¹

Tuesday, 12 February 2002

[Open Session]

[Prosecution Opening Statement]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.30 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the registrar call the case.

THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Case number IT-02-54-T, the Prosecutor versus Slobodan Milosevic.

JUDGE MAY: The appearances, please.

MR. NICE: For the Prosecution, the Prosecutor Madam Carla Del Ponte appears; I appear; and the Court will see that I am joined by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, who, as the Court will know, has special responsibility for the Croatian indictment; my learned friend Mr. Groome, sitting on the far right, who has special responsibility for the Bosnian indictment; and closest to me, my learned friend Mr. Ryneveld, who has special responsibility for the Kosovo indictment, the indictment that's going to be dealt with chronologically first in this case.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: For the amici curiae, Steven Kay of Queen's Counsel of the bar of England and Wales, Professor Michail Wladimiroff of the Netherlands bar, and Mr. Branislav Tapuskovic of the Yugoslavia bar.

JUDGE MAY: Madam Prosecutor, it's now for you to open your case. You will have in mind, of course, our order of the 4th of February relating to this trial and that this part of the trial relates to Kosovo, although you have leave in your opening address to deal with other ² relevant matters to clarify the issues in the case. Before you address us, let me deal with one preliminary issue. We will grant your motion of the 8th of February for the withdrawal of exhibits and witnesses and the substitution of others. We're pleased to note the withdrawal of over a thousand exhibits, and we would encourage such sensible pruning in the future. And I would add this: We will deal with any outstanding motions or other matters concerning this part of the trial later this week, and we'll deal with the conduct of the trial relating to the Bosnia and Croatia indictments on Tuesday of next week. That's the 19th of February. We will find a convenient moment during the evidence to conduct that hearing.

Yes, Madam Prosecutor.

MS. DEL PONTE: Thank you, Mr. President. Your Honours, the Chamber will now begin the trial of this man for the wrongs he is said to have done to the people of his own country and to his neighbours. How simple that statement is to make today; how easily those words pass into the record of these proceedings; and yet how remarkable it is that I am able to speak them here. Today, as never before, we see international justice in action.

Let us take a moment at the start of this trial to reflect upon the establishment of this Tribunal and its purpose. We should just pause to recall the daily scenes of grief and suffering that came to define armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The events themselves were notorious and a new term, "ethnic cleansing," came into common use in our language. Some of the incidents reveal an almost medieval savagery and ³ the calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare. The international community was shocked to witness the vicious disintegration of a modern state, and the Security Council of the United Nations was quick to recognise the grave threat caused by the serious crimes it believed to have been committed.

This Tribunal is one of the measures taken by the Security Council acting for all Member States of the United Nations to restore and maintain international peace and security. That is our purpose, and our unique contribution is to bring to justice the persons responsible for the worst crimes known to humankind.

The crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and the other crimes within the jurisdiction of this Tribunal are not local affairs, and their prosecution may be beyond the capability of national courts. Crimes of the magnitude of those in the indictment before the Chamber affect all of us throughout the world. The law of this Tribunal - international humanitarian law - is the concern of people everywhere. These crimes touch every one of us, wherever we live, because they offend against our deepest principles of human rights and human dignity. The law is not a mere theory or an abstract concept. It is a living instrument that must protect our values and regulate civilised society. And for that we must be able to enforce the law when it is broken. This Tribunal, and this trial in particular, give the most powerful demonstration that no one is above the law or beyond the reach of international justice.

As Prosecutor, I bring the accused Milosevic before you to face ⁴ the charges against him. I do so on behalf of the international community and in the name of all the member states of the United Nations, including the states of the former Yugoslavia. The accused in this case, as in all cases before the Tribunal, is charged as an individual. He is prosecuted on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility. No state or organisation is on trial here today. The indictments do not accuse an entire people of being collectively guilty of the crimes, even the crime of genocide. It may be tempting to generalise when dealing with the conduct of leaders at the highest level, but that is an error that must be avoided. Collective guilt forms no part of the Prosecution case. It is not the law of this Tribunal, and I make it clear that I reject the very notion.

I do, of course, intend to explore the degree to which the power and influence of the accused extended over others, but I stress again that the accused is brought before you to answer for his own actions and for his personal involvement in the crimes alleged against him. Your Honours, while I bring the indictment as Prosecutor in the international public interest, I do not mean to ignore the victims of the crimes committed during the conflicts. Much of the development of the law since the Second World War has been designed to prevent members of the civilian population from coming to harm in times of armed conflict. The law itself exists to protect ordinary people not engaged in hostilities. Even so, as Prosecutor, I do not directly represent any individual victim.

I do, however, consider it to be part of my function in presenting ⁵ the case to allow the voice of the victims to be heard. No court can experience the events as the victims themselves did, and no court can be expected to do so. Many victims cannot come before you because they did not survive. Nor is it possible, in the proof of crimes on such a scale as those in the indictments, for any prosecutor to bring all of the surviving witnesses to give evidence in court. Despite that limitation, I am confident that the Prosecution case will present to the Chamber a full picture of the circumstances of the crimes and of their impact on the people against whom they were directed.

The case against the accused will be complex. It will be broad in its scope, reflecting the nature of the charges, and yet it will be detailed, as criminal cases must be, where specific features of the evidence are required to be explored in depth. This case will certainly test the criminal justice process itself and will challenge the very capacity of a modern criminal court to address crimes which must extend so far in time and place. I fully accept the responsibility that falls upon the Prosecutor to bring forward evidence to support the indictment. A trial of this nature requires the Chamber to hear evidence from many sources; from individuals, from organisations, and from state officials. The Chamber will receive testimony from high-ranking military figures, diplomats, government representatives, and other persons of rank and function who, for different reasons that the Chamber will understand, cannot be named today. Such persons do not commonly appear in the criminal courts, and receiving their evidence challenges equally the witnesses and the Court. ⁶ The witnesses must find in themselves the individual courage to give their accounts in public. I will seek to match their strengths by obtaining for them all appropriate measures of protection available under the Tribunal's Rules. Organisations and governments must also find the institutional resolve to place before the Chamber information - sometimes sensitive information - in their possession. In this regard, the trial will test the cooperation of all states, not simply the states of the former Yugoslavia, some of which in the past have obstructed the work of this Tribunal and its Prosecutor. Peoples throughout the world following these proceedings will be watching to see the extent to which their own leaders are committed to achieving the aims of international justice in this forum.

This is a criminal trial. It is unfortunate that the accused has attempted to use his appearances before this Chamber to make interventions of a political nature. I can assure the Chamber that in the case before us the Prosecution will not allow itself to be drawn into any such exchanges. This is a Trial Chamber, not a Debating Chamber. I should also make it clear that in the performance of my duties towards this Chamber, I shall not allow myself any advantage from the fact that the accused has chosen not to be legally represented. Under the Statute of the Tribunal, an accused is entitled either to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing. He is fully entitled to exercise that choice and to elect to conduct his own defence. By doing so, he does not change the trial process in any way, and the onus upon the Prosecutor to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt remains ⁷ unaltered.

That is the position even where a prosecutor confronts a defence of defiance, or where an accused refuses to recognise the court or, in some way, attempts to undermine the solemnity of the proceedings. I speak for each of the counsel on this side of the table when I say that, as the Chamber will be aware, the Prosecution has scrupulously discharged its obligations at all pre-trial stages of this proceeding. We regularly consider, and will continue to consider with the Chamber and with the amici, whether mechanisms can be applied to reduce any risk adverse to the accused resulting from his attitude to this court. I can further undertake to the Chamber that in their conduct of the trial, Prosecution counsel, in the highest traditions of their profession, will do everything possible, despite the absence of Defence counsel, to assist the Chamber to identify the issues as the evidence unfolds.

Your Honours, permit me to say a further general word about the context in which the witnesses who may come before the Chamber will give their evidence as this trial progresses. It has been said many times that my mission as Prosecutor is to bring before the institution the persons who are believed to be most responsible for crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The International Community expects persons at the very highest levels of command and leadership to be brought to justice here in The Hague. That task is the very definition of my mandate as Prosecutor, and it is the essence of the purpose of the Tribunal. With the trial of this particular accused, we reach a turning ⁸ point of this institution. The proceeding upon which the Chamber embarks today is clearly the most important trial to be conducted in the Tribunal to date. Indeed, it may prove to be the most significant trial that this institution will ever undertake. It is thus a trial that must inevitably mark the path towards the conclusion of the work of this Tribunal, even although that day is still some way off.

The trial also marks a change, as the Court will discover, in that many people who have inside information are making the decision that it is right and better for them to assist the Tribunal by giving evidence and by making their mark in the record of humanity.

I recognise that this trial will make history, and we would do well to approach our task in the light of history. Sadly, ours is not the first inquiry into atrocities committed in the Balkan region. Listen to the words of the Chairman of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. Baron d'Estournelles de Constant is writing of the wars in 1912 and 1913. He makes the point at the conclusion of his introduction to the report published in 1914 that the real culprits are not the Balkan peoples, and he goes on to say this: "The true culprits are those who misled public opinion and take advantage of the people's ignorance to raise disquieting rumours and sound the alarm bell, inciting the country and, consequently, other countries into enmity. The real culprits are those who by interest or inclination, declaring constantly that war is inevitable, end by making it so, asserting that they are powerless to prevent it. The real culprits are those who sacrifice the general interest to their own personal interest ⁹ which they so little understand, and who hold up to their country a sterile policy of conflict and reprisals. In reality, there is no salvation, no way out either for small states or for great countries except by union or conciliation."

Your Honours, no words could better set the scene for the matters this Chamber will now try.

[Interpretation] Let me make some comments in the French language before I give the floor to my colleagues, to Senior Trial Attorney Mr. Nice. He will probably need four or five hours, because that will be the very core of the indictments. Then the other senior attorney, Dirk Ryneveld, will speak in respect of the details of the basic crimes in Kosovo, approximately one hour.

Let me say, Mr. President, these few closing remarks: An excellent tactician, a mediocre strategist, Milosevic did nothing but pursue his ambition at the price of unspeakable suffering inflicted on those who opposed him or who represented a threat for his personal strategy of power. Everything, Your Honours, everything with the accused Milosevic was an instrument in the service of his quest for power. One must not seek ideals underlying the acts of the accused. Beyond the nationalist pretext and the horror of ethnic cleansing, behind the grandiloquent rhetoric and the hackneyed phrases he used, the search for power is what motivated Slobodan Milosevic. These were not his personal convictions, even less patriotism or honour or racism or xenophobia which inspired the accused but, rather, the quest for power and personal power at that. ¹⁰ The trial which commences today will evoke the tragic fate of thousands of Milosevic's Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian victims. To read about the sufferings endured by these countless victims and survivors is unbearable. Yet the accused, Milosevic, also caused other victims. And now, Your Honours, I am thinking about the Serbs. The Serbian refugees from Croatia, from Bosnia, from Kosovo abused by Milosevic, whose fears were fed and amplified and manipulated to serve Milosevic's criminal plans. Many paid with their lives; most lost their homes and their futures. These men and women must rightly be counted among Milosevic's victims, just as the citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who now must reconstruct the exsanguinated country which Milosevic, the accused, bequeathed to them.

The history of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the fraticidal conflicts of another age which it brought about is a complex process which must be written by many people. This Tribunal will write only one chapter, the most bloody one, the most heartbreaking one as well; the chapter of individual responsibility of the perpetrators of serious violations of international humanitarian law. It is up to other courts to make the moral, historical, or even psychological diagnosis of the accused and to analyse the social, economic, and political dynamic which constituted the basic fabric of the crimes that we are going to consider. The apparently inevitable concatenation of fear and hatred, political manipulation, the sinister role of some of the media but also the heroism of the resistance and those who opposed him throughout the former Yugoslavia, the survival of dignity and civil spirit and humanity, ¹¹ all of these are mechanisms which must be analysed, dissected, and explained because it is imperative to respond to the victims' demand for truth, "victims" in the broadest sense of that term, and to reduce the risks of seeing this played out again in another place in the world and, in particular, in the Balkans. But here, more modestly, it is Slobodan Milosevic's personal responsibility which the Prosecution intends to demonstrate for the crimes ascribed to him, nothing but that, but all of that.

This is the contribution of justice, and we wish to make it dispassionately, recalling the words of Ivo Andric pronounced at the Jewish cemetery of Sarajevo, and I quote:

"If humanity wishes to be worthy of that name, must organise its common defence against all international crimes, erect a barrier which is sound and sure and truly punish all those who murder individuals and people."

And I thank you very much, Your Honours. I thank you for your attention.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: On a day in November 1991, at the fall of Vukovar in Croatia, a man - I think he was 58 - and his wife, fearing the worst, went to the hospital to find protection. What happened was that the men taken away by Yugoslav army soldiers, eventually to a farm called Ovcara where they were beaten, jumped upon by the soldiers, subject to various indignities, the man, who will be a witness before this Tribunal, along with six others, I think, had the chance good fortune of knowing one of ¹² the soldiers personally.

So those seven were picked out and, indeed, six of them, I think, survived. The other 260 were slaughtered. Thousands died in the conflict in Croatia, and perhaps at least 170.000 or more were deported. And so that account is an example of the misery and, indeed, of the criminality with which we will be dealing in the indictment that comes first in time chronologically, the Croatian indictment.

A year or thereabouts later, in Visegrad, Bosnia, a young woman, heavily pregnant, found the town taken over by Yugoslav soldiers and, I think, others, a group called the White Eagles, of which we will hear, was involved. Because of what was happening, she and many other people took to the woods at night. Indeed, she gave birth to her daughter in the woods, at night. And it would appear from evidence that we do have that she gave that daughter a name, but we can't tell you what the name is. In due course, that woman, her baby, and many others, including some 45 members of her extended family, were taken, on the basis of a promise that they would be travelling in a Red Cross bus, to a house that had been prepared for them with petrol on its carpets and presumably floors. They were burnt alive, and the baby's screams were heard for some two hours before it too succumbed.

So that is one crime to represent the thousands killed in the Bosnian conflict, well over 7.000; a conflict that involves hundreds of thousands - two, three - deported.

We move on seven years to the third indictment and to another and different story involving a mother and daughter. This time not a young ¹³ daughter or a daughter unborn, but to a girl of about 20; old enough to think that she was perhaps an adult launched on life; young enough, no doubt, to have been regarded by her mother as the daughter she truly was. This is at a place called Kozica and thereabouts. At this site, as the Court will, in due course, hear, some 50 women were gathered together for safety. Again, by deception, and under guard of abusing soldiers, they were taken not to a mosque as they were promised, but to a house that was capable of being made secure; the mother, from whom you will hear, and her 20-year-old daughter. The daughter was one of several women, mostly young, who were taken out from time to time by the abusing soldiers, returning in a state of obvious fear, it being perhaps a matter of inference what happened to them. Later, eight women, I think five young and perhaps three a little older, were taken again; one of them the 20-year-old daughter. The house was tied up with wire, as the remaining women could see. They feared they were going to be burnt alive, but that didn't happen. In due course, they escaped, or they were let out, in fact. But the mother did not find her daughter. In the weeks that followed, when she was free to revisit the area, she searched, hopelessly looking for the daughter who was, in due course, found by those representing the international community doing their distressing work. She and the other seven women last taken out were found at the bottom of three different wells into which they had been thrown, probably alive, and after who knows quite what had happened to them.

