WELCOME TO IWPRS ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 556, June 20, 2008 IS KOSOVO HEADING FOR PARTITION? As new constitution comes into force, communal divisions and a row over the international presence threaten to split province. By Nedim Sarac in Sarajevo
NGOS CALL FOR WAR CRIMES COMMISSION They say regional body would help set historical record straight and aid reconciliation process. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade BOSNIA: THE MUJAHEDIN UNMASKED Recent book fills important gaps in what we know about the mysterious foreign fighters. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo COURTSIDE: JOURNALIST SAYS GLAVAS ASSASSINATION STORY FABRICATED Croatian reporter tells court that a newspaper report which backed assassination claim was not true. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb BRIEFLY NOTED: CROATIA FACES STATE ARCHIVE DEMAND Tribunal prosecutors ask judges to order Zagreb to hand over military files in Gotovina trial. 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By Nedim Sarac in Sarajevo Kosovos first constitution, which came into effect on June 15, could further inflame ethnic tensions in the province and even lead to partition, say analysts. The new constitution shows that Kosovo is a democratic country and has accepted and will respect the highest international values and standards, said Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu at the ceremony marking the most important event for Kosovo since it unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia on February 17. But representatives of Kosovos Serb minority say the constitution proclaimed in Pristina means nothing to them, and insist they will set up their own parliament. Belgrades fundamentally opposition to independence remains unchanged. Serbia regards Kosovo as its own southern province, and is defending its integrity by peaceful means, through diplomacy rather than force, Serbian president Boris Tadic said this week. Observers fear that Kosovo faces a territorial split between the ethnic Albanian community which comprises 90 per cent of the population and the Serb minority. The constitution, introduced at a low-key ceremony held in the capital Pristina, has done little to end the confusion about where ultimate authority in Kosovo now resides. UN STILL FORMALLY IN CHARGE Despite the proclamation of the constitution, the United Nations mission UNMIK, which has administered the region since it was set up by UN Security Council Resolution 1244 after the Kosovo war ended in 1999, still holds formal power. More than 40 countries have recognised the independence of Kosovo, but Belgrade and Moscow are vehemently opposed to sovereignty, which they regard as a reckless breach of international law. Russia would certainly use its Security Council veto to obstruct any application from Pristina for a UN seat, a key sign of statehood. In order to neutralise Russian opposition, at least 100 member states would have to recognise the entitys independence. UNMIK has administered Kosovo formerly a Serbian province since June 1999, when NATO troops drove Serbian forces out of the province. Although the war broke out in 1999, the division between its two main communities had begun much earlier. For years, the two million ethnic Albanians and around 120,000 Serbs had led parallel, separate lives deeply mistrustful of and occasionally hostile towards one another. International negotiations to resolve Kosovos status began in 2006, and the following year, UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari submitted a proposal to Belgrade and Pristina suggesting supervised independence for Kosovo. This formed the basis for a draft Security Council resolution as well as for the new constitution of Kosovo. As part of the transition to independence, Ahtisaari proposed replacing UNMIK with a significantly reduced international presence, in the shape of the European Union Rule of Law Mission, EULEX, which would exist until power could be vested entirely in the authorities of the nascent state. The EU mission is already present in Kosovo, although just 300 out of the planned 2,200 staff have been deployed so far. However, Ahtisaaris plan never won official acceptance due to Serbian and Russian opposition. While the Kosovo constitution calls for the EU to take over the supervisory role of the UN, Serbia and Russia insist that any EU mission is illegal because it lacks the approval of the UN Security Council. To end the impasse and prevent a power vacuum in Kosovo, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last week put forward a proposal to reconfigure the role of UNMIK. The proposal revealed in two letters sent to Belgrade and Pristina permits EULEX to deploy under the umbrella of the UN, and removes the need for a Security Council resolution to be passed transferring UNMIKs authority to the EU. But the Secretary Generals long-awaited plan was swiftly rejected by both Moscow and Belgrade, which accused Ban of overstepping his power. Since the goal of EULEX is to implement Kosovo's independence it's obvious that this mission is in direct contravention of both [Security Council] Resolution 1244 and the Serbian constitution, Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said this week. TWO INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS INSTEAD OF ONE It seems that despite the UN chiefs instruction last week, it remains unclear who is to run Kosovo in future, and how that should happen. Commenting on the secretary generals reconfiguration plan, Tim Judah, a British journalist and expert on Kosovo, said in a recent