Karadzic: Crisis Committees ‘Financed Paramilitary Formations’

Presenting her report, Henson said that the transformation of municipal bodies of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, into municipal crisis committees was “a pattern of transforming party bodies into state bodies”, whose aim was to create an ethnically clean state.

Hague Prosecution expert witness Henson mentioned that the transformation was based on “instructions for the organisation and functioning of Serb bodies in Bosnia under extraordinary circumstances”, which was issued by the Main Board of SDS on December 19, 1991.

“According to the instructions, representatives of SDS, the Army, police, but also other municipal bodies, took part in the work of those crisis committees. Decisions were made collectively. As of April 1992, the crisis committees played an important role in taking over the power in municipalities all over Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Henson explained.

Karadzic, former President of SDS and Republika Srpska, RS, is on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY for genocide, violation of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The indictment alleges that Karadzic participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently removing Bosnian Muslims and Croats from 20 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Crisis committees and wartime presidencies were civilian authorities which ordered the arrests and detention of the non-Serb population, as well as the deportation and mass moving out of those people. In that way, they first divided the ethnic groups and stressed that the Serbian Republic could belong to Serbs only,” Hanson said.

Speaking about regional crisis committees, expert witness Henson explained that they forwarded the instructions that came from the republic level to the regional and municipal level, thus implementing the central authority’s policy, which was binding for all local committees.

“Some crisis committees directly participated in inviting people to join paramilitary formations and paying them. We have such an example in Zvornik, where 10 million Dinars was paid, as per an decision made by the municipal government, to the commander of ‘Zute ose’ paramilitary formation, whose members were volunteers from Zvornik,” Henson said.

At the beginning of cross-examination, indictee Karadzic asked the witness to explain how she became an analyst with the Hague Prosecution, saying that the report on establishment and functioning of crisis committees was irrelevant.

“Your entire report is characterised by a selectivity in the interpretation of the documents. I think that you were very selective in interpreting all of the documents. The Court should not take your report into consideration,” Karadzic said.

Cross-examination of witness Henson is due to be continued on June 14.

D.E.