That account may serve as but one representation of what happened ¹⁴ in Kosovo where at least four and a half thousand people died, but estimates rise to ten, and where over three-quarters of a million people were forcibly moved from Kosovo or forcibly removed within it. Those then, in some statistical way, and with just those examples, are the subject matter of this trial and these indictments. Having said what I've said, the Court may want to know that I shall return rarely, if at all, to such distressing material again. And why?

First, as the Prosecutor has herself said, it is for the witnesses to come to this Tribunal and to give their accounts, and it is to them that we shall look for the proper record. Of course they will be but a tiny fraction of those who suffered, but the Court will want to know that, for the most part, they are anxious to give their evidence; and indeed, even those whose statements may be admitted by the provisions for the acceptance of written material in this Tribunal, for the most part, they want their contribution to be public and clear as to who it is who's making it. So we leave it to the witnesses.

Second, the distressing and emotive potential of this sort of evidence has, in truth, only one forensic value, point of forensic value, point of forensic significance, to this trial. The accused, as, of course, is obvious, is charged in respect of these events. The issue is, or may be, did he know they were happening? Of course he did. Not only would matters have been reported to him, but in these days when the press, radio, and television bring wars to our homes as they occur, he cannot not have known. And therefore the question is if the Chamber is, in due ¹⁵ course, satisfied that he lay behind what was happening, why did he continue; why did he not stop these things that were occurring? And third, as a reason for sparing the Chamber an excess of distressing material, this: This accused and others who may come to this Tribunal, or indeed to other tribunals, must know that whatever the underlying facts of crimes charged against them, trials will be conducted in a calm and unemotional manner.

And perhaps one last reason why we should treat these events as dispassionately as possible, perhaps what, say the Prosecution, the accused did. He did not confront his victims. He was able to view what was happening from the distance of high political office, and, if the Prosecution's case is right, he had these crimes committed for him by others.

This trial, as, again, the Prosecutor has correctly explained, will not be making findings as to history. Matters of history always leave scope for argument, for doubt between historians. But history, even distant history sometimes available to this Court through the witnesses, will have a relevance from time to time in showing what the accused thought, what those identified in indictments as his co-perpetrators thought, what his compliant supporters thought, and what was available in history to fire up the emotions, particularly nationalist emotions, however little this particular accused might personally and genuinely have held those nationalist views.

For procedural reasons, this trial will start with evidence about Kosovo, despite that conflict coming last in time. But, in a way, this ¹⁶ may be curiously appropriate, for Kosovo features from first to last in the sequence of tragedies with which we are concerned, as well as holding, so it is said, a place in the hearts of Serbs and Albanian Kosovars as the cradle of their respective civilisations.

The 1974 Constitution of the Republic of Yugoslavia gave Kosovo, as it did Vojvodina, semi-autonomous status. In fact, very considerable independence. Little-known Kosovo, little Kosovo, barely over a hundred kilometres from end to end, was hardly on anybody's lips outside Yugoslavia and on few people's tourist plans. It lies, of course, in the southern part of the Republic of Serbia, which is itself or was itself one of the constituent republics of the socialist Yugoslavian republic. President Tito died in 1980. It may be that Serb nationalists believed that Tito had kept Yugoslavia together by weakening Serbia when he organised the semi-autonomous provinces within it. Maybe the phrase "weak Serbia, strong Yugoslavia" explained what he had done and why Serb nationalists felt as they did about it.

Released from shackles, however beneficent of Tito, exposed the population of Yugoslavia as a whole and its leaders to new experiences, new opportunities and new temptations, and it was Kosovo that showed early signs of enthusiasm for change. As early as March or April of 1981, massive student demonstrations occurred in its capital Pristina, in the town of Prizren and elsewhere, and the slogan "Kosovo Republika" was heard, coming as a surprise and indeed as a shock to many in federal Yugoslavia.

At the same time, Serbian communists, and maybe Serbs without ¹⁷ political affiliation, were becoming free to grumble about their historic lot and about Kosovo. The Serbian view may have included that it was they who had been the valiant victors in World War I, the chief architects of the new Yugoslavia, the valiant victims of World War II, those who had won in law -- in war but lost in peace and all or very many Serbs were willing to complain about Kosovo.

Interestingly, at that early time, Kosovo may have found some support in the republic, in northern Slovenia, perhaps because seeing what was going to happen or what was happening in Kosovo, the Slovenians had anxieties for themselves. But the prevailing culture, perhaps difficult for outsiders to understand or to feel, was that this was a place where to speak in nationalistic terms was genuinely unacceptable, something likely to bring criminal sanctions. May it be that as thought became free, in part, at least, it was easy for it to become distorted? And the Chamber will hear, I have no doubt, in the course of evidence, of a memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts that was leaked in 1986. It's a memorandum, of course, of genuine intellectuals, and they were able, in 1986, to put their names to the following lines, and I quote, in translation, of course:

"The physical, political, legal, and cultural genocide against the Serb population of Kosovo and Metohija is the serious, serious defeat of Serbia."

They went on in the memorandum to say: "Except in the wartime period, never have the Serbs of Croatia been so threatened as today." ¹⁸ That, then, the reaction of intellectuals in 1986 of Serb persuasion to what was beginning to happen in little Kosovo. How slight was the face -- the threat that the Serbs really faced compared with the threats that were to face others later? How could they sensibly use in that context the notion of genocide of culture? But the prevailing culture was one that could produce such thought, and there was much talk at the time of Serbs being vulnerable and under threat, concern that the massacres of World War II, where they had suffered badly, so badly, would happen again, concern that they would be drowned by the Albanians in Kosovo or that they would somehow be exploited and oppressed politically and economically.

It was onto to this scene that this accused was propelled or propelled himself. And a question may arise, when we consider this part of the history on the evidence, how this man, rare among former communist leaders, was able to effect the transition from party leadership under the old regime to party leadership under the new. Was he a brilliant and kindly leader or was he simply a man who had the sharpest appreciation of how to retain control through manipulation?

The fate of the late Ivan Stambolic may provide some answer. This man was mentor, in the political sense, to the accused, his protege. He sent his protege to Kosovo to quell unrest. He gave him an opportunity. It was an opportunity, and I'm afraid it's of course now all too well known, he gave him an opportunity which he took. Your Honour, we'll look now briefly at a piece of footage. Even if it is well-known, it will have to be part of the evidence in this ¹⁹ case. It's footage of the April 1987 meeting in Kosovo. If the booth could assist us.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: To what extent, if any, that incident was stimulated and planned matters little. It was that phrase that, "You will not be beaten," and the response of others to it that gave this accused the taste or a better taste of power, maybe the first realisation of a dream. It gave him an opening.

The man who had sent him, his former mentor, Stambolic, rapidly lost power. The accused gained power. By the 23rd of September of 1987, at the 8th Session of the Serbian Communist Party, the accused achieved superiority over Stambolic, and in due course he was removed on the basis of what it may be was a totally incorrect or even forged document, and the accused became head of the ruling Communist Party. It's perhaps worth having in mind that it can never have been easy or that easy for a Serb communist to gain wide popularity. Serbs may have treasured institutions like the monarchy or the Orthodox church or even the Chetnik movement that had been suppressed by communism, and it may be that Bosnian Serbs in particular felt this strongly and saw less or little good in communism. So for a former communist such as -- or a communist such as this accused to gain wide support was tricky, difficult, and he had to unite, if he was to have and retain power, the communist left and the anti-communist right. He had to obtain support of Serbs in Serbia proper but also elsewhere in Yugoslavia. He had to weld them together, although much later, or later in any event, he would have to be releasing ²⁰ them, individuals, when their purpose was served, and large groups of them in Croatia and Bosnia when his efforts at joinder failed. By 1988 and into 1989, the accused was enjoying considerable support. It was something called the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution, manifest in Vojvodina in something well-known I think, as the yoghurt revolution because of what was thrown, and also in Montenegro. And to give us a taste of the times, it was in the course of these rallies, this Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution, that pictures of the accused were everywhere, borne aloft in demonstrations. And perhaps as a result both the Provincial Government of Vojvodina and the Republican Government of Montenegro became places where support for the accused could be found. Indeed in Montenegro, Momir Bulatovic, as President of Montenegro, came to be a great supporter of this accused.

But his successes were not without difficulties. In October of 1988, there were demonstrations in Kosovo again against Serb nationalism and against the threats to the Kosovar economy and indeed its autonomy. In November 1988, there were moves in the Kosovo Communist Party where people less loyal to this accused were replaced by those more loyal to him, and that was followed in February of 1989 by massive strikes, in particular of Albanian miners, against the threat of the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy.

Can we get another snapshot of this accused at about this time? At the end of February or beginning of March of 1989, there was a demonstration. The subject was nationalism. We'll see the video in just a second. ²¹ The accused spoke to a crowd of perhaps up to a million demonstrators in Belgrade. He spoke of settling accounts with Kosovo leaders and promised decisive action, but perhaps interesting is this: He kept the crowd waiting for a full 24 hours and then only spoke to them for four minutes.

Can we see the clip?

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: Well, the accused had learned, it may be thought, to use the power of a crowd. And in that interchange with the crowd, he responded to what was asked of him. And the man, Vllasi, featured in the communist shuffle that I referred to recently, was, I think, arrested the following day.

But the powers of crowds are limited and, ultimately, reversible, as we will all recall from seeing on our television screens how it was that this accused eventually lost power so many years later. I return then to Kosovo, a continuing problem. In March of 1989, the Kosovo Assembly itself passed constitutional amendments contrary to its own best interests, abandoning or losing control of police, education, economic policy, the choice of the official language, and its veto powers over further changes of the Serbian constitution. At the time it passed those amendments, the Assembly building was surrounded by tanks and there was uncertainty, in any event, as to whether the appropriate majority for the changes was present.

It would not be surprising if such actions against Kosovo brought reaction. And I suppose the only surprise that one might have in mind now ²² and, as we look at the chronology, for the next few years of the chronology is that the reaction of Kosovo, or of the Kosovo Albanians, was as muted and peaceful for a time as it was. Peaceful, perhaps, because Kosovo was left waiting, so far as it was concerned, for an eventual happy outcome; waiting, it may be on the accused's part, if he dwelt on it at all, for Kosovo's turn to come. People, at the time of the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia, would say cynically or jokingly that, in the end, it would end at Kosovo.

On the 28th of March of 1989, the Assembly of Serbia approved the constitutional changes and revoked the autonomy of Kosovo granted in the 1974 constitution. More strikes, massive in scale, responded to by brutal repression; up to 100 demonstrators killed, a thousand people put on trial, including many of the Albanian elite. But this did not affect the accused's rise. For on the 8th of May, the time that these things were happening, he became, not by popular vote but by the mechanism of the state appropriate at the time, President of Serbia. This trial is about the climb of this accused to power, power that the Prosecution will invite the Chamber to say, in due course, was exercised without accountability, responsibility, or morality. Such climbs cannot be accomplished alone. The help of fellow travelers is required, however quickly they may leave or be made to leave the moving vehicle, and from time to time we should just consider some of these men, co-indictees, some of them in the Kosovo indictment; others named as co-perpetrators in the Croatia and Bosnia indictments. Borisav Jovic, whose photograph is on the overhead projector, ²³ became Vice-President of the collective Presidency of Yugoslavia. It's a body composed of various representatives of the states and the semi-autonomous provinces. This man was one of the accused's closest collaborators in the early days of the joint criminal enterprise charged against him, and was President of the Presidency itself of Yugoslavia between 1990/1991, for a year.

Through this man and others like him, say the Prosecution, this accused exercised effective control over the Presidency - the Presidency - serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslav army, at that time known by the acronym JNA, and he was able to achieve that control despite being, the word "only" would be inappropriate, really, but only President of Serbia.

Perhaps I should just add this: Those who did not live in federal states and who look at them from a different experience may be tempted to think that it must be the case that the federal body is, in some way, all embracing of, larger than, more powerful than, the constituent states. That would be an easy mistake to make in respect of the former Yugoslavia, and it may well be the case that the federal body was weaker at various times, and certainly at the time with which we are concerned, than the individual state of Serbia. But that's for later determination. Returning to the man Borisav Jovic. In June of 1990, as the evidence will reveal, the accused shared with Jovic his view that the amputation of Croatia, the secession of Croatia, was to be exercised in such a way that various opstinas/regions of Croatia remain with us, with Yugoslavia. At the same time, another man who becomes important at this ²⁴ time, General Veljko Kadijevic, agreed with that notion; that Serbian opstinas, in the event of the loss of Croatia, should remain with us, the "us" then being, at least at that time, Yugoslavia. A seemingly innocent goal but one that could be used to explain and to justify territorial aggression and crimes against humanity in the coming years. That general, General Kadijevic, along with General Adzic, the Chief of Staff of the JNA, the Yugoslavian army, assured both Jovic and this accused that the military would in no case allow the Croatian police to occupy certain particular Croatian cities which were, by that point, under Serb control.

A word about the word "police," as I shall use it in the course of this opening and as will be used extensively in the trial. The Ministry of the Interior is known as the MUP, M-U-P, or the Ministry of the Interior Police is known as the MUP, the M-U-P. It comes in two parts: the conventional police, dealing with crimes, traffic, and so on, and another part which, to the uninitiated, resemble far more a military force, with substantial weaponry and appropriate vehicles. The relationship of Jovic and Milosevic before and during the war in Croatia, which we will be turning to in due course, will show in detail how this accused, although the President of Serbia, exercised control over that Presidency of which I have referred and the army of which the Presidency was Commander-in-Chief.

Another point begins to emerge about this accused. First, guilty, culpable people often forget to do, at the time, what their innocence should have them doing. We may find in the case of ²⁵ this accused, in the years that are to come, little or no expression of regret for what was happening to the victims of these conflicts; no sympathy. What thought process could enable him, whatever he was doing, to suffer this form of mental blindness?

Well, now, part of the answer to that question may lie in the mechanism by which he controlled events. By being notionally separate from the body that was, in law, doing things - in this case, the Presidency of which he was not a member - he controlled events because he controlled the people who constituted the body that, as we will say in due course, did evil. So it was that body, not he who bore responsibility. Never him; no regrets; no shame.

Moving on just a little with Borisav Jovic, before we return to the chronological examination of events. We will discover that from October 1991, when there were absentees from the Presidency because the representatives from Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina did not exercise their powers, the Presidency became what was known as a Rump Presidency, headed by a man called Branko Kostic, sometime Vice-President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, named as a co-perpetrator, with Borislav Jovic playing a key role in it. And then it was the Rump Presidency influenced, if not controlled, by the accused that was able to control the Yugoslav People's Army, the JNA, the Territorial Defence units and volunteer units acting in coordination and under the supervision of the JNA, and so on. So, so much, for the time being, of that man.

We will, no doubt, hear in this case from at least one ²⁶ constitutional expert. It's right that the Chamber should have that material before it, although there is a limit to the relevance of constitutional law to a man who, as the Prosecution say, regarded the law as an instrument of rule rather than a controller of rulers. And the quick reality may be this: The units I have just described as being subordinated to and controlled by the Rump Presidency, in due course, that committed the gravest of crimes, was simply, however indirectly, under the authority of this accused. And the Rump Presidency acted without dissension to execute his policies so that the man Jovic would share responsibility for what was done by the army. But we'll come to that in due course.