BBC interview, There were two different letters. One was sent to the president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, and the other to Fatmir Sejdiu, who although addressed as Excellency appeared otherwise not to be president like his Serbian counterpart. [A letter addressed to Albanian leaders] allows them to pretend that they are able to exercise power on the entire territory of Kosovo, but in reality everybody knows that they control just its predominantly Albanian parts. On the other hand, Ban Ki-moons [letter to Belgrade] allows Serbs to continue to pretend that Kosovo is not independent. He concluded, This all adds to the confusion and does not help clarify the situation at all." Many observers believe Kosovo will end up with two international missions instead of one, neither of them equipped with a clear mandate or legal framework. EULEX will provide assistance to the Kosovo Albanian administration, while UNMIK unable to withdraw without Security Council approval for ceding control to the EU will maintain a presence in municipalities with a Serb majority. Having two international missions on the ground the EU dealing with Albanians and the UN with Serbs in the north will only widen the ethnic divide, Agron Bajrami, editor-in-chief of the Pristina daily Koha Ditore told IWPR. We are entering a process which is very risky and that could lead to the division of Kosovo, he said, warning that lack of agreement over governance could result in a prolonged frozen conflict. The EUs special representative for Kosovo, Peter Feith, told The Financial Times that functional partition of Kosovo might take place. Mr Ban assured Serbia he would maintain the status quo in Serb-majority areas for a limited duration. This leaves space for Belgrade to run northern Kosovo and achieve functional partition, he warned. Yet Feith also insisted that the western-backed plan for Kosovos statehood was moving forward despite legal stumbles. MITROVICA WORKS TOWARDS DE FACTO PARTITION Earlier this month, Feith stressed that that the state of Kosovo must rule in its entire territory. But Kosovos Serbs are unlikely to accept that, and have already announced plans to form the Kosovo Serb Assembly in Kosovska Mitrovica in the north of the province on June 28. Serb leader Nebojsa Jovic told Belgrade radio B92 that the constitution proclaimed in Pristina means nothing to Kosovo Serbs, who are determined to form their own parliament. According to news agency reports, Serbias minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said his country expects to get extensive rights to administer Kosovo Serb areas. These parallel institutions, this functional division only represent the facts on the ground, he said. The 120,000 Kosovo Serbs are already, slowly but surely, creating parallel institutions for local government, education and healthcare, with financial and political backing from Belgrade. Most Serbs have withdrawn from institutions like the Kosovo police service and judiciary. Since the independence of Kosovo was proclaimed, Belgrade has consolidated its grip on Serb-held areas, especially in the region north of the divided city of Mitrovica. The region of Mitrovica north of the river Ibar River adjoins Serbia, and is under the de facto control of Belgrade. But around two thirds of the Serbs in Kosovo live south of the Ibar, in isolated enclaves with no land link to Serbia. Yet even in these isolated Serb islands surrounded by an Albanian majority, everything is still tied to Belgrade from schools to car licence plates, and from the health system to cell phone providers. Although Serbs living in those enclaves remain defiant when it comes to issues such as independence and a constitution for Kosovo, their tone is softer and more conciliatory than that people living in the north. Serbs in Kosovo will never accept the independence and the constitution of the province, but that does not mean that we are not going to respect the law, Rada Trajkovic, president of the Serbian National Council for Central Kosovo, told IWPR. We have to cooperate with the authorities on a daily basis. Trajkovic adds that a partition of Kosovo between Serbs and ethnic Albanians is not a solution. If partition took place, we would have another mass exodus from Kosovo Serb enclaves around 90,000 people would leave their homes. Also, that would create chaos in the entire region. Sonja Biserko, head of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, told IWPR that the political elite in Belgrade might be prepared to accept Kosovos independence, as long as they could carve off the northern territory of Mitrovica in compensation. However, Belgrade authorities are aware that at the moment this is not possible due to the balance of power on the international scene, she added. They are hoping that in the future they might have a stronger Russia on their side, that the US will turn its back to the Balkans, and that the EU will be even more divided. HISTORIC DEAL NEEDED Biserko says that partition which she called the worst-case scenario could be avoided if the international community invested more energy and creativity into the Balkans, which is still fragile following the conflicts of the Nineties. It is crucial not just for Serbia but for the entire region to speed up the process of joining the EU, she said. That is the only way to prevent from repeating the nightmares of the Nineties that Kosovo and other countries in the region went through. Dejan Anastasijevic, a journalist and political analyst from Belgrade, told IWPR that the situation in Kosovo would remain unstable for a long time, maybe for years. To resolve the problem, a historic deal between Pristina and Belgrade had to be reached, he said. For such a deal, we would need a stable political situation and mature political elites in Belgrade and Pristina. A more balanced and unified approach from the international community would also be helpful, he said. The current politicians, both in Belgrade and in Pristina, use Kosovos status as a tool to gain political power. I dont see that changing in the near future. Nedim Sarac is a Sarajevo-based journalist. NGOS CALL FOR WAR CRIMES COMMISSION They say regional body would help set historical record straight and aid reconciliation process. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade Balkans NGOs want to found a special regional commission capable of establishing a coherent account of war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The is Research and Documentation Centre, RDC, in Sarajevo, Documenta in Zagreb and the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund, FHP, hope one million people will sign up to their initiative between now and the end of the year. Already, some 50 victims associations have backed the idea, they say. FHP executive director Natasa Kandic said that war crimes trials alone were not sufficient to create a historical record of what happened during the conflicts, or to promote reconciliation. By the end of 2020, courts in the region could have prosecuted at least 1,200 war crimes perpetrators, but this doesnt give us a correct picture of war crimes, nor restore human dignity to the victims or confidence between nations, Kandic told a conference held on June 17 in Belgrade. The regional commission could secure clear evidence about how state institutions failed to defend human rights in the past. During the wars in Bosnia and Croatia in the early Nineties, and the 1999 war in Kosovo, some 120,000 people were killed and 17,000 are still missing. Kandic said the commission would help the voices of victims to be heard. The main idea is for this commission to establish the facts about war crimes, because all sides have different explanations, a source who is involved with the commission proposal, but wished to remain anonymous, told IWPR. The NGOs would like the commission to run for two or three years and to be free from government interference and, when it finishes its work, report on what really happened and recommend what legislation would most help the victims, added the source. The fate of the massive archive of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, was also discussed at the conference. Former ICTY state prosecutor Richard Goldstone will advise the United Nations Security Council, UNSC, by the end of the year on what the archives should be used for after the court closes in 2010, who should have access, and where it should be based. The archives will be a very valuable source of information to both prosecutors and historians, and there has been a great deal of debate about where it should be located. Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia each say they should house the archive, with state officials from all countries worried that top secret documents surrendered to the tribunal under protective measures might be exploited by other countries. Representatives of the three NGOs think the archive must be returned to the region, because this would help national war crimes investigations and speed up the reconciliation process. Florence Hartmann, a former spokeswoman for Hague prosecutors who participated in the conference, agreed. We can only find out the objective facts about war crimes by looking meticulously through the tribunal archive. And that could lead to reconciliation between nations and an acceptance of recent history, she said. Zoran Pajic, the new president of FHPs executive board, told the conference that the Council of Europe could encourage Balkan states to rewrite their historical textbooks that cover the wars. However, Pajic, who is a law professor at King's College London, said that as things stood at present, people awaiting trial in the tribunals detention unit were better off than victims and their families. Victims of the wars are unsatisfied with both domestic and international courts, feel they lack state support and must rely on NGOs, he said. Indicted people have the support of their own countries, also their families, but victims havent got all this. Victims need compensation, not only money, but also social and medical help, said Pajic. A lot of money and effort was spent on the national and international judiciary in recent years to try war crimes. But in the end, those for whom it was done, the victims, are not satisfied. Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Belgrade. BOSNIA: THE MUJAHEDIN UNMASKED Recent book fills important gaps in what we know about the mysterious foreign fighters. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo Most of the mujahedin fighters who arrived to fight alongside government forces during the Bosnian war knew virtually nothing about the country. They joked about how at the beginning they didnt know if Bosnia was in South America, North America, Europe or Australia, said Evan F Kohlmann, an expert on terrorism and adviser to the American government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The revelation is contained in a little-publicised book Al Qaeda in Bosnia: Myth or Reality? by Vlado Azinovic which tells more about the mujahedin and their role in the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995 than any of the recent Hague tribunal trials in which they have featured, the latest being the prosecution of Bosnian army general Rasim Delic. In the book, Radio Free Europe, RFE, editor Azinovic conducts interviews with journalists, politicians and FBI agents to provide an account of who the mujahedin were and how they came to Bosnia some of the biggest mysteries of the bitter conflict. The part played by the mujahedin has come under particular scrutiny in the Delic case, which closed last week as judges retired to consider a verdict. Delic has been prosecuted for failing to prevent or punish crimes committed by the El-Mujahid detachment, which was meant to be subordinated to the 3rd Corps of the Bosnian army, ABiH, during the war. Members of the unit are alleged to have slaughtered and abused dozens of Croat and Serb prisoners between 1993 and 1995. The Delic case, like others before it, examined the degree to which the Bosnian army exercised command responsibility over the mujahedin, but left a lot of questions about the group unanswered. WHO WERE THE MUJAHEDIN? According to Azinovics account, the mujahedin movement which first came to Bosnia in 1992 grew out of the contingent of foreign Muslims who fought alongside Afghan resistance forces in their ten-year war against Soviet occupation. They were Arabs mainly from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Jordan, said Kohlmann. During the 1979-1989 war, Arab and other foreign Muslims fought as part of the Afghan mujahedin, supported by the United States and other powers, which supplied weapons and general equipment. The struggle against the Soviets attracted thousands of volunteers, mainly from Arab countries, and their governments also supplied financial support. Saudi Arabia played a prominent role, and one of the mediators in bringing Saudi money and volunteers to Afghanistan was the then little-known Osama bin Laden. When the Soviet army eventually withdrew, Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, an influential leader and recruiter of Afghan Arabs, declared the end of an era in which the political will of world superpowers dominated Azinovic explains in his book that the triumph in Afghanistan was seen as the first phase of a global fight for the establishment of Islamic states - the international jihad. HOW DID THE MUJAHEDIN ARRIVE IN BOSNIA? The breakout of the Bosnian war in spring 1992 proved timely for many followers of Azzams ideas they used the sufferings of Muslim people there as a pretext to come and fight, said Azinovic. Bosnia happened to come about at a propitious time, said Kohlmann, noting that in 1989, Azzam was killed along with his two sons when his car exploded in Peshawar. The leaders of the movement were shattered. The Pakistani government decided that the jihad was over and they didnt want foreign mujahedin fighters in their country any more, so they kicked them out in 1993, he said. Kohlmann explained the series of events in 1992 and 1993 which brought the mujahedin to Bosnia. You had a period where the mujahedin are going from their naissance stage in Afghanistan under the watchful eye of Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden to the stage where they are going into the international jihad action, moving beyond the borders of Afghanistan exactly what Bin Laden had always dreamed of, he said. And so the first place they came to was Bosnia. At first, the Sarajevo authorities were unsure why these foreign fighters had come, said Azinovic. Bosnian intelligence and authorities believed that mujahedin were brought into the country against the will of the Sarajevo-based government, and with the assistance of western security agencies. According to him, some mujahedin were suspected of doing intelligence work, while others were thought to be trying to strengthen Islamic sentiment and ideology in Bosniak-held territories. Bosniak member of the state presidency, Haris Silajdzic, who was Bosnias minister of foreign affairs at the time, said Muslim fighters arrived without an invitation. There were 600 to 700 of these people and most of them had arrived with honourable intentions to help Bosnia, said Silajdzic. However, let me make this clear nobody invited them, they arrived on their own. Kohlmann, who has researched the arrival of Afghan veterans in Bosnia, said there are documents from al-Qaeda as well as from Bosnian secret services which point to the same conclusion. Generally, at the beginning [the mujahedin] came on their own and have not been drafted definitely not by somebody from Bosnia, said Kohlmann. They were instead spurred into action by international reporting on the Bosnian war, he said. They had seen media reports about the situation in Bosnia and they believed that genocide against Muslims was taking place there, so they took that as a reason for a new jihad, he added. Yet, in his book, Azinovic notes that international investigations conducted after the war determined that certain Sarajevo officials, as well as some foreign humanitarian organisations, backed the mujahedins arrival. Kohlmann recalled that as the war dragged on, international opinion turned against the Serbs and became largely supportive of the Muslim side. At this time, a recruitment drive began in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and mosque representatives and other recruiters started sending individuals to fight in Bosnia. Its true that not all of these people were brought in with the knowledge of the Bosnian government, he said. HOW STRONG WERE THEY? Azinovic said it is unclear how many foreign Muslim volunteers fought alongside the regular Bosnian army during the war. He cites local estimates which suggest there were around 3,000 of