²⁸³⁷²

Monday, 3 November 2003

[Open session]

[The witness entered court]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.15 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Lord Owen, would you stand, please, to take the declaration.

THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you very much.

WITNESS: DAVID OWEN

JUDGE MAY: Lord Owen, we have your statement, for which we're grateful, and we've had the opportunity to read it. We understand that you do not wish to make an additional statement, in which case, the procedure will be as follows: That the Prosecution will begin by asking questions. There will be a limit on the time which is available to them. They will be followed by the accused. He will have slightly longer. And finally, the amicus will have the opportunity to ask questions for a short period. I hope very much that that should all be completed tomorrow morning at a relatively early hour.

I understand your private secretary is in court to assist with the documents.

Mr. Nice. Questioned by Mr. Nice:

Q. Lord Owen, I don't intend to ask you very many questions about ²⁸³⁷³ your statement because, of course, it's self-explanatory. It, like your book, are before us, and we're grateful to you for coming to give evidence to enable them to be before us as documents of record. If I can begin with something of an overview of your position. I think it is that you would say that the accused was to some degree committed to the peace process following the failure of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan.

A. Well, the Vance-Owen Peace Plan was a -- the first detailed peace plan to be presented, one of arguably four or five, and I think the -- Mr. Milosevic did show that he wanted the Vance-Owen Peace Plan to succeed, both leading up to the meeting at Athens and then when he went with the Prime Minister of Greece and the president of Yugoslavia and president of Montenegro to the Bosnian Serb Assembly in Pale.

Q. It's undoubtedly the case, and you make this absolutely clear, that both you and the accused had invested a great deal in that plan, although, as I think you say, for different reasons, or potentially for different reasons.

A. Yes. I think obviously Mr. Vance and I were -- had only one objective, which was to bring peace as soon as it possibly could come, to try and stop the ethnic cleansing that was continuing, and the wanton loss of life that was occurring. I think it needs to be remembered that we were negotiating almost the whole time while wars were raging, which is perhaps one of the most unattractive aspects of the whole affair and, personally extremely testing and difficult for both Mr. Vance and then later Mr. Stoltenberg and myself. ²⁸³⁷⁴

Q. From time to time I'd like to refer to passages in your statement.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, I'm concerned not to interrupt the testimony by having the usher putting documents unnecessarily on the overhead projector. If Lord Owen could have a copy of his statement before him - I know you've got it - and if I read out a passage which is fairly short, it may be that it doesn't need to go on the overhead projector, but I'm entirely in the Court's hands.

JUDGE MAY: Since this is the first time it's been referred to in evidence, I think we should have an exhibit number for the statement and the appendices attached to it. They can be exhibited together as a court exhibit.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, Chamber Exhibit 16.

MR. NICE:

Q. Lord Owen, if you'd be good enough, please, to go to page 3 of your own statement. In the middle of that page, in the middle of the second paragraph, you said this: "I believe it was a massive mistake by President Milosevic not to use his undoubted power to impose on his fellow Serbs in Bosnia those same settlements and had he done so it would have been in the best interests of the Serbian people as a whole." Does that part of your statement reflect your understanding that he had the power at that time to impose on his fellow Serbs had he chosen to do so?

A. I believe that he did have that power, but I know at times he felt that didn't, but certainly I think his power over the Bosnian Serbs and the Croatian Serbs were -- was strong at the time that the Vance-Owen ²⁸³⁷⁵ Peace Plan began to develop its momentum, really, from January 1993 until May of 1993.

Thereafter, I think it's open to question how much power he had. I would still maintain he did actually have the power to impose a settlement, but there was no doubt there was much more resistance and there were more independent sources of power in the Bosnian Serbs' structure, particularly General Mladic, but also President Karadzic and Mr. Krajisnik.

Q. We'll perhaps look at the next part of the chronology a little later, but at this stage of seeking your assistance on some general topics, do you accept that the accused was someone who was capable of telling untruths and attempting to mislead people when it suited him?

A. Yes. I must also add that that was not a feature unique to him. There was practically nobody we negotiated with who you could rely on to be telling you the truth. It's one of the saddest aspects of the whole of the negotiation throughout the former Yugoslavia, and it is important to remember that our remit from the International Conference covered not just Bosnia-Herzegovina but all aspects of the former Yugoslavia. But I don't think that one could also say that in the discussions that we had with him personally it was a marked feature of it, a lack of the truth. There was a certain pretence going on in this whole discussion. I think the Court is aware of this, but just does need to be understood. I mean, this was a war of secession, it was war of -- civil war, and it was a war of aggression. There were many complex aspects of it throughout. And one has to remember that, for example, both, as he then was, President ²⁸³⁷⁶ Milosevic and the late President Tudjman did not really accept that -- the decisions of the international community to recognise either Bosnia-Herzegovina or the various other decisions. And so it was commonplace for them to deny that their troops or their military had anything to do with the Bosnian Serbs or, in the case of President Tudjman, the Croatian Serbs.

Now, you could call that a lie, but that was, in a sense, just fulfilling their obligations to the structure in which they found themselves. They didn't accept the structure. They didn't believe that they had any reason not to be operating across what they considered to be the tranches of the regions of the former Yugoslavia. Now, that was a complex question that we had to deal with all the time. So there was a certain amount of knowingly lying, if you like. It's not quite the same as a straight lie. I knew that they could not use language other than to accept the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina was an independent country. I didn't mean to say that they agreed with it. So there was a certain amount. I have a lot of other examples. So I just want to qualify, the word "lie" is rather a savage word to use, and at times it was used more in form rather than substance, put it that way. But there was also serious lying about what was going on.

Q. Yes. And of course with all these people with whom it was your fortune, good or bad, to negotiate, when they're thinking one thing and saying another, you have to look sometimes to their actions to decide what they're really thinking.

A. Yes. I think that's the best way to form your own judgements. ²⁸³⁷⁷ Actions speak louder than words.

Q. Yes. Could we, in your statement, turn briefly to Annex A. And, Lord Owen, you'll find in the top right-hand corner some handwritten registry numbers which are sometimes the easiest numbers to use, and it's 24829. If yours doesn't have those numbers in handwriting, I'll find it for you in another way. It's the notes of the 24th of April.

A. My annex?

Q. Yes, your Annex A, and it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven -- and the usher is bringing it to you. Thank you very much. And then it's the second page of that document and it's in the middle of the page.

A. Yes, the Report to the European Community Foreign Ministers.

Q. Yes, I think.

A. Yes.

Q. It's the paragraph that begins in this way: "There is also an added risk that the JA may get involved openly, particularly if the Croatians threaten Eastern Slavonia. Although it is not certain that Belgrade is yet ready for such involvement it could, however, get carried along on the tide. When challenged about recent JA involvement in Eastern Bosnia, Cosic, Milosevic, and Bulatovic denied it, but they knew that I knew that they were involved."

Now, this is an example of the type of lie you've been telling us of.

A. Yes.

Q. Sorry. If you're uncomfortable with the word "lie" I'll use ²⁸³⁷⁸ another one, but an untruth --

A. Yes, that's exactly the sort of example. I think, in fairness, I think somewhere in my book I said that I thought that when I first gave very detailed information about JA - Yugoslav Army - involvement, I was not quite sure that President Cosic actually did know how much they'd been involved, but I suspect he knew some aspects of it.

Q. And of course the underlying reality here is of the accused's having knowledge of and influence or control over troops that were operating elsewhere than in Serbia.

A. Yes. I mean, that was one of the reasons that sanctions were put on Serbia and Montenegro in 1992, because it was felt that -- by the UN Security Council that troops had been withdrawn from Croatia through Bosnia-Herzegovina and had been deliberately left in Bosnia. I think one has to admit that of the JA army, the majority of people who served were people who were of Bosnian origin originally. After all, we have to remember that a significant number of Serbs had lived in the region of Bosnia-Herzegovina under the former Yugoslavia.

Q. And incidentally, I'm grateful to Mr. Vallieres-Roland for pointing out that your reservation about President Cosic is to be found on page 148 of your book.

A. Thank you.

Q. You make references, and I haven't immediately got the place to hand but you'll recall it, to the accused acting like a drug baron is a reference you make at some stage. Just lest we should misunderstand that reference, perhaps you could, in a sentence or so, just clarify that for ²⁸³⁷⁹ us.

A. This was totally, I think, in the context of financial dealings and the arrangements that were made in Cyprus with the Serbian Montenegrin government. After all, they were under quite -- well, they were meant to be serious sanctions. It's arguable how much they were operating, but the initial sanctions package was not a financial package, it was dealing with trade, and they had put a lot of their financial operations through Cyprus and other offshore places. This made it very difficult for us, of course, to bear down on them, and it was my strong belief that we would not get the Vance-Owen Peace Plan accepted unless there was the threat of further sanctions.

So the negotiations that were taking place in April, in particular, and early May but particularly in April, were geared to the Security Council decision to implement financial sanctions which, in my view, had been delayed far too long. But nevertheless, there was a window of opportunity for President Milosevic, as he then was, in particular to bring to bear pressure on the Bosnian Serbs so that if they had agreed the Vance-Owen Peace Plan in Bijeljina by that evening - and we got a special dispensation to go over into the early hours of the next morning - then the financial sanctions of the Security Council would not have applied. And I believe that was a considerable pressure to focus his mind on the need for urgent decision, and it was in those discussions - I think it was on a Sunday in April - in Belgrade that he did persuade, with President Cosic, I think perhaps President Bulatovic, but certainly it was mainly President Milosevic brought to bear pressure on Karadzic and Krajisnik to ²⁸³⁸⁰ go to Bijeljina and support the Vance-Owen Peace Plan. And had that been successful, and I believe that President Milosevic did believe at that -- when we said good-bye to them sort of just before lunch, that the Assembly would accept it, and that would have meant that sanctions, financial sanctions, would not have applied against the Serbian Montenegro. It was one of the few examples in which the Security Council used the threat of sanctions in an intelligent way to encourage the diplomatic negotiations.

Q. Thank you. I may come back to that if time allows, but just this then by way of general observation: At the time you wrote your book, you had had no access to intelligence source material from the British government or, I think, from other governments.

A. I make it clear in my evidence that I never saw any transcripts of conversations that might have taken place between President Milosevic or President Cosic and JNA commanders or the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, nor had I seen any transcripts of discussions that might or might not have taken place between JNA commanders and General Mladic or Bosnian Serb political leaders.

It's difficult to question to say now. Did that mean that I had no access to intelligence information? I had on my staff a military advisor, General Messervy Whiting, and I knew that when he told me things it was almost certainly based on more information than I had, and therefore, I took it as being an authentic source of information, some of which would have been gained from intelligence grounds. So this was in a way a helpful -- helpful for me to have, and I shared that information with Mr. Vance and then later with Mr. Stoltenberg. So there was an ²⁸³⁸¹ access point into intelligence information. But I never had -- and I don't complain about that; I was an EU negotiator, I was not a representative of the British government. I never had the same access to intelligence communication and things which I would have had in the past when I was Foreign Secretary.

Q. A last preliminary: Do you accept the general proposition that it's difficult or impossible to understand the overall history without the background of Kosovo and without the attitude of the accused to Kosovo in mind?

A. Yes. I think it is very difficult to, and I think I have to make it pretty clear, and it will not come as a surprise to Mr. Milosevic to say, that though I am prepared to say that on the negotiations over these specific plans he was helpful, on Kosovo we ran into a brick wall, and he was not ready to concede very much, put it this way. I think sometimes we got more out of him, Mr. Vance and I and then Mr. Stoltenberg and I, than probably anybody else on Kosovo, but he resented the fact that we would raise the subject.

Again, our remit from the International Conference went for Kosovo issues. It didn't just restrict itself to Bosnia or to Croatia. And Mr. Milosevic did not like having this discussion, and he was not as helpful, to say the least, on this area as he was in some other areas. And I think that one of the reasons for that was it was a very sensitive issue. I think it went to the source of his power base in Belgrade and in the former Yugoslavia. But he was quite clear, and of course so was the international community, that Kosovo was part of Serbia, and therefore we ²⁸³⁸² had to operate within that international reality. That was what we were faced with. But nevertheless, the measure of autonomy that we were trying to persuade him to give up - to give back, you could argue - to the Kosovo Albanians was an essential element of bringing peace in the region as a whole. And lurking over all of our negotiations was the fear that there would be an outbreak of violence in Kosovo that would spread out through the rest of the former Yugoslavia and indeed even possibly involve neighbouring countries.

So it is true to say that I don't think from the moment I took office to the moment I left, which was just under three years, there was any time where Kosovo was not a massive issue for me personally, intellectually, and in other ways. And I also spent a great deal of time over it. I must say not -- to very little effect. Mr. Stoltenberg went to some considerable effort to try and involve President Milosevic, as he then was, in direct talks with Mr. Rugova, and at one time we thought we had achieved a dialogue on this, and there was some dialogue, but it was never an issue on which we made anywhere near the progress that we were making in terms of implementing the initial Vance proposals over Croatia or for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. I've voluntarily limited the time I'm going to ask you questions to a couple of hours, so there may be occasions where I'll ask you to be comparatively concise in answers, but it's true, isn't it, in your statement at pages 12 and then 8 -- the penultimate line on page 12 you refer, in reference to Kosovo, to the accused being sensitive to an area where this was the most indefensible behaviour. In your judgement, what ²⁸³⁸³ was his most indefensible behaviour in relation to Kosovo?

A. There were not basic freedoms for the Kosovo Albanians that should have been there in any country. They were a minority overall in Serbia and Montenegro, or in, prior to that, in the former Yugoslavia, but he had taken away their measure of autonomy that was given by President Tito, and there was an extraordinary situation.

When I first visited Kosovo, there was a completely parallel education system that had sprung up, and there were many aspects of a divided society in which the Kosovo Albanians refused to cooperate with the Serb authorities and they did not feel that they had any of the basic human rights.

Q. And finally on this topic under the heading that one has to see the backdrop of Kosovo behind all these allegations against the accused, on page 8, you found it worth observing - again on the foot of the page - that the picture of support for moderation changed geographically in the south of Serbia "... where support for Milosevic was strong and where the proximity of the 'Albanian threat' fuelled nationalist sentiment." Is that part of the same overall picture that it's helpful to have in mind?

A. Yes, "the Albanian threat" is in inverted commas but it's shorthand for a rather complex issue.

Q. Yes.

A. But there is no doubt that on the issue of Kosovo, for a very substantial period, maybe the entire period in which he held office, that President Milosevic spoke for the majority of Serb opinion. I mean, that ²⁸³⁸⁴ was our problem, that many of these nationalist views which may have been objectionable, and were indeed objectionable to many of us from outside the former Yugoslavia, were nevertheless popular sentiment, and the feeling that the Albanians -- the Kosovo Albanians were somehow not to be trusted, not to be given their basic freedoms, was fairly widespread amongst particularly the constituency to which Mr. Milosevic was appealing and that's on which he rose to power. He understood that rather earlier than some of us fellow communist leaders at the time.

Q. Coming back to how it is that your judgements were assisted only to a limited extent by intelligence, the indirect method that you've spoken of, of course you could only make your judgements on the basis of information coming to you, and it would be right, would it, to say that you were unaware at the time of starting your task that the accused and Tudjman may have already entered into an agreement over the partition of Bosnia?

A. It was commonplace throughout the region for these allegations to be made. So I was not unaware of the fact that this meeting was meant to take place and the fact that a meeting was sometimes denied and exactly what may or may not have been. But on this particular aspect of carving up, to use a rather tough word, of the former Yugoslavia, former President Tudjman was not the slightest bit ashamed or secretive. I mean, he made absolutely clear to everybody who talked to him that he believed that a substantial part of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be attached to Croatia, and he didn't accept that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be made into an independent country, and he took the view -- whereas Mr. Milosevic was -- ²⁸³⁸⁵ spent less time on this issue, to be blunt, no doubt had pretty similar views, but he didn't talk about it as much. He's more pragmatic. The difference between the two men was very evident; one was much more ideological and one was pragmatic.

Q. I'm just trying to find the annex I'm looking for. I think it's in our document. I'll just find it. There's a document which they signed effectively saying that there had been no document. Are you familiar with that document?

A. Yes, I am familiar with that document. That was in April -- no, it was in July, in Geneva.

Q. July, 1993. We can find it at Annex C of the documents that the Prosecution has put in.

MR. NICE: May those documents be given a separate exhibit number for good order?

JUDGE MAY: Are they documents which have been exhibited before?

MR. NICE: No, they haven't been separately exhibited. They came as a filing pursuant to a court order.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: And they are in, I think, three annexes. They are extracts from the witness's book and one or two other documents.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. They can have a Court number.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, Chamber Exhibit 17.