Returning to the rise of this accused, and returning to Kosovo, we come to the 28th of June of 1989. Another, I think, famous clip, but we must show it and it must be entered into the evidence of this case. On that day, there was celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. I shan't trouble the Chamber with the detail of why that battle, which was indeed a loss by Serbians, was celebrated in the way it was.

The event occurred at a place called Kosovo Polje in Kosovo. An enormous number of people attended. The accused was the lead speaker. The full speech we'll, of course, pay consideration in due course. The Chamber may think it is a skilful speech of great power, reflecting on how Serbs used to feel guilty for their role but should no more, how Serbs had been the bringers of freedom; basically how Serbs did and were good. But there was one passage even in June 1989 that merits particular attention, ²⁷ and the clip that I will now ask to be played will show us what it was.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: Can we just pause that for a minute, please? Your Honour, I'm sorry. I was hoping that might be translated by the booths. If it's not happening --

JUDGE MAY: Maybe that's something you can deal with during the adjournment, which we will take shortly.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: At a convenient moment.

MR. NICE: I'm entirely in the Court's hands, certainly.

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters are ready.

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... earlier than I thought you would be rising.

JUDGE MAY: I have a message that the interpreters are ready, so let's try again.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Comrades, at this place, at this place in the heart of Serbia, on the Field of Kosovo, Kosovo Field, six centuries ago, a full 600 years ago, one of the greatest battles of that time took place. The Kosovo heroism for six centuries has inspired our creativity, has fed our pride, and does not allow us to forget that we were once a large army, a proud army, a rare army who in its loss was not vanquished.

"Six centuries later - today - we are once again fighting battles and faced with battles. They are not armed battles, although such battles ²⁸ are not excluded either. But regardless of the nature of those battles, the battles cannot be won without the decisiveness, the courage and perseverance, and all the good qualities that were ever present a long time ago on the field of Kosovo."

MR. NICE: So armed battles, armed struggle was not being excluded even at that stage.

And one other point about this gathering and what was said at it, which we will look at in the course of the trial: Happening on the territory of Kosovo, a speech that contained references to the values of a multi-ethnic society but not one word about the Kosovo Albanians. By the end of 1989, it may be appropriate to remind ourselves the fate of Romania's President Ceaucescu may well have caused fear in the minds and hearts of those who would be facing strong anti-communist sentiment generally. The skill and ability of this accused was to use such developing sentiments of anti-communism and to turn them, by reliance on nationalism, to his own advantage, for in the same way has he understood the power of the crowd, he appreciated that nationalism was a force.

I return to what the Prosecutor has already said but in slightly different terms to the same effect: Was the accused a nationalist? Maybe; maybe not. In the same way as he most probably was not in any way a racist.

There are those who believe in causes, and there are those who can seem to believe in causes. Only they know at the time which may be the truth. Others have to wait until later to discover from a careful ²⁹ examination of patterns of events whether the cause was an object of genuine pursuit or the passport to something else. The Chamber may in due course decide, if it thinks it has to, but the Prosecution invites caution before finding sincere adoption of a nationalist Serbian cause by this man.

We come to the disintegration of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in January of 1989. I needn't trouble you with the video clip for the meeting where the Slovenes and Croats left the party, although they remained in the Presidency of the former Yugoslavia for another two and a half years. The Chamber may remember from other sources how the Slovenes, I think, arrived at the last meeting with their suitcases ready for a quick getaway.

Following that meeting, further demonstrations in Kosovo. Kosovo again. Demonstrations crushed by police; 27 killed. Now not an incidental but a figure of comparative, not acceptability but something, for of course a disintegrating society can have all too easily a corrupting effect on one's approach or the approach of people there to things like that.

And we then reach the stage in the overall development of the history of the elections elsewhere and the growth of the nationalist parties elsewhere.

I don't know if that's a convenient moment or not.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, it would be convenient. We will adjourn. Would the registrar just come up, please.

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer] ³⁰

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now until half past eleven.

--- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.30 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honours. A matter I should raise before the Court before Mr. Nice continues with his opening, and it's merely to put it on the record and give an explanation because some people may have been concerned with what happened in the adjournment, although, for our part, we're not.

The accused passed a number of informal comments about the Prosecution opening to Mr. Tapuskovic of a very general nature which we heard and which was translated for us and not in the way of detailed instructions or anything like that, and the amici obviously listened to what was being said by him. We just raise this so that there is a clarification, if there is any communication by the accused to the amici during the court session, to find out what the position is as Your Honours would see it.

JUDGE MAY: Well, the difficulty is this: that during the court session or when the accused is going in and out of court, it's clearly disruptive if there are conversations going on. It's better, if there are any conversations, that they take place out of court and not while he's going in and out. So if you wish to speak to him or he wishes to speak to you, then you must ask and, no doubt, leave will be granted.

MR. KAY: Thank you for that clarification, Your Honour.

MR. NICE: We come to the elections of the spring of 1990. ³¹ In Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union, known by its initials HDZ, won a plurality of votes and the majority of seats in the Croatian Parliament, the Sabor, and elected the late Franjo Tudjman as its President.

Can we just have a look at a plan. We, of course, owe a duty to be evenhanded in the presentation of this chronology, as indeed in the presentation of all the evidence in this case, and therefore at this time, as we look at this plan - the first time we've looked at it - it shows, of course, Croatia surrounding Bosnia-Herzegovina, it shows the particular areas of interests for the Serbs, but just for the present purpose, it just shows a couple of points for identification purposes really. Because at this early stage, it's worth noting that Croat armed forces, at this stage, were already attacking the Serbs from time to time; in particular, they attacked some Serb civilians, notably in Eastern Slavonia, which we can see in red, and indeed there were war crimes committed in the Gospic area, which is not, I think, shown specifically but which is over to the west, now the subject of a high-profile trial itself in Croatia.

We will probably leave that map on the overhead projector, I think, for the time being and move on.

While the Croats of Croatia were moving towards a nationalist position and government, the attacks on Kosovo Albanians were continuing, and the delegates to their Assembly in Kosovo passed what was an unofficial resolution declaring Kosovo an equal and independent entity within the republic. Sorry, of course this map doesn't show Kosovo. We ³² all know where it is. In due course, for any who don't, maps will be on the overhead projector, making that clearer.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, there's some interruption coming from one of the booths which we can overhear. Maybe something can be done about it.

MR. NICE: While that's being dealt with, Your Honour, I am aware that there is, of course, a new language being dealt with in this Tribunal, and although probably it would have been desirable for me to move at the measured pace I'm adopting in any event for interpreters with whom I'm familiar, it's particularly appropriate with new interpreters that I don't go too fast.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: With that unofficial resolution passed, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Serbian Assembly reacted by dissolving the Kosovo Assembly; a further substantial attack on Kosovo's integrity. The accused's Communist Party was changing, mutating into the new party that he was to lead, the Serbian Socialist Party or SPS, coming into being on the 16th of July of 1990, the accused becoming its President, the party being and becoming one of, if not his main, lever of power. A word also about that party. It remained the most powerful party in Serbia until the autumn of the year 2000. The accused was its President throughout save for a period between May 1991 and October 1992 when the man Borisav Jovic, of whom we've already seen and heard a little, was President.

This party controlled institutions on the Serb republic and the Yugoslav federal level. The accused had de facto power at those levels ³³ through the party regardless of which function he held, whether as President of Serbia, as he was from 1990 to 1997, or President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until 2000. Through his party, he could control the Presidency of, first, the socialist republic, later the federal republic and the Serbian Assemblies. He controlled that which I have already described as the Rump Presidency, giving him control over the army, and the parliamentary majorities of the SPS gave him control over parliaments in both Serbia and Yugoslavia.

The powers of patronage he exercised were enormous. Key government posts were filled by party members. Some of those names, and I shan't list all of them, who were appointed effectively by the party and thus by this accused, include Jovic, to whom we've heard; Kostic of the Rump Presidency to whom we've referred; Nikola Sainovic, a Deputy Prime Minister of the federal republic in due course and who will feature later; Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs, again who will feature later; Milan Milutinovic, President of Serbia from 1997, who will feature in our later discussions; and Mihalj Kertes, the Federal Deputy Minister of the Interior and Serbian Minister without portfolio and Director of the Federal Customs Agency, a man of great significance, in due course, when we consider the way control of events was subject to control of money.

It may not be easy to understand the real nature of a political party in the accused's Serbia. It may be fair to describe it as the only real employer, certainly of people at a certain level, with the accused appointing people to high office, the party controlling the payroll. ³⁴ By this patronage, he exercised enormous power, which included control over media outlets, particularly Radio Television Serbia, RTS, and the publishing company Politika, because directors of these firms almost exclusively were members of the party, and it was individuals loyal to the accused that filled the top posts. Likewise did he have control over the National Bank of Serbia, the National Bank of Yugoslavia, and that Federal Customs Administration associated with the man Kertes. Almost all directors of major Serbian state companies, men who had enormous power and control, were members of the party. Their jobs, their incomes, their homes depending on that affiliation and on the patronage of the accused.

In addition and coming later, in 1995, the accused's wife, Mira Markovic, founded a party called the Yugoslav United Left, or JUL, a small party but a place which would be home for those committed socialists and former communists for whom the nationalist tendency of the SPS was unacceptable. Small though the JUL was, it was a force to combine with the accused's party - two parties in the one family - and between 1995 and 2000, the parties joined forces in coalition governments on the federal and republican level bearing responsibility for all-important decisions, including those in relation to state security and international policy. Thus an outline of political control, and I return to the chronology.

In September 1990, on the 7th of September, indeed, many Kosovo Albanian delegates of their Assembly, as it had been, proclaimed a Constitution for the Republic of Kosovo. On the 28th of September, the ³⁵ Republic of Serbia promulgated a new Constitution which had wide-ranging effect, by Article 135, nullifying any obligations it owed to the rest of the country and, by Article 72, usurping two paramount federal functions; national defence and foreign relations. It may be thought that this was a secessionist document in substance.

Meanwhile, in November 1990, turning to Bosnia and Herzegovina, multi-party elections were called. And at the republic level there, the voting was as follows: The SDA, the party of the Bosnian Muslims, came first with 86 seats; the SDS, the party of the Bosnian Serbs, second with 72; and the HDZ Croat party, 44 seats.

Here we have three national nationalistic parties, and they formed, for the time being, a coalition government dividing up power in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Let us focus on the SDS, the party of the Bosnian Serbs, its leader, Radovan Karadzic, its leadership including Momcilo Krajisnik and Biljana Plavsic, co-perpetrators and, of course, awaiting trial here. The platform of that party was the unification of all Serbs within one state. The SDS, regarding the separation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the socialist federal republic, as it still was, as a threat to the interests of the Serbs.

Looking ahead, but only briefly to 1993, in an interview, the woman member of those three, Biljana Plavsic, said the following, and I quote:

"In order not to have any fear as to what will happen, I would prefer us to cleanse Eastern Bosnia from the Muslims. They have ³⁶ introduced the term 'ethnic cleansing' to denote a perfectly natural phenomenon and qualified it as a war crime."

She went on: "Muslims originate from the Serbs, but it is spoiled Serbian genetic material which has converted to Islam and then naturally from generation to generation the gene has condensed. It has deteriorated further."

Thus when looking at the SDS, the views of one of its leaders. Meanwhile, in Serbia, on the 9th of December, 1990, this accused was elected again President of Serbia, but now not by internal mechanisms but by a popular mandate, giving him an authority greater than any of his colleagues or, it may be thought, those whose election was indirect. Staying with the map and looking at the various areas, hopefully coloured yellow, green, blue, and red, on the 24th of December, Croatian Serbs in Knin announced the creation of a Serbian Autonomous District and declared their independence from Croatia.

Back in Kosovo, as moves for independence elsewhere in the Federation of Yugoslavia were gathering pace, in Kosovo suppression was continuing. Throughout late 1990 and 1991, thousands of Kosovo Albanian doctors, teachers, professors, workers, police, civil servants were dismissed from their job simply on account of their being Kosovo Albanians. The local court was abolished; many judges were removed. And violence against Kosovo Albanians increased.

I pause to ask ourselves this, a question of curious importance, as we will later see: Who lived in Kosovo? How many? Only estimates are ³⁷ available for the population of Kosovo in 1991 because the Kosovo Albanians boycotted the census that was administered that year. General estimates are that the population during the time period relevant to this indictment was between 1.800.000 and 2.100.000, and of that number, approximately 85 or 90 per cent were Kosovo Albanians; 5 to 10 per cent, Serbs; and some other smaller groups.

The significance of those figures? Significant in themselves in light of what was to happen to those people, particularly when we see later, much later, how this accused was to attempt to misrepresent the very strong balance of the population in favour of the Kosovo Albanians. On the 22nd of January, 1991, the accused and President Momir Bulatovic of neighbouring Montenegro, in a joint press release, proclaimed to the world that existing Yugoslav borders "have never been the boundaries within which individual Yugoslav nations live," drawing a distinction between state and nation.

On the 5th of February of 1991, Serbia established ministries of its government, as proposed by the accused, including a ministry specifically to have links with Serbs outside Serbia. It was this ministry that assisted the SDS, the party of the Serbs in Bosnia, to establish that Serb republic to which we will be turning later. On the 23rd of February of 1991 - now, I'm not sure that it is exactly that date - in February 1991, the accused visited the head office of that party to be greeted by Karadzic, Krajisnik, and Plavsic. In all their presences, Karadzic told the journalists present this: "We do not see that this should be discussed, Serbs living exclusively in a joint ³⁸ state. Just as it is natural that rain falls, it is quite natural for Serbs to live in the same state." The party's expression of purpose was clear.

But it wasn't all plain sailing for the accused. In March of 1991, demonstrations against him, this time in respect of his control of the media, soon to become the most serious challenge to his regime, demonstrations that were violently suppressed by both the police and the army. I will not trouble you with footage of these demonstrations, but we will see later the degree to which this accused was prepared to use force on those of his own who took against him.

But with these demonstrations the accused was embattled, and it's interesting to observe that Karadzic of the Bosnian Serbs came to his rescue to the extent that, in any event, threatening violence with these words: "If demonstrations are a weapon," he said, "it has to be said that we have so much pressure from Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina that a million of them are ready to go to Belgrade and demonstrate." So the accused, threatened at home, could turn for help to Serbs abroad, a symbiotic relationship. Serbs abroad were to seek and have assistance from the accused, at any event, for as long as he could give it. So Yugoslavia reached a deep crisis with the events I have described in summary, leading the accused to famously declare that Yugoslavia was finished. Deadlock in the Presidency led to the following:

The very representatives on the Presidency, those from Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo, who may have been under the control of ³⁹ the accused, resigned, subsequently to rejoin. Why did they resign? The evidence may satisfy the Tribunal, in due course, that their resignation was part of a complicated attempt at a coup, in the course of which General Kadijevic was to take over the army. The accused was to play his part, which he did by saying the things he said and, for example, at a secret meeting, telling local government leaders that Serbia was de facto at war and saying this: "If we don't know how to work and run the economy well, we surely know how to fight well," saying, "It's always the powerful, never the weak who dictate frontiers," and announcing on television that he was organising police reservists to prevent rebellions in Kosovo and elsewhere. He stated, "Serbia would no longer be bound by decisions of the Federal Presidency," control its Rump though he did. That position or those positions of the accused have, of course, been stated on many occasions; namely, that the borders of the Yugoslav states were irrelevant and merely administrative and would have to be changed before any republic could become independent. So far as the accused was concerned, borders were only borders if they were for people. Only people could become independent. But, of course, people could not take their land with them, which meant, in the logic of these arguments, that people would be forced off their lands to allow people to have the borders that they wanted.

