False Promises in Potocari
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Testifying before the International CriminalTribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Mile Janjic said thatfollowing the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, Serb forces separatedhundreds of Muslim men.
Janjic, a former member of the militarypolice with the Bratunac Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, said that he sawa group of Serb soldiers in front of the school building in Rocevic village,near Zvornik, on July 14 or 15, 1995.
He said those soldiers told him thatMuslims from Srebrenica were detained in the school gym.
The indictment against Mladiccharges him with genocide against about 7,000 Srebrenica Muslims. It allegesthat the Muslims were transported by the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, fromPotocari via Bratunac to several locations in the vicinity of Zvornik, wherethey were shot.
According to the charges andverdicts pronounced by the Hague Tribunal, about 500 prisoners were taken fromthe school building in Rocevic to a location near Kozluk and killed.
Acting on an order issued by ColonelRadoslav Jankovic, Security Officer of the VRS Main Headquarters, Janjic saidhe counted refugees in Potocari and vehicles with which they were evacuated onJuly 12 and 13, 1995.
He specified that on July 12 hecounted “10-15 buses” and approximately 70 persons in each of them. On thefollowing day the number was “two or three times higher”.
The witness said members of the SpecialPolice of Republika Srpska separated Muslim men in Potocari and sent them to anearby “white house”. The prisoners were transported from the house by busesand trucks to Bratunac. According to the charges, they were then transported toscaffolds near Zvornik on July 14.
Janjic said that he saw GeneralMladic and Radislav Krstic, Commander of the Drina Corps of VRS, in Potocari asrefugees were being separated and taken away. Krstic was sentenced by the HagueTribunal to 35 years in prison.
Janjic told the Tribunal that duringhis “very brief” stay in Rocevic village, he saw a few military policemen “nextto an UNPROFOR transporter”, and other Serb soldiers in front of the localschool building on July 14 or 15.
The witness said that he asked them“what was happening”. “They told me that Muslims were held in the schoolbuilding and that, as far as they knew, they were supposed to be transported toTeocak. That is all I found out from my colleagues,” Janjic said.
Responding to a suggestion byMladic’s defence attorney Miodrag Stojanovic during the cross-examination,Janjic said that he did not notice that Serb soldiers abused Srebrenica Muslimsin Potocari. He said that this was due to the fact that Mladic was present, so“discipline was at an enviable level”.
The witness said that he heardColonel Jankovic reassuring “the upset” Muslim men that “there was no need tobe afraid, worry or panic”, because “buses would arrive” and take them to theirfamilies. “He sounded honest to me,” Janjic said.
When asked whether he knew at thetime that the Muslim men would not be exchanged as they were promised, Janjicanswered negatively.
“I now believe that many people werekilled…Whoever passes through Potocari can see that. It was not supposed tohappen. I did not know. I could not even assume,” Janjic said.
Mladic is charged with persecutingMuslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorizing civilians inSarajevo through a campaign of shelling and sniping and taking UNPROFOR membershostage.
The trial is due to continue on May14.