MR. NICE: And on this occasion, if the usher be good enough to place --

JUDGE MAY: If the registrar would come up for a moment. ^{28386 BLANK PAGE 28387}

[Trial Chamber and the registrar confer]

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. We see here the declaration of the 17th of July, 1993, signed by the accused and late President Tudjman, saying: "All speculations about a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia are entirely unfounded." And there's a draft of the document that can be seen on the following page.

That's the document you recall, is it not, Lord Owen?

A. Yes.

Q. And I don't know if you've been following the trial or have heard or reviewed at all the evidence that's been given either by President Mesic or, more recently, by Ante Markovic about the meeting at Karadjordjevo?

A. No, I haven't.

Q. But if the Chamber in due course finds that there was a meeting where partition was agreed, then this document is an example of a straightforward untruth, isn't it?

A. Yes, it would be. But in reporting the meeting of the 17th of July in COREU which I think you put in as evidence --

Q. Yes.

A. -- you notice I just said, "The statement issued after the meeting follows." I think I treated it in that way; I didn't consider it to be a serious document.

Q. Your judgement about the actions of the accused had to take into ²⁸³⁸⁸ account the August 1994 and onward blockade. Now, as to that, I think you yourself had some doubts as to whether it was being honoured. If we look at your statement at page 33 - and again it happens to be at the foot of the page - you say this following on a passage where you found no evidence that Belgrade was supplying oil, but you then say: "I assumed that Milosevic was from September 1994 onwards ensuring that key items of equipment and logistical support got through to General Mladic, if for no other reason than to keep Mladic apart from Karadzic and as a potential ally."

Lord Owen, we've had quite a lot of evidence already about the genuine nature or otherwise of the blockade, but can you help us with the material coming to you at the time you formed this judgement to the effect that at least key items were finding their way through?

A. I never had any evidence, and that's why I used the word "assumed." You have to remember that this was an extremely complex -- the world presented this decision as a total embargo on goods transshipping into Bosnia-Herzegovina, but that was actually never what President Milosevic, as he then was, had promised. He'd promised to ban certain goods and to keep humanitarian goods. But as far as we were concerned, by far the most important one was oil. Ammunition was also, of course, covered, but probably the Bosnian Serb army had sufficient ammunition. They also had a capacity to manufacture weapons within Bosnia, as indeed all three parties had.

So a lot of nonsense was talked about weapons and ammunition and whether -- on either side. But I have a suspicion that the most important ²⁸³⁸⁹ thing that he was trying to do -- not a suspicion, he made it pretty clear, is he was trying to pressurise Karadzic and Krajisnik to agree to what was then the Contact Group plan. We had now moved way on beyond negotiators like myself or Mr. Vance or Mr. Stoltenberg. We were into a plan put down by the major governments of the world; the United States, the UK, France, Germany, and the United States of America. And still we couldn't get -- we were not pressurising on the West, but we were pressurising President Milosevic. And he did agree that this added pressure of trying to reduce the amount of oil going to the Bosnian Serbs. But you have to put yourself in his position. He wasn't about to ensure that they were defeated in war.

Q. We'll have to come to his position later, and in particular in relation to Srebrenica, but just dealing with this general topic, you may not have been aware of a national Assembly session held in Sanski Most on the 16th of April of 1995, where General Mladic gave an account of the degree of assistance that he'd had from the VJ. Were you aware of that particular session?

A. I wasn't, but --

Q. And where he spoke that -- the Chamber's heard it and I needn't trouble with you an exhibit that's familiar to the Chamber. It's Exhibit 427, tab 54, where he spoke of infantry ammunition in terms of thousands of tons and of which 42 per cent was supplied by the Yugoslav army, artillery ammunition 34 per cent provided, matters that of sort. Now, does that level of support come as a surprise to you if it's true? ²⁸³⁹⁰

A. Was that between September 1994 and --

Q. And onwards, yes.

A. -- those quantities came across.

Q. Yes.

A. I'm surprised, but we never knew. It was extremely difficult. You have to remember what was -- we were asked to do this mission by various governments, and we did it with, I think at the most ever 200-plus men, total inadequate facilities, one of the most difficult borders between Serbia and Montenegro that you could possibly ask, and we were never sure how much was going across the Drina, we were never sure whether they were ferrying at night, whether there was even a tunnel under the Drina. We didn't know whether the lorries that were humanitarian -- we tried to have them inspected by UNHCRs and our own people independently, but we were doing our best in very difficult circumstances. But of the fact that it seemed to have some effect on oil, at one stage oil came to the Bosnian Serbs from Croatia, at the connivance of the Croatian government. So you were into a pretty messy business.

Q. Yes. And --

A. I -- I mean, I simply don't know how much, but I never had any illusion myself that some supplies were getting through.

Q. Just to round this off, there was a meeting, we may turn to it for other purposes later, but it was after you were out of office, at Dobanovci, on the 25th of August, and it's 469, tab 20, but again I needn't trouble you with it. It's a meeting of the accused and various other senior FRY officials, in the course of which, from stenographic ²⁸³⁹¹ notes, the accused was reported as saying - and it's on page 11 of the document - that the blockade was merely a formality and that aid flowed daily. That rather fits with your suspicions and you wouldn't be surprised to have learnt that from his lips at that time?

A. No. Of course he didn't tell me that. He said that it was being religiously followed, I mean scrupulously followed, but I don't really too much want to get - if the Court will allow me - into commenting on issues that took place when I was not holding the office of an EU negotiator but --

Q. Of course.

A. -- I made it clear one of the reasons why I wanted to have interdiction from the air of Bosnian Serb army supply lines was that I believe we would never get real pressure on them until we disrupted this linkage between Serbia and Bosnia. And I argued at every level throughout my period in office that the only one way we could get to use legitimate UN peacemaking pressure was to move on from the no-fly zone to the implementation of the no-fly zone and that was to take out targets on the -- which would have meant roads, bridges, and other supply lines, railways, so as to impede the flow of supplies - ammunition, and other things - from the JNA to the Bosnian Serb army. After all, these people had been colonels and generals together. They had very close links. General Mladic with various generals in the JNA, and there was no doubt that this was going on.

I didn't know, as I've told you already, how much President Milosevic was authorising this, turning a blind eye to it, or ²⁸³⁹² masterminding it. I had to deal with the situation as I confronted them around the negotiating table. That was our problem. But we were not naive. We knew that oil was coming in -- I mean, at one time oil was coming in when there were sanctions meant to be applied into Montenegro in Bar. And the sanctions were being broken all the time. Oil sanctions were meant to apply to Serbia but oil was flowing across from the former Yugoslavia and the Republic of Macedonia, and we could -- we had UN monitors on the hills counting the oil trucks going from Montenegro into Serbia and counting the number of railway trucks with oil that were going through. And it was not too far in the imagination to believe that having came into Serbia, they were going then into Bosnia. And at one stage we knew and indeed accepted that oil was going through Bosnia - this was the time when there was the restriction from September 1994 - to the Croats, to the Croatian Serbs. But this we again tried to have -- monitor those oil lorries and have tachographs and a variety of different things to try and ensure that it was not loaded off into the Bosnian Serbs. But --

Q. There's a limit to how efficient that could be because they could do it in the middle of the night.

A. Exactly, and they could fill it up with water and go out. There were all sorts of devices which were possible to do it. Nevertheless, was this a pressure on Karadzic and Krajisnik and Mladic during this period? And I think it was one of the pressures, but it was not enough. And that was my problem with President Milosevic, is it was fine to be talking and helping in some respects on negotiating front in a negotiating room, but ²⁸³⁹³ that was not enough. He was in charge of a government that could put real serious pressure on them to stop doing what they were doing, to stop shelling Sarajevo, to stop interfering with humanitarian convoys, to stop ethnic cleansing.

Now, my problem was that I couldn't even persuade the Western governments to bring this pressure. But I remain of the view that if we had, after Pale, the rejection of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, that we had interdicted the Bosnian Serb army supply lines, and I think we could have had support in Serbia and Montenegro for this to be done, that if President Milosevic had either done it himself or acquiesced in our doing it, then we would have brought peace to Bosnia two years earlier with massive saving of life --

Q. Yes.

A. -- and much reduced ethnic cleansing.

Q. Lord Owen, we'll be touching that topic again before very long. A word or so first, however, about the accused's influence over or control of the JA, as you notate it. Just as with sanctions, this is something that you could never know about. You could guess about, you could infer about, but ultimately that issue may be for others and, so far as necessary, this Court.

A couple of tiny points -- not tiny points. Your book reveals how it was that -- your statement, how it was that the accused appointed Mladic and also appointed Mrksic. Do you remember those two facts?

A. Yes. I suppose they are facts. I hope they are. I worked on an assumption. The indication, the evidence I had for it was again by word ²⁸³⁹⁴ of mouth that I made that assertion in the book and I believed it. I acted as if I believed that was the case. I hope it's correct.

Q. Thank you very much. On the same topic, and briefly, at page 4 of your statement and about a third of the way down the page, you say this: "The FRY and the Governments of Serbia and Montenegro always claimed, however implausible at times, that they did not control Serb forces in Bosnia or in Croatia but that they were ready to use their good offices."

It's clear from the way you write that that you were satisfied that they indeed could control them.

A. Yes. I've made it quite clear that I think the Bosnian Serb army could not have survived it's fight from the moment that Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognised as an independent country by the Security Council if they had not been supported by the former Yugoslavia. And if those -- if that support had been cut off, if when President Milosevic, as he then was, President Cosic and President Bulatovic had gone to Pale and had told them that if you do not agree to this, then there will be no supplies crossing the Drina or in any way at all, you will be completely cut off, I believe they would have signed up for the Vance-Owen Peace Plan. But I have to say to you that whereas I was spending my time urging Mr. Milosevic to effectively impose a peace settlement, I was also encouraging the Western governments to impose a peace settlement, and they had ruled out the imposition of a peace settlement, and the then US Secretary of State, in his statement of February 1993, having just recently taken office, made it clear that there couldn't be in principle ²⁸³⁹⁵ an imposition of a peace settlement. So the Western world was operating on the basis that around this table were rational, reasonable men who could come to a negotiated settlement, and they were being told by their negotiators there's no way these people will come to a negotiated settlement unless you put pressure on them and serious pressure which must not exclude the use of military force.

Now, the pressure could have come from and should have come from President Milosevic and Serbia in the interests of Serbs, but it also should have come from the West.

Q. Lord Owen, you will appreciate that it's not our function, and I wouldn't even presume to enter into a debate about the political process. We can accept that you feel severely let down by what happened in the early part of 1993, but of course at the end of the exercise, responsibility for what happens lies with the actors on the ground, doesn't it, even if there had been shortcomings by international diplomacy.

A. Yes. I think the responsibility is a shared responsibility but I think that the greatest responsibility were the people who had lived in the former Yugoslavia to have behaved differently, and there is no way that you can use the delay over getting a negotiated peace settlement -- and of course it was eventually imposed in August, July and September of 1995. There is no excuse for what was done to their fellow countrymen, if you like, in the various ways which the Court hears. So I don't say this in any way whatever to act as justification or as explanation of their conduct. ²⁸³⁹⁶

Q. Keeping an eye on the time and the number of questions I have left to ask, very briefly, in the nature of things, paramilitaries are less well documented and less visible than perhaps other groups. You express, on page 10 of your statement, a view about Arkan whom you seem to put in the category of a paramilitary. You were satisfied that paramilitary groups were acting and they were acting out of Serbia?

A. The view I took about Arkan I took when I was a private individual, before I took this office, and I had said publicly that I considered some of what was being done then in 1991 and 1992 outrageous. And it was -- so I'm really taking a view I took of somebody before I took the pledge, so to speak, to be impartial.

But you could not be neutral over war crimes or crimes against humanity, and that was one of the difficulties that we faced as negotiators. We tried to separate the two out, but you have to remember that I recommended that this Court, with Mr. Vance, should be established. And we also recommended that we should stay outside this process, although of course every member of the ICFY were under instructions to give any evidence to the court, once it was established, on these questions and to try to concentrate on our prime task, which was to bring the parties in some way to an agreement amongst themselves.

Q. As to the police, you had experience or knowledge of the incident covered on page 9 of your statement where the Serbian police raided the Federal Interior Ministry building. Cosic reacted in a way that you found to be more responsible, but nobody was brought to book. That reflected in your judgement, did it, the accused's control ²⁸³⁹⁷ over the police and his ability to let them off?

A. At that time, relations between President Cosic and President Milosevic were extremely bad. This was public knowledge that this raid had taken place. It was described in a variety of different newspapers from Belgrade. So one was relying on, I suppose, reports from newspapers, interpretation, and of course I also saw the views of the various EU ambassadors in Belgrade, and I was fortunate in that sense that I had a fairly wide coverage of reporting what was happening in Belgrade, but nobody quite knew, I think, exactly what was happening. But President Cosic was extremely angry about it.

Q. Here was an extraordinary illegal act in your judgement aimed at covering up files that may have revealed war crimes, and the only person who could have given immunity to the offenders was the accused.

A. I don't want to be pedantic but it is not my judgement to make judgements on things. I said, but many assumed that they were desperate to remove any incriminating files from the 1991/1992 period relating to possible war crimes. That's the wording I use, which comes from my book, and I think I can safely say I was one of those who assumed it too.

Q. You make another reference - I can't track it down immediately - to the accused's militia being the people who guarded the fuel trucks as they crossed Serbia.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Was it your understanding that the accused had a direct control over a militia or militarised police?

A. I believe that there were at times arguments about how much direct ²⁸³⁹⁸ loyalty he could rely on. I think it was possible to sometimes maybe that the JNA were independent and didn't always take everything that came from President Milosevic, but I certainly took the view from watching it closely that the police were under his direct control and that he built up them into more like a militia in order that he had a counterbalance to a somewhat more independent, at times, JNA.

Q. You advised against the holding of elections in December because you were quite satisfied the elections wouldn't be fair. You link this to the fact that the accused was really a propagandist who had control of the media, didn't you?

A. Well, again, Mr. Milosevic was extremely clever in the way he operated, and to some extent that was an aspect which he inherited from President Tito, where after all it was widely felt through the 1950s and 1960s that Yugoslavia was freer than many of the other communist countries whereas I think in fact they had a more sophisticated system. As far as Mr. Milosevic is concerned, he didn't get too fussed about what the Belgrade intellectual press said or even too much the fact that for quite a lot of this time there was a Belgrade television which was independent of him, was not controlled by him. What he fussed about was who controlled television and newspapers out into the country as a whole, which is where his support lay, and on that there was not a free press and there was not accurate, impartial television or radio reporting. So it is true to say I -- I view these so-called elections with profound skepticism and felt that the EU should not -- or the European Community, as it then was, should not send monitors. Nevertheless, I ²⁸³⁹⁹ hoped that Prime Minister Panic, as he was, would beat President Milosevic in the election, and it's an open secret that I would have much preferred that President Cosic stood and I think might have -- well, certainly run President Milosevic close in Serbia, but he was not able to do so from the health grounds. But it was not -- it was not a fair and free election, no, nor were any that took place while I was there.

Q. And just to round this part of my questions off, these characteristics, a man controlling the military, militarised police, a man able to tell you straightforward untruths, a man with a subtle approach to propaganda, and a man who we must judge by his actions is the man you had the fortune, of one of many, to deal with.

A. Yes. I mean, he was a communist, not on a Soviet model, but he was not a democrat. He didn't make too much secret of that. He came out of a system, he adapted it and modified it. Yugoslavia had already changed and modified his structure but it was basically authoritarian, yes.

Q. By the end of 1992, the Serbs, it might be said, had got as much as they could ask for by force. You, I don't think, were aware of a body called the Council for Harmonisation. Were you aware of that?

A. No.

Q. It's a body for which we've got the stenographic notes.

MR. NICE: Your Honour will recall that it was produced through the witness Lilic, that they were sent away for translation, that they'd come back with a draft translation and the final translation has yet to come before us. There's one page of that that I'd like to put before the ^{28400 BLANK PAGE 28401} witness, if I may. It will, I think, in its finally translated form be Exhibit 469, tab 44, and if it could be laid on the overhead projector. Lay my copy on the overhead projector. I'll read it from here. Thank you.

Q. Now, this is the accused speaking on the 9th of January of 1993.

MR. NICE: Top of the page, please, Usher. Little bit. Thank you, that's fine.