But back to the coup, if coup it was. If the army was to take over, then perhaps it lost its nerve and failed, and so Jovic and the others returned to the Presidency. He, of course - that is, the accused - continued to control the members of the Presidency, some of them being ⁴⁰ changed about this time, further to fit in with his own desires. There was a replacement - I needn't trouble you with the names at the time being - in respect of Kosovo, that replacement being organised not by the Kosovo Assembly but by the Serbian Assembly. Kostic came to represent Montenegro, Yugoslav Kostic came to represent Vojvodina, and Borisav Jovic stayed as the representative of Serbia, so that the accused controlled four of the eight votes on the Presidency and could paralyse the Yugoslav government at will.

Of those four, the Prosecution's case is that it was Jovic and Kostic who were his primary agents through whom he directed actions of the Serbian Bloc, matters covered in the memoirs of one of them and subject of evidence we will lead.

On the 29th of March of 1991, again famously, the accused met President Franjo Tudjman in Karadjordjevo to discuss the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. The accused promised Croatia the territory of what was described as the 1939 banovina. I'll come to that briefly when introducing the Croatian indictment. The agreement left little, very little for the Muslims. It was to be, in the vernacular, a carving up of another territory.

In March 1991, the conflict intensified. Serb police forces attempted to consolidate power over areas with significant Serb populations, and Serb police, headed by Milan Martic, a co-perpetrator in one of these indictments, took control of a police station in Pakrac, which is in Western Slavonia.

If you could just put the map back on very briefly to remind ⁴¹ them. Thank you. Western Slavonia, shown on the map. At Plitvice, in the Krajina towards the west, famous beautiful lakes, the Serbs attacked a bus carrying Croatian policemen. Another battle erupted. The JNA army deployed troops, issuing an ultimatum to the Croatian police to withdraw from Plitvice. The consequence of that, something to be repeated on other occasions, was to leave the Serb attackers in the area with the spoils that they had achieved by the time of the intervention of the army.

By March of 1991, another body had been formed. It was called the Supreme Command Staff, and it gradually assumed command authority over the army. The picture we see here is of Adzic, the JNA Chief of Staff, on the left and Kadijevic on the right. The title of the photograph, with its date which is a little hard to say, but it's 1991, and I think it's the 12th of March, is "Meeting of the Supreme Command." Now, the Supreme Command was something that should only have existed in wartime, but it was set up now. And later Kadijevic told Stipe Mesic, whose present role is well-known, that the accused had wanted him to found the Supreme Command Staff and that Kadijevic had cooperated with him since the remaining Serbian leadership, as he said, reflecting a use of the word "Chetnik" that is not favourable, the rest of the Serb leadership were even greater Chetniks than he. Well, that view that the others were worse, was that a view that some others, even international diplomats, may, in due course or at the time, have allowed themselves to think? And if they and all of them thought it, were they ultimately to be proved wrong? ⁴² On the 15th of May, Serbian delegates blocked the election of Stipe Mesic to President of the Presidency, leaving Yugoslavia without a head of state. At that same time, a little later, the 29th of May, the accused brought Karadzic, whose party may be seen as an offshoot of the Croat party with the same initials, into the plan. We will play now, with the assistance of the booth, a tape of an intercept. It's between the accused and Karadzic. It discusses getting arms for part of Bosnia.

Before we play it, can I forecast what you will be hearing? The accused tells Karadzic to call the army General Uzelac, Commander of the Banja Luka Corps and a man in charge of units in Western Salvonia, to arrange a meeting with him on the highest level. About the armament of local Serb populations, the accused says this: "All men you give, you have to stay and protect houses and territory and block the HDZ centres will be armed and give everything they need. We'll transport that by helicopter."

When Karadzic asks whether they could get weapons for Territorial Defence, the accused answered: "It's not a problem." If we could hear the tape, please.

[Audio cassette played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "R: O.K. Then, let's do it. We are ready - there are 170 people in Mrkonjic and 150 in Sipovo who are ready to go to Kupres.

S: Is Uzelac authorised for that too?

R: No, no. Yes, I think he is, yes. ⁴³

S: Well, then tell him we can't discuss every detail like this.

R: O.K. O.K. Then these 150 and 170 men will go to Kupres. And we already have 750 men there at Kupres.

S: So it's important for us that the JNA battalion be at Kupres and that everything goes well."

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm not sure whether that reflected entirely my forecast but this is one of a number of intercepts now available, and the intercept that I had in mind reflects the consent that I said and reveals the contribution to arms for Karadzic by this accused. I move on.

Elsewhere, the world was not entirely asleep however much it might later have been criticised for lack of awareness. As early as the 20th of May of 1991, the United States Congress announced entry into force of the Nickles Amendment banning economic assistance to Yugoslavia due to repression in Kosovo. The accused was to learn that playing the nationalist tune came with a price. But this was only the beginning of the price or the cost. Huge costs in money but, of course, significantly in lives lost and ruined was to lie ahead.

August the 1st, 1991, brings us to the start of the period covered by the indictment first in time, the Croatia indictment. Let us take stock.

A great deal has, of course, been written about this man. This trial starts with a blank sheet of paper and writes on it only that which can be spelled out by evidence. The Prosecution should perhaps express some forecast of what that evidence will reveal in general terms ⁴⁴ consistent with what the Prosecutor has already explained to you. A clever and ambitious man will be revealed. Not a racist in the sense of someone determined to live only with fellow Serbs, not an idealist; someone concerned more, if not exclusively, with the maintenance of personal power. A man who we must not contrast the figure we see here and in the earlier hearings who speaks of defending his people, of the unfair wars against the Serbs, casting himself as victim, with a person who could bring a million people to their feet waiting for just a few minutes of his time. A complex man. A man who would leave no traces if he could avoid them or who indeed destroyed traces of his control. A man who, in order to do that, avoided large meetings where those attending could always find support for disagreement or dissension in others; and a man who, perhaps as a result, preferred one-to-one encounters, personal control, where those with him could not be sure of the loyalty or the disloyalty of others. A man who was prepared to use different objectives to stimulate different people: All Serbs in one state, anti-capitalism, or when dealing with the International Community, the preservation of the integrity of the former Yugoslavia, as appropriate summaries of his position. A man who it may be thought counted on the short-term memories of observers and who was able later to play the peacemaker. A man, it may be, who simply regards those as fools who cannot see how easy it is to say one thing and to do another.

Looking at the case overall, the Prosecution's case is that the overall transaction that links the three indictments together is to be found in a transaction that from first to last has the accused being ⁴⁵ concerned by forcible removal of non-Serbs from areas of the former Yugoslavia, to have and to control a centralised Serbian state, to do so by gaining from Croatia and Bosnia or retaining in Kosovo territory that fell within his plan. In language created by the facts of this case, he did that by ethnic cleansing.

May I indulge myself once only in this opening to this extent: Is "ethnic cleansing" a phrase that should, if there is man with ingenuity to do it, be abandoned and replaced by words that better describe the real horror of what is contained within those two words lest the understatement implicit in the word "cleansing" should ever permit any offender to feel free to do that which he or she would not do if these acts were correctly described? Not having that ingenuity myself, I must stick to the phrase that these facts created.

Looking at the accused, and in the vernacular, from first to last he wanted as much as he could get, as we will reveal, as much as he could get away with and as much as he could keep, providing that the price was not too high in territory or power; a flexible man who did not waste time with dreams. And this may have marked him off from some of those with whom he was concerned, "he" pursuing a personal, "they" an idealistic agenda.

At the outset, he thought he could have it all, perhaps, a new Yugoslavia; himself a second Tito. That impossible, the central Serbian state to be carved out of Croatia and Bosnia, all the while keeping Kosovo in an iron grip. This all to be effected by the forcible removal of non-Serbs whenever and wherever they posed a challenge. Possibly simply ⁴⁶ to satisfy the hatreds of those who implemented his will. As we look at the three indictments that make this trial, and in due course the Chamber may be satisfied that in Croatia and in Bosnia he was involved in war that he could afford to win but didn't, Kosovo was something he could never afford to lose, but he did. The accused carried out his aim or objective of control and domination by Serbs over territory with different co-perpetrators who were all part of a common plan. The plan was achieved through various means or methods, many of the methods used involving the commission of crimes under the Statute of this Tribunal, this case providing a case example of how state machinery may be used for pursuing criminal objectives. The evidence will show that the accused had a central role in different although closely related joint criminal enterprises, each involving the commission of the various crimes under the Statute. In relation to the activities of the accused in different locations, the accused used the structure of the Federal Republic and of Serbia to accomplish this scheme agreed with others, the shared criminal intent on all occasions, including the commission of the gravest crimes against the non-Serb population, in an effort to gain or retain control over territory, ensuring Serb domination.

The systematic and organised way in which the attacks against the non-Serb civilian population was carried out reveal carefully designed schemes and strategies within the overall plan. He used his control and influence over elements of the army, first the JNA, later known as the VJ, over the MUP that I've already described, over individual politicians; ⁴⁷ over the political and military leadership of the Republika Srpska to be declared in due course in Bosnia, and in all cases using many resources at his disposal to ensure the efficient schemes designed to achieve the overall plan. He had a fundamental role in the planning, organisation, financing, support, and direction of the execution of the plans. He was thus an essential participant in the criminal enterprises to the extent that, without him, it is hard to conceive of any of them. The Croatian indictment, which I must summarise for its potential significance in the immediately forthcoming part of the case concerning Kosovo, but which I must obviously deal with at sufficient detail for the accused, who may not have taken the opportunity of reading the materials provided to him, to understand what he faces.

Croatia, briefly, having been a medieval state on the front lines of the fighting of the Ottoman Empire, became part of Yugoslavia in 1918, negotiated autonomy in 1939. At that stage, including within its territory, territory that was later to be part of Bosnia, called the banovina, part of northern or north-western Bosnia. In World War II, Croatia was divided between Tito's Partisans and the fascist Ustasha, after the war became a republic of the new socialist Yugoslavia. The indictment in this case, as public as they all are, and it would be inappropriate for me to expand on the allegations in great detail, sufficient to say this: Included in the Croatian indictment are crimes against humanity such as persecution, murder, deportation, which offences have to be committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population. That's all contrary to Article 5 of the ⁴⁸ Statute. The indictment includes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, such offences as killing and torture. For these offences, the victims have to be persons protected under those conventions, there having to be a connection with an international armed conflict. That's Article 2 of our Statute. Third, there are offences charged as violations of the laws and customs of war, such as murder, wanton destruction, and so on, contrary to Article 3 of our Statute.

This indictment not being about matters of history is not about justification for Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia or the merits of the Croat-Serbs revolt. It's not about Milosevic's backing the Croatian-Serb cause. It is only concerned with crimes and his individual responsibility for them, a responsibility he bears by his support for very specific acts and particular people and the things that they did. In the spring of 1990, thus Croatia left the communist fold with its new government under Franjo Tudjman.

The map again. Serbs from rural areas launched a rebellion in August 1990 in the area called the Krajina, green. For those unfamiliar with it, there's always the potential confusion because there's another Krajina to be referred to across the border south and east in Bosnia. We're concerned here with the Croat Krajina.

In that Krajina lived about half of the total number of Serbs that lived in Croatia. The rest of the Serbs lived peacefully substantially throughout the war in other parts of Croatia.

The rebellion of those Serbs would have detached about a third of ⁴⁹ Croatia from the rest of its territory and did so, as we will discover, for a full year, despite the continuation of the federal Yugoslavia. Those authorities did nothing to help and everything to worsen the situation. And indeed, although not charged for that period, ethnic cleansing took place with many Croats fleeing in the face of initial attacks.

But on the 25th of June, 1991, Croatia itself declared independence. The Krajina Serbs declared their own separation from Croatia and their annexation to Serbia. They also declared union with that other Krajina in Bosnia to which I have referred. The Krajina Serbs were led by a duo of former communists turned nationalists, leaders of the Serbian democratic, SDS, party; first their President, Milan Babic; and second, their police chief, Milan Martic, both co-perpetrators.

Under the direction and the direct involvement of the Serbian MUP, in particular of the man Jovica Stanisic, shown here, and another man, Frenki Simatovic, also shown, a local Territorial Defence and the Martic police force was set up. Stanisic, at the time, was chief of state security for the Republika Srpska as of March 1991. At the same time in Eastern Slavonia, blue [sic], local Serbs also declared their separation from Croatia, declaring themselves to be part of the socialist federation. Their leader, Goran Hadzic, and under the direction of the Serbian MUP with its official, Radovan Stojicic, and a man, Zeljko Raznjatovic, they established Territorial Defence with police units. The second name is, of course, the real name of someone far better ⁵⁰ known, the late Arkan.

Let us not forget Western Slavonia, where -- sorry, if I said blue, I meant red the last time, but never mind. We've dealt with red. We'll now go to blue.

Western Slavonia, where the Yugoslav army and the paramilitaries of a man called Vojislav Seselj, president of a radical party which openly espoused a particular creed were active. The creed openly espoused by the man Seselj went by the title of "Greater Serbia." It's a phrase that is bound to be heard in this court. We will not ourselves encourage its excessive use for fear that our shorthand may lead to a brevity of thinking. We don't particularly associate it as a title with the approach of the accused whose purposes we have already separately described. That he might rely on the support of people who had perhaps extreme nationalist views going by particular titles is, again for reasons already given, not surprising.

War followed, and with it, the crimes. The accused, in order to play his part in what was to develop in Croatia between the Croatian Serbs in the areas described and others, had the following at his disposal: The army, the Territorial Defence units of the Krajina and of Slavonia, Martic's police. He also had the Territorial Defence of Serbia, his own to command, and of Montenegro. He had the Serbian Interior Ministry, his own by law to control, and, as we will discover, a broad array of paramilitaries tied in one way or another to the units just cited. All those units on this territory committed a widespread, criminal campaign with extermination or murder of hundreds of Croats and non-Serbs ⁵¹ in the various places listed in the indictment, including Vukovar and Dubrovnik; the prolonged and routine imprisonment and confinement of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs in detention facilities in Croatia and elsewhere, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina; torture, beatings and killings of Croats in those detention centres; forced labour of Croat and non-Serb civilians detained and sometimes not detained; sexual assaults of Croat and non-Serbs; also perpetrating unlawful attacks on Dubrovnik and undefended Croat villages throughout the territories that we've specified in the indictment; the beating and robbing of Croat and other non-Serb civilians; the torture and beatings of Croat and other non-Serb civilians during and after their arrest. In addition, the deportation or forcible transfer of at least 170.000 Croat and other non-Serb civilians from the territories in which they had an interest, including the deportation to Serbia itself of at least 5.000 inhabitants from Ilok; 20.000 from Vukovar; and the forcible transfer to locations within Croatia of 2.500 inhabitants from Erdut, which I think we were able to see on the map but we needn't put it up again.

Finally, there was the destruction of homes, public/private property, cultural institutions, historic monuments, sacred sites of Croat and other non-Serb populations in Dubrovnik and elsewhere. A pattern for these attacks will be found in the evidence; for example, surrounding of villages by Serb forces, often the JNA, the army; entering of forces, often the Territorial Defence, the police, or paramilitaries; killing of inhabitants - sometimes a few, sometimes many, sometimes all; expulsion of ⁵² survivors, if any; looting of homes; destruction of villages by fire or explosives.

