Language Illogicality in Mladics Intercepted Conversations
This post is also available in: Bosnian
While mentioning that those pieces of evidence are not relevant for his report on the chronology of mass murders of Bosniaks following the occupation of Srebrenica by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, in July 1995, Butler said that there was evidence to support a UN conclusion that weapons and military equipment were transported via the Tuzla airport in the winter of that year.
Mladic, former Commander of VRS, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Bosniaks in the days that followed the occupation of Srebrenica by his forces on July 11, 1995. Besides that, he is on trial for the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.
Defence attorney Dragan Ivetic quoted a report by the Nordic Battalion of UNPROFOR from February 1995, according to which an unidentified cargo airplane, which was followed by combat planes, landed at the airport in Tuzla. It further said that the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina then prevented blue helmets from approaching and searching the airplane.
Responding to a suggestion by Ivetic, former US intelligence officer Butler confirmed that NATO, or some of its member states, must have been involved in those deliveries, considering the fact that the Alliance controlled the sky above Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was proclaimed a no-flight zone.
The Defence also quoted a letter, in which indictee Mladic protested, two days later, to the then UNPROFOR Commander Rupert Smith due to the fact that NATO enabled the delivery of weapons for the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that it represented a drastic violation of a ceasefire agreement, which was in force at the time, and resolutions, prohibiting delivery of weapons.
When asked by Ivetic whether he knew where the weapons and equipment transported via the Tuzla airport ended up, Butler said that, according to UNPROFORs evidence, those deliveries were smuggled to Srebrenica and Zepa.
Butler accepted the allegation that the VRS took the smuggling of weapons to those enclaves into consideration, when it imposed strict controls of convoys, which transported humanitarian aid for the local population in the protected zones and material needed by UNPROFOR.
When asked whether UNPROFOR too participated in the smuggling, Butler said that he saw in VRS documents that Ukrainian soldiers used to sell fuel, adding that he believed that the two other conflicting parties got supplies in that way too.
The Defence tried to deny the authenticity of intercepted conversations between Mladic and other VRS officers, which Butler used for preparing his report, by pointing to language illogicalities. Quoting Mladics conversation with an unidentified interlocutor after the fall of Srebrenica, Defence attorney Ivetic pointed out that the transcript said that the VRS Commander said that he would evacuate all Bosniaks, both those who want it and those who do not want it.
Ivetic said that Mladic would have never used the Croatian version of the term evacuate, but rather its Serbian version.
Butler said that he did not know that, because, while performing his analysis, he used the English translation of the documents. I cannot comment whether Mladic spoke Croatian or if that word was used by the operator who intercepted the conversation, the witness said.
Mladics Defence attorney is due to continue cross-examining Butler on Monday, September 16.