Q. And he says: "Let me interrupt you. Paspalj said that there had to be integrity of the Serbian people. We de facto have that because objectively and according to all our relations such as political, military, economy, cultural and educational, we have that integrity. The question is how to get the recognition of the unity now, actually how to legalise that unity. How to turn the situation, which de facto exists and could not be de facto endangered, into being de facto and de jure. Accordingly, the road which would lead us to de jure leads through a 'small labyrinth.' We would never allow the change in a de facto situation, but through that 'small labyrinth' we would achieve some things, if not in half a year then in a year, if not in a year then in two years. What do we gain? We gain that we would have fewer casualties and in that way we would save our people. We have to sacrifice everything for the people except the people itself."

Now, if we then turn, Lord Owen, to your statement at page 12, and it may be that you were looking for the passage yourself, in the passage that follows your expression of confidence that he was working towards a settlement, you also say this: "I have little doubt that Milosevic was ²⁸⁴⁰² telling Karadzic privately that by appearing to agree with our map, he could nevertheless expect to change it later on through pressure on the ground and that the three separate provinces, where the Serbs would have had a majority - but which we had deliberately refused to make contiguous - could over time, as a result of Serb pressure, be joined together." Now, I'm sorry you haven't had a chance to look at the translated part of the words of the accused, but would you accept the suggestion that having got by force everything that they wanted, it simply remained for the accused to get what was de facto to be de jure by negotiation?

A. No, I don't agree with you because you didn't go on to say, after you ended your quote from me joined together. I said, "I believed, however, having seen the development of General Shalikashvili's detailed planning for NATO forces, that we would have sufficient well-trained forces on the ground to prevent that happening." But I don't deny the sentiment that you've expressed and your interpretation of that comment alleged to have been made by then-President Milosevic. I'm sure this was happening.

But we were involved in a serious battle. Behind the courtesies and the normal diplomacy, he knew that I knew many of the things he was doing, and I know that he knew that I was also trying to do other things.

Q. Of course.

A. And that, it seems to me, probably explains why he was not prepared to pressurise beyond the point of formally discussing it, because he feared that we were at that stage, having NATO with over 60.000 troops coming in. This is not a minor force that was going to come in. And the ²⁸⁴⁰³ complexities of this plan of ten provinces and of trying to weld Bosnia-Herzegovina together had by then been given by the United States of America, to their credit, and other EU countries, the serious backing of NATO. And I think we would have outwitted them.

But what we were dealing with was a battle of intellectual wills underneath the polite conversation. I knew perfectly well that no plan that we put on table would be faithfully implemented by any of the parties and the only hope was that we should have a strong imposition force to ensure that it maintained. And I think that President Milosevic knew that was in place, and he was also watching American public opinion and seeing the opinion in the West. And therefore, if there was a delay over a plan, he didn't mind. The facts were created on the ground all the time. More ethnic cleansing, more definite things. I don't think he ever gave any impression otherwise than he was a loyal Serb. He was looking after Serb interests. The thing was he was much more intelligent than the others. He knew that he could get away with more. But I think he did think that he could get away with more than he would have got away if their plan had been -- not just that plan, the EU action plan or the Contact Group plan, you name it. They were all going to be backed by serious force after -- by about March of 1993. We'd accepted that we couldn't do this just with UN forces.

Q. I take it from your answer that you would accept that he may have harboured long-term ambitions for Serb areas to be united?

A. He was a pragmatist. Only he could answer that, and I think he certainly wouldn't rule it out. It was certainly possible to believe that ²⁸⁴⁰⁴ Republika Srpska would go into Serbia and Herceg-Bosnia, as the Croats would call it, would go into Croatia longer term. But against that, I think at times President Milosevic was telling them that the world had moved on, that this was -- the type of world we were in was that the West would not give -- would not allow Bosnia-Herzegovina to be partitioned. In my heart, I think he was intellectually at least -- had come to recognise that Republika Srpska would stay outside Serbia but would be so closely linked that to all intents and purposes, for as far as the average Serbian citizen is concerned, they would be linked but there would be always absence of a formal link. But I don't know.

Q. Finally on this topic, at page 26 and 7 of your statement, but you'll remember it if you will permit me to summarise it. Aleksa Buha, the Bosnian Serb Foreign Minister, you report as always being deeply skeptical of Milosevic's view that the Bosnian Serbs could live with the Muslims in one state, as envisaged in the Vance-Owen Plan. On reflection, do you think that Milosevic's stated view that they could live together was for short-term purposes only and that ultimately he would have sought a different resolution?

A. No, I don't. It is my view that President Milosevic -- no doubt Mr. Milosevic you see now is not fundamentally racist. I think he is a nationalist, but even that he wears very lightly. I think he's a pragmatist. And it is a fact that Muslims have lived -- live in Serbia. There are areas of Serbia where there are substantial Muslim groups. If we exclude Kosovo and the Sandzak area, and in Belgrade itself there are a substantial number of Muslim people who have lived there throughout. And ²⁸⁴⁰⁵ I think you have to recognise that there are old communist Yugoslavs who do object very strongly to the ethnic nationalism and that the -- some of the communists were opposed to nationalists. Certainly some of their ethnic -- ethnic racist attitudes, and I would include President Milosevic's wife in that, and I would include himself. I can only tell you honestly what I think. I do not think he was part of that view that they were like cat and dog and couldn't live ever together. I think he wanted the Serbs to be in the majority, and they wanted them to be following a Serb -- Serbian government so that he wanted majority Serb areas, but do I not think personally - but I may be wrong, and this is always one of the problems we had in dealing with these people was to get what was their real motivation - but I have to say I do not think that he was one of those who wanted all Muslims out of Republika Srpska any more than he wanted all Muslims out of Serbia. I don't think he was an ethnic purist.

Q. Indeed you make the point that his ambition was for the retention of personal power, and you use the analogy of riding the tiger of nationalism and finding it difficult when he -- to get off it in order not to be bitten by it.

A. Yes. And of course he was eventually bitten by it.

Q. Lord Owen, I see the time, and I'm going to move, I think, straight to Srebrenica, and I'll come back to other questions that I would ask.

MR. NICE: Lord Owen is giving full answers, I don't want to cut him short but, Your Honour, I'll have to budget my time accordingly. So ²⁸⁴⁰⁶ things will be a little out of order because I must cover Srebrenica first and I'll deal with other matters later.

A. I'll try to be shorter in my replies.

Q. The civilians of Srebrenica and all the other safe areas were entirely blameless individuals, weren't they?

A. Sorry?

Q. The civilians in Srebrenica were just imprisoned by force of circumstance. They hadn't done anything to merit the catastrophe that happened to them.

A. I think that's a very big leap. Those are certainly your words. They're not words I would use.

Q. Very well. Well, can they be blamed, the civilians, for anything that befell them?

A. It's not my job to apportion blame, but the basic facts of life are that a lot of this fighting, this village-on-village fighting as you see in almost any civil war, and if you start trying to believe that there are one side that is completely pure and one side that is completely wrong, you usually get unstuck. But you certainly get unstuck in the former Yugoslavia if you work on that assumption. And it's been well recorded and ought to be -- and I don't really see it's my responsibility here, but there were a number of grudge matches which had developed in the villages in and around Srebrenica between different groups, Muslims and Serbs, as there had been in the rest of Yugoslavia between Muslims and Croats or Serbs and Croats. I -- it's very difficult to --

Q. Well -- ²⁸⁴⁰⁷

A. I'm not here to challenge your statement, except to say I don't put those words into my mouth. Nobody was blameless, or very few were blameless.

Q. Very well. If we look at your statement on page 3, please. I know this is --

A. I mean, I could just add one thing to it.

Q. Yes.

A. The people of Srebrenica were -- suffered appallingly for being in that particular situation. It was one of the worst humanitarian crises, and I describe in my book how they had typhus and had all forms of illnesses, and the WHO report on what they -- the privation and the horrors that the average person had to put up with when no doubt the average person was blameless, was absolutely outrageous. I don't want to detract in any way from the horrors that those people had to put up with almost continuously from 1992 to 1995.

Q. Thank you. On page 3 of your statement, where you set out your letter to the British Prime Minister of the 30th of July of 1992, you say this at the top of the page: "I believe that a few of the bigger cities currently under attack such as Sarajevo and Gorazde should be reinforced by air with troops acting under the authority of the UN --" we will deal with that in detail. "If these actions were taken within days, then Bosnia would not be completely overrun by Serb and Croatian forces, and a peace settlement could then be negotiated. If no action is taken now, there will be virtually nothing left of Bosnia for the Muslim population to negotiate about." ²⁸⁴⁰⁸ Probably self-explanatory, but what -- did that prophesy disaster for places like Sarajevo and Gorazde?

A. That was written before I became a UN negotiator at which time, I have to be the first to admit, I didn't know anywhere near as much about the complexities as I later came to believe. At that time, I also thought that the Muslims were not just the victims but were, if you like, totally, totally set upon in every possible way. I think I changed my views a little bit about that, as I record, when I arrived in Sarajevo to be told that Bosnian government forces had just shot up a UN humanitarian convoy. So things looked perhaps more simple than they were when you were sitting just as a member of parliament in -- I was no longer a member of parliament, but a citizen in London; but nevertheless, the sentiment behind it I stand by totally and absolutely, and by the time I came involved, it was about 65 per cent and very soon 70 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina territory was controlled by Serbs. And at one stage when the Croats were acting very strongly and regaining territory, I think it's true to say that President Izetbegovic probably -- rule ran. I mean, the government controlled 10 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were times when we worried that the Muslim population and the government in Sarajevo would be completely wiped out, when it looked as if the Croats might have withdrawn their forces from Central Bosnia and the Serbs would then divide the east and west Bosnia-Herzegovina. That would have been very, very damaging. And it was, of course, throughout that time too a fear that these Eastern enclaves in Eastern Bosnia would be overrun. ²⁸⁴⁰⁹

Q. And of course the Bosnian government opposed demilitarisation because it had real fears?

A. Yes. Well, you've no doubt you've gone through -- the first Srebrenica agreement was a very strange agreement and I think was very well described by Kofi Annan, who was then the head of the peacekeeping, in a memo that he wrote at the time. It was almost -- the UN saw the agreements that were about demilitarisation as being agreements between the parties, and that's probably the right way to look at it. But the world thought that the UN had taken on the responsibility of protecting the people of Srebrenica.

That's a fairly well-known UN document which you probably had before you which Kofi Annan wrote on the 23rd of April, 1993, explaining to General Wahlgren what was on and followed, I think -- it says, "The following refers to our telecoms and to Lord Owen's handwritten message today about what exactly UNPROFOR has undertaken in Srebrenica."

Q. We're trying to look, or I'm trying to look with you, if we can, at the state of mind of the people who were to become the victims but also at the state of knowledge of the accused.

If we move broadly chronologically, we find on page 22 of your statement a retrospective view of yours given on the 8th of June of 1993, when you were speaking to a Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg. And at the foot of this page, looking back, obviously, to a -- to some degree over time, you say: "His problem and ours is that Karadzic and Mladic are like cats licking the cream; they believe that Republika Srpska is a fait accompli. An additional problem is that Republika Krajina, after their ²⁸⁴¹⁰ referendum, is going to link up, having as the capital of the new Republic of Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina, Banja Luka. General Mladic will then formally control not just the Bosnian Serb army but the Croatian Serb forces as well ... returning to Knin where he's built his reputation." Now, this was a perception you had of the military and local political leadership of a fairly -- bloodcurdling may be the wrong -- but fairly terrifying kind, isn't it, for any who were resident there.

A. Yes.

Q. And the knowledge was as available to you as it would have been to the accused and, although obviously only partially informed, as it would have been to the residents. Would that be correct?

A. I think they lived in constant fear, the Muslim citizens in Srebrenica. They were through most of the period, as I say, surrounded by hostile Bosnian Serb forces, and for some reason I think that there was probably more fear there, and certainly the privation was far worse than, for example, in Sarajevo or any other towns that were surrounded.

Q. Indeed I think that the privation in terms of health and disease you suggest was targeted privation, yes?

A. Yes. There's no doubt that shelling took place on water supplies to try and disrupt them. That happened in Sarajevo too, but it was more successful, put it this way, in Srebrenica. Srebrenica is a very small place. But the effect of the siege was far worse, I think, in Srebrenica than anywhere, and they must have lived with this. So it was perfectly understandable that they didn't want to give up arms. And we had to grapple with this problem, at least General Morillon had to. Initially he ²⁸⁴¹¹ had tried to get both sides to agree to total demilitarisation. And of course in a sense that is what a safe haven internationally means and what the ICRC was advocating when they talked about safe havens. And in that way you make it less likely that there will be any attack in if there can be no attacks out, so you have a completely balanced situation. But that -- in order to do that credibly, the UN should have been prepared to put in a substantial force into Srebrenica so that they would have been able to defend any breach to either party. They would have been the impartial force that held Srebrenica peaceful. That required many more troops than the Canadians or, then later, the Dutch.

Q. Can we look at the accused's state of knowledge, first from page 36 of your statement, and -- I would ask it go on the overhead project. It will make it easier for those in the public gallery.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, it's after the usual time for the adjournment, but it doesn't matter; we started late. But when you get to a convenient moment, we'll break.

MR. NICE: If it will be convenient to do this next passage and the next paper exhibit I would be grateful. Then we'll come to a sensible point. Just on the overhead projector, please.

Q. You said this in respect of your 18th of April 1993 telephone conversation with the accused to whom you spoke about your anxiety that: "Despite repeated assurances from Dr. Karadzic that he had no intention of taking Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb army was now proceeding to do just that. The pocket was greatly reduced in size. I rarely heard Milosevic so exasperated and also so worried. He feared that if the ²⁸⁴¹² Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica, there would be a bloodbath because of the tremendous bad blood that existed between the two armies." You then set out the history of how the Bosnian Serbs held the young Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, responsible for the massacre near Bratunac in December of 1992 in which many civilian Serbs had been killed.

Milosevic believed it would be a great mistake for the Bosnian Serbs to take Srebrenica and promised to tell Karadzic so. and he expressed doubts about getting Canadian troops in but thought he might be able to negotiate UN monitors. You then arranged to meet him at Lor [phoen].

In Annex G and towards the -- sorry, towards the foot of this page, you say this: "I would particularly draw attention to the report which I read on the 16th of April indicating that an attack on Srebrenica on the 12th of April was of a different character and pointed towards some JNA involvement with the Bosnian Serb army. It was this report in particular which convinced me that I should speak directly to President Milosevic."

So putting those two things together, evidence coming to you of JNA involvement four days before and a conversation where, you summarise it, fear of a bloodbath if the army entered Srebrenica. That's a correct summary of the position?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. Before I move from this page and just to save time, there's one sentence I would be grateful for your elaboration on. It's the immediate ²⁸⁴¹³ following sentence at the foot of this page and the top of the next. You say: "There are also perhaps some parallels in what happened in and around Sarajevo in July/August 1993 for what happened in July 1995." It must be my mistake for not immediately following that, but could you just --

A. I rather lost you. Where is that?

Q. That's at the foot of page 36 and it then goes over to 37.

A. Sorry to have to say I'm not sure I understand that either.

Q. You don't, and I quite understand how these things happen. We'll take it no further.

But -- well, if you think about it over the break which we're shortly to have, perhaps you would let us know. It would be helpful. Can I take you back then, as I said, to the last document before the break, with the Court's consent, to your Appendix G, and it's several pages through Appendix G --

A. I'm sorry. My assistant has just passed me a note. She was involved in all this at the time, she's rather better than me. There's a typo here. I think "Sarajevo" should be "Srebrenica."

Q. All right. Thank you very much.

A. Which then is more explicit and clear.

Q. Yes.

A. Sorry.

Q. Certainly. If we can go then to your Appendix G, Lord Owen, and again if you got the page numbers at the top right-hand corner, the handwritten page numbers and they run back to front, registry numbers, ^{28414 BLANK PAGE 28415} it's page 24750, which is --

A. This is annex G.

Q. Your annex G, and it's about 10 pages in or 8 pages in. I can hand you a copy, if necessary.

One for the overhead projector in any event. And what we can see --

A. This is a report of what I dictated -- a conversation that I'd had with President --

Q. Correct.

A. -- Milosevic, yes.

Q. And four lines down you recorded at the time: "President Milosevic was pleased that I had contacted him. He too was exasperated and was extremely concerned that if the Bosnian Serb army entered Srebrenica, there would be a massacre," now -- because of the bad blood and so on.

May we take it that that was actually his stated position at the time, because it finds the expression in a document that you would have obviously written very carefully?

A. I dictated that that afternoon, after the conversation. So I would stand by it as being an accurate description of what he said. Whether he used that word, I can't vouch for, but I would have thought very likely.

Q. Thank you. And so we have in the spring of 1993 recognition on the part of the international negotiators, the accused, and the victims that the citizens of Srebrenica were vulnerable to a bloodbath or to a ²⁸⁴¹⁶ massacre if the army were to enter?