As I say, we must use the word "ethnic cleansing." It happened over and over again, done by different units in different places, so that it became the rule, not the exception. It was something that was, in due course, to happen in neighbouring Bosnia, and then later still in Kosovo. The evidence shows that the forces I've cited operated together towards a single goal at the direction of this accused. The objective of all the parties matched that of the Serbian Bosnian leader, Radovan Karadzic, treating the war in Croatia as an integral part of the overall Serbian conflict, with a single goal, responsive to a single master. How did the accused manage those Krajina and Slavonian Serbs, whose territories we've looked at on the map? Here is a report of one of their meetings early in May 1991. It's on the video, although of course it's in translation. The original documents I have available, of course. If Your Honour will just give me a minute, I'll try to find my own version. It's a little hard to read on the document we have there. You can see that this is a meeting of the regional SDS party, at the top. The meeting is opened, and in the second paragraph, the meeting is recorded in this way, the speaker said: "As for the talks with Milosevic, he appeared sufficiently informed of the situation in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, but said he was angry with the Krajina for making decisions without consulting him, and suggested that if we decide to participate in the referendum on 12 May 1991, the ballot has to read, 'In favour of remaining in Yugoslavia,' not Serbia. ^{53 BLANK PAGE 63} "The reason is that there is no legal or international support, and we should not participate in the referendum on 19 May 1991, because it would mean an internationally-recognised Croatia. America would even agree to military intervention, but not civil war, provided that Ante Markovic stays.

"At the same time, Serbia will exert pressure on Croatia not to hold a referendum on 19 May 1991, and instead organise a Yugoslav referendum.

"Furthermore, according to Milosevic, Mesic will not take up the post of President on 15 May, because this means that Croats would be holding four key positions in the SFRY, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.

"Dzakula briefed on the talks with Slobo. Slobo's main demand is that we do not get involved in clashes with the Ministry of Interior any more, but let them clash with the army, which can deal with the NDH," that's the reference back to the wartime fascist state. "... let them deal with the NDH without any problems. There are three international options for Yugoslavia, which will be announced on 10 May 1991. At the same time, he accepts faster and better cooperation. Knin remains the basis for all further activities.

"Milosevic also said the talks with the leadership should continue, for in this way we at least have a direct insight into their thinking."

So he was angry that the Krajina had acted without consulting him. They were to boycott the referendum and hold their own. Using the ⁶⁴ JNA, he said, could deal effectively with Croatia. That's what NDH means in this circumstance. And it may be thought that the point was, amongst others, keep Serbia out of it technically; do everything within the framework technically of Yugoslavia from the Presidency of which Mesic would be barred; be sure to carry on consulting with him in the future, as the evidence showed that they did.

The Chamber may be satisfied, in due course, from evidence and also from the memoirs of the man Jovic, that the defendant, the accused, described as Slobo, had two ideas. In a quotation in the memoirs, Jovic said this: "Slobo had two ideas; first, that the amputation of Croatia be effected in such a way that--" he named two particular municipalities-- "Lika Banija and Kordun, which have created their own community, remain with us, whereby the people there later declare in a referendum whether they want to stay or go; second, that the members of the Socialist Federal Republic Presidency from Slovenia and Croatia be excluded from the voting on the decision because they do not represent the part of Yugoslavia that is adopting this decision." At about this time, the accused brought the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Karadzic, into the plan. The tape that is the intercept tape to which I have referred deals with that, and I'm not going to replay it or attempt, if I have found the wrong passage before, to find the correct passage now.

A meeting was scheduled for the 5th of July of 1991, according to Jovic in his diary, with General Kadijevic. The demand being made of the General at that time was this: "The main forces of the JNA must be ⁶⁵ concentrated on a line running from," and then he gives the geographical locations, "Karlovac to Plitvice in the west, Baranja, Osijek, and Vinkovci to the Sava in the east, and along the Neretva in the south. In this way, it will cover all the territory where Serbs live until the situation is fully resolved, until a free expression of popular will in a referendum."

This approach was accepted, it appears, by the General. We don't have all those places marked on a map, but running up and across, down, it would take in the largest conceivable area of those Serbs living other than in Serbia. It would be without regard, it may be thought, to the interests of the many other people living within that area. Milosevic worked very closely with co-participants in the joint criminal enterprise from the Bosnian Serb leadership, informing the strategy for obtaining control of those territories. In addition to periodic face-to-face visits with the Bosnian Serb leaders, the accused and his associates maintained regular, frequent, and sometimes daily telephone contact with them. His authority with the Bosnian Serb leadership is evident in a deferential tone employed by Bosnian Serbs in Karadzic's plea for daily contact, and even in the occasional use of the term "boss" when mentioned.

I think we do have a tape which is revealing of Karadzic and Milosevic at this time. Can we play that?

[Audiotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "M: Please, we are on our way. No more concessions to anyone. ⁶⁶ And if they want to fight, we're here and they can go to hell, we're here for whoever wants to fight and we're stronger.

R: And if they want to live in peace we're here, no one will be either better or worse off than we are.

M: Whoever wants to follow Alija and fight against us can do so. They will lose and it will be a pleasure for us, but if they want to be honest and decent towards us, we will behave towards them as we do towards ourselves."

MR. NICE: Expressions of view that could hardly be clearer. This was a man controlling the army, whose services would be available to Croatia as it became independent. I beg your pardon, not available to Croatia, to the Serbs in Croatia as Croatia became independent. But it's clear from what we've heard that things began as a single plan, the whole operation remaining closely monitored by, under the control of, this accused.

In August of 1991, the siege of Vukovar, to which I made very brief reference at the very beginning. The JNA undertook operations against towns in Eastern Slavonia, resulting in their occupation by JNA and other Serb forces. The Croat and other non-Serb populations in these areas was forcibly expelled. By late August, the JNA laid siege to the city of Vukovar, and by mid-October, all other predominantly Croat towns in Eastern Slavonia had be taken by Serb forces except for Vukovar, which was itself a mixed Croat-Serb city. Non-Serbs there were subject to a brutal occupation regime consisting of persecution, murder, torture, and other acts of violence. Almost all of the non-Serb population was either ⁶⁷ killed or forced from the occupied areas.

Yes, there were Croat forces responsible for provocative acts and criminal acts, but nothing like on the same scale. These acts by Croats are being examined by the Office of the Prosecutor of this Tribunal. But of course, reprisals, if that is to any extent what they were, are not justified so as to cover the various crimes committed by the Serb forces. The siege of Vukovar continued until the 18th of November, 1991, when the city fell to Serb forces. During that three-month siege, the city was almost totally destroyed by JNA shelling and by hundreds -- and where hundreds of people were killed. When the JNA and Serb forces occupied the city, hundreds more Croats were killed by Serb troops, the non-Serb population of the city being expelled within days of its fall. I think I have a video, and the first part of it will show us something of the fall of Vukovar, with its non-Serb inhabitants being transferred. There's an old gentleman shown in it; he was shot dead a few minutes after this video was filmed. And we will see a sequence at a warehouse in Vukovar where civilians were gathered in the afternoon of the 20th of November, taken away in an organised, military action. And I think on the first bit of the video we will see that, while they were taken into buses and military trucks, Arkan and also Goran Hadzic and other JNA officials were there as well.

Can we play that video, please.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: This is the old gentleman that was soon to be shot. Not particularly old, indeed, but elderly. But his shooting is not ⁶⁸ shown.

This footage has obviously been slowed down for its own purposes by the original makers of it, not our creation. But nevertheless depictive, in a dramatic way, of these awful events. And there you saw Arkan; there he is.

And there are some nuns being moved. Thank you. As I explained right at the beginning of my address, victims from the JNA barracks were taken to the Ovcara farm, that is, victims who had been gathered from the hospital which is about 5 kilometres south of Vukovar; and there having been beaten and tortured, all, bar a few, were taken, shot, and buried in a mass grave.

Between the 18th and 20th of November of 1991, after termination of military operations in and around Vukovar, the JNA deported thousands of Croat and other non-Serb inhabitants into the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Following a request of Goran Hadzic to retain those non-Serbs suspected of participation in the military operations, the JNA transported a large number of the inhabitants of Vukovar to detention facilities in Dalj nearby, on about the 20th of November, where Serb Territorial Defence members selected those suspected of participating in the defence of Vukovar, interrogated, beat, tortured, and, in the case of at least 34 of them, summarily executed them.

Interestingly, if one has in mind without reviewing the map which shows how the extremities of Croatia are so far removed one from the other, on the very day of the fall of Vukovar, a witness from whom you'll hear heard about the events on the military radio, showing of course -- ⁶⁹ beg your pardon. The witness, I should say, is at the opposite end of Croatia, the other side nearer the coast. He heard about it on the radio. Yet another not trivial but slight reflection of the fact that this was all acting together, known to one another, pursuit of a common plan.

And, I suppose as a little postscript to Vukovar, bearing in mind the people that were taken to the hospital, one of the civilians detained in Serbia following all these events was the head of that hospital. The accused never gave any explanation for his crimes, but maybe his real attitude can be assessed from what he did. One of those responsible was a man Sljivancanin. He continued to serve in the Yugoslav army and the VJ under the Supreme Command of this accused. He was active until certainly late last year. Another commander at Vukovar, Mile Mrksic, became military commander in the Krajina in May of 1995, three years after the crimes in Vukovar. The third senior JNA commander at the Vukovar scene, General Andrija Biorcevic, was decorated the day after Vukovar fell. The local Serb boss, Goran Hadzic, the man whose very men took charge of those prisoners at the Ovcara farm where so many were killed, was chosen by this accused to replace the Krajina president soon afterwards, on the 22nd of February of 1992. And evidence will show that the accused's government worked closely with that man implicated in the Vukovar event and that, indeed, the accused ordered support for him. Evidence will come -- evidence will come consistent with what is contained in the diary of the Secretary of the Ministry of Defence for Serbia, Simovic, and I will read you a quote. It's on the overhead ⁷⁰ projector. It sets out how at that time Simovic, the Minister of Defence for Serbia, and the accused met, just two of them, being in daily touch over the special line, but at that time they had to arrange things without any middleman.

Coming back to his office, Simovic shortly said: "Those that are patient shall be saved."

And then he went on listing things that had to be done urgently: "All the photographs and videotapes we had that were showing genocide of the Serb people in Krajinas should be handed over to the Ministry of Information who were to prepare books and documents for The Hague."

That's not for here. That's for one of the meetings here. "Goran Hadzic was to be given all possible assistance in connection with the establishment of governmental institutions in the Serb province, and we recruited a certain number of colonels, either already retired or about to be retired, and dispatched them there to organise a Territorial Defence. The Ministry of Defence set up task groups led by generals to receive people that came every day for instructions on and assistance for the Serb Krajinas. We had to find the people and prepare a speech for the Prime Minister, Goran Hadzic, as his address and appeal to the people of Serbia and to help the Serb people in the Serb Krajina." You cannot have much closer co-participation than to have Serbia writing letters nominally to come from Hadzic, requesting the support of Serbia to be given to Hadzic.

On the 22nd of January, following an attack of the Croatian army ⁷¹ on the Maslenica bridge, Hadzic had proclaimed total mobilisation for the RSK, declaring a state of war and threatening to shell Zagreb. Here a picture of Hadzic, with a face on the left that is already familiar. Was this the Krajina Serbs' war plan in a nutshell, indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets? Because this certainly was a threat that was carried out in 1995.

So far as the financing of the Krajina's army is concerned, the accused and the army's general staff were heavily involved. According to minutes of talks of Krajina representatives, including Hadzic and the Chief of Police Martic with the accused and some others, on September -- I beg your pardon, the 12th of November, 1992, the mode of financing the Krajina army and its police was agreed. It was agreed that the army and police needed to be financed, as before, through Serbia's Ministry of Defence. It was agreed that there should be the maintenance of equipment and military staff through the VJ. It was agreed that the Krajina Ministry of Defence should request the Serbian Ministry of Defence for 200 billion dinars until the end of November 1992, and 150 billion dinars until the 5th of December of 1992, with further funding into the year 1993.

The republican -- the Krajina's army was totally dependent on financial assistance from the Republic of Serbia. The accused was responsible for and directed the provision of that assistance. Hadzic himself said in an interview in July 1993 of the accused that the accused consulted him in all matters related to the RSK. He referred to his good relationship with the accused and praised him as the ⁷² greatest Serbian politician.

I'm about to change topics.

JUDGE MAY: That would be a convenient moment. We'll adjourn now until half past two.

--- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m. ⁷³

--- On resuming at 2.32 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm just confirming that the Court has indeed, the accused and the amici do in fact have the documents that I've been producing on the ELMO.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you.

MR. NICE: Sorry. Just confirming that the Court, the accused, and my learned friends the amici do in fact have the documents, I hope most or all of them of that been produced publicly. It seems to me given sometimes the difficulty of reading documents on the overhead projector it is desirable to have hard copies for yourselves.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, we have them.

MR. NICE: Thank you. I return to three or four bits of evidence connected to the man Arkan, who was himself, of course, unequivocally connected to Serbia.

First, on the 2nd of July, 1997, following the arrest of a man called Slavko Dokmanovic, who was charged, in respect of the Ovcara massacre, by the Tribunal, the man Hadzic fled to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Did the accused make any man -- any effort to bring this man to justice? No, he did not.

Then let's turn again to Arkan, who provides a good illustration of how this unified operation may have worked. Said in the indictments to be a member of the joint criminal enterprise and a career criminal in his own right, his record is well known. Engaged in robbery and other offences in Belgrade and on the Montenegro coast, wanted in several ⁷⁴ countries on very, very serious charges including murder, the sort of thing that could provide for his home state a lever. He was a man they could extradite at any time because there was outstanding indictments against him elsewhere. Did they? No. He was used, and in 1991, formed his Serbian Volunteer Guard known as the Tigers out of a nucleus of people who may have had entirely disreputable pasts, and for the most part entirely.

Training centres were set up in Tenja and Erdut in Croatia, and of course Erdut becomes one of the major crime scenes in this, the Croatian indictment. He was appointed the Commander of the Centre of Special Training of Volunteers in Eastern Slavonia, based in Erdut, by the Krajina government, presided over by Hadzic with whom he was constantly in contact on crime scenes such as Vukovar and elsewhere.

Incidentally, we're looking at a picture of Arkan and, of course, someone else.

Arkan claimed publicly that he was appointed as a special advisor of Hadzic throughout the relevant time. They had close political and business relations. His Tigers, as they were known, were better equipped than other units, and they actually had the same category of weapons as the MUP special forces. In contrast to other paramilitary groups, they had strict command structures and discipline.

Witnesses will reveal how Arkan and his Tigers were connected to the State Security Service of Serbia's Interior Ministry and that they were indeed supplied from that service's arms depot. Arkan was himself a frequent visitor to the Territorial Defence command post in Erdut. The ⁷⁵ photograph now being shown on the overhead projector. The Commander of the Territorial Defence and the head of that post was a man called Radovan Stojicic Badza, who was a high official in the Serbian Interior Ministry and a personal associate of this accused. The witness will reveal how Arkan and all the other paramilitary leaders and Krajina Serb leaders at the Erdut command post answered directly to the Serbian Badza's authority.

