Karadzic: Terrorised by Artillery
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The VRS, which was under your command, conducted ethnic cleansing and attacked the enclaves in Eastern Bosnia Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde and the area to the southeast of Banja Luka, said Tucker, who was Military Assistant to Philippe Morillon, UNPROFOR Commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time.
Karadzic, the then President of Republika Srpska, RS and Supreme Commander of VRS, is charged, among other things, with the persecution of the non-Serb population throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and genocide in Srebrenica and seven other Bosnian municipalities in the period from 1992 to 1995.
During the course of cross-examination Karadzic said that Tucker’s testimony was a generalised declaration, adding that the witness did not personally determine those things. Tucker responded several times by saying that he personally witnesses the persecutions during the course of his stay in the Srebrenica surroundings in March 1993, along with General Morillon, adding that reports from the field confirmed that as well.
In his defence the indictee quoted his own allegations made during the war, saying that military results in the field could not predetermine the final solution of the conflict and that all civilians would be enabled to go back to their homes.
Why did you expel them in the first place? Tucker asked in response to those allegations.
When Karadzic said that Bosnian Serbs were ready to return up to 20 percent of the territories they conquered, the witness said that, during his term in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbs neither returned any of the territories nor allowed the ethnically cleansed minorities to return to their homes.
While denying that Bosniaks were persecuted, the indictee said that civilians fled from Serb forces, which fought against the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that those forces were never in contact with them. However, the witness said that Bosniak civilians did not have any realistic option to stay, considering the fact that their villages were terrorised by the VRS artillery.
Why were they attacked after all? Tucker asked Karadzic, who said that he would come to that later on.
Karadzic denied Tucker’s allegations that no organised Bosniak military forces were present in the Eastern Bosnia enclaves, saying that 30,000 Muslim soldiers were present in the area between Zvornik and Srebrenica and between 13,000 and 15,000 in Srebrenica itself.
Had this been true, the outcome would have been different, the witness said, saying that Karadzic’s allegations were absurd exaggerations.
The witness stuck to his previous allegations that some poorly armed Bosniak civilians were present in that area and that they tried to defend their villages from VRS attacks. However, he confirmed that Naser Oric’s forces attacked Serb positions and surrounding villages from Srebrenica in an attempt to get hold of guns, ammunition and food.
Commenting on an indictee’s suggestion, Tucker said that it was true that the VRS could have conquered Srebrenica in the spring of 1993 had it wanted to and that Karadzic forbade it to do it.
When Karadzic said that he and the RS civil authorities invested efforts in ensuring the passage of humanitarian convoys to Srebrenica, the witness said that not one single convoy was allowed to enter the enclave in the period from November 1992 to mid-1993, although civilians were dying due to a lack of food and medication.
You are misled by what Muslims told you, the indictee told the witness.
I saw that with my own eyes in Srebrenica and Konjevic polje, Tucker said, adding that about 40,000 people lived in Srebrenica at that time and then only 7,000 of them lived in their houses, while the others were Bosniaks, who had been deported from other places. The witness said that, due to the lack of food, they ate tree bark and yellow flowers that grew on the surrounding hills.
The trial of Karadzic is due to continue on January 19.R.M.