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: I don't know if that would be a convenient moment.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, that's a convenient moment. We will adjourn now for 20 minutes.

Lord Owen I must formally warn you, as we warn all witnesses, not to speak to anybody about your evidence until it's over, please. Thank you. Twenty minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.43 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.07 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: I think Lord Owen is concerned that a document he read from should probably be exhibited.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: We will deal with that in some way or another.

JUDGE MAY: We're getting copies made and we will deal with it in due course.

MR. NICE:

Q. We stopped in the spring of 1993. The history of what happened in 1994 is available from the documentation generally. Without taking time on it, at Annex B of your annexes, and about four sheets into Annex B in your -- or you -- of the 22nd of July of 1994 dealing, I think, with Sarajevo, to which I'll try to come later, but in paragraph 3 a reflection of the unchanging position is set out where you simply say: "The key is as always -- as key as always is Milosevic. He understands power, and he ²⁸⁴¹⁷ will only pressurise the Bosnian Serbs further if the Contact Group convince him that they are serious."

He remained the key, and he was only go to do things when compelled if they were against his interests. Would you accept that?

A. Sorry, compelled?

Q. If against his interests, he would only do things if compelled or if he could see it as such was coming?

A. Yes.

Q. If we move on to the early part of 1995 and to your statement at page 41, right at the end of your statement. You said this in the last paragraph on that page: "On the 25th and 26th of May, a further second round of air strikes by NATO against Bosnian Serb targets produced widespread UN hostage taking and the French argued in the Contact Group for regrouping UN forces into defensible units but did not propose abandoning the safe areas. It was well known by all the permanent members of the Security Council that the so-called safe areas were very vulnerable and the most vulnerable of all to Serb attacks was Srebrenica." And again this is something known to you, known to everybody effectively?

A. I think anybody who had been following the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the history of it from newspapers, not from any special source, must have been aware of how vulnerable Srebrenica was.

Q. Indeed, I think we'll possibly hear evidence from other people, but for example, the Venezuelan ambassador, Aria, who was leader of the non-aligned group had been saying for a long time how vulnerable these ²⁸⁴¹⁸ places were?

A. Yes. He was very critical of the resolutions about the safe areas right going back to April 1993, and then in particular, of course, what I describe in my evidence as the worst decision that was taken in all my time, the safe area implementation as part of the joint action plan in May/June of 1993. I mean, what the Court has to understand is that nowhere -- everybody knew that insufficient troops had been put in blue berets or blue helmets, and that is also made very clear in this document which I made reference to which has now been put before the Court, by Kofi Annan. I mean, he actually specifically says we understand, of course, that 145 peacekeepers cannot be expected to resist a full scale invasion by the Bosnian Serb army and that should heavy artillery shelling occur UNPROFOR will take shelter like everyone else.

Q. And on page 42 of your statement right at its conclusion you set out another peace of generally understood intelligence where recording the subdued mood of the foreign affairs council to whom you'd been speaking you say this in the last six lines: "The only area of controversy emerged when I said it was unwise in their statement to mention the need to protect the safe areas when it was obvious that UNPROFOR was already unable to defend all six safe areas."

That was the position.

A. Yes. And I go on to say -- and this was to preempt a discussion held in the Security Council, because the then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had in my view rather courageously put in front of the Security Council an option to come out of the -- some of these ²⁸⁴¹⁹ so-called safe areas and to acknowledge the fact that we were not able to protect. But the Security Council again preferred the rhetoric to the reality. It was easier for them to go on ascribing to a policy despite the fact that they had not given the resources to it to ensure that it could be fulfilled. So this poor unfortunate people of Srebrenica were, as far as the world is concerned, nominally living in safe areas, safe havens, call them what you will, and they'd never been safe from the moment the term had been applied to Srebrenica.

Q. Your statement ends at the next sentence: "Later the Security Council adopted the same position over the safe areas as foreign affairs council and I stepped down from ICFY on the 12th of June fearing that Srebrenica and Zepa as well as Gorazde were indefensible and never had been less safe."

I'll come back to what happened there shortly, but if you could briefly go to your appendix G, Lord Owen, just after the page we were looking at before the break where the accused was quoted with the word massacre. We come to a report to you from John Wilson of the 16th of April of 1993. So I'm tracking back to an earlier position.

JUDGE MAY: What is the Registry page.

MR. NICE: Registry page 24747. And it's at paragraph 5 of that where you -- where to you your colleague or subordinate reported that the Serbs had reduced the Srebrenica pocket to a relatively insignificant military threat having a number of options available to them. Contained what is essentially a concentration of Muslim civilians. To use this civilian population as a bargaining tool to secure the release of Serbs ²⁸⁴²⁰ from Sarajevo and Tuzla. Finally to complete military action against the pocket by capturing the city. It's difficult to judge Mladic's assessment as to whether the risk of further military action might provoke international intervention. He probably assesses he can complete his strategic aims without the need to actually assault the city. It's assessed he will contain the pocket and use the population there as a bargaining tool. He is however, unlikely to agree to surrender terms including free passage for Muslim soldiers from the pocket. Then paragraph 6, second sentence -- well, first sentence: "The Muslims have no military options. They may be prepared to participate in the bargaining process. It's more likely they will seek to maintain the situation as an issue in the world media."

So that really sets out the absolute start limitation of options for the residents of Srebrenica, doesn't it?

A. Yes. Perhaps it helps the Court to know that John Wilson was a brigadier in the Australian army, acting as a UN military officer attached to the ICFY to advise myself and Mr. Vance.

Q. So you stepped down, but at the moment of your stepping down, if we can survey the position. The accused never showed himself to be frightened of anyone, did he?

A. I think he had a very considerable respect for Cyrus Vance. Whether that was to be called fright, I don't know. I think he -- he didn't lightly cross Mr. Vance, and I think there was a genuine belief that they had reached an agreement over Croatia, and I think he wanted -- I don't think -- when on rare, rare occasions Mr. Vance got angry with ²⁸⁴²¹ him, I think he -- it meant something.

Q. If we can move from the international people with whom he was dealing to his fellow Serbs in one position or another. There were none there of whom he was frightened?

A. Who was frightened?

Q. Of the accused. He wasn't frightened of any of his fellow Serbs. He may have been --

A. No, no, no.

Q. -- perturbed by them or irritated by them but he was never frightened of them?

A. No, he was never frightened of them.

Q. That includes Mladic?

A. Well, I've tried to describe his relationship with General Mladic, and I'm not sure I made a very good fist of it because, frankly, I don't frankly know, but it was full of ambivalence. I think that -- I mean, the best I could say is for the accused and I don't think there's any reason for me to try to put myself in a position that I wish everything to be said against him. That is not my view. My job was to use him as a bargaining counter to try to encourage him to persuade the Serbs of courses which they didn't like. And I think that it's got to sort of understand that a negotiator has to try to put themselves in the position of the people you're negotiating with and I used to try to ask myself why is he not using his power which I think he has, and repeated occasions when he knew perfectly well that their position was absurd, that it was not going to -- Karadzic or Krajisnik or even Mladic, that it was not ²⁸⁴²² going to stand, he would not -- he would argue against them, but at the end of the day he would, "Well, it's up to you."

Q. But he's -- I'm so sorry -- but he --

A. Either he did that because -- I mean, there are those who think this is all an elaborate conspiracy, that we were all duped, that we were led to believe -- that it was all coded, that Karadzic and Krajisnik were allowed to be the tough, hardened at these things, he was the amenable person. This is a perfectly reasonable explanation on one side of that. Against that was the day-to-day contact in which you felt that if it wasn't too costly for the Serbs, and I mean by that the overall Serbs of which he identified with, the Serb cause, then he was in favour of compromise. And I think in that sense he had come to a judgement that these peace plans, as I say, could be tolerated, could be accepted by the Serbs. Why didn't he force it through? Because it meant offending the nationalists in Belgrade as well as in Pale.

I think that if you asked me whether he was frightened about anybody, he would be much more the nationalists in Belgrade than ever in Pale or in Krajina, and I think that was the problem. We were never sure how much he was responding to his constituency, which was a nationalist constituency in Belgrade.

Q. Passing just to remind us, in your book you described the accused as being ruthless in his pursuit of power and treating people as either disposable or dispensable but to the same effect?

A. Yes. I think history shows that to be the case. But the power -- the source of power that he had was nationalist opinion, and he had risen ²⁸⁴²³ to power on the nationalist view of Kosovo. He had seen the opportunity to turn the issue of Kosovo against his then own leader, Stambolic, and I think -- I haven't pronounced it correctly, but I think you have to keep coming back. He's a pragmatist. He's interested in power. He therefore has to take account of what is the source of his power. The source of his power are nationalist leaders able to collect both votes and also powerful people, and how much, therefore, he had to take account of them -- of course he was a nationalist. Most Serbs are nationalists. The question is therefore was that a limitation on how far he was prepared to go in pushing the Bosnian Serbs and the Croatian Serbs? I can't answer that question, I'm afraid. I wish I -- no question did I ask myself more and no question did I try to use.

At one stage, President Cosic, in, say, October 1992, looked like an alternative source of nationalist power. It lasted for a very short time. At one stage, Karadzic, I think, saw himself as king of the Serbs. At one stage Mladic became a very powerful Serb who President Milosevic even in Belgrade had to take account of, because Mladic was appeal across to a constituency in Belgrade, in Serbia itself.

Q. Of course your answers lead me to a lot of questions and I must be careful in my use of time. Just very briefly, since you mentioned President Cosic and the earlier period, it's right isn't it that Cosic had warned those in Moscow that the reasonableness mask had dropped from the accused's face and he must be fought openly? And your respect for Cosic is probably such that that's a view of his you would not disagree with?

A. No. I supported President Cosic. But let's be clear about it. ²⁸⁴²⁴ President Cosic was a straight-out nationalist in a way I that I think Mr. Milosevic is not. President Cosic was. But on the other hand he was a man who saw because of his sense of history, because of his -- you know, he had at one stage defended President Izetbegovic when he had gone to prison.

I think that Cosic understood that what was happening to the Serbian people was dire and that they had done terrible things. It was very interesting how upset he was when he travelled to Pale for the Pale meeting in May at the scenes of devastation in the villages and towns, and I think he began to realise before that that terrible things had been done by the Serbs that didn't do any good to the Serbian people's reputation, honour, or integrity, and I think that, therefore is an important aspect amongst nationalist opinion. Some of them were beginning to question themselves almost, what they'd supported, what they'd unleashed.

Q. Lord Owen, can I take you back to a couple of previous answers, back in the period of early 1995, though. You said of the accused that he wasn't going to ensure that the Bosnian Serbs were defeated at war, but it is -- sorry. He wasn't going to ensure that they were defeated. Is it also the case that he had the ability to and probably had the intention to ensure that they were not defeated, in your judgement, looking back?

A. Well, I think myself he grew increasingly worried about the policy of letting Karadzic and Krajisnik head for the buffer, so to speak, and I think that he'd already probably come to a conclusion that the Croatian Serbs had to be reconciled to living within Croatia, and I think that he had come to accept that. And I think it's an important thing to remember ²⁸⁴²⁵ that he was not operating on one front. He was operating on the Croatian front as well and having to deal with the Krajina Serbs who of course were all linked but who were also fiercely independent. And Mladic -- no, sorry, Martic began to be quite impervious to any logical form of reason of the and I remember scenes in which he was -- Mr. Milosevic was exasperated beyond measure. And when dealing with Mr. Krajisnik, who again was an interesting figure and quite powerful, he's obdurisic on the issues around negotiations over Sarajevo. Now, again you can claim this is all part of well-orchestrated things and we were duped and that there was no real anger expressed in these meetings, but I've been around a long time. I don't believe that. There was exasperation. There was anger. But again there was always this refusal force it, to force agreement, to impose it, and the question is why.

Q. Lord Owen, you told us before the break that if he had enforced the interdiction on Bosnian army supplies, the war would have ended years earlier and thus before Srebrenica.

A. If the West had interdicted from the air, I believe it would have done. President Milosevic had the forces in the JNA to simply stop them going across the Drina and across the roads.

Q. Done it himself or acquiesced in your dealing with it.

A. Yes. Absolutely. I personally strongly believe that. And should have done it, and if he had done it, it would have saved the Serbian nation from a very large amount of grief and it would have alleviated some of the appalling horrors that had started from 1991 and 1992. And I think it was a great error from the standpoint of the ²⁸⁴²⁶ Serbian people, and it's important to remember the Serbian people have got a long, proud history, and it's a great mistake for the world to blame all Serbs for what's been going on. It's not the case.

Q. So that by the beginning of 1995, the international community wasn't disposed to control the flow of support to the Bosnian Serbs. On your analysis, there was a split between Mladic and Karadzic so that he may not have had the power let alone the will to control what was happening.

A. Who?

Q. Karadzic. So far as Mladic was concerned. There was a recognition by the accused and everybody else that massacre or a bloodbath was a real possibility. The only politician who was able to influence, by the control of supplies, was the accused. Would that be correct?

A. Yes. I think the -- in Belgrade, his power -- his ran -- personally I think he had become less influential. I mean, there was a time when I first started in the early part, you felt that President Milosevic issued orders to Karadzic and Krajisnik, and they came and they went. Gradually, they, particularly after the quote which you gave of them like cats licking the cream, once they'd been shown that they could flout, first of all, all the different peace plans, and particularly after having flouted the Contact Group plan of the five powerful nations, I think they began to think that they could get away with anything and, therefore, probably were not listening as much as they might have been earlier on to even President Milosevic.

Q. He was the only politician of those we've identified who could ²⁸⁴²⁷ have dried up the supplies that were going to support the Bosnian Serbs and to support Mladic?

A. Yes. He controlled Belgrade. He was still the most powerful figure in Belgrade. He wasn't just nominally president, he was an all-powerful president, yes.

Q. And the reason I asked you whether he was afraid of anybody, even of Mladic, is this -- I realise these events are after your departure from office -- but if Mladic had done something that the accused had disapproved of, he would have no trouble in remonstrating with him, would he?

A. No, he would have remonstrated with him. Would it have had any effect on Mladic, that is a different question.

Q. He wouldn't have any anxiety or embarrassment about complaining of what Mladic had done if what Mladic had done was wrong in his, the accused's, eyes.

A. No. I think that's -- I think that is true. And -- but you need to understand Mladic's character. I think that by then he was probably no longer even accepting the authority of the head of the JNA in Belgrade.

Q. You see, we've had -- we've got material, and although some of the material is material that I can't at present deal with openly, some of it is material that I can deal with openly, showing that in August of 1995, by which time, of course, Mladic's connection with the Srebrenica massacre was known, in August 1995, at a meeting of the Supreme Defence Council, Mladic organised a meeting of all the Serbs, and those meetings were held on the 25th and 28th of August at Dobanovci, and at none of those meetings ²⁸⁴²⁸ did the accused raise or challenge Mladic about what had happened at Srebrenica. If he had objected, you would have felt, from your knowledge of the man, that he would have been able to speak about it.

A. Yeah. I think if he had been -- if he had made representations to Mladic not to do something, but whether he would have raised it in public in a meeting like that, I'm not sure, I wouldn't put too much weight on that. He might do it -- it's a very difficult thing for me now, the area you're going into, and almost I feel I ought to ask the Judges, really. I mean, I --

JUDGE MAY: Lord Owen, it's up to you. If you think you can answer properly, of course do so, but it does sound fairly hypothetical, I must say.

MR. NICE: I'm not going to take it any further.

THE WITNESS: The reason I asked to be a witness of the court is I do think there are roles for international negotiators in the future and which we have to protect, and I think that we shouldn't get -- at least, I don't think it's a good thing to get too far away from what is -- what happened during my period as an international negotiator. If I then go into hypothetical things about what I think about what happened after I left, I think I start to abuse the impartiality that I had during this period. And I'm not afraid of doing it, but I also in this particular situation really don't know. I mean, I don't know whether any of -- my successor Carl Bildt or anybody, made representations to General Milosevic [sic] as I did in 1993. I don't know whether that happened. I don't know what pressure was urged on him when the situation began to deteriorate in ^{28429 BLANK PAGE 28430} Srebrenica.

Of course there had been a breakdown in the negotiations which many of us had got a great deal of hope for between President Milosevic and Ambassador Fraser of the United States, and that may have been a cause a frustration.

So I don't know the dialogue that was going on between negotiators and other governments with President Milosevic.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I would say, Lord Owen, if you have to speculate, don't answer.

THE WITNESS: Sorry, I --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I would say if you have to speculate, then don't answer.

THE WITNESS: Yes. That would be speculation, and therefore I prefer not to answer.

MR. NICE:

Q. Can I move on with the last question on this topic but in fact going back to 1993, you had no doubt in 1993, I think, that the accused did intervene with General Mladic to stop him taking Srebrenica at that stage. That was your view.

