Predominance over Municipalities and Army

Tieger says that Radovan Karadzic’s thesis that chaos and anarchy were present in municipalities, that there was no ethnic cleansing and that he did not have authority over the Army, were false.
“Crisis committees were the authority. It is not true that crisis committees existed, because there was no system. Karadzic requested that bodies, whose members would be his officials, be established. Each municipality, without exception, respected Karadzic’s line,” Tieger said.
According to him, in his capacity as President of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, Karadzic governed that party completely. He quoted the indictee’s words, saying that he would “expel from the party all those, who made a single pen move error.”
In order to demonstrate the level of Karadzic’s influence on crisis committees in individual municipalities, Tieger quoted intercepted conversations, indicating that “there is no disunion in Prijedor, because the Party police is being respected”.
“From the beginning of the conflict, the Crisis Committee in Rogatica made divisions. They reiterated Karadzic’s policy,” Tieger said.
When it comes to the Assembly, Government, as well as the Republika Srpska Army, Tieger spoke about the very big influence of Karadzic.
“The SDS established the Assembly. Only six members belonged to other parties. Karadzic was a key speaker. They used to say that Karadzic was able to change the course of a session in five sentences only,” Tieger said.
He also spoke about the destruction of mosques with the aim of removing Muslims.
“Ethnic cleansing was the reason for the destruction of mosques,” Tieger said.
Speaking about paramilitary formations that operated in Bijeljina, Brcko and other municipalities close to the border between Bosnia and Serbia, Tieger said that they did not appear mysteriously, but they acted in collaboration with Karadzic and the authorities.
“Paramilitary formations were welcomed for what they did. What the paramilitary formations did had a genocidal tendency,” Tieger said.
The Hague Prosecution is due to present its closing statement for ten working hours.