Soon after the fall of Vukovar, that man Badza was promoted, rather than anything else, by the accused to the post of Deputy Minister of the Interior in charge of public security service. The Chamber will recall what I said at the beginning about the powers of patronage and will have in mind, in due course, whether this was patronage by way of reward or recognition.

Turning back to Arkan. He said of himself and his troops that they were under the direct command of Yugoslav armed forces, and he said that at a press conference in Erdut on the 27th of November of 1991. One of the commanding generals, Andrija Biorcevic -- I beg your pardon. I've gone wrong.

I must show, first, a tape, and the tape reveals what we may come to understand is truly meant by the word "surrender," and it goes on, I think, to show something of what the man Arkan describes, putting it rather more succinctly. May we see it?

[Videotape played] "ARKAN: We don't take any more prisoners. We're going to kill every fascist soldier we catch. ⁷⁶

INTERVIEWER: No prisoners?

ARKAN: No prisoners."

MR. NICE: If you can stop the tape, please. There was a passage of tape, I think, that got omitted, but it doesn't matter about that. What we have seen is Arkan making his position quite clear, and one of the commanding generals, Biorcevic, put it this way at the same time, speaking of the allegations made about the use of paramilitary formations, he said this:

"Some say that I conspire with paramilitary formations. These are not paramilitary formations. They are people who voluntarily come to fight for the Serbian people. We surround a village. They enter it, kill those who refuse to surrender, and we go in."

Well, those observations by Biorcevic, who got a medal for his exploits at Vukovar, reflect conduct that is without excuse in law or fact if crimes are being committed; complete involvement by one and the other party in the common enterprise.

On one occasion during the battle for Vukovar, Arkan found himself trapped behind Croatian lines, and what happened, in a quote that we have via the secretary of Simovic, is instructive. It reads as follows and is on the screen for those who wish to follow it. At least, I hope it's on the screen.

"One night they managed to get inside the defence perimeter and then the army was ordered to withdraw, and Arkan and his courageous boys remained inside the defence perimeter. We had..." and it refers to somebody of no significance for these purposes, "... on the line. He gave ⁷⁷ us the news and asked Simovic to order the air force to act, but nobody knew Arkan's exact whereabouts.

"`Then let the air force fly over Vukovar and distract their attention so the volunteers can get out,' asked the man Kum, and a visibly distraught Simovic requested that the air force fly over Vukovar, but refrain from action in order not to shoot our own. "Then the same night we stayed on line with Kum and the headquarters of JNA units. It was nearly dawn when we heard that the volunteers managed to get out, but that Arkan was not to be found anywhere. He'd remained back inside in the perimeter, captured again. All hope seemed already was lost when we were told that Arkan had surfaced and was coming to see Simovic. He appeared without a trace of fatigue, as if nothing had happened to him, under full arms, with a sniper gun across his shoulder and a bloody Ustasha hat hanging on it. He entered the office together with Kum and some of his buddies to tell us how he himself had killed 24 Ustashas in that one night and captured the sniper gun that he brought as a present for Simovic ."

So in other words, Arkan, in the control of, as it were, the enemy within Croatia, brings out Serbia's Defence Minister intervening with the air force to come to his aid. Simovic was, of course, subordinate to this accused and acted on his orders.

Was Serbia not involved in this? Impossible. If Serbia was involved at this level, who? Of course, this accused. And we see through this one incident the whole range of forces acting in concert. Your Honour, documents that I used to know by the unappealing name ⁷⁸ of "organigrammes" and are now sometimes referred to by the possibly more useful name of "wiring diagrams" can be helpful documents for various reasons, providing they're not regarded in any way as over-precise descriptions of what they seek to portray.

Now, what we have here, what we have here is such a diagram, and some important things to note about it, but it may summarise the Prosecution's view subject to a number of provisos. And I hope it's visible, but if it isn't, I'll read out the title at the time. This is a simplified illustration of the accused's participation in joint criminal enterprise for the crimes charged for Croatia. It doesn't suggest itself, as we see in the box at the bottom left, to represent command and control between the parties, nor is that required for the purposes of this joint criminal enterprise.

We see the accused represented in the top at the middle. On the left, the Rump Presidency to which I have referred, with his principle enforcers there, Jovic and Kostic, they having command over the JNA with the various personalities referred.

The direct line going from the accused to the JNA again doesn't suggest direct lines of control, influence, and participation. Look then, please, if you will, to the right side of the diagram. Here you have the Croatian Serb leadership; Babic, Martic, and Hadzic. They, of course, via the Krajina - perhaps that intervening box doesn't take very much - but via the government or however, have control over Martic's police on the right, the local Serb Territorial Defence a little to the left. ⁷⁹ The accused's influence on connection with the Croatian Serb leadership leads to his influence on control of the Serb Territorial Defence and Martic's police.

Then let's look at the middle section. Coming from the accused, we have the Serbian Ministry of Defence and Tomislav Simovic. We've made a passing reference to Seselj's men. We'll hear more about those in the course of the trial, under the MOD. Then we have the Serbian Ministry of Interior, the MUP, with, again, various people referred to underneath the accused or, although not necessarily directly under him on any de jure or strictly legal interpretation of the structure, certainly under his influence. And the names are referred to there, the SDB or SJB part of the MUP spawning the Red Berets and the Arkanovci. All of these groups starting at the left - the JNA, Seselj's men, the Red Berets, and Arkanovci, the local Serb Territorial Defence, and Martic's police - feature in the commission of these crimes and in a schematic way but subject to the careful reservations that I've already made. And, of course, entirely subject to what the evidence reveals, this may represent, and I hope helpfully, the approach of the Prosecution to the responsibility of this accused.

And of course the middle section is perhaps the section he would most need to hide, the part dealing with the MUP and so on. And the complexity -- and it may be that such a plan will need to become much more complicated as the evidence emerges if we are to use it or substitute for it a similar document. The complexity of it really reveals and confirms the need of this accused to hide what he was doing, for it may have been ⁸⁰ always difficult or impossible for him to accept that Serbia could be seen to be at war. So things were dealt with in another way, via the republic's army and other agencies.

Back briefly again to Arkan and then to another topic. Arkan amassed enormous wealth in Serbia. He's placed by one witness along with Seselj in Vukovar, and the same witness confirms that his Tigers, or Serbian Volunteer Guard, were established, as that wiring diagram shows, by the Serbian DB, part of the MUP.

In 1991, Arkan and his troops came from Serbia to Eastern Slavonia and set up their headquarters and controlled a wide area, cooperating with the JNA, Yugoslavia's army under Biorcevic, Biorcevic a man who was commended on the 19th of November, 1991.

With those connections in mind, let me turn to an entirely different topic, Dubrovnik, but briefly. It features in the indictment. Starting in early October 1991 -- and perhaps we can just put the plan again. What may be thought an ambitious plan, given its geographical separation, in early 1991 the JNA and associated units from Serbia and Montenegro seized the municipality of Dubrovnik and laid siege to the city itself. The seized areas around Dubrovnik were cleansed, looted, and much was destroyed with JNA forces shelling the city, an act that was wholly without justification, killing at least 43 Croatian civilians. The old town of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, was heavily shelled and many ancient buildings damaged without being marked with Hague Convention symbols by international observers. The damage did not come about accidentally. The JNA shelled the town, as the ⁸¹ following video will show, from high ground from which they had an unobstructed view.

[Videotape played] The footage begins with the view of Dubrovnik from the heights of Djakovica. We will then see some JNA artillery soldiers using their sights to take aim towards the town of Dubrovnik, and shortly we'll see the view, the line-of-sight view of Djakovica from Dubrovnik itself, showing just how vulnerable they were.

Reversing the image, we go back to Djakovica where we see the type of wire-guided missiles used, waiting to be fired. And then we can see some consequences of the attack on this ancient town; damage suffered by the buildings.

We'll soon, I think, see some of the gunboats used by the JNA navy. First, we -- and we see firing onto the walls; some shells ricochetting off, I think, and some doing considerable damage. There's the gunboat.

You can see now, I think, or shortly, we can see boats in the marina being hit, or possibly missed, but certainly close. And then we see a survey of damage to the buildings.

And this footage will end, I think, with Dubrovnik on fire, columns of smoke rising from the town.

The leadership of Montenegro was committed itself to what it described as the liberation of Dubrovnik and other parts of Croatia along with the JNA, and supplied logistics and volunteers for the JNA. A Dubrovnik republic, in the ambition of those involved, was to be detached ⁸² and joined to Serbia. There was, of course, no need to liberate a city whose population was overwhelmingly Croat, whose Serb inhabitants had suffered no discrimination and asked for no liberation. Looking at this ambition, it is helpful to know that a witness will be before you saying that at the same time, senior Montenegrin leaders, following the accused's line, said we must liberate at least to the Neretva, which is the river halfway up and running inland, and say to the Croats, "Never again will we live together." The same witness will testify that everyone in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, and in Belgrade, were sure that Serbia was going to win the war quickly, and as victors it wouldn't matter what they had done. They were so caught up with this drive, and he described the line as the Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line, which is about as far towards Slovenia in the north as you could think of going; that the drive to that line, with their own invincibility, they really couldn't have cared less at the time. Who knew? Of course, they lied shamelessly to the few internationals who were around during the period, but they didn't care that their lies were so preposterous.

The army, the evidence will be, was no better, it having committed itself to the accused's programme. Officers, being instilled with the ideology of brotherhood and unity, totally abandoned everything -- in it in favour of a Greater Serbia. They shared the arrogance, did the army of the civilian leaders, and saw no reason to confer. That evidence will be before you, and of course, like all the evidence of this case, will fall for your determination, in due course. ⁸³ A further witness will testify before you that on the 6th of December, 1991, General Strugar of the JNA told him that he had resorted to firing on Dubrovnik in retaliation for attacks upon his troops; a line similar to the line used by the Krajina Serbs who resorted, in due course, to firing on the city of Zagreb as retaliation for what had -- as retaliation.

The Dubrovnik campaign spread over to Bosnia. In mid-October 1991, Serbian and Montenegrin forces, for example, attacked the village of Ravno in the Trebinje municipality, killing a number and expelling part of the population. The pattern always the same; the ambition, at this stage, high.

However, the international community didn't let things pass entirely unnoticed. In October 1991, there was a plan of Lord Carrington to achieve a peaceful dissolution of Yugoslavia and its problems. The then Montenegrin President Bulatovic, of whom we have heard, decided to accept the plan as, in his position as president of a state, he was allowed, no doubt, to do. He was minded to allow the republics to decide how much independence they wanted if they so chose. In doing this, he defied the accused, leaving Serbia as the only republic that rejected the Carrington Plan. Bulatovic's independence of mind didn't last long. The accused made him reverse his plan or be arrested. Bulatovic obeyed. Starting on about the 7th of October, Serb forces of the army and of the Territorial Defence, with the militia and the army of Krajina, or the Krajina police, and also Martic's police, were in control of an area, Hrvatska Kostanica, which is near Bacin, a name that will become familiar ⁸⁴ to the Chamber, if it isn't familiar already. Most of the Croat civilians in this area had fled their homes during the attack in September 1991. Approximately 120 Croat civilians, mostly women, the elderly or the infirm, remained in the village of Dubica, Cerovljani and Bacin. Why, one might ask, would such people worry the JNA or, for that matter, the Krajina? Worry them or not, in late October 1991, the Serb forces rounded up the remaining 120 civilians, releasing 10 and killing the remaining 110.

This accused says that he and his army sought only to preserve Yugoslavia. If so, why were such crimes necessary? Why were they intentional, for they were not incidental? Why did the elderly and the weak have to die in the way that they did?

Further evidence before the Tribunal within that category described as inside or insider will include that, by the summer of 1991, Serb volunteer and police forces in the Krajina were being supplied and instructed or led by officials of the Republic of Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs and its agents. One of those agents was a man, Captain Dragan, who closely cooperated with Milan Martic, the Krajina Defence Minister, and the Serbian MUP representatives active in the Krajina, in particular the man whom you will become familiar, Frenki Simatovic. A word about Martic. Even after the implementation of the Vance Peace Plan, the man Martic, shown here, pursued the plan of ethnic division. On the 1st of October, 1992, he stated publicly in Borba that the return of Croat refugees to the Krajina and to Baranja was out of the question. Despite the Vance Plan, he continued to favour the unification ⁸⁵ of the Krajina and the Republika Srpska - we'll have to learn of that a little later - a plan that was already being pursued by Babic in 1991. At the end of 1993 and the beginning of 1994, Martic ran for the post of RSK President, with Babic as his only serious opponent. Martic's goal: the unification of all Serb lands. And this man, during the election campaign, we may note he said, "I am carrying out the programme drafted by our pan-Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic." The state-controlled media in Serbia supported Martic, in particular after Babic got more votes than him in the first round; and on the 24th of January, 1994, he became the President of the RSK. On the 18th of February, 1994, he stated publicly he was supported by this accused during his campaign, confirming that his goal would be the unification of all Serbs; and that once all Serb land be united, he would gladly hand power over to this accused.

During a Croatian offensive, the so-called Operation Flash, which began in May 1995, Martic ordered the bombardment of several towns, including Zagreb, and was indicted for these offences before this Tribunal. But he was arrested in September, in Otoka, which is near to Bosanska Krupa, on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it was feared that republic police forces might extradite him to Croatia who maintained an arrest warrant for him. Reflective of the relationships which will guide this Chamber in its eventual conclusion that it was a concerted intervention by the Bosnian Serb leadership and the Serbian government that Martic was freed.

He was frequently received by the accused, he accompanied the ⁸⁶ accused on talks, for example, with Russian representatives, and in August 1995, when Croatian forces retook the Krajina, Martic fled to Banja Luka and then to Serbia.

Moving on to the end of the Croatian indictment and its story. In Geneva, on the 23rd of November, 1991, this accused, with Kadijevic and Tudjman, entered into an agreement, signed under the auspices of the United Nations Special Envoy Cyrus Vance. The agreement called for the lifting of blockades by Croatian forces on JNA barracks, and for the withdrawal of JNA forces from Croatia. Both sides committed themselves to an immediate cease-fire throughout Croatia by units under their command, control, or political influence. They further bound themselves to ensure that any paramilitary or irregular units associated with their forces would also observe the cease-fire.

Well, what units were these for which the accused, with Kadijevic, was making undertakings if they were not the JNA army, the Serbian Interior Ministry, and then the Croatian Serb forces in the Krajina Slavonia, Baranja, Western Srem, or Eastern Slavonia, as it's more conveniently described?

It was soon after this, you'll recall, if the Chamber would be so good, that the accused had the Krajina Serb leader Babic replaced because of his opposition to the Vance Plan. Perhaps more interestingly and a reflection of the sort of mistakes people can make when they do not actually look far enough ahead, it wasn't the local Serb leaders who signed this agreement. Perhaps they should have been, but they weren't even asked to. The accused did it; he did it for them. It was a display ⁸⁷ of power, perhaps too irresistibly tempting to hand over to anyone else. It was a display of power and authority to the international community that reflected the underlying realities of his involvement in what had gone before. His ability, had he chosen, to stop it happening, his duty to stop it and punish it, all things he didn't do because he is, as said in this indictment, guilty.

On the 27th of February, 1992, the accused gave a speech to the Serbian Assembly and, in it, and it's on the ELMO now -- the overhead projector, I'm sorry, in the highlighted passages, he acknowledges helping the Serbian people in Croatia with money, food, clothing, medicines, and also with a large number of volunteers at the front. Nothing could be clearer.