A. That was my view. And I was very grateful for it.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I suspect that I've taken the two hours I asked for - I haven't checked my watch exactly - and I do have several more questions and I would be grateful for an opportunity to ask some of them but I'm entirely in the Court's hands.

JUDGE MAY: I think you've got about ten minutes. ²⁸⁴³¹

MR. NICE:

Q. Lord Owen, I will be selective in the other topics I ask you about. But very briefly on Sarajevo, your clear understanding of Sarajevo was that this was a medieval siege, that the city could have been taken pretty well at any time but that it -- it suited those attacking it not to take it.

A. Yes.

Q. There was, at an early stage, and we can see this but I won't take people to it, at page 39 of your statement, the intention to negotiate a swap of territory, one part for another. So does that really make the siege of Sarajevo part of the overall scheme of ethnic cleansing, in your view?

A. There definitely was a focus on trying to negotiate over Eastern Bosnia when we got into the question of what would happen about Sarajevo in the union of three republics. And the humanitarian situation by then in July in Srebrenica had again deteriorated. Not quite as bad as it had been in March and April, but it was still very bad. And therefore it was an issue on which the parties were ready to talk, and they did talk. And there was very detailed negotiation and discussion of it.

Had Krajisnik and Karadzic, who by then were the key element on the question of Sarajevo, been ready to come forward with what was by any standards a modicum of movement to allow the capital city to exist where the majority were very clearly Muslims, then it might have been possible for President Izetbegovic to have made more concessions over some of the ²⁸⁴³² eastern enclaves.

But the frightening part of the situation was that we could not get that degree of movement. And again, in these talks too, President Milosevic is -- was intelligent enough to know that the position that Karadzic and Krajisnik were adopting, of wanting to have a Serb stranglehold on all three roads coming into Sarajevo, was quite unrealistic, and he said so, but we still couldn't shift them. And therefore, the maps that came out ducked the issue of Sarajevo by putting it under UN administration and left it for one side, if you like, for a year or two, and kept these enclaves obviously vulnerable and potentially still dangerous.

Q. But of course the answer you gave earlier about the accused being in a position, had he by his own actions or by acquiescence with international action, withdrawn support for the Bosnian Serbs applies to Sarajevo as much as it does to anywhere else.

A. Yes. Again it would have meant forcing them to negotiate the more reasonable path which he himself was ready to acknowledge should be the case.

Q. And for whatever reason --

A. So he would spend hours with them trying to persuade them to do it. Sometimes without him. He would himself spend quite a lot of time in private conversation with President Izetbegovic and with President Tudjman. I mean, we almost became watchers of the negotiation. Our technique was to get them to talk and then get the -- they were negotiating in what was then Serbo-Croat, and we would encourage them to ²⁸⁴³³ talk directly and get the interpreters to be very quiet, push our chairs back, and then even leave them alone.

This -- by then, the only hope was that these characters who all knew every street in Sarajevo would be able to come to an accommodation.

Q. The underlying reason for this is something of course the Chamber may have to deal with, but if we can look at Appendix G to your statement, please, and the speech that you were unable to deliver, which can be found at registry number 24758 and following, and I'm just looking at 24756, the third page of that, Lord Owen, I think.

Your view in April 1993, and it's in the middle of the page, was still to this effect: "For there is no future for the European continent if might can be shown to win and a Greater Serbia emerges at the barrel of many guns. Anyone who believes in Belgrade that after a few months we will relax these economic and political pressures and acquiesces in the taking of territory by force is making a massive misjudgment." Two topics here. Your focus is on the people in Belgrade. Your reference is to "Greater Serbia emerging at the barrel of many guns." Was it your belief at this time that underlying whatever successful or failed negotiations there were, there was a continuing desire by military force to create a Greater Serbia?

A. Yes. I mean, from my point of view, this is an extremely interesting speech which I'd forgotten that I'd written - I'd written every word of it - I didn't deliver, and I think it accurately reflects my views at the time and therefore is helpful perhaps for the Court, but you're totally right, that was my view. ²⁸⁴³⁴ But we need to put this in context. This was before I had met with and negotiated with President Milosevic in the period up to Bijeljina, and it was at that time, I think it was the 23rd of April or -- that I formed the view that Milosevic was now ready to accept that there would not necessarily be a link between Republika Srpska and Serbia, but that he could get for the Serbs what they needed, in his judgement, through the Vance-Owen Peace Plan and then through the EU the union of three republics, the EU action plan and like that, which was all basically all part of the same family.

The Vance-Owen Peace Plan was a unified Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that was in a way surprising that he was still prepared to accept that. Of course with the proviso that he thought that they would gradually merge and get more territory and that sort of thing. But I believe that he did thereafter, as far as Bosnia is concerned, accept that world opinion was not going to probably ever accept that it came into Serbia and Montenegro. He still intended to keep Kosovo firmly part of Serbia, and I think he perhaps at that stage had not yet accepted that the Croatian Serbs would have to live in Croatia. I think that was more something he came to accept towards 1994, although you could argue that his agreement to the Vance initial proposals, he knew that it would eventually happen but it would just take time.

And this is a person who has obviously thought through all of this carefully, President Milosevic, but I think that there was a period when he was a Greater Serbia supporter and believed he could get away with it. Then he became aware of the pressures of the international community. On ²⁸⁴³⁵ Bosnia, I think in April 1993 he began to accept that he wouldn't get that full picture.

Q. And if we can look, as I think I'm probably coming to the end --

A. Then we went to Athens and then we went to Pale.

Q. Yes. I'm afraid I don't have time to go into those --

A. No.

Q. But if you look on the next, the right-hand page, Lord Owen, just another detail from the same speech, which as you say has the advantage of contemporaneity about it, second paragraph, fourth line, "The petrol and oil that fuels the Bosnian Serb army comes from Montenegro and Serbia. Essential supplies come across their frontier. The Yugoslav army that was meant to have totally withdraw in the spring of last year never broke contact with the Bosnian Serbs. In recent months we have had convincing evidence of a far greater involvement in terms of personnel, equipment, and strategy.

"It is an elaborate charade that Belgrade is not involved in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is a claim that I believe convinces no one in this Council."

A. Well, I agreed that then. I agreed it all through the period I was a negotiator, and I believe it now.

Q. And if -- if -- there's a document we won't go to because of time but that the Chamber has seen, the 30th session of the National Assembly, addressed by the accused partly in public and partly in private, where he is seen to be saying that they can obtain in peace what had been their objectives earlier in war, if that's the interpretation on that session. ²⁸⁴³⁶ That wouldn't surprise you that he should be sticking to original plans but to get them by other means?

A. I'd need to look at the document, and I'd need -- I think you're taking me into the area of speculation and --

Q. In which case I flag the issue up for the Chamber and I shan't ask you more about it.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I suspect that's my time and I don't wish to trespass.

JUDGE MAY: I think that's probably it, yes.

MR. NICE: In which case one -- perhaps --

Q. Yes, I'm reminded, in your interview on the Breakfast with Frost programme you made it quite clear that support was coming from Serbia and Montenegro. We can see that in one of the annexes. It's in your documentation.

A. Yes. It was once again a time when I publicly argued for bombing the Serbs, you could say, and I risked my role as negotiator. In fact, it caused condemnation from them and they said how could they be asked to negotiate with somebody who was advocating that I should interdict their supply lines. And I still went on and had the most successful negotiation. So for a negotiator, there is a balance. You can get away with a certain amount of advocacy of military action as a pressure, but it reduces your credibility or if you're -- reduces your acceptability to some extent by doing it, but again, it was for the same reason. It was because those supplies were fuelling this war, and they had to be broken, either by a political will decision by President Milosevic in Belgrade or ²⁸⁴³⁷ by the Western world interposing military force to stop it happening.

Q. Lord Owen, you make the point in your materials that we asked you to come as a witness for the Prosecution and that you declined. I'm sure you will understand that we can't force the Judges to call witnesses, and we have had to ask you ourselves. We're obviously grateful that you've come, and I think you can also probably confirm that in coming to give evidence you haven't restricted yourself in any way by seeking confidentiality or any matters of that sort. You've simply given the evidence being master, as you judge it, of when it becomes appropriate to seek guidance from the Chamber on when material shouldn't be given.

A. I hope that's the case. I hope I haven't damaged the concept. As you know, I did argue that negotiators should be treated in a special way and I'm grateful to the Court for giving me that special treatment in the sense that I hope it's a demonstration to Mr. Milosevic but also to the Serbs generally that this -- that a negotiator is there, given a certain amount of trust by them, and that you shouldn't damage that process. We're going to need negotiators in the future. We need to have some understanding of how they handle this next problem of -- but as I said, I'm impartial but I'm not neutral on the questions of weapons -- of -- of crimes against humanity or war crimes, and I want to make it clear because Mr. Vance is not here, unfortunately has died, a great American diplomat and fine man. He never doubted that we had to have some investigation of what had gone on, and he and I both recommended that this Court should be established by the Security Council, and the reason why we wanted it by the Security Council was we thought that at a time of their choosing the ²⁸⁴³⁸ Security Council would understand that you need reconciliation in these sort of wars and there comes a point where the pursuit of absolute justice can actually damage reconciliation and it's for the Security Council to determine when that position is reached. But I don't believe you can ever amnesty anybody who has been given an arrest warrant by a criminal court. I think that has to go through to judgement.

Q. Lord Owen, we're grateful to you for coming and giving evidence in this way. Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Lord Owen, I have a question to ask you. I want to take you back to the first part of your testimony when, in discussing the question of the influence and control of the accused, you said that the police were under his control more like a militia and that they operated as a counterbalance to a more independent JNA. So two questions: First, what factors led you to the view that the police were under the control of the accused; and secondly, your reference to "a more independent JNA" I take to mean that, in your view, the accused had less control over the JNA. So what factors led you to that view?

THE WITNESS: Well, on the first point, I think you saw the way the police responded to President Milosevic in just the day-to-day visits to Belgrade and Serbia and Montenegro. But in particular, you saw it in the -- his decision to have this ban on certain goods going into Republika Srpska or the Bosnian Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and he entrusted almost all of that to the police to run. And you -- I got the firm belief that he controlled that process. At various times, I think both Mr. ²⁸⁴³⁹ Stoltenberg and I felt that there was a resistance to this policy, and we didn't know where it came from, but we felt that it might be the JNA. And you may remember that in some evidence that I've given, there was reporting of two helicopters incidents, one I think in October of 1994 and one in February 1995, of a helicopter flight in the area of Republika Srpska, which had come in from Bosnian Serb territory and almost, by definition, was likely to be JNA helicopters.

Now, in the investigation of that, again he used the police, and the way he used the police, you got the feeling he was doing that because he trusted them. And we never got to the complete bottom of it, but the first one might well have been. The second one was pretty clearly a medevac evacuation that hadn't been reported. But in the depth of -- I mean, President Milosevic took the allegations that this was a breach pretty seriously, and of course if he hadn't, then there would not have been a suspension of even the limited suspension of sanctions that have been discussed. So I think that was the main case. As far as the JNA was concerned, again I was never relying on direct information. I just got the feeling from some of the military reporting on our side that they were detecting tensions between the JNA and Belgrade, and there was a strong feeling that Mladic had loyalties which he could draw on in the JNA. You know, fellow officers, being with them. But he was -- General Mladic was a popular general. He was somebody who slept with the soldiers in the trenches. He was a soldier's soldier in that sense, and this was one of the problems. He was building up all the time an independent power base with the support of the Bosnian ²⁸⁴⁴⁰ Serb forces but you got the feeling that radiated out into Yugoslavia and you could say that subsequent events have slightly shown that that is the case. The protection that was put around president -- General Mladic was much more than might be done for quite a number of other generals. So he was a formidable figure in that sense.

And I have very little doubt that there were serious arguments of a variety at different times about strategy between President Milosevic and the generals. I don't think he just told them what to do. I think they, at various times, would argue back, whereas the police I got the feeling were much more responsive to the civil power, if you like.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Before we go on, we need to tidy up the exhibits. The book, first of all, Lord Owen's book. Do you want that exhibited?

MR. NICE: I think it would be helpful to have it available, yes.

JUDGE MAY: Very well, we'll exhibit that. The next C number, please.

THE REGISTRAR: C18, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: And the letter which Lord Owen referred to, or the cable, rather, from Mr. Annan to UNPROFOR, it's dated the 23rd of April, 1993. That has been referred to. It, too, should be exhibited. It will have the next C number.

THE REGISTRAR: C19, Your Honour.

MR. NICE: The CD-ROM of the book should be exhibited with either the original statement or the book rather than both. ²⁸⁴⁴¹

JUDGE MAY: Well, that can be attached to the book as part of the exhibit.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic. About 20 minutes before the next break.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Tell me, please, Mr. May, how long you're going to give me for asking Lord Owen my questions.

JUDGE MAY: Three hours.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't think that will be sufficient. And in view of the fact that you said at the beginning that Lord Owen will be with us tomorrow as well, I assume you do have the possibility of giving me more time, and I should like to ask you to give me more time.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We can look at it, but bear in mind that the Prosecution only had two, and that's something we'll also have to take account of. We shall also take account of the manner in which you conduct the cross-examination and whether it's relevant or not.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As far as I understand the time, it's 12.00 now, so it's impossible that the Prosecution had just two hours. But let's not waste any more time.

Questioned by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Lord Owen, at the outset, may we clarify one point, because I wasn't quite clear on what you were saying. I don't know if I understood it. I'm not quite sure that Mr. Nice said the same thing you were saying with respect to our relationship. It would appear from what we have heard and from the questions you were asked by Mr. Nice, and something that has remained unclear in the ^{28442 BLANK PAGE 28443} answer you gave, is that I misled you, or to use the worst term, one introduced by Mr. Nice, that I lied in our talks which were very numerous. We had talks on numerous occasions. So would that be the qualification you can give?

A. I thought I did, Mr. Milosevic, qualify it when he asked me the question, that there were certain things which you would not be truthful about because you knew that effectively you had to deny them in the sort of -- the framework of those negotiations. And those were largely allegations about the involvement of the JNA and the involvement of the government which you were responsible for in supplying the Yugoslav -- the Bosnian Serb army across the border between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. So on all those occasions you remember that I would raise them with you, that you would say, "No. No, no, I'm not. They are a separate army, they are answerable to the president of the Republika Srpska, Mr. Karadzic, and to General Mladic, and they're quite separate from us." Now I think you knew perfectly well that I knew that was not the truth. But it was not the sort of lie that -- I tried to -- I tried to explain to the Court the nature of that. It didn't extend, that, to many of the other questions that were raised, but there was an area -- if you argue, I suppose, about legitimacy that you would never accept that there were -- that you were involved in supporting the republican -- Bosnian Serbian army.

Q. Let's just make a distinction here, Lord Owen, precisely with regard to what you just said. I assume that there are two things there, and both things that you said are not being challenged. The first of ²⁸⁴⁴⁴ those two things is that they were a separate army, that they did have a separate command, and that the Republika Srpska was formed and that the army of Republika Srpska was formed. And I hope that we're not challenging that.

The second point is that yes, we did -- is that we helped Republika Srpska. However, this aid and assistance did not imply the fact that we were in command of the army of Republika Srpska at all. So would that be the right clarification? Would that be a truthful distinction and truthfully reflect the actual state of affairs?

A. I think there was a -- a stage when the Yugoslav forces coming through from Croatia into Bosnia-Herzegovina were probably still under the command of your government, and that was predominantly when -- before I'd become the EU negotiator. I think it is true to say that the structure of Republika Srpska grew in form and in substance as they became more independent and as they became more self-confident. So it may be, and I'd be very interested to know whether you agree with this, that your power of influence over them lessened over the -- over the years, but I still think you had the power of influence. As to whether you had a command relationship with General Mladic, I certainly think that he acted independently at times. I think he acted independently of Dr. Karadzic and Mr. Krajisnik.

Q. So can we then distinguish between what we call assistance, and let me say that many countries helped the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina or the formation of the paramilitaries in Croatia, for instance, at the beginning of the war. The Muslims were helped by -- well, ranging from ²⁸⁴⁴⁵ Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to Turkey and Kuwait, Iran, et cetera. And nobody found this strange. So why, then, would it be strange if the Serbs helped other Serbs? So aid and assistance by definition does not imply any form of command.

And on the other hand, we have a formed structure, an established structure of the army of Republika Srpska and the parliament and the government and all the other organs that this implies, and our relationship to them were as people on a footing of equality.

JUDGE MAY: This is how time is wasted because you're making a speech. What is the question that you want to ask the witness?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, that's precisely the question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Can we separate those two things? Is it clear that those two things are two distinct things and not identical?