them. According to Esad Hecimovic, a reporter with Sarajevo-based weekly Dani, there are no reliable records to give an idea of mujahedin numbers. Records show that some 400 foreign fighters contacted with local authorities at that time, for example to get passports and other personal documents endorsed. There are also documents containing lists of members of the El Mujahed detachment, a more formal unit whose status as part of the Bosnian military remains disputed. However, this sort of evidence is unreliable because the majority of these people did not reveal their real identity to military or civil authorities. Therefore we dont know how many of them were there or who they were, said Hecimovic. But while the number of the mujahedin in wartime Bosnia is still a mystery, said Kohlmann, there is very little doubt about their role there to help counter what began as the superior military might of the Serbs. The Serbs had the larger numbers of troops, they had better equipment, they had both the technological advantage and also, in some way, the propaganda advantage, he said. The Bosnian military needed a boogieman, they needed somebody to scare the living daylights out of the Serbs and the Croats; they needed someone to make the Serbs and the Croats rethink their strategy of trying to take parts of Bosnia. According to Kohlmann, the mujahedin proved fearless on the battlefield. When you are confronting a superior force you need hardcore, well-trained fighters; guys that arent afraid to die in combat; that would run straight into the line of enemy fire; that would dance across the minefield do things that Bosnian soldiers would never, ever do, he said. Yet according to Silajdzic, the Bosnian army did not need the extra manpower supplied by the mujahedin. We didnt need people, we needed weapons. But these people arrived anyway, and they evidently harmed the image of Bosnia, he said. The mujahedin, said Kohlmann, soon gained notoriety, Within just a few days, or few weeks of being in combat in Bosnia they really made a name for themselves. Not as those great conventional fighters, but rather as those who are probably predisposed to commit war crimes on the battlefield. As evidence of their brutality, Kohlmann said that when Serb soldiers killed two foreign Muslim fighters during the war, among their belongings, they found photos of mujahedin holding the severed heads of Serbs. They were actually taking these heads and they were collecting them in boxes to take back with them, added Kohlmann. This was not even so much a jihad at the beginning as it was a human safari. MUJAHEDINS RELATIONSHIP WITH BOSNIAN ARMY A number of trials in The Hague, including that of Delic, have looked at the extent to which foreign Muslim combatants were subordinate to the Bosnian military command after the creation of the El Mujahed detachment. The Delic indictment lists a number of war crimes attributed to this unit. When they first arrived, the mujahedin irregulars do not appear to have been under the control of the Bosnian army. For the most part, these folks were independent units; they were fighting alongside Bosniaks, in some cases they were fighting alongside Bosnian military units, said Kohlmann. But it would be a stretch to say that in the first year of the war they were closely commanded by anyone in the Bosnian military. At first, the foreign fighters established camps in central Bosnia, said Hecimovic, using remote mountain locations away from prying eyes, It was only some time in April of 1993 that they took over a building in Zenica (Bosnias third largest city) and established their main headquarters there, after their armed forces had driven out units of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO). In the late summer of 1993, the Bosnian military tried to gain control over the mujahedin by integrating them more closely into the army. They established the El Mujahed detachment, consisting mainly of foreign Muslim fighters, which was intended to serve under the direct command of the Bosnian army's 3rd Corps. The question of who had de facto control over the El Mujahed detachment is central to the Delic case. Prosecutors maintain the general had authority over them, while the defence argues they reported only to militant Islamist groups, like al-Qaeda, outside the country. A judgement date for the trial has not yet been set. Merdijana Sadovic is IWPRs international justice/ICTY programme manager. Vlado Azinovic is an RFE editor and IWPR contributor. COURTSIDE: JOURNALIST SAYS GLAVAS ASSASSINATION STORY FABRICATED Croatian reporter tells court that a newspaper report which backed assassination claim was not true. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb A journalist told the trial of Branimir Glavas at Zagreb County Court this week that a newspaper article describing an assassination attempt on the Croatian politician by a Serb civilian was made up. Croatian troops who gunned Serb civilian Cedomir Vuckovic down in September 1991 claimed that they were thwarting an assassination attempt against Glavas. However, other witnesses have testified that Vuckovic was first tortured and then killed on the pretext that he was a terrorist who wanted to kill Glavas. Forensic evidence presented during the case suggests that Vuckovic actually died from poisoning, and that he was trying to escape over a fence not trying to attack Glavas when he was shot. Vuckovic is one of the victims cited in the indictment issued against Glavas and six others for war crimes in the town of Osijek in late 1991. They are charged with torturing civilians in a garage, forcing Vuckovic to drink