A sort of peace came as a result of the Vance Plan in January 1992. It allowed the Krajina Serbs control of the territory they'd seized, although Babic didn't comply with that, risking therefore the accused's anger and finding himself replaced by a more compliant leader, Goran Hadzic, not long after in February 1992.

Another cease-fire agreement signed by Tudjman and Milosevic on the 3rd of January, 1992, paved the way for the implementation of the plan put forward by Cyrus Vance. There were four United Nations Protected Areas established; however -- and from those areas troops had to be withdrawn. But the JNA, although it may have officially withdrawn from Croatia eventually in May 1992 -- May 1992, it left large portions of its weaponry and personnel behind in the Serb-held areas, turned them over to the police of the Republic of Serbia and Krajina. And despite the plan, ⁸⁸ displaced persons weren't allowed to return to their homes, and those few Croats and other non-Serbs who remained in Serb-occupied areas were expelled in the following months. The territory of the RSK remained under Serb occupation until large portions of it were retaken by Croatian forces in two operations in 1995.

So what was the plan? Evidence will show that it was territorial gain through ethnic cleansing. The same man, Simovic, the Minister of Defence, wrote to a man called Vuk Draskovic, a Serb nationalist leader with a small party and, so far as material, the first part may not put it in context, but it says this:

"By this time in the heart of Serbia, because Serbia is today being defended beyond the administrative borders with Croatia. If we do not embrace our goals that we have almost achieved, we may find ourselves defending Serbia at some future checkpoints, or on our Belgrade doorsteps tomorrow." Complete integration of plan.

Who was in charge? Let's return again to the man Simovic. He said this:

"Our mentality is to think as the boss says. The man at the top thinks on behalf of everybody else. It has always been like this in our history.

"Every time I went to the Parliament to address the representatives, I had to go to meet our civilian boss to ask for 'my' opinion. Usually, he would arrange for these meetings to take place on the same day as my address to the Parliament. He would then postpone it so that the session of the Parliament had to be extended to allow me to go ⁸⁹ and see Mr. Milosevic. I then had to say whatever I was told, ignoring the notes I had prepared myself. On one occasion, I wanted to tell the representatives about the heroism of Mr. Seselj's volunteers, but Mr. Milosevic told me that I could not say that because, as he put it, 'Why should we glorify him?'"

A last photograph, a few last points, and then I'll move to Bosnia.

The photograph -- no, sorry, the second map. The first map that we've been looking at showed what was the ambition in Croatia of the Croatian Serbs. There are many maps. Rarely do they entirely match one with another. But this map, of course slightly differently configured, shows the areas that, in the event, were held, the areas that it took some -- that's the hatched areas. Thank you very much. And also in the east. Shows the areas that were held, areas that were, in due course, and subject to the qualifications I've already made, eventually returned. We will now look at a last photograph and then a few more points. This is a photograph of three men. It was taken at a military parade in the Krajina on the 28th of June, 1995, shortly before the Krajina collapsed.

Mile Martic, on the right, of whom we've spoken, the accused's links with him clear. Less than two months before this particular photograph, he'd ordered the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Zagreb for which he was indicted by this Tribunal. The accused made a sort of verbal condemnation of this man, but took no steps to bring him to justice. The man in the middle, Mile Mrksic, one of those responsible for ⁹⁰ the massacre at Vukovar, duly indicted by this Tribunal. He has spent the years since as a high-ranking officer of the Yugoslav army under the accused's watch with no attempts to submit him to justice. Indeed, he was sent by the accused to take over the ostensibly independent Krajina Serb army.

The third man on the left, Milorad Ulenek, also known as Milorad Lukovic, a deputy of Arkan. He commanded a Special Forces Unit of the Serbian Interior Ministry for years. This unit under various guises implicated in war crimes in Croatia and in Bosnia and also in Kosovo during the war there.

The appearance of, maybe from time to time as the evidence unfolds, of autonomous separate actions apparently without connection, the reality of course, the reality that this Chamber must uncover, in its search for the truth, is a coordinated and a criminal enterprise so far as these three men are concerned, they clearly acting together, tied to the accused.

Your Honour, there is no need, I think and I hope, to recite this indictment count by count. The accused has it available to him. It sets out with what he is charged. And in any event, as we forecast, we will, in due course, before calling evidence in relation to Croatia and Bosnia and following the submission of our case in writing on those parts of the indictment, be allowed a further opportunity to explain our case in detail.

What I've said so far is but a summary in order to put the accused on notice. There is more, of course, to come. But just take, before we ⁹¹ move on, if we can all be so -- or if the Court could be so good, a common-sense view of what was happening. If the Court would be so good to take a common-sense approach at some stage to this case. When we look at the three areas seeking Serbian independence, they weren't connected. When we look at Dubrovnik, even less so. Were they areas capable of independent self-support or did they inevitably need something to join on to? What was it they wanted to be a part of? It was Serbia. The time that they were acting, was there even the intervening prospect or the intervening entity in Bosnia for them to cleave to? No, there was not, although it may have been shortly to come. Were they going to seek to join to something without the consent of that body, without the consent of Serbia and its leader? No, they were not. Were they going to be doing this without his involvement? No, they were not. But the evidence, of course, will have to be dealt with in due course.

Your Honour, I turn then now to the Bosnian indictment. Under this indictment, ICTY crimes included or covered include offences in the same category as for Croatia, same categories as for Croatia, but they also include genocide, contrary to Article 4 of the Statute. The Prosecution will submit, at the conclusion of the evidence in this trial, that the accused intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat communities in part, which is in accordance with the definition of genocide, in order to fulfil the aims of the objectives of the criminal enterprise where persecutions in themselves would be insufficient to achieve the desired result. ⁹² Alternatively, that genocide was the natural and foreseeable consequence of the joint criminal enterprise forcibly and permanently to remove non-Serbs from the territory under control. Alternatively, the accused was an accomplice and he knew that some of the perpetrators were committing genocide and he undertook acts which assisted in their commission. Further or alternatively, as a superior within the meaning of Article 7(3) of our Statute, he knew or had reason to know that genocide was about to be committed or had been committed and did not prevent or punish the perpetrators thereof.

Just one word about genocide before I turn to the facts of this indictment. It is, of course, the crime of crimes. As a word, it is used by those who have suffered away from the legal context, and it is sometimes difficult for them to appreciate that great though their suffering may be, the word may not apply in law. There is, to that extent, a tension between the use of the word by non-lawyers and its application in courts.

Although it may describe the crime of crimes, it does not necessarily always mean that offences can only be of the gravest kind if they do attract that word, for the word has to be given its strict legal meaning. That we know is what is going to happen in this court, and we are aware of our duties simply and only to seek a conviction for genocide if and when the legal elements are satisfied.

I turn on. Bosnia was one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic, once a medieval state occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and becoming an administrative unit of that state ⁹³ in the nineteenth century, briefly forming its own government in 1918 before being incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and then becoming, of course, Yugoslavia.

During World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was incorporated into the independent State of Croatia sponsored by Germany and Italy, and forces of the ruling Ustasha regime committed widespread and systematic violence aimed at eliminating Jews, Serbs, and others felt to be undesirable. Similar violence, although on a smaller scale, was committed by Serbian Chetniks against non-Serbs. The Muslims suffered proportionately the highest losses in Yugoslavia after the Jews. Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged as a distinct administrative unit after World War II with the establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was the home to three religions co-existing within its borders; the primarily Serbian Orthodox Serbs, the predominantly Roman Catholic Croats, and the Bosnian Muslims. The Muslims gradually came to see themselves as a distinct nation separate from Croats and Serbs, recognised in this by the Yugoslavian government in 1970. Relations between the constituent populations improved following World War II and under Tito's regime, and although, of course, perceptions will be various, by the 1980s it may be that members of the three groups lived and worked together well, especially in the cities. The free elections of November 1990, I think I've dealt with the spoils of government being divided up. The Serbs' political party, the SDS of Bosnia-Herzegovina, an offshoot of the Croatian party, and we've seen in Croatia how intimately the accused was involved in that particular ⁹⁴ party.

As the war continued in Croatia, it appeared increasingly unlikely that Bosnia and Herzegovina would not also declare independence from the Socialist Federal Republic. The party, the SDS, realising perhaps that it couldn't prevent secession of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the republic began the creation of separate -- of a separate Serbian entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina, and several Serbian autonomous regions were formed just as in Croatia. And we see here a map which is titled at the bottom: "The Serbian Autonomous Districts or Regions as Defined by the Proclamation of the 21st of November, 1991, Published in the Official Gazette." The areas familiar probably to the Tribunal in any event, the Krajina, Northern Bosnia, Semberija, Romanija, Birac, Herzegovina. Now, not long after this, the accused, say the Prosecution, together with the man Karadzic and others, formed a plan permanently to remove the Bosnian Muslims from Bosnian Croats on the territory they wanted through a campaign of persecution. In the spring of 1992, that plan went into effect and in places where the persecution was insufficient, the execution of the plan escalated to genocide. The Prosecution will assert and does assert that this accused took pains to conceal his participation in the enterprise. However, the Bosnian Serb leadership and military could not have done what they did without his massive ongoing informed assistance. There are various ways of looking at the links. Throughout 1991, the Croatian Serb leadership, the Bosnian Serb leadership, and elements of the JNA and Yugoslavia leadership were operating on a single plan, it is ⁹⁵ asserted by the Prosecution, to erase Croatian Bosnia's borders, as proclaimed by the accused on numerous occasions. Another quotation, and I think we can see this, from the 15th of January, 1991:

"As far as the -- as far as the Serbian people are concerned, they want to live in one state."

Yes, thank you. "As far as the Serbian people are concerned, they want to live in one state. Hence divisions into several states which would separate the Serbian people and force them to live in different sovereign states is, from our point of view, unacceptable."

What this meant in practice was visible during in the war in Croatia. The permanent -- in Croatia, the permanent removal of unwanted populations.

The accused was also instrumental in the passage at that time of the Serbian Law on Defence, which in the event of war, placed the police and Territorial Defence under the control of the President himself; and Article 39 of that law would establish the apparent legal legitimacy for the Serbian Ministry of Defence to begin recruiting and equipping Serb military -- Serb paramilitaries that were sent to Bosnia and engaged in ethnic cleansing of targeted municipalities. So there was preparation in the law and execution of the law for the purposes of the Serbs in Bosnia. Karadzic shared Milosevic's goal. Karadzic leader, of course, of the party. On the 23rd of February, 1991, in Milosevic's presence he said this: ⁹⁶ "We do not see that this should be discussed. Serbs living exclusively in a joint state. Just as it is natural that rain falls, it's natural for Serbs to live in that same state."

And on the 26th of February, 1991, Karadzic acknowledged Milosevic as the representative of the Bosnian Serbs in case of Yugoslavia's disintegration.

On the 25th of March - we've already made some reference to this - there was the Karadjordjevo meeting. I needn't repeat that. And Bosnian SDS party declared that only Milosevic was authorised to represent the Bosnian Serbs in negotiations on the future of Yugoslavia, that they have given him their party position because if not him, it would have had to have been Izetbegovic. But nevertheless, all of this shows a complete integration of the party in Bosnia with their ideological, if it was an ideology, leader.

Karadzic, repeatedly encouraged by the accused, put his SDS organisation at the disposal of the Yugoslav army in order to provide assistance in manpower to that army for its war effort in Croatia in the summer and autumn of 1991, as it were a link between three of the important parties, not just two. And he maintained regular and in certain crisis situations almost constant telephone communications with the accused and other officials in Belgrade discussing with them and consulting on the broadest possible range of issues of common concern. Evidence of intercepted phone calls will reveal these and other matters. In these contacts, he frequently but not always assumed the role of eager subordinate and willing collaborator in the ideas and designs ⁹⁷ originating in Belgrade. Karadzic valued the context -- contacts and following a discussion regarding proceedings for The Hague Conference held here on the 29th of October of 1991, was reassured by the accused that their conversations represented a sort of coordinating body acting to protect the interests of the Serbian people.

We must look briefly at the chronology of events of what was to be known as the Republika Srpska. We start with the proclamation in September 1991 of the autonomous region of Herzegovina. You've seen them on the plan. On the 16th of September, the Krajina proclaimed. On the 15th of October, a meeting of the SDS party council -- I beg your pardon. I omitted something I should have put in.

Before we move on - we've just passed two proclamations of independence - let's see what was written by a group of JNA reservists in October 1991. It's written -- let me just get my copy. It comes from a group of JNA reservists, and it goes to a number of people including this accused, Kadijevic, Karadzic, Plavsic, and others, and it's dated sometime in October, it would appear, 1991. The second paragraph:

"We would like first to explain that we've chosen this action because of the inhuman treatment we've received from some officers. They tasked some of us with the most loathsome assignments, liquidation of Muslim and Croat individuals and threatened with drumhead court-martial, if we failed to obey the orders. The almost beastly conditions in which we lived were another reason for deciding to take this action. We are prepared to submit written statements on these issues and on others that ⁹⁸ have compelled us to make this move, but we shall disclose them only to the officials."

Two points emerge. One: What have they been asked to do? Two, the point I made right at the beginning this morning: Did he know what was being done? Of course he did.

15th of October, the Serb party of -- the Serb Democratic Party, the SDS party council, was -- formed the Assembly of Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the 22nd of October, the accused called for unity Serb state, and the Rump Presidency, to which we've referred, called for mobilisation of reservists in Serbia and other regions that want to stay in the Yugoslavia.

On the 26th of October, Karadzic declared a full mobilisation of Territorial Defence and field units in the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Karadzic became more explicit about what the single state would look like. There was to be a plebiscite in November 1991, but before that, he said this:

"I am telling you, whatever Bosnia we have one day, no Muslim foundation shall ever be laid in Serb areas, and Serb villages, whether or not you import Turks, because we will instruct Serbs not to sell land to Muslims."

He continued in an address, a public address, after loud applause:

"The first foundations that are laid will be blown up. It is not always good to disclose one's plans, but it's not bad to say that we will ⁹⁹ not give them up because we will proclaim `You must not sell land to Muslims. You must not.' This is a fight to the finish, a battle for living space."

This same exhibit produces the following quotations of interest: "Asking" -- it may not be on this particular version of the exhibit, but you'll find elsewhere in the same speech that the man, Karadzic, asked the ouster of radio chairmen and editors who did not listen and did not respect the policy, an exhortation to people to take over the public accounting system, and instruction to his followers to be energetic and strict, to get ready to go and establish authority in territories, municipalities, regions and local communities.

He said this: "Serbs do not need an army for their party. The army is here. And incidentally, theirs and our aims overlap 100 per cent. Do not leave that equipment and that army alone. Don't. That would be a disgrace. We would lose the state if we were to lose that army." On the 9th and 10th of November there was a plebiscite called by the Bosnian Serbs. The result may be of questionable significance given the different questions that were asked of different groupings. The result was to stay in Yugoslavia.

On the 21st of November -- all right. Perhaps I ought to look at this document. This is the document reflecting the plebiscite. "Pursuant to the right for self-determination," it reads, "and for the purpose of the full and permanent protection of the rights and interests of the Serbian people, the Serbian people in Bosnia and ¹⁰⁰ Herzegovina determine that the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina remain in the joint state of Yugoslavia."