A. I don't think they're as distinct as you're trying to make out, but I think that it was part of your strategy of avoiding sanctions, or at least trying to get sanctions suspended, that you should demonstrate to the world that there was a separation. And I think that, over time, that separation grew more credible. But I think we need to bear a little qualification. I mean, you know, what was Pale? What were these people? They were a small number, really, of people who were dependent for very large part of their existence on their relationship with your government. From time to time they bargained and got ammunition, no doubt, maybe more, and certainly oil, from the Croatians, but broadly speaking, all their main supply lines came through your country. ²⁸⁴⁴⁶ Now, that gives you leverage. Does it give you command? We can argue about that. I think this is an area which I was not an expert in. It was not my fundamental task to determine, and I would need to know and to see some of the transcripts of the instructions that you gave to your military commanders during this period to know exactly. But I don't -- I don't seek to deny that you were making a distinction and that it is a distinction of substance but not necessarily a total distinction. I think there was a measure of command at times in your relationship with Karadzic, Krajisnik, and even Mladic.

Q. Lord Owen, not to run into any misunderstandings and confusion, and as time is of the essence here - I hope you will agree with that - let me say the following: You talk about the fact that the army, in 1991 and 1992, came to Bosnia, the JNA, and that especially in 1992, that that was a critical year, and that in a way, at that time, the possibility existed for that to be stopped by Serbia; is that right? Or if you don't want to say Serbia, that I myself could have. But we're talking about 1991 and 1992 and the presence of the JNA in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A. I think that it would have been possible to have pulled back ammunition, arms, and people more extensively than you did, and that was the judgement of the UN Security Council in May 1992 when they applied sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro.

Q. Very well. Now, bearing in mind the fact that you came in the second half of 1992 in your capacity of representative of the European Community and that you're talking about this to the best of your recollections, I should like to remind you that on page 32 of your book, ²⁸⁴⁴⁷ and whenever I have reference to your book I'll do my best to give you the English version of the book so that you don't have to take too much time in finding the passage. This is what you say. You're talking about because Boutros-Ghali. He has his fans and his critics. I'm one of his fans.

You just mentioned the 30th of May, 1992. Do you know that Boutros-Ghali as the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the 30th of May, 1992, tabled a reports to the UN Security Council and that report is titled "Report of the UN Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 4 of the Security Council Resolution 752." And it is precisely in that report of the 30th of May, 1992 that he stresses that the army of Republika Srpska was not under the control of Belgrade.

I have here in front of me that particular report by the UN Secretary-General, and I'm just going to quote certain passages from it. In actual fact -- actually, if you need some time to take a look at the document, I'd be happy to wait for you to do so.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. This is Defence Exhibit D91.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Lord Owen, I assume -- I assume that you know that the JNA, from the end of World War II right up until that time in 1992, was a regular army of Yugoslavia, which was deployed on its territory from Slovenia to Macedonia in all its constituent republics. Isn't that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Therefore, not even threaten in 1992 did anybody send the JNA to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The JNA was in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the territory of ²⁸⁴⁴⁸ the country whose army it was. Isn't that right, Lord Owen?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, would you please take a look at what it says here in Boutros-Ghali's report, and it's to be found in chapter 1, or first section, entitled Background. I'm going to skip over the introduction in order to save time, and this is what he says in point 2: "[In English] 26th of April, 1992, President Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" -- [Interpretation] I have to make pauses to give the interpreters a chance to keep up with me and to interpret for those of the public listening -- "[In English] met at Skopje with Blagoje Adzic Chief of Staff of the JNA and acting Federal Secretary of Defence and Mr. Branko Kostic, vice-president of the Federal Presidency in Belgrade to define the role of JNA in Bosnia-Herzegovina and its eventual withdrawal. This meeting did not produce a definitive agreement, and the Belgrade authorities on May the 4th announced their decision to withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina by 18 May all JNA personnel who were not citizens of that republic. "On 13 May Vice-president Kostic proposed to President Izetbegovic that the talks be resumed with the participation of the representative of the Bosnian Serb and Croat communities. On the same day, authorities of the so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced their decision to form their own army which would be composed of units of former JNA based in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and appointed General Ratko Mladic as the commander of that army."

[Interpretation] I quoted from word to word the report -- from the report by the UN Secretary-General. Therefore, Lord Owen, isn't it quite ²⁸⁴⁴⁹ clear that the JNA, which for decades had been on its own territory on the basis of a political agreement is now withdrawing from Bosnia-Herzegovina and of course so are the citizens who weren't citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina who made up the JNA. So this relationship was being negotiated between the federal powers and authority, represented by the chief of the General Staff and the charges d'affaires of the defence minister and the vice-president of the Yugoslav state Presidency. We're talking about federal institutions here and their stay there, their being there.

So can we say that Serbia was the one that was supposed to stop the JNA from going to Bosnia-Herzegovina? The JNA was already there and it was, in fact, withdrawing from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Isn't that right, Lord Owen?

A. Well, you're certainly correct that the Yugoslav army was positioned in all parts of the former Yugoslavia, and we are dealing here with the -- a complex situation, in fact admitted in Resolution 757 of the UN passed on the 30th of May, 1992, noting that in the very complex context of events in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, all parties bear some responsibility for the situation. But that same Resolution goes on to say, and this is the 30th of May, so it's the same day as the Secretary-General reported to the Security Council, has the paragraph deploring the fact that the demands in Resolution 752 have not been complied with, and on its fifth subvent -- sorry, it's fourth, that action be taken as regards units of the Yugoslav Peoples Army, JNA in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including the disbanding and disarming with weapons ²⁸⁴⁵⁰ placed under effective international monitoring of any units that are neither withdrawn nor placed under the authority of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

So the Security Council, at a time when I was not involved, took the view that you had not done enough to satisfy the demands made in 752, and they passed this Resolution 757 which did put sanctions onto your country. And there's no doubt that one of the main reasons for that is that all the regular forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina they thought had not been disbanded and disarmed and that the JNA had not been removed. Now, of course you will argue that the ones that stayed behind were Bosnian Serbs who were entitled to decide to defend their part of the former Yugoslavia. But you have to remember that this was in the context of a Resolution that had earlier been done in which Bosnia-Herzegovina had been recognised by the United Nations as an independent country.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, we're going to adjourn now, Mr. Milosevic, but you may want to focus your cross-examination on matters which this witness can deal with, that is, matters when he was here, when he was here dealing with those matters which this trial is concerned with, and that, of course, he can answer. But arguments, many of which are matters which we're going to have to resolve, are not helpful and do not assist the Trial Chamber and may not assist you either. Arguments about the interpretation of various Security Council Resolutions and documents from the Secretary-General.

You will have -- I've said to you before, you will have plenty of time to address us in due course on all those things and argue your case, ²⁸⁴⁵¹ but arguing with the witnesses is not one way that you can usefully spend your time.

We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May --

JUDGE MAY: No. We're going to adjourn. You can talk to us afterwards.

--- Recess taken at 12.20 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.40 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Lord Owen, you mentioned a moment ago a resolution whereby sanctions were introduced against Yugoslavia. However, I was quoting from a report of the Secretary-General, and would you please look at that report? I will skip over parts. For instance, paragraph 5 says: "[In English] The bulk of the JNA personnel who were deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina were citizens of that republic and were not therefore covered by the Belgrade authority's decision of 4th of May -- or 4th of March" --

THE INTERPRETER: 4th of May.

MR. MILOSEVIC:

Q. -- "Bosnia-Herzegovina. Most of them appear to have joined the army of so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Others have joined the Territorial Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is under the political control of the Presidency of that republic. Others may have joined various irregular forces operating there." [Interpretation] And then in paragraph 6 of that same report it ²⁸⁴⁵² says: [Previous translation continues]... "[In English] of Bosnia-Herzegovina are said by Belgrade authorities to number barely 20 per cent of the total. Most of these are believed to have withdrawn already into Serbia and Montenegro, some of them having been subjected to attack during their withdrawal. Others, however, remain at various garrisons in Bosnia-Herzegovina, especially in Serb-controlled areas including two installations on the outskirts of Sarajevo. A further category consists of personnel who have been blockaded in their barracks by the Territorial Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina or hostile irregular forces. These are mostly in Sarajevo area where the latest developments have been as follows ..."

[Interpretation] And then an explanation is given saying that in the Marsal Tito barracks, between 600 and 1.000 JNA soldiers were blockaded with about 200 vehicles that the negotiations over their evacuation were ongoing. That on the 30th of May, 1992, the barracks was under attack with rockets, et cetera, fired by Muslim Territorial Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then there is reference to other cases, that is the Viktor Bubanj barracks. That was also under attack. And then in paragraph 7, this problem with the withdrawal is emphasised foregoing that the blocking and safe withdrawal of the remain of JNA troops from their barracks in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become linked to other problems which have caused continuing conflicts in that republic and has in particular been complicated by the problem related to the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the barracks and from Bosnia and Herzegovina. ²⁸⁴⁵³ "[In English] Communication that general leadership in Belgrade is willing to leave the bulk of its weapons behind upon withdrawal, but the leadership of the army of Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is unwilling to permit this."

[Interpretation] And then in paragraph 8 it says: [Previous translation continues]... "[In English] about who exercises political control over the Serb forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina has further complicated the situation."

And then in goes on to say that the Presidency of Bosnia and had an initially been reluctant to engage in talks on these and other issues with the leadership of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then in paragraph 9 of this report --

JUDGE MAY: I think we're going to have to come to a question. What is it that you want Lord Owen to answer to, Mr. Milosevic?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This report by Boutros-Ghali, I assume you will agree with me faithfully reflects the real state of affairs on the ground. Is that right?

A. I was not there, as you know, but my --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

THE WITNESS: Sorry. I was not there, as you know, but my belief is that the UN normally does to its utmost to reflect accurately the situation on the ground and therefore I have no reason whatever to object or criticise what's said in the report.

JUDGE MAY: Can you help us with this, Lord Owen: Does it reflect ²⁸⁴⁵⁴ the situation that you saw when you arrived or doesn't it help on that?

THE WITNESS: Well, the situation had moved on, but to -- I think historically it is a very important report, because it reveals the nature, the complex nature of this war and how this, for example, blocking of troops in barracks had been used previously in Croatia, and it was an aspect of it which led to a feeling amongst Serbs particularly and some of their military that they had not been treated fairly. The resolution that was followed on that same day that was passed by the Security Council was strongly resented by the Serbs. On the other hand, I don't see how the Security Council, having recognised Bosnia-Herzegovina a few days before, weeks before, could have done anything other than to start to assert the integrity of the new state which they had created.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. And are you aware, and I think this is an extremely important fact, Lord Owen, that this report by Boutros-Ghali, which reports on the army of Yugoslavia pulling out of Bosnia and Herzegovina and everything else that I have quoted, do you know that that report was not reviewed at all at the Security Council? It was put aside and then a resolution was adopted introducing sanctions against Yugoslavia, because on the basis of such a report the decisions and sanctions could not have been taken?

A. I note the timing of the resolution and the report being the same day.

Q. Do you know that the Security Council did not review this report at all, and it was not familiar with what Boutros-Ghali was saying? ²⁸⁴⁵⁵

A. All I know is that the report was delivered by the Secretary-General that day and the resolution was passed that day. I was not there. I had no official capacity in that time.

Q. I should like to draw your attention to another paragraph of this report which clearly shows that Yugoslavia was bona fides fulfilling its obligations, and that is paragraph 10, which says: "As regards to the withdrawal of elements of the Croatian army [Previous translation continues]... [In English] Bosnia, the information currently available in New York suggests that no such withdrawal has occurred. UNPROFOR has received reliable reports of Croatian army personnel in uniform operating within and as part of a military formation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Croatian authorities have consistently taken position that Croatian soldiers in Bosnia-Herzegovina have left the Croatian army and are not subject to this authority. International observers do not, however, doubt that portion of Bosnia-Herzegovina are under control of Croatian military units whether belonging to the local Territorial Defence, to paramilitary group, or to Croatian army. It is unclear in the circumstances how their withdrawal or disbandment, as required by the Council, can be achieved." [Interpretation] And then also in this same report, in paragraph 9, it says: [Previous translation continues]... "[In English] that now exist about the abilities of the authorities in Belgrade to influence General Ratko Mladic who has left JNA. Efforts have been made by UNPROFOR to appeal to him directly as well as through the political leadership of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a result of these efforts, General Mladic agreed on 30 May to stop the bombardment of Sarajevo. ^{28456 BLANK PAGE 28457} While it is my hope that the shelling of the city will not be resumed, it is also clear that the madness of General Mladic and the forces under his command as independent actor apparently beyond the control of the JNA." [Interpretation] So these are all abstracts from Boutros-Ghali's report, and neither you nor I have any reason to doubt its accuracy. So is it clear from this, in view that you, at the beginning of your testimony, spoke about the responsibility of Serbia for the presence of the JNA in Bosnia, that the JNA was there for decades, that the JNA was just then pulling out of Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than going to Bosnia-Herzegovina and committing any sort of aggression there? Is that clear, at least?

A. Yes, although I think it's also acknowledged that those forces from Croatia came back through Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some of those forces were people who had not been in Bosnia-Herzegovina or the region of but in the region of Croatia. But I have no great dissent from this, and I agree that this report is relevant, reflects the complex and chaotic situation in some respects that was occurring in the former Yugoslavia during this period.

Nevertheless, it doesn't detract in any way from my position that it was not necessary for you to continue to supply them with oil, ammunition, military equipment, and other aspects from Belgrade.

Q. That's another matter. I hope that you will recollect a conversation we had when you were raising that particular issue as to where was so much equipment coming from. When I told you that according to the concept of All People's Defence that was in force in Yugoslavia, ²⁸⁴⁵⁸ Bosnia-Herzegovina as the central republic had the largest number of military installations, warehouses, military factories, et cetera, because at the time of the crisis between the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, everything was concentrated in that central republic so that it wouldn't be exposed to any direct impact should a conflict break out. I assume you remember that conversation.

A. Yes, I do. And it was true of parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina which were controlled by the Bosnian government forces and also true of those which were controlled by the Croatian forces. All parties had access to ammunition and also to munition factories. But nevertheless, I don't know the figures of how much ammunition you did or did not supply, but by the time we're talking about, 1993, 1994, the general belief was that ammunition did go across, but I can't prove it.

Q. It is very important for us to clear this up, because Mr. Nice was endeavouring to explain that the reality was the opposite. Lord Owen, on page 1 of your book the "Balkan Odyssey," which Mr. Nice has tendered into evidence here, you say that in the Balkans, nothing is simple. Everything is permeated with history and the complexity causes confusion even at -- given the most careful study. In the same book you noted that in Bosnia-Herzegovina everything is not what it appears to be. That is why in continuation of my examination, I will endeavour for you to assist me to the best of your knowledge and experience in explaining things which you yourself say are not simple and for us to try and establish what the real truth is and not what may appear to be the truth to some. ²⁸⁴⁵⁹ You say that in Balkans, everything is permeated by history, and you mention this throughout your book. When you became the main negotiator or the co-chairman, the opinion that was widespread in Serbia was that you were an anti-Serb hawk. I am sure you are aware of that.

JUDGE MAY: You know, you started this -- I'm sorry, Lord Owen.

THE WITNESS: That was the view.

JUDGE MAY: You started this question by asking questions about everything being permeated by history and also difficulty of establishing what the real truth is, et cetera. Let's try and have one question at a time.

Is there any question that arises out of the history that you want to ask the witness?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have put my question, Mr. May, and I assume Lord Owen knows that the prevalent view was that he was an anti-Serb hawk at the time of his appointment.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. He's agreed with that.

THE WITNESS: I agreed with that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. After your arrival to the position of co-chairman, the view in Serbia, the dominant view, which I assume dominates even today, is that you were among the minority of people who were correct and not ill-intentioned or, rather, well-intentioned international mediators? Are you aware of that too?

A. I hope that was the case, because that was certainly my intention, to be impartial. ²⁸⁴⁶⁰

Q. With respect to the causes of the wars, I refer to page 43 of your book, highlighting your policy of looking forward rather than backward, you said the following, and I quote you: "A similar position was adopted by me regarding the causes of the wars in Yugoslavia. It was sufficient to focus on the current horrors and the future peace. What should have been done before the collapse of Yugoslavia was an interesting question, but it caused a great deal of dissent. Furthermore, the facts were not quite what I thought they were at the beginning. The expressions 'aggressor' and 'victim' were used as weapons in the propaganda war. The real state of affairs was clearly far more complex than that dichotomy might indicate."

So, Lord Owen, initially you had some misrepresentations of the state of affairs which were the result of the propaganda war; isn't that right?

