Advocated for Negotiations

Testifying in Karadzic’s Defence at The Hague, Ceklic said that the SDS leader always advocated for living together and finding a peaceful solution to the crisis through negotiations.

“Karadzic used to say: It is better to negotiate with Muslims and Croats for a hundred years than pour even one drop of blood,” Ceklic said.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is charged with persecuting Muslims and Croats in 20 municipalities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as other crimes.

Ceklic expressed regrets due to the fact that the Muslim and Croatian side did not have “such a politician and big man”, because, had they had one, the crisis would have been solved in a peaceful manner.

While being cross-examined by Prosecutor Catrina Gustafsson, the witness confirmed having left Bosnia and Herzegovina a short time after the beginning of the war.

Responding to a prosecutor’s allegation that he was fired in 1996, because he had falsified his university diploma, Ceklic said that it was not true and that he decided to quit himself and moved to Bijeljina, because he got a job as a professor.

When the Prosecutor presented some Party documents, confronting him with an allegation that the SDS claimed a large part of the Bosnian territory, the witness said that Serbs owned 70 percent of land in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Serbs did not impose authority to others. They governed the areas where they were the majority. They did not want to master anybody in the areas where they were not the majority, while, in those where they were, they tried to solve that in the most democratic manner,” Grujic said.

When asked whether he had heard of Karadzic’s statements that “no Muslim corner stones would be placed on Serbian land… The first such stone and all subsequent ones will be blown up”, the witness answered negatively, adding that he too “owned land in Herzegovina, which he would never give away to Muslims”.

The trial of Karadzic is due to continue next week.