battery acid. Other civilians were shot and thrown into the Drava river, their mouths bound with gaffer tape, according to the indictment. Initially, some of Glavass co-defendants confirmed he was involved in the crimes, yet when the case came to trial they retracted their statements and accused police of forcing them to confess. Robert Pauletic, a former reporter with Croatian weekly Slobodni Tjednik, is the named author of an article published at the time headlined Assassination Attempt on Branimir Glavas Foiled. He told judges this week how the piece came to be written. He said that he made some rough notes after a colleague Slovenian photo-journalist Alojz Krivobrada told him about the alleged assassination attempt on Glavas by an apparently armed Vuckovic. Krivobrada who did not witness the incident, but heard what had happened from Croatian soldiers there also produced some photographs of the crime scene. Pauletic gave his notes to his editor, the late Marinko Bozic, who instead of investigating the story to find out if it was true, wrote a piece from the notes and put Pauletic's name on it. According to the witness, Bozic changed and added information when he wrote the article although he gave no further details on this. Pauletic said that Glavas probably didn't call Bozic to tell him what to publish in the story, which backed the version of events described by Croatian forces which was published throuhgout the Croatian media. Drazen Rajkovic, another journalist and Pauletics former colleague, testified that the article could have been written by Bozic. While Rajkovic didnt explain what he meant by this, Bozic was seen by many as a journalist who put sensationalism ahead of the truth. Both journalists told the court that media was often used for propaganda purposes in newly independent Croatia. Two other reporters, Dario Topic and Davor Spisic, also testified this week. The journalists published an interview with Glavas in the Croatian regional daily Glas Slavonije in 1992. In the interview, which was read out at a hearing on June 17, the politician described how Osijek was defended against Serb troops and how weapons were obtained. Both witnesses said the interview was conducted because Glavas was considered a very important and interesting person at the time. The prosecution have tried to show that Glavas was the main military and political figure in the city from the start of its defence, and thats why he was interesting to the Croatian media. Yet Glavas has claimed since the beginning of the trial that he was not the most influential person in Osijek during the war and that other politicians notably Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, official Vladimir Seks had much more power than he did. Glavass defence said the Glas Slavonije interview did not prove anything. The trial continues next week. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained journalist in Zagreb. BRIEFLY NOTED: CROATIA FACES STATE ARCHIVE DEMAND Tribunal prosecutors ask judges to order Zagreb to hand over military files in Gotovina trial. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb The Hague tribunals chief prosecutor has asked the trial chamber prosecuting three Croatian generals to issue an order compelling Croatia to supply material from its state archives. Serge Brammertz submitted the application on June 13, to the trial chamber prosecuting Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. The Croatian generals are currently standing trial for war crimes committed during and after the Operation Storm offensive of August 1995, when the army retook parts of Croatia that had been occupied by Serb rebels since 1991. In the submission, Brammertz said Croatia has failed to produce military documents relevant to the artillery operations carried out during Operation Storm, as well as documents relating to Markacs special police units, despite prosecution requests dating back to November 2006. The Office of the Prosecutor, OTP, has asked the trial chamber to order Croatia to deliver the papers in question within two weeks. Although the Croatian authorities have had 18 months to find the documents, they have not handed them over, nor made sincere efforts to find them, said the prosecution. However, Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor told reporters on June 17 that while Croatia was sincerely and fully cooperating with the United Nations court, the government could not surrender the documents because it did not have them. Of the 788 requests, the government has partly failed to meet only one that concerns documents we cannot find, said Kosor, adding that the government had told prosecutors several times that the documents could not be traced. Several internal investigations have been carried out, the commissions are working, but for now there have been no results. The defence teams of the three generals are expected to respond next week. Luka Misetic, Gotovina's lawyer, suggested that the prosecutors were already preparing for a defeat. [It is] a regular occurrence for the prosecution to create an alibi for acquittal, said Misetic. Now three months into the trial, to say that that the Croatian government is obstructing their work is simply shocking. The trial of the generals began on March 11, 2008. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained journalist in Zagreb. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE, which has been running since 1996, details events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in 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. 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