A. Yes, I think it is true, and of course anybody coming into a situation like in my circumstances is bound to discover more facts as they deal with it, but I think there was a considerable misrepresentation, as there is in most civil wars, I might say, round through history. There are different interpretations even today in United States about what was happening during their civil war, and no doubt there will be a long time where there will be very significant differences of view about what happened in the months in which the former Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved.

Q. Bearing in mind precisely that in this quotation and in many other places in your book you refer to the propaganda war, I would like to ask ²⁸⁴⁶¹ you several questions relating to that propaganda war. On page 164, paragraph four, you say: "A team closed -- the UNMO team close to the Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo was an eyewitness when a Bosnian crew was positioning a weapon and hitting the Serbs. Then they packed their things quickly, and the UNMO only saw a TV team arriving and filming, under quotation marks, the Serb attacks on the hospital in retaliation. That was the same hospital I visited a month before and which shocked me by traces of bombing in the patients' rooms. And then I asked why the UN had not made public this problem. He wanted the truth to come to the fore, but he said, "We have to live here." I hope I have quoted you correctly. The interpreter apologises we don't have the actual book in front us.

So the Muslims used provocation even at the cost of sacrificing their own citizens and finding ways of putting the blame on the Serbs; isn't that right?

A. In this particular case, the propaganda was being -- the Bosnian government forces were part of the propaganda. I think it's important to put this in context. There are many cases where Serb propaganda and Croatian propaganda were also being used, but I don't dissent from the extract that you've put. It was General Morillon who said, "We have to live here," and that was a reality which the UN had to face wherever they were placed. They had to live and deal with the situation as they found it, just like we did as negotiators.

Q. But already on page 130, second paragraph, you say as a moment ago you mentioned this particular case, but on page 130, in the second ²⁸⁴⁶² paragraph you say: "The role of the victim was the central point of Muslim propaganda, and its main vehicle and creator," in your words, "was the vice-president of the SDA and member of the BH Presidency Ejub Ganic. You say with reference to him that he was elected to the Presidency in 1990 as a Yugoslav, as in those days two Serbs, two Croats, two Muslims and one Yugoslav were elected." But I quote you again: "He has one main political goal, namely to include the American army in a combat role in the Bosnian war so as to defeat the Serbs."

Was that the main goal of the Muslim leadership which you attribute to Ganic? But in fact, it applied to the entire Muslim leadership headed by Izetbegovic. Isn't that so?

A. I think the strategy of involving the Americans militarily was particularly one which Ganic undertook because he had been in America. He had worked in America, and he felt, I think truthfully, that he understood American sentiment. And he also made a realistic appraisal of the balance of forces and felt that unless and until America put its weight into -- militarily into a settlement, there would not be justice for the Muslim population, and to some extent his judgement has been borne out by history. It was the eventual decision of the United States to use force in August and September 1995 that did transform the situation.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I suspect we're all having trouble finding the page references because the accused is working from a non-English version. I've been unable to find either of them in the hard copy or in the paper --

JUDGE MAY: No. I haven't interrupted so far. I think we've all ²⁸⁴⁶³ got his point because it hadn't seemed to me significant at the moment what is being read out. I'm also concerned that the interpreters don't have a copy.

We will have to see if anything turns on any of these quotations.

MR. NICE: Yes. Obviously if Lord Owen is content to deal with them from memory, that's in one sense fine, but he may prefer to be able to see the context himself. There it is.

MR. KAY: The last passage was at page 90 in the English text.

JUDGE MAY: Well, they're very different. Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Let's go on.

Lord Owen, of course if there is a passage that you would like to see, we can stop and find it.

THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. If there are different versions, then of course that is one of the versions which I was given, but I did my best to state the page number from the copy in English.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. And referring to Ganic, you say the following, and I'm quoting you: "According to his view, in order to realise this goal he has the right to use all necessary resources. For him, the goal justifies the means. He orchestrates the propaganda by the Bosnian government. He works at all levels, the USA, with the White House, Capitol Hill, on television screens throughout America, in American households. He knows ²⁸⁴⁶⁴ you have to spend money in America for you to be heard. So he was ready to use media advisers and counsellors and to apply all modern means of communication. He believes that the Serbs do not listen to anybody but react to force, and his message to America was a simple one: We are the victims. And like all good propaganda men, he repeats this ad infinitum, and he okays the publicity given to the Muslims as victims. He has a fear that -- afraid that Sarajevo will come off the news screens because this will leave less scope for American politicians to intervene. From the Muslim aspect, this is justified. However, it is a merciless strategy and the effects of it are very often undermined, and Ganic's message is being conveyed by Silajdzic and everybody else who appeared on television in that regard."

Is that right, Lord Owen? That was the practice they applied?

A. Yes, broadly speaking. You're obviously working from the translation. I was told at the time that the translation was a good one, and listening to it, obviously there are slightly differences but I think it is good translation. I have no objection to the quote that you've put.

Q. Did you have occasion to discuss that strategy with Holbrooke, for example, to have an exchange of views about that subject matter?

A. No, not really. Mr. Holbrooke came in quite late into the -- my tenure as EU negotiator. I talked to him on quite a number aspects, but he's a realist, I don't think he would necessarily disagree with this, but it's up to him to speak for himself.

Q. I asked you this for a practical reason, in fact, because when he and I discussed this, when he spoke about this strategy -- ²⁸⁴⁶⁵

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. -- and he says ruthless, ingeniousity, referring to Izetbegovic.

JUDGE MAY: I'm not sure that the witness can deal with what Mr. Holbrooke's views were.

THE WITNESS: And certainly not a quote of what he said. I'm afraid I have no knowledge of that. I mean, I know Dick Holbrooke and I think he's done extraordinarily well in eventually brokering a settlement in Dayton, and I believe that you were helpful in that negotiation as -- and I rejoice that at least the war did end in 1995. I only wish he had been able to end it a lot earlier.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. According to my English copy, the one I'm working from and quoting from, this is on page 133, paragraph two, in which you say the following. Referring to the agreement, you speak about the demilitarisation of Sarajevo and say: "I have discovered that the strongest resistance to our agreement is not coming from the Bosnian Serbs but from Ejub Ganic. The demilitarisation of Sarajevo did away with the most important weapons from his arsenal for drawing in the Americans."

JUDGE KWON: Page 90.

THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter notes or words to that effect.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. "He almost recognised that a peaceful Sarajevo wouldn't be in his interests. What he preferred was the continuation of the siege. Speaking quite frankly, he was afraid that the demilitarisation of Sarajevo could ²⁸⁴⁶⁶ lead to freezing the combat lines dividing the town.

A. Mr. Milosevic, I agree -- that's an accurate quote, but I remember you using very much the same words in arguing to Karadzic and particularly Mr. Krajisnik that it was in their interests to agree to the demilitarisation of Sarajevo and to stop the bombing. And that's why I could never understand why, having seen the logic, having seen the damage it was doing to the Serbian cause, you didn't use your influence to force them to stop it.

That was my problem. You knew it was damaging to the Serbian interests worldwide, damaging to Serbian people in Serbia and Montenegro, damaging to the Bosnian Serbs to continue with this feudal siege of Sarajevo where somebody could just walk down the street and be shot. I experienced that myself. I was in Sarajevo on many occasions and saw the damage that was done by sporadic shelling and sniper fire.

Q. There is no doubt that, to any normal human being, it was quite clear that this would be damaging to one and all. And there is also no doubt, and you bear this out, that I myself endeavoured to wield my inference -- influence to put a stop to all of that. But quite obviously that influence was not strong enough. However, the point of this is, or an additional point to what you have already stated is that this would lead to freezing the situation and freezing the division of the town into two parts.

I should like now to show you a map of Sarajevo, the ethnic map of Sarajevo, according to the population census of 1991, which shows, in fact, that the Serbs, in that whole battle around Sarajevo, were in fact ²⁸⁴⁶⁷ positioned on their own territory. You will see the territory where the Serbs represent an absolute majority is marked in blue, the Muslims are marked in green, and the Croats are the yellow areas on the map. And I assume there are no foreigner -- there is no foreigner who would be better placed to deal with this map because you had to deal with maps quite a lot.

JUDGE MAY: Lord Owen, there is something I want to ask before you look at the map. The accused put this characterisation -- he didn't ask a question, but he put it in what he was saying in his question. "There is also no doubt, and you can bear this out, that I myself endeavoured to wield my influence to put a stop to all of that, but quite obviously, that influence was not strong enough." And then he went on to make another point.

Could you help the Trial Chamber, please, to say whether you agree with that characterisation, first of all, that the accused endeavoured to wield his influence to put a stop to it; secondly, that the influence was not strong enough.

THE WITNESS: Well, as I've tried to bring out in the evidence so far, within the negotiating chamber and in the direct talks we had and negotiations on the demilitarisation of Sarajevo or of the map of Sarajevo and how we could deal with Sarajevo first under the Vance-Owen Peace Plan and then under the European Union action plan, and then the Contact Group plan, it is perfectly true that then President Milosevic did understand most of the issues and argued with his fellow Serbs, Bosnian Serbs, that -- for creative solutions to this. And he's right to say that we spent ²⁸⁴⁶⁸ many, many hours with this map. And President Izetbegovic was there as well, and sometimes Mr. Silajdzic. Practically never Mr. Ganic, was I don't think ever at those negotiations.

Now, my puzzlement is that, having seen the logic of the settlement, having, for example, understood that it was not viable for the Serbs to continue to be -- position themselves along all the main roads and railway lines coming into Sarajevo, and when Karadzic and Krajisnik refused to move, President Milosevic at that time did not at that time say to them, "All right, if you continue like this, I cannot allow the Serbian people that I represent in Serbia and Montenegro to be dragged down by international sanctions any longer, and I demand that you either accept it or we will cut off all forms of supplies to you." And I urged him time after time after time to do this. But of his understanding of the issue and the way to solve this problem, which was not easy, there was not much disagreement between himself, President Izetbegovic, myself, and Mr. Stoltenberg or Mr. Vance. There was broad agreement about what needed to be done.

Our problem was that in -- I never was good at pronouncing any of these names I'm afraid, but in Rajlovac - that was Mr. Krajisnik's birthplace - and it was a strategically dominating hill. He was unwilling to give it up. They wanted to go out to Ilidza and Lukavica and ring round all these key connecting roads and rail. Nobody could have agreed to that. President Izetbegovic couldn't agree to that. President Milosevic knew that President Izetbegovic couldn't agree to it, and he would argue with Karadzic in my presence as to why that was not sensible ²⁸⁴⁶⁹ and come up with some other suggestion. They would ignore it. But then the next logical step for him to do, in my judgement, was to force it. And you know, there was considerable hardship being taken by the Serbian people in terms of economic sanctions. Although there was a lot of leakage of oil, there were times when you would see queues on visits to Belgrade going right round the block for petrol. And the standard of living of the Serbian people and Montenegrins diminished persistently in 1993, 1994, 1995. And as, you know, a politician, I could not understand why they did not force this issue.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, you said yourself, Lord Owen, that we spent hours and hours putting forth arguments for reasons to accept those peace plans. Now, do you consider that we should have used force against Republika Srpska, perhaps, which, apart from presenting arguments, that's the only other thing that we could have done, use force. Did you really think we should have used force, that the Serbs should attack the Serbs in order to resolve some of these outstanding problems? We opted for political settlements, political means, to solve the problem.

A. Well, I don't think it was necessary for you to use force. I think it was necessary for you to cut off fuel supplies, anything other than bare humanitarian necessities, and to cut off ammunition, cooperation and many other things. I mean, we have to remember that during this period, planes were still flying. The enforcement of the no-flight zone had not taken place really until well into 1993, and planes continued to ^{28470 BLANK PAGE 28471} fly after that. Helicopters flew. There were many areas where I think, in retrospect, you must ask yourself could you have forced them to reconsider that? And not by force of arms. I think that was pretty unrealistic to ask a Serbian leader to take up arms against fellow Serbs, and I never asked you to do that.

Q. Well, thank you for at least making that observation. So apart from political argumentation about the fact that this was against the interests of both the Serbs in Bosnia and the Serbs in Serbia and the citizens in Serbia and Montenegro as a whole, and to all intents and purposes to everybody in Yugoslavia, along with the pressure that was brought to bear by placing this interdiction, this was a very painful measure that was taken for us - it was painful to us - and it was reduced, in fact, to humanitarian aid. So that was the most painful measure that we resorted to, to set up barriers on the Drina. And Bo Pellnas, your representative, he was a Swede -- actually, it was our initiative to close off this because we thought that this was in the interests of both the Serbs in Bosnia and Serbs in Serbia and the people as a whole in order to arrive at peace. So what else could have been done? What could have been done other than that? Where is the limit? Where are the limits, and what do you consider was not done which could have been done if we had already excluded, for example, the use of force, which was quite logical, because we'd never resort to that.

A. Well, I think that, firstly, the cutting off supplies across the Drina and trying to seal the border for strategic supplies like oil and ammunition and equipment was not done until the end of August 1994, if my ²⁸⁴⁷² memory serves me correctly. So I certainly wanted you to do it immediately after the rejection of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan in Pale. And I certainly wanted you to do it in some parts of the negotiation of the European Union action plan, but in particular, I wanted you to do it after the Contact Group plan.

So the then-question is, was that for real? Were you stopping really sensitive supplies of military equipment to General Mladic in that period from September '74 on through 'til eventually NATO took action in end of August, early September 1995?

Now, that seems to be the key issue for you to ask and answer and explain to the Court.

Q. Lord Owen, we brought political pressure to bear, combined with this closing off, cutting off of the supplies, but not in such a way as to have that kill off the Serbs. The measure that was a very painful one for us, and you know this full well, was the maximum that we could have resorted to as a means of political persuasion. However, not across a border thereby jeopardising their survival. Nobody would resort to anything like that, and you know that full well.

A. Well, I'm only here to give evidence about what I know, but you know that Mr. Stoltenberg and I took that task on on behalf of the conference with a heavy heart, knowing that we were not likely to be able to deploy all the resources that were needed, but nevertheless, we undertook it because we believed it was both a legitimate pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to settle and a necessary pressure. And I hope that it did produce some more realism amongst the Bosnian Serbs, but the Contact Group ²⁸⁴⁷³ plan, as I say, by these five major countries, and their map fell to the -- it didn't produce a result, although it was very little different from the map that had been designed as part of the European Union action plan. But I would only say to you, you said to me when I left that, in retrospect, you thought the time when we were closest to a settlement was in December 1993 on the EU action plan. And certainly on paper, we were very close, and we needed to find a little more territory for President Izetbegovic in two areas, in Eastern Bosnia and in Western Bosnia. And we were talking about 0.5 of a per cent of the total territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That would have been a point when real pressure on Karadzic and Krajisnik in the run-up to that December negotiation could have been very important.

Q. Well, you've just been talking about those negotiations, and I'll have to go back to a topic which I broached a moment ago. Just let me round it off, but to make a digression before I do so. Lord Owen, I'm sure you remember full well that three sides negotiated and they were led by Izetbegovic, Karadzic, and Boban. The Serb side, the Muslim side, and the Croat side. Tudjman and myself attended at your invitation to help speed up the process. We weren't the actual negotiators ourselves. And I would say that already or, rather, the presidents of the two neighbouring republics who wanted to use all their influence to speed up the peace process. That's how I would put it. And throughout the time, I had the impression that we had the same goal in mind and the same objective.

And I'm sure you'll remember the position I took at the time, that ²⁸⁴⁷⁴ peace would be achieved if we protect the interests of all three nations equally, the Serbs and the Croats and the Muslims. So there was no talk or idea in our position of having a privileged position for any of the ethnic groups but to treat all three nations and their interests on a footing of equality.

So can you deny that it was along this direction that we gathered all our efforts and that I myself, for example, personally considered this to be in the best interests of the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina that peace be reached as soon as possible?

A. Yes, I think that is how you saw it. But as I say, the missing piece is, that you used those powers of persuasion at the negotiating chamber, but when a decision was -- you couldn't persuade, you seemed to stop there.

Now, you raised the question of President Tudjman. Now, there are many areas where I disagreed with what President Tudjman was doing, but he effectively controlled Mate Boban's negotiating position, whereas by -- by Pale, by May of 1993, you were not ready to exercise the same forceful persuasion or power over Karadzic and Krajisnik and General Mladic.

Q. Well, have you read the speech I made at Pale in 1993?

A. I only read extracts from it from Tanjug, but I gather it's now been put into -- somebody showed me a document earlier on about this. I look forward to reading it. But I have no doubt that you went to Pale wanting to persuade them. That's my own judgement. There are people who say I am naive in thinking that, that there was some complicated arrangements whereby you were not trying to set settlement. My own belief ²⁸⁴⁷⁵ is that you were, and that I believe is the view of Prime Minister Mitsotakis from Greece who came to Pale with you and I believe also spoke. I also know that is the view of President Cosic who is not always on your side on these issues, but he also spoke in Pale, and I think he believed and I know he believes - I was told by himself and I was also told by Professor Stojanovic that he believed that you were serious in your mood at Pale.

