Unacceptable Wartime Territorial Changes

Testifying at Ratko Mladic’s trial, wartime member of the Bosnian Presidency Nenad Kecmanovic says that the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, used its military predominance to occupy a bigger part of territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, in the summer of 1992.

“For that reason the Army controlled 75 percent of BiH territory in August 1992,” Defence witness Kecmanovic said, while being cross-examined by prosecutors.
 
However, he said that Serbs used their military predominance on frontlines, just like Bosnian Muslims and Croats had previously used their numerical predominance in the Assembly of BiH by outvoting Serb delegates when rendering a decision on sovereignty of BiH.
 
Quoting Kecmanovic’s words from minutes from one of the Bosnian State Presidency’s sessions, at which he said that “the territorial and ethnical changes created using violence, war and genocide” were unacceptable, the Prosecutor asked the witness if he actually referred to the occupation of territories by Serbs.
 
“Probably,” Kecmanovic said, after having hesitated for a while. Also, he confirmed that, at that time he considered the territorial pretensions by both Serbs and Croats “unacceptable”.
 
Kecmanovic began testifying on Thursday, July 10, when he said that the Bosnian war was caused by an anti-constitutional outvoting of Serbs in the Assembly of BiH, when rendering a decision on organizing a referendum on independence of BiH in October 1991.
 
He testified at the trial of Ratko Mladic, former Commander of the Main Headquarters of VRS, who is charged with genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities, persecution of the non-Serb population, terrorizing citizens of Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.
 
Also, the witness said that it was probably possible to transform BiH without the ethnic changes in the field and that “such offers were made, but the Muslim side rejected them”.
 
The Prosecution attempted to prove that, in July 1992 Kecmanovic left the Presidency of BiH after having been invited by Republika Srpska authorities in Pale to do it, but he denied it, claiming that he “joined and left it as per my own assessment”.
 
The trial of Mladic is due to be continued on Monday, July 14.