There was a decision for the Serbian people to remain. But I move on to save time, if I can. Romanija, Birac, and Semberija declared their position on the 21st of November. On the same day, an Assembly proclaimed as part of Yugoslavia all places that had over 50 per cent of Serb voters who voted to stay in Yugoslavia; and on the 11th of December, the Assembly requested the Yugoslavian army to protect as Yugoslavia those parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina where the plebiscite had taken place.

On the 19th of December, the party of Karadzic issued instructions for take over of municipalities, and on the 9th of January of 1992, the Assembly adopted a proclamation of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared to be part of federal Yugoslavia. The territory of that republic was declared to include the territories of the Serbian autonomous regions and districts and of other Serbian ethnic entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the regions in which the Serbian people remained in the minority due to the genocide conducted against it in World War II. It was declared to be part of the federal Yugoslav state, changing its name on the 12th of August to the name by which it's probably better known in this institution now, the Republika Srpska.

In January of that same year, human rights organisations and international diplomats had notified the accused of crimes committed by Arkan's Tigers, Seselj's men, Captain Dragan's men, all based in Serbia. ¹⁰¹ He promised to investigate and punish those responsible. He never did. Rather, he continued, say the Prosecution, with other members of the criminal enterprise to ensure that all those men enjoyed the necessary support that they needed to continue in the commission of criminal acts. Let's look at a map which is one of many maps, but this is a map that shows the maximum ambition of the party at the time. And the red line, which we've had laid over another map, shows just how much of the territory, which we can now see, the light blue territory, was to be consumed as part of the Republika Srpska, and of course the areas into Croatia. An ambitious plan indeed, and the documents will show that was in the mind of these people at the time. A plan that, of course, disregarded the interests of many.

On the 29th of February or between then and the 2nd of March in the Bosnian referendum on independence that the Serbs boycotted, there was a vote for independence. And on the 18th of March, at the 11th Session of their Assembly, the decision -- of the Serb's Assembly in Bosnia, the decision was made to prepare proposals for a takeover of power in the republic of the Serbian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in short what happened was that armed takeovers followed.

Notwithstanding that, the United States and the European Community recognised the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the 6th of April. And then we have on the 12th of May, at the 16th Assembly, a famous document, I think, excerpt from the speech of Karadzic on this occasion to the Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina held on the 12th of May, and it has six points. ¹⁰² "The Serbian side in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Presidency, the government, the Council for National Security, which we've set up, have formulated the strategic priorities of the Serbian people. The first such goal, separation from the other two national communities, separation of states, separation from those who are our enemies and who have used every opportunity, especially in this century, to attack us and who would continue with such practices if we were to stay together in the same state.

"The second strategic goal, it seems to me, is a corridor between Semberija and Krajina. So that is a very important strategic goal which we have to achieve because there will be no Krajina, no Bosnian Krajina, Serbian Krajina, or alliance of Serbian states, if we do not secure that corridor which would integrate us and give us unimpeded flow from one part of our state to another.

"Third strategic goal, to establish a corridor in the Drina valley. That is, elimination of the Drina as a border between two worlds. We are on both sides of the Drina. Our strategic interests and living space are there.

"Fourth strategic goal, establishment of a border on the Una and Neretva Rivers.

"Fifth strategic goal, division of the city of Sarajevo into Serbian and Muslim parts and implementation of an effective state government in each of the these two constituent states. "Sixth strategic goal, access of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the sea. It is not unimportant. It's very important. ¹⁰³ Some things are more important than others or more feasible than others." At that same session, Mladic, the General, indicted of course at this Tribunal, announced that it would be impossible to separate Serbs and that to do so would constitute genocide -- from non-Serbs would constitute genocide.

Now, the Bosnian indictment starts in March 1992. The relevant history in a nutshell is as follows: With the establishment of the Republika Srpska supported by this accused and with the break from Bosnia-Herzegovina, the municipalities were taken over, explusions and associated killings followed, all with the accused's support, say the Prosecution.

Crimes were committed, and then in January, and between then and May 1993, there was a break, a break between Karadzic and the accused. It was about a plan then being advanced known as the Vance-Owen Plan. The accused argued that it should be accepted. The Bosnian Serbs refused. The Prosecution's case, subject of course of evidence, will be that he continued to support them financially whatever was being public by way of a break.

On a statement -- in a statement on the 11th of May, two statements on the same day but I'll collapse them, the accused said these things. First:

"The decision -- the decision on the peace plan concerns the interests of Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Montenegro, Krajina in Croatia, and the Serbian republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina. All citizens in the whole of the Serbian nation, not only the Assembly and the citizens of the Serbian ¹⁰⁴ Republic."

He then said this: "I, therefore, believe that the decision on this cannot be made only by the citizens of the Serbian republic but by all the people's representatives elected to the parliaments of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro, Krajina, and the Serbian republic equally and with full respect for the interests of their citizens in the Serbian nation for peace, freedom, equality, and violence."

The excerpt which is now on the overhead projector adds, I think, this. He made the following statement:

"In the past two years, the Republic of Serbia, by assisting Serbs outside Serbia, has forced its economy to make massive efforts and its citizens to make substantial sacrifices. These efforts and these sacrifices are now reaching the limits of endurance. Most of the assistance was sent to people and fighters in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but a substantial amount of aid was given to the 500.000 refugees in Serbia. Serbia has lent a great deal of assistance to the Serbs in Bosnia. Owing to that assistance, they have achieved what they wanted."

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters kindly request that the speaker slow down, please.

JUDGE MAY: You're being asked to slow down, please.

MR. NICE: My apologies to the interpreters. I do apologise. I detected I was speeding up and should have adjusted earlier. We've reached the middle of 1993, and because everything about this accused, in our submission to the Chamber, will have to be looked at ¹⁰⁵ in an integrated way, it may be helpful just to reflect on something that was happening at home. I forecast this a little earlier when I said we will see just how this man was willing to exercise force and to use force, even on his own, when it was necessary.

What we're going to see is a video of the way demonstrators were dealt with back in Serbia right at this time, at the time that the plan with Karadzic is reaching fulfillment. Can we just see this video?

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: The demonstration. This is how the MUP police force or part of the police force would deal with those who would not accept this accused's plan. This is the home state as created by this accused, the man who says, I think, he was only defending legitimate interests. I return to the split that there was between the accused and Karadzic. There was a border closing between the Republika Srpska and Serbia but not until 1994, and even then not for military traffic. There was a reduction, but not an elimination, of financial and military support for Republika Srpska as Mladic was later to reveal. Despite the differences between Mladic and Karadzic, the real split on the level of cooperation between the Republic of Serbia and the Republika Srpska did not occur. They were the subject of tightly closed borders for the months of August to November 1994, but it was impossible to stop greater cooperation between these two particular entities. Businesses were too tightly connected, and it was impossible for this accused to ignore the protests that Serbian companies who were suffering financially made because of the embargo. ¹⁰⁶ In July of 1994, just before the break, the split was reflected in a closing of borders, there was a working group, the interministerial working group to assist the problems that were arising. This meant that the Republic of Serbia was still financially helping the projects and the Serbian Ministry for Cooperation with Serbs Outside of Serbia was in charge of that body. And the Prosecution case is that that support for military activities continued in various ways.

We must come, then, to two particular events. First Sarajevo. Sarajevo, mentioned of course in the indictment, suffered an almost uninterrupted barrage of attack between 1992 and 1995, with terrorised civilians. The aim, we've seen it already, was to separate and divide the city and to tie down the troops of the Bosnian Muslims. In May of 1995, General Mladic, in a speech, said that it was the Yugoslav army which provided his Bosnian Serb army, the Republika Srpska army, with weapons and other equipment covering more than 50 per cent of its needs.

We turn to Srebrenica. The Muslims there, in an enclave, in a UN-safe area, the Muslims so attacked that there was a massacre, as we know, of an enormous number of people. And I'll have to say something else about that shortly.

As the war began, the Bosnian Serb leadership became entirely clear about its intentions, and the Prosecution case is that the accused had to have known what they were. We've looked at the six goals document already, or the six objectives document already. On the 12th of May of 1992, the Bosnian Serb Minister of Health ¹⁰⁷ argued that their army, I suppose then still the JNA, ought to destroy the Bosnian government civilian hospital in Sarajevo so that the enemy had no where to go for medical help.

When the war began in Bosnia, units connected with this accused were among the earliest perpetrators of crimes; Arkan, in particular, in Bijeljina, starting as early as the 1st of April, 1992; the JNA elsewhere; and others traceable to his control.

The JNA was still deployed throughout Bosnia and the accused no longer bothered to conceal his control over it. One high international official witness before you will testify that, in discussions in November 1991 regarding the Yugoslav army's role in that region, the accused stated he would agree to the army's withdrawal once a UN peacekeeping operation was established. So there he is in his position of Serbia, dealing with the federal army and what it was going to do in the country of Bosnia, under attack.

What about the relationship between the JNA and the army VRS of the Bosnian Serbs? Although the JNA did withdraw in name -- I'm reminded that I should have dealt with another wiring diagram. I hadn't marked my text accordingly, but I'll deal with it now. If the Court has this document.

Subject to the same qualifications, on the top, a simplified illustration of the accused's participation in the joint criminal enterprise; at the bottom, on the left, a reminder that the lines on the chart do not necessarily represent command and control between the parties. We see something not dissimilar from what we've seen before. ¹⁰⁸ The accused, in the middle, with his various roles set out; the Rump Presidency on the left commanding the JNA, with the various people identified; something called the Supreme Defence Council now coming into existence, composed of people from the Rump Presidency and also the accused himself; immediately below him, the Serbian Ministry of the Interior under his effective control, that body, with its identified leaders having direction over the Serbian Special Forces including the Red Berets and the Arkanovci; to the right, the Bosnian Serb leadership. It will be for the Chamber to decide whether the influence and control is as stated by the Prosecution and necessary for conviction in this case. The Bosnian Serb leadership with, under its control, municipal crisis staffs, which we haven't yet mentioned but I think which will be familiar to the Chamber from other dealings its had in other cases, in general terms; Bosnian Serb MUP; and the VRS or Territorial Defence with Ratko Mladic.

What is interesting is to look at the second diagram which seeks to set out what connections there may have been between the JNA on the left and the VRS of Ratko Mladic on the right. And so this second, again, simplified illustration, subject to the usual observations, suggests that the connection between the VJ and the VRS, to use acronyms for speed, was multifaceted and of very great value, importance, as reflected by these items: Supply of personnel, payment of officers' salaries, supply of military equipment and munitions, provisions of training, sharing of communication systems, sharing of intelligence, linkage between radio/technical reconnaissance systems. ¹⁰⁹ So that presents, in diagramatic form and, we hope, subject to all of the qualifications, helpful for the Chamber to have in mind, a picture of the relationship that existed between the JNA and the VRS. So that although the JNA withdrew in name from Bosnia and Herzegovina in May of 1992, support continued. By that support and by his other aspects of control, of which we'll hear more in the trial, he bears responsibility for the acts committed in Bosnia by the VRS.

Before the formal withdrawal of the JNA from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the accused was instrumental in shifts of personnel that simply moved personnel across to create an essentially Bosnian Serb army from one that had formerly been composed of an ethnic mix, and such restructuring evidences his appreciation for and intention that this essentially-Serb JNA should intercede on the side of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as to set the stage for the creation of a separate Bosnian Serb army when that was necessary.

From the autumn of 1991, then, as the JNA began to withdraw its forces from Croatia, forces under the control of the JNA started to redeploy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many of them going to exactly those places where there was a gap, where there was no garrison and no other JNA facility.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, if you would find a convenient moment at about five past four.

MR. NICE: Certainly. The accused had exercised control over the JNA through the Yugoslav Presidency. But on the 27th of April of 1992, the Supreme ¹¹⁰ Defence Council that we saw on the first two of those diagrams was formed. I've indicated in summary its composition. It exercised a substantial influence and control over other members -- sorry, the accused exercised substantial influence and control over other members of the council. The Supreme Defence Council and the President of the Republic de jure had power, in law, over the army; first, the JNA and then the VJ. So that the accused was, perhaps typically, exercising control in more than one way over the object of his control, both through individuals and through channels of communication and authority.

He used his position on the Supreme Defence Council to ensure that the former JNA, now becoming and being called the VJ, should continue to support and cooperate with the VRS in Bosnia. The VJ contributed to the crimes through its relationship in the way that I've just described. Your Honour, I've dealt, in summary form, on the diagram, with the headings that I could enlarge on. What I propose to do, I think, to save time, is to abbreviate what I'll say about these headings in detail and just look at one or two exhibits that exemplify some of the points. They're in the papers that you have.

So under personnel support, if we can just look at the exhibit that creates the 30th Personnel Centre. This is the body that organised the payment of the VRS officers. There were 12.000 such officers, I think. And here we see, "In future" -- this is a document from the 6th of March of 1993.

"In future, working lists are to be delivered to this Command not ¹¹¹ later than the 5th of each month for a previous month in order to send them timely to the Military Computing Centre of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army for their payment." Thus were the officers of the VRS paid.

Moving from personnel support over -- I needn't trouble you with the detail of the other categories. Extensive training. There was direct military activity in Bosnia. This will be the subject of evidence. And in particular, in the struggle for Bratunac, a name that will become sadly familiar here, there was the public statement of one of the generals of the Yugoslav army admitting presence of his units, an admission corroborated by orders he signed. He even noted the problems of accommodating so many troops of both armies together. In relation to activity by the troops on the territory itself, we'll see reference to this in more histories. And can we look at another exhibit. It has a connection to a helicopter -- yes, a helicopter, I think. Yes. This is a document of the 3rd of November. Reading, as material, "One brigade from the Herzegovina Corps, Ministry of the Interior forces up to a strength of one battalion. Yugoslav Army Special Forces up to 120 people and a helicopter squad, with its main forces through a decisive defence of the greater section of the front, shall prevent an enemy breakthrough from Central Bosnia and Gorazde towards Sarajevo." This an order that reveals the participation of the accused's forces as he, no doubt, regarded them at that stage. I think I have two more exhibits to go before I come to the end of this section. Would you like me to go that far or would you like me to ¹¹² stop?

JUDGE MAY: Deal with those.

MR. NICE: Yes. A great deal of evidence about supply and support. One document in relation to standardisation of procedures. The next document is a document dated the 15th of February, 1995, and it deals with -- thank you very much. "That the commands of corps and their subordinated units or their members can address RS official organs and institutions in the SRJ and RSK solely via the VRS Main Staff." Completely integrated. And then the next document. An order directing that supply requisitions from the VRS to the VJ be regularised and systematised. Reading, "Only the Commander, his deputy and Assistant for Logistics of the Republika Srpska Army shall have the right to approve direct contacts with the General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia." In addition to standardisation of procedure, there was the sharing of intelligence and a great deal of evidence about that. And, indeed, perhaps I can conclude with this feature of the Appeals Chamber's decision in Tadic, which it may be possible for us to pray in aid, whether it's necessary, but for reasons of consistency, where it was held that "The armed forces of the Republika Srpska were to be regarded as acting under the overall control and on behalf of the FRY," paragraph 162 of the Appeals judgement.

Your Honour, if that would be a convenient moment. I certainly have more to go on Bosnia before we come to Kosovo. I'll see if I can make some reductions in the time it will take overnight. ¹¹³

JUDGE MAY: How long do you anticipate being?

MR. NICE: I think I shall be the morning overall.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn until tomorrow morning, half past nine.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.08 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 13th day of

February, 2002, at 9.30 a.m.