Mladic: Each Sniper under Control

Rose said that Mladic controlled artillery and sniper attacks on the city and that Serb leaders used the siege of Sarajevo as a means for putting pressure on the predominantly Muslim authorities, UNPROFOR and international community.

“Nothing could have happened in the military field without Mladic authorising or knowing about it,” the witness said. He said that all decisions were made at “the top of the pyramid” of authorities in Pale, adding that Radovan Karadzic was one of them.

The British General pointed out that Mladic had “total control” over his subordinates, that he often personally led offensives in the field and that he controlled “each VRS sniper”.

Among other things, General Mladic, the then Commander of VRS, is charged with terrorising civilians in Sarajevo through long-lasting shelling and sniping attacks.

According to his testimony, when Rose arrived in Sarajevo in January 1994, the city was “without light, water and electricity”, while Serb authorities used the deprivation of those supplies and a block on humanitarian aid to put pressure against the then Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so it would accept peace under their conditions.

Upon his arrival, he was told that civilians were killed by grenades fired from Serb positions, which he personally witnessed soon after his arrival.

In response to UNPROFOR Commander’s protests, Mladic and Karadzic kept saying that they just responded to fire from Sarajevo.

“However, the disproportion of their response undermined the credibility of their allegations. (…) One should just look at Dobrinja, which was totally destroyed. Its residents lived in basements. Artillery fire was opened even if a cat walked the neighbourhood’s streets,” Rose said.

Following NATO air strikes against VRS positions around Gorazde, Mladic refused to speak to UNPROFOR for two months, saying that the UN forces were enemy forces.

“They placed hostages in the vicinity of their military buildings, hoping that they would prevent NATO strikes,” Rose said.

While being cross-examined by Mladic’s Defence attorney Branko Lukic, Rose said that the then Vice-President of the Bosnian Presidency Ejub Ganic “organised a secret police, whose members opened sniper fire on trams” in Sarajevo.

He confirmed that the Tuzla airport was never opened in order to accept humanitarian aid, because Alija Izetbegovic, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not want the deliveries to be supervised by Serb “inspectors”, among others. Rose said that Izetbegovic said that he would “rather see 10,000 Bosnians starve to death than accept any Serbs on Bosnian territories”.

Responding to Lukic’s suggestion that “Muslims were in favour of the continuation of the war”, Rose said that the Sarajevo authorities “abandoned the peace process at a certain moment in 1994, after the Americans had armed and trained their forces following the signing of the Muslim-Croat agreement in Washington”.

“They considered that going back to the war option was in their best interest. I was of the opinion that this was completely wrong. I said that to Izetbegovic and Ganic,” Rose said.

By asking a number of questions about deadly explosions in Dobrinja and at Markale in February 1994, Mladic’s Defence attorney suggested that UNPROFOR was never able to determine the exact locations from which those grenades were fired.

The witness responded by saying that no radars were set in the Sarajevo surroundings in order to determine the firing locations at that time, but he stuck to his allegation that the grenades fired at Dobrinja came from positions held by VRS. He confirmed that the initial findings of French investigators at Markale suggested that the grenade was fired from ABiH positions, but it “became less clear” later on.

General Rose will continue responding to questions by Mladic’s Defence tomorrow. Mladic is charged with genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities, persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.