croats who were captured alongside him again. It was horrible. They hit us with hands, legs, wooden sticks. I saw that one of them even had a metal chain. You could hear people crying and screaming, said Karlovic, when asked to describe what went on at the Ovcara farm complex outside the Croatian town of Vukovar. The indictment against Vojislav Seselj alleges that volunteers from his Serbian Radical Party, SRS, tortured and murdered some 200 Croats taken from the Vukovar hospital to the Ovcara farm in November 1991, after the town fell to Serb forces. He is also accused of inciting Serbs to drive Bosniaks and Croats out of parts of Bosnia and Croatia. The prosecutors say Seselj espoused and encouraged the creation of a homogenous Greater Serbia through his speeches and actions. Karlovic said that shortly before Vukovar fell into Serb hands, he heard Seseljs amplified voice calling on Croatian forces to surrender. The defendant claimed this was ridiculous and hypocritical and said Karlovic could not be sure the volunteers who abused him were SRS volunteers at all. They were obviously Serb volunteers from Croatia who wanted revenge for the crimes that Croatia committed against Serbs, reasoned Seselj. But Karlovic said the SRS volunteers were recognisable because of their long beards and traditional uniforms. He referred to his captors as Chetniks, a second world war-era term for Serb nationalists. He said that after they entered the farm, about 50 Chetnik volunteers were already there and started hitting the detainees. The witness explained that he managed to plead with one of his captors to save him, but never saw anyone from the Ovcara farm again. During cross-examination, Seselj blamed the Ovcara crimes on the Yugoslav Peoples Army, JNA. Two former JNA officers, Veselin Sljivancanin and Mile Mrksic, have already been found guilty by the international court for the crimes in Ovcara, and sentenced to 5 and 20 years in prison respectively. Karlovic testified that he was later taken to the Velepromet centre for detainees, where he saw Chetnik volunteers question prisoners and murder several of them, even one 14-year-old boy. When I was taken for questioning, the Chetniks brought me to a house nearby where they brutally tortured me. There were 20 of them and they would have killed me, but I was saved by two Serb officers who risked their lives to save me, he explained. According to Karlovic, he later found out that the names of those men were Predrag Milojevic and Marko Ljuboja, and testified in their defence at a trial in the Belgrade War Crimes. They were both accused of crimes committed in Ovcara, but I cant believe those men could be murderers. Im happy I managed to free Ljuboja with my testimony, but Milojevic was unfortunately found guilty and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, stated the witness. Seselj, meanwhile, claimed that the two officers had in fact been SRS volunteers and that their trial had been cooked up to create an artificial link between me and Ovcara. The defendant also accused Markovic of having been coached and prepared for testimony by the Croatian government. Prosecutor Daryl Mundis protested fiercely against this accusation, as did the witness who said he had not been in touch with anyone from the Croatian government for over a decade. My story is tragic as it is and I dont need to add anything to it, and I would never compromise my integrity in such a manner, said Karlovic. Seselj cut his cross-examination short to protest the trial chambers refusal to allow him to question the witness about Croatian crimes against Serbs. The prosecution then produced another former member of the Croatian National Guard to talk about the fate of the prisoners in Vukovar. Dragutin Berghofer was also a prisoner in the Velepromet centre, where he recalled Chetnik volunteers murdering and beating detainees. There was a pile of blood and hay on the floor and a lot of lives were lost. Seselj refused to cross examine this witness because his statement had been admitted by the trial chamber before he gave his testimony. I will only cross examine witnesses that testify in person here, the others just dont exist to me, he said. At the end of the weeks hearing, Seselj told the judges that the tribunals legal aid department had refused to compensate him for the costs of his defence because there was insufficient proof that he is not able to finance it himself. The reason [they] gave me is that I have not submitted information about my family possessions, which is true - I refuse to give out this information and no one can make me, stated Seselj. [I might] not be able to continue the defence because there is a lack of funds to conduct research. The trial chamber will address this issue during next weeks hearing, which starts on March 18 2008. Denis Dzidic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo. LAWYERS CLAIM GOTOVINA HELPED END WARS But prosecutors say his tactics resulted in a scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes. By Simon Jennings in The Hague Defence lawyers for Ante Gotovina opened their case in the Hague this week by claiming that his campaign against Serb rebels brought