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Hague Prosecution witness Jeremy Bowen, a BBC journalist who reported from Bosnia and Herzegovina on several occasions between 1992 and 1995, recalled during the course of his testimony that ethnic cleansing was “an undeniable fact” during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, adding that “Serb forces led the way” in the process.
“I witnessed ethnic cleansing during the course of the entire war, but the nature of the process changed over time.
“I remember seeing it in Bijeljina in 1994, and that they no longer forced non-Serbs to leave their houses at night, giving them a brief warning, like they did in Prijedor in 1992, but that process had become institutionalized and was carried out by Bosnian Serb officials in an open manner,” the witness said.
Bowen testified at the trial of Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, who is on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war committed from 1992 to 1995.
Karadzic is charged, among other things, with crimes against humanity committed in the Prijedor and Bijeljina areas, as well as 18 other Bosnian municipalities and a shelling and sniping campaign conducted in Sarajevo with the aim of “terrorizing civilians”.
Bowen said he reported from Sarajevo several times in the period from 1992 to 1995, adding he saw Bosnian Serb forces “keeping the city under siege” in the mentioned period of time.
“I believed the siege was used as a weapon in the war, just like bullets and grenades. It was used for keeping citizens loyal to the Bosnian Government under pressure and exerting political pressure by using it as a lever in relations with the international community. It was simply a loop around the neck of common citizens in the city,” Bowen explained.
The witness said that civilians “were often the targets of sniping and shelling attacks” on the city.
“At some stage people in Sarajevo stopped taking care of how they looked. I was surprised because the conditions deteriorated over time even though more humanitarian aid was coming, but people’s despair was much bigger. In fact, in the beginning people believed the war would be over quickly but following the first winter, they struggled to survive in horrible conditions,” Bowen said.
Bowen told the Court he personally saw “dead bodies and victims of sniper bullets”, adding that foreign cameramen recorded Sarajevo citizens “running across crossroads in order to avoid being hit by snipers, which became the iconography of wartime Sarajevo”.
“Serbs used to say this was a set up; that the Bosnian Government set up the shelling and sniping incidents because it knew that foreign cameramen would be there and journalists would want to write about those crimes, but I do not believe that.
“The city was targeted all the time. There was shooting when journalists were not around, so I do not believe that those events were set up for us,” the witness said. .
The next hearing is due to take place on Friday, January 14, when Karadzic will continue the cross-examination of witness Bowen.
D.Dž.