The issue for all of us is, and I no doubt bear some measure of responsibility for this too, why were we able -- why did we allow a group in Pale to block a settlement that was in the interests of everybody?

Q. That's a good question, but I assume that you also know that that was outside the possibilities of Belgrade's influence, and that is why a referendum came into being there, precisely because that pressure was great and there was no other answer. That's why a referendum was held later on.

But let's go back to this other topic, Lord Owen. You say, and I see that my English version copy, and we're going to have a break soon and I'll try and have it harmonised with your copy or, rather, the original that everybody else has here. It has different pagination, but if what I quoted from previously was to be found on page 90, then this next passage must also be on page 90.

Anyway, you talk about the hospital and your visit to Kosevo Hospital during that period of time and you say you were shocked because of the lack of heating there, and you arranged that fuel deliveries be made to heat the hospital and then you go on to say, and I quote: ²⁸⁴⁷⁶ "Unfortunately Ganic seemed to have blocked the agreement. The fuel arrived in Kosevo Hospital for several days to cover the Christmas holidays but afterwards was redirected and used for military purposes." May we have your comments on that, please?

A. Well, that is factually what I believe to be the case. But if I could just pick up our last conversations. In my written evidence, I don't know how much of that you have seen, the aftermath of the Bosnian Serb Assembly discussions in Pale I described in a COREU, which is a communication between European Union foreign Ministers on the 27th of April, 1993, and I don't think anything that I've said here in this courtroom is different from what I said in that COREU telegram.

Q. This policy for making the Muslim side appear as a victim obviously enjoyed support abroad, because you say in your book some ten pages later: "In this stage the propaganda war through the public relations became a characteristic of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The documents registered with the Ministry of Justice of the United States showed that Croatia paid a Washington public relations firm Rudder-Finn Global Public Affairs a certain sum so as to give a positive picture of the Croatian efforts. The Bosnian side also paid for services including writing and columns and editorials and letters to the editor. According to Atlanta Journal from the 28th of February, 1993, from June to September, less than six months, Rudder-Finn, on behalf of the Bosnian government, organised more than 20 interviews with the largest news agencies in the US. There were 13 announcements, 38 news reports by fax, 17 official letters, and eight official statements. Meetings were arranged ²⁸⁴⁷⁷ with Mr. Gore, Eagleburger, ten or so influential senators including the majority leader George Mitchell and minority leader Dole. There were 48 telephone conversations with members of the House of Representatives. 20 conversations with members of the Senate, more than 80 with newspaper columnists, et cetera."

And then you say: "An international committee for the former Yugoslavia, we did not have the means with which to respond to anything of this kind."

Could you comment on this, please?

A. Well, there was a propaganda battle, if you like, or a public debate in the United States of America, and every side -- every party in the former Yugoslavia was putting their case, and from time to time we as negotiators were trying to ensure that it was a more balanced debate and that people did understand the complexities of the issues. There was a substantial body of opinion in the United States for quite awhile who believed that the Serbs in Bosnia had all come in from Serbia and didn't understand that they were indigenous to Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was a region of the former Yugoslavian republic.

All this is true, but I think we're in danger of missing the point. While these negotiations were going on, painfully, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, more and more people were being killed, more and more people were being ethnically cleansed, and facts were being created on the ground. And I felt, and I hoped at times that you felt, an urgency to achieve a peace settlement. And that, I think, is the tragedy, that during that time we were not able to stop this war. And ²⁸⁴⁷⁸ an imperfect peace was far better than a continuation of the war.

Q. Lord Owen, that was the position that we all shared, after all, the position that we all advocated, for it was quite clear that there can be no crueler war than a civil war and that nothing can be corrected much. The only thing was to stop the war.

Surely it was in that direction that all our joint efforts were geared, that is, to halt the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We discussed this for three years. For three years we invested efforts to that end. Is that something that anyone can deny?

A. No, but I was not able to persuade the European Union or the NATO countries to exert force to achieve a settlement. And we were not under the same inhibition. It was not like -- asking us to use force was not the same as asking you to use force. And you were not prepared to exert the political power and the military power to cut the Bosnian Serb army so off from supplies that they would be forced to settle on a settlement which you yourself thought was fair to them.

That's the question which we have to ask. I don't mind admitting I failed to mobilise the Western world, if you like, but I mean Russia was involved in this too, to interdict the supply lines, which I thought was the least intrusive military action to take, and I'm asking why did you fail to use your power, which was to cut the supplies off? You only tried to do that. You claim that you tried, and I'm not yet sure about whether you tried whole-heartedly and completely, in September 1994.

Q. Well, that is your impression, but I am saying that this was an extremely painful measure for us to take, and we took it. Otherwise, it ²⁸⁴⁷⁹ wouldn't have been painful at all.

You yourself, in your book, Lord Owen, say that not even the UN soldiers understood fully how they should act. And I have here from page 578 of your book, but that obviously doesn't correspond to the copy that you have, though it is an English language edition, I will quote you but you will probably remember. I will be very correct: "For UN soldiers on the ground, impartiality meant that the threat to Bosnian Serbs with air attacks because of heavy armaments in the exclusion zone also implied threats of attack against Muslims should they use such weapons or try to get military superiority. Also, close-air support had to apply to all parties to the conflict. US commanders in NATO were not allowed to accept this impartiality because their order was to address Washington should the question arise as to any action being taken against anyone other than the Serbs."

And that is the end of your quotation. My question is: Did such an approach taken from the outside encourage the Muslims not to end their operations and to continue the activities they were engaged in in accordance with the model that you describe as Ganic's, but I think it was the model adopted by their entire leadership. Is that right or not, Lord Owen?

A. I have that quote. It's on page 391, for those who are working from the paperback version. I stand by everything I said in that. We've all had to learn a good deal about peacemaking and peacekeeping from the period of the different wars in the former Yugoslavia, and all of us have made mistakes, and I include myself in that. And I don't think any of us ²⁸⁴⁸⁰ can be proud of what happened during those wars. And I think that the search for impartiality is an extremely difficult one while there is a war going on. And as I say, you can impartial on the negotiations, but you cannot be neutral about things like ethnic cleansing, things like actions which breach the conventions of war and the Geneva Conventions. And I think that we have to face the fact that despite all this negotiation and during all this negotiation, all of that was going on. So I -- I think that we can only conclude from this that your area of activity, as you've admitted, was to put pressure on but not to use force. I have not denied that you were not capable -- you were not -- it was not possible for any leader in Belgrade to use force against the Bosnian Serbs, but I still think you've not convinced me about why you did not use those other political and military pressures that were open to you to force these extremely intransigent people accept the compromise that's necessary for a peace settlement in Pale.

Q. Very well, Lord Owen. So I am responsible for not having forced a neighbouring state to do something which I really felt was in the interests of the Serbian people, and that is not at issue. With what means, if we exclude force, which really was an unacceptable means from every standpoint, including the moral one?

JUDGE MAY: We have been over this question, but I'm going to ask Lord Owen whether he accepts the characterisation which you have put into that question.

What the accused says -- it may be a question which we're going to have to answer, of course, not for a witness, but what the accused is, "I ²⁸⁴⁸¹ am not responsible for having forced a neighbouring state to do something which I really felt was in the interests of the Serb people." Is that a fair characterisation of your understanding of the position, Lord Owen, or would you rather leave that point?

MR. NICE: You've missed out a significant link. Not having forced.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour missed out a significant negative in quoting the question. It was for not having forced a neighbouring state.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Not having forced a neighbouring state. It may be --

THE WITNESS: Yes. I think there are two interpretations of the use of the word "forced." My belief is that he should have forced them to have agreed this by using the military and economic and trading pressures that were available to him as the neighbouring state on which they relied for the materials to continue to fight that war, and I believe that he should have done that. And I think it would have carried much more conviction with the West if he had both acted as he did in the negotiating chamber and had then coupled it with the sort of force, as I say military and political but not bombing or not shooting but literally cutting them off from their supplies which they were able to continue this war, I think that was a great error on Mr. Milosevic, then President Milosevic's, part. And I'm sure he can point out many errors which I made as well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I have no intention of pointing up your errors, Lord Owen, but ²⁸⁴⁸² would you allow for a slightly different wording of what you said? Namely, you said, "who relied on us to be able to wage war." But would you allow a different wording? And that would be that relied on us to be able to survive. That it was a question of their survival, that that was the core issue, and it was with that regard that they relied on us. And it was absolutely our duty to assist them to survive, precisely those Serbs who had been living there for centuries in those areas rather than coming from Serbia craving to grab other people's territories. Do you make a distinction between warring, waging war, and survival?

A. I think you were right not to interfere with genuine humanitarian aid to the Bosnian Serbs in September '74 -- 1994 and then onwards, but I think you need to be able to convince many people, including myself, that why you didn't do it before and then when you did put this restriction on supplies whether you really did ensure that they were deprived of ammunition, they were deprived of weapons, and they were deprived of fuel. Now, you may say that fuel is in part humanitarian and diesel that runs a tank also runs a tractor, but there is a point where you can put pressure on which can focus the minds of people and make them do things which they're reluctant to do, and I don't think you did that.

Q. That's a question for judgement. The difference between a tank and a tractor, a hospital, and ammunitions. And it is very difficult to find the right measure. But I shall use another quotation from your book, and this is on my English version copy, page 321. Because a moment ago, in one of the quotations, we saw that the UN could not be impartial. You ²⁸⁴⁸³ yourself said that. And I quote what you are saying: "The senior UN officials were practical soldiers who were confronting very difficult problems on the ground, and necessarily they felt that their role was to keep the peace, relying on classical examples and experiences from previous peacekeeping UN operations. What they found difficult to understand was that the Bosnian Muslims, for quite understandable reasons, were against law and order. Disorder and destabilisation were component parts of the strategy of the Bosnian Muslims. They needed to prevent people accepting the Serbian front lines as durable borders. They also saw nothing wrong in the UN protecting them in safe areas while at the same time they could attack from them. I assumed that the Muslim commanders felt that this was not their problem, that is, that the UN Security Council was adopting inconsistent resolutions. They would do everything to make the best of them. Basically, the UN and the Bosnian Muslim commanders necessarily got on each other's nerves and it was sad to listen to various generals in Sarajevo, the Canadian MacKenzie, the Frenchman Morillon, the Belgian Briquemont, the British generals, General Rose and Smith before him, were personally criticised in Sarajevo and in America for being pro-Serb while endeavouring to implement the humanitarian and peacekeeping mandate that required impartiality. With respect to many of these disputed issues, the UN Security Council under US pressure did not even pretend or try to make a pretence of impartiality." I hope I have quoted you correctly. So, Lord Owen, to be impartial was interpreted as being pro-Serb. To be on the side of the Muslims was something that was permissible and desirable, and that was ²⁸⁴⁸⁴ considered to be an impartial attitude. Did you have similar difficulties?

A. Well, I was trying to understand the viewpoint of in that case the Bosnian-Herzegovnian both. You may not wish to yourself, although I think sometimes you tried to. President Izetbegovic was under siege in his capital city. He was seeing the largest population group pushed down into 10 per cent or a bit more at times. He was facing ethnic cleansing. There was still even at this stage some camps still going -- holding Muslims hostage in appalling conditions, and there was this continued shelling and sniping, all of which he felt, with some justice, that the world was ignoring. Of course he couldn't agree to freeze the present position. The present position was extraordinarily adverse to the Bosnian Muslims. It was unfair in every particular.

And I think that this is why both Mr. Vance and Mr. Stoltenberg and I grew very disillusioned with cease-fires. We felt the cease-fires were, firstly, not kept. People would leave the negotiating table and immediately order up shelling. So they were not honest cease-fire agreements. Barely was the ink dry than there was some breach. And secondly, they were intrinsically unfair in that they froze the situation. So we sought a settlement, an overall settlement, and I think that was the logic behind much of your negotiating, was that we had to put together a package deal. Having got the package, then we had to pressurise to get agreement, and that's what I think we failed to do. You on your side controlling the supplies and we on our side of not using sufficient force to disrupt the supplies. ^{28485 BLANK PAGE 28486}

Q. Tell me, please, Lord Owen, since you mentioned ethnic cleansing several times, camps, and other such things, as a person who was present throughout that period in the area, wasn't it clear at least to you that all three parties to the conflict were engaging in such acts, that there were no innocents? There was no innocent party. Did you know how many hundreds of thousands of refugees there were in Serbia, for example, even before the events of 1995 in Krajina? How many hundreds of thousands? Tens of thousands of them were Muslims from Bosnia who had fled to Serbia to seek salvation there. And how many Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia who were also victims of ethnic cleansing? How many camps for Serbs there were in Bosnia and Herzegovina, how many in Sarajevo itself? When you're talking about ethnic cleansing and camps, is it clear how many were on the side of the Muslims at the same time?

A. Mr. Milosevic, I have accepted many quotations, selective quotations, from my book in which I try to give an accurate and as fair interpretation as possible, but I could take you back to many different quotations in which I make it abundantly clear that there is not an equality of evil doing. There is not an equality on many of these practices. It is a sad fact, and I wish it to be made abundantly clear, the Bosnian Serbs were responsible for many more cases of malnutrition, of maltreatment, of killing or of raping or of a whole range of issues than were either the Croatians or the Muslim population, and that is an issue which you have to face up to.

It is understandable to defend the Serbian people, and people could understand it, but there is no impartial observer of what was going ²⁸⁴⁸⁷ on in Bosnia-Herzegovina during those years who has not come to the conclusion that the Bosnian Serbs were offending on all of these grounds substantially more than were the Bosnian Croats or the Bosnian Muslims. And that is why the world opinion at times may not strike you as being impartial, because they did see a pattern of aggression, a pattern of violence, and a pattern of racism which they found and still find deeply offensive, and that is why this Tribunal is hearing this case at the moment, and these are issues which legitimately have to be raised and need to be resolved if the world is to stop these practices taking place in the future.

JUDGE MAY: It's now past 2.00, and we're going to adjourn. Mr. Nice, certainly in one moment. There's just one matter I want to address.

Mr. Milosevic, you asked for time. It is true that the Prosecution had five minutes longer than they should have done. We will reflect that in the order which we make in respect of you. You can have the first session tomorrow. That's an hour and a half more, which will give you significantly more, or more in any event, than the three hours which we promised you.

So you should prepare on that -- prepare on that basis. And try not to argue with the witness --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I haven't noticed that I've argued with the witness at all. I only put questions to him. But I think that in view of the time you have at your disposal, you can at least give me two sessions rather than an hour and a half, as you say. ²⁸⁴⁸⁸

JUDGE MAY: No. That's our ruling. The difficulty apparently in relation to the book is that the accused has the CD-ROM version, which -- and the pagination obviously works out differently in some way. Yes.

MR. NICE: Lord Owen expressed an interest in being able to read the speech of the accused at Pale which was not formally available to him. It's an exhibit now in the case that I mentioned without referring him to. If the Chamber wants him to see it, the Chamber may recall that the exhibit was introduced 538, tab 9, first in incomplete format through the witness Donia, and at the request of the Chamber, a full version was provided - I think it was provided this morning - and should the Chamber want to make that available to the witness, the accused's contributions can be found on pages 19 and 94 of it.

JUDGE MAY: I'm sure the witness has had quite enough reading to do without any more.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, as far as my speech is concerned --

JUDGE MAY: Just a moment, Mr. Milosevic. I've got your -- we will give you back your ethnic map of Sarajevo, and you can deal with it tomorrow, if you want, in examination.

One other thing, Mr. Nice, and that's about the rest of the week, because we have Mr. Harland who must, I understand, be heard on Wednesday. There is cross-examination outstanding of I think about two and three-quarter hours in his case, so there may be time for another but very shortly -- ²⁸⁴⁸⁹

MR. NICE: There is another witness available for tomorrow, a 92 bis witness.

JUDGE MAY: All right. Mr. Milosevic, what is it you wanted to say? We need to finish.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As far as my speeches at Pale are concerned, when one of the witnesses testified, you are now saying it's Mr. Donia, I gave you a newspaper from which my speeches at Pale can be seen, because what Mr. Nice tendered here were incorrect or, rather, they were just excerpts which distorted the point. So I tendered a newspaper from that period, and you have that in your documents.

JUDGE MAY: We do. We now have, I hope, a full version of the speech.

We will adjourn now. Nine o'clock tomorrow morning, please.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.07 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 4th day of

November, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.