peace to the former Yugoslavia. According to them, the Croatian army general was the one person who brought about the demise of the Serb army and the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia. His lawyers contend that Operation Storm was launched to prevent Bosnian Serbs from taking total charge of the region by connecting Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia with the Krajina in Croatia. They said that immediately after the take-over of the Krajina, Gotovina went to Bosnia where he was in charge of two big military operations which led to the Dayton peace talks and the end of war in Bosnia. Gotovina is charged along with two other former senior generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, with orchestrating the permanent removal of Serbs from Croatia between July and September 1995. The most senior Croatian to be brought before the tribunal, Gotovina was the commander of the campaign known as Operation Storm which allegedly forced up to 200,000 Serbs to flee the Krajina region. Earlier this week in its opening statement, the prosecution described how the operation caused the death of 350 Serb civilians. It accused the three men of presiding over deportation and forcible transfer, destruction and burning of Serb homes and businesses, plunder and looting of public or private Serb property; murder [and] other inhumane acts. According to the prosecution, Croatias right to reintegrate the Krajina within its internationally recognised borders is not disputed. But prosecutors condemn the tactics used which, they say, left behind a scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes. Prosecutor Alan Tieger said the Croatian army knew the Krajina region lacked proper fortifications, and used excessive shelling to demoralise civilians and get them to flee. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shells and rockets were fired into Knin (the regional capital), Tieger told the court. Allegedly at the forefront of this operation was the now deceased Franjo Tudjman, then president of Croatia and commander-in-chief of its armed forces during the conflict. The prosecution presented recordings of Tudjmans meetings with Gotovina and Markac in the summer of 1995, saying they showed how officials wanted to ethnically cleanse the Krajina. In one recording, the court heard Tudjman tell his senior generals, We have to inflict such blows that the Serbs will to all practical purposes disappear. There is still something missing, continued Tudjman. Please remember how many Croatian villages and towns have been destroyed but thats still not the situation in Knin today. Prosecutor Stefan Waespi then outlined the brutal measures taken by Croatian troops to force the Serbs to flee. Civilians who refused to leave were killed by members of the [Croatian army] and special police while relatives and neighbours watched. The perpetrators sometimes publicly announced their crimes for the remaining civilians to hear, knowing that that would influence them to leave, he told the court. The prosecution also used video footage to demonstrate how an elderly woman was burnt in her own home and a deaf man was shot in the head by Croatian troops. While the defence teams of Cermac and Markac made no statement at this early stage of the trial, Gotovinas lawyers took the opportunity to respond to the allegations. They told the trial chamber that this military campaign was the only way to bring [the Bosnian Serb army] to the negotiating table. Lawyer Gregory Kehoe referred to the words of then US president, Bill Clinton, who wrote in his book that diplomacy could not succeed until Serbs had sustained some serious losses on the ground. Co-counsel Luka Misetic further argued that rather than the Croatian army forcing the Krajina Serbs to flee, it was the Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic who told them to evacuate in anticipation of the Croatian attack. Misetic also pointed to evidence previously used by tribunal prosecutors that showed there was an intense media campaign directed from Belgrade to deliberately convince Serbs in Krajina of an imminent threat of genocide and this is what caused them to flee. There was no excessive shelling, said Misetic, quoting a report by the head of UN military observers in Knin. The report stated that in general shelling was concentrated against military objectives. The prosecution this week also accused the former Croatian generals of making only lukewarm attempts to prevent or punish crimes conducted by Croatian soldiers, such as murder, looting, and the burning of villages. Tieger said Gotovina knew he was sending in troops who were aggrieved by the atrocities their own families had suffered at the hands of the Krajina Serbs earlier in the war and this should led him to anticipate the vengeful acts that occurred. That information alone would have been enough to trigger more than customary or standard admonitions to abide by Geneva conventions or international humanitarian law, said Tieger. The defence team denied the crimes were systematic, and said a number of measures had been taken to prevent them. He said Gotovina set up an officer training school where international law was taught and troops were instructed by Catholic bishops to wage war ethically, honestly and morally. The counsel then read out the attack order of the Split Military District under Gotovinas command which focused on preventing torching and destruction of larger populated areas and towns and advising on conduct with prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva conventions. Presiding Judge Alphons Orie became briefly frustrated by Gotovinas defence team, and questioned the relevance of a 15-minute, emotionally charged video. He warned Kehoe against transforming the court room into a theatre, in a reference to the live television audience watching in Croatia. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. BRIEFLY NOTED POCAR: RETAIN COURT AFTER 2010 President says closing down tribunal altogether in 2010 could give impression that impunity is tolerated. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo The president of the Hague tribunal Fausto Pocar says the court could continue to operate on a much smaller scale after its official closure in 2010 to try outstanding war crimes fugitives. "It's important that we don't leave the impression that some crimes have gone unpunished, and that those individuals who are evading justice don't think that they just have to hide until the tribunal stops working to avoid trial, Pocar told Russian agency RIA Novosti this week. According to a completion strategy imposed by the UN Security Council, the Hague tribunal has to wrap up all first instance trials by the end of this year, and all appeals by the end of 2010. However, four war crimes fugitive are still on the run - Goran Hadzic, Stojan Zupljanin, as well as Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic. Many believe that the tribunals mandate will not be successfully completed if all remaining fugitives, especially Karadzic and Mladic, are not tried by the court. "But if they're not [caught soon], I can imagine that retaining such a big structure as the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the expectation of the arrest of the four people would be very complicated for the international community, Pocar told RIA Novosti. He added that for this reason the tribunal is looking at the possibility of retaining a reduced contingent of staff which would begin to work when the arrests were made, and after the official closure of this court. The new Hague chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who conducted his first visit to the Balkans last week, also said it was "hard to imagine" that the tribunal would end its work before the remaining war crimes fugitives are arrested. In last weeks interview for Brussels daily Le Soir, Brammertz even left the possibility open of narrowing the indictment against Mladic should he be brought to The Hague for trial, so that his case would be completed in a reasonable time. "That is a matter we will certainly discuss," Brammertz told Le Soir. Merdijana Sadovic is IWPRs Hague programme manager. BOSNIAN CROAT LEADERS DENIED PROVISIONAL RELEASE Judges uphold prosecution motion that if release granted, defendants likely to abscond. By Simon Jennings in The Hague Appeal judges at the Hague tribunal overturned a decision this week to grant provisional release to five Bosnian Croat leaders until their trial resumes. Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic and Valentin Coric will remain in the UN detention unit in The Hague after appeal judges ruled that the defence justifications for their respective releases were not sufficiently compelling. The men, who are standing trial along with a sixth accused Berislav Pusic, are charged with committing crimes against humanity against Bosniaks and other non-Croats during the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia. After the prosecution rested its case last month, the trial chamber decided that while all the defendants had a case to answer, the five could return to Croatia until their defence teams began their cases in May. The trial chamber ruled that at this halfway stage in the trial there was clear evidence supporting the prosecutions case that the accused had participated in a joint criminal enterprise. They face charges of attacking and driving out women and children as they sought to establish Herceg-Bosna, a self-proclaimed Croat entity within Bosnia. In their decision to repeal provisional release, appeal judges said the trial chamber had failed to consider the implications of the ruling against an acquittal of the accused at this point. They therefore upheld the prosecutions motion that if release was granted to the defendants, they were likely to abscond. 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. Institute for War & Peace Reporting 48 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7831 1030 Fax: +44 (0)20 7831 1050 For further details on this project and other information services and media programmes, go to: www.iwpr.net ISSN 1477-7940 Copyright © 2008 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** If you wish to change your subscription details or unsubscribe please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p
