Bosnian Serb Captain Testifies About Genocide Plan

For three days, the man who coordinated ethnic cleansing and genocide at Srebrenica testified in the trial of his former commander, Vidoje Blagojevic. Momir Nikolic's role in the trial would have been different had he not pled guilty to crimes against humanity on May 7, 2003. Of the four accused in this second Srebrenica case, Dragan Obrenovic also pled guilty, while Dragan Jokic, head of the engineering battalion, is standing trial with Mr. Blagojevic. Mr. Obrenovic is scheduled to testify against his former co-accused next week.

Mr. Nikolic was the first Bosnian Serb officer to plead guilty to crimes committed in Srebrenica, where tens of thousands of civilians were forcibly expelled, while an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered and buried in mass graves. His testimony was chilling in its directness and exceptional in his unequivocal acceptance of responsibility. The following colloquy with Prosecutor Peter McCloskey provides an example.

Mr. McCloskey asks the witness whether, during the separation of women and children from men and boys on July 12, 1995, he saw any of the Muslims being abused by Serb soldiers or police.

Nikolic: 'Yes at every spot where separation of men from their families took place, I saw innumerable cases of abuse and mistreatment of the men being separated.'

McCloskey: 'What kind of abuse and mistreatment?'

Nikolic: 'After separation was done in a rough and inappropriate way, personal belongings were seized and thrown onto a pile on the way to the 'white house.' [There was] physical beating with hands and feet, verbal abuse, calling them Balijas, Turks, Ustashes.'

McCloskey: 'Did you see any superior officers of the MUP (civilian police) or VRS (Bosnian Serb Army) attempt in any way to stop the abuse?'
Nikolic: 'No. While I was present, during the separation and mistreatment, I did not see any officers trying to stop it.'

McCloskey: 'Did you [try to stop it]?'

Nikolic: 'No. I did not do anything. I did not try to prevent the mistreatment or abuse.'

McCloskey: 'Do you consider that dereliction of responsibility as a military officer?'

Nikolic: 'I can say that I was aware and an eye witness. I did not undertake anything personally or insist that officers in charge of the units I was coordinating do so. I think it was a dereliction [of duty].'

McCloskey: 'Do you think that encouraged abuse?'

Nikolic: 'Yes. I think so. I think my behavior contributed to abuse continuing throughout the period of evacuation.'

McCloskey: 'The fact that your seniors had issued orders as you described -- separating Muslim men to be killed . . . did that encourage you to continue dereliction of your duties?'

Nikolic: 'Yes, it did.'

Mr. Nikolic was head of intelligence and security for the Brantunac Brigade of the Drina Corps and held the rank of captain first class. His job was a pivotal one -- gathering intelligence and information and passing it on to his superiors, as well as assuring that their orders were carried out by coordinating the activities of various units. He also served as liaison to UNPROFOR. Because of his position, he was able to verify the July 4, 1994 directive from former Bratunac Brigade Commander Slavko Ognjenovic, which set out the Bosnian Serb policy toward the UN protected enclave of Srebrenica. The Prosecutor quoted the document in pertinent part, 'The enemy's life is to be made unbearable and his temporary stay in the enclave impossible so that they leave en masse as soon as possible, realizing that they cannot survive there.'

Strategies for implementing this policy included continuous firing into the enclave while civilians were trying to go about their daily affairs and preventing some of the humanitarian aid (food, water, medicines) from getting into the enclave. This interference also extended to supplies and replacements for the Dutch Battalion of UN peacekeepers. According to Mr. Nikolic, ' As for Dutch Bat, the situation was perfectly clear. It was not allowed to have sufficient supplies of fuel, vehicles and other staples necessary for proper and normal functioning. The final aim of this was for Dutch Bat not to be ready for combat, for carrying out tasks within the enclave. . . . Rotation of units was not allowed either.' Tying these activities to the VRS leadership, Mr. Nikolic testified that orders came from the Main Staff.

Sometime in 1995, the policy for cleansing the enclave of its Muslim population changed. Rather than forcing the population out by making life unbearable, the Bosnian Serbs would attack the enclave and force them out militarily. Since the town was a civilian target, as Mr. Nikolic recognized, attacking Srebrenica violated international law.

Mr. Nikolic testified that intensive preparations for the military operation began in late May or early June, though he learned about it only in early July. Sizeable VRS and MUP military forces were moved into the area. When the attack came, it met with very little resistance from the Bosnian Muslims, a surprise to the Bosnian Serbs. The witness's intelligence sources told him that the 28th Division of the Bosnian Government Army had abandoned Srebrenica town and was leaving the area. He also received and passed on information that a column of 1000 to 2000 civilians, including some military age men, was moving towards the UN base in Potocari. There was no information that the men were armed.

From what Mr. Nikolic knew and passed on to his superiors, there was virtually no military threat to the Bosnian Serbs after taking the enclave. Rather, there were 25,000 to 35,000 civilians on the move, looking for safety. UNPROFOR was not able to provide it, which left the people at the mercy of the Bosnian Serb forces. On the surface, it presented a massive logistics problem -- how to house, then transport thousands of people into Bosnian Government territory. But Nikolic learned early on July 12, 1995 the day after the enclave fell, that the logistics were more complicated.

In a casual conversation with Lt. Col. Vujadin Popovic, Chief of Security, and Lt. Col. Kosoric, Chief of Intelligence for the Drina Corps (to which the Bratunac Brigade belonged), he asked what would happen next. Colonel Popovic told me that on that day women and children would be evacuated and they would be evacuated in the direction of Kladanj, and able-bodied men would be separated and temporarily detained. And when I asked what will happen to them next, he said, 'All Balija needed to be killed.'' [Balija is a derogatory name for Muslims.] Rather than ask questions or raise any objections, then Captain Nikolic suggested places where the men could be held temporarily until they could be executed. The men also discussed his role in the operation. 'I was told my task would be to coordinate forces engaged in Potocari for operation of separation, temporary detention and killing of the men.' There followed discussion of potential execution sites. [Popovic has been indicted by the ICTY and remains at large in Belgrade.] '

Mr. Nikolic displayed no emotion in relaying this chilling conversation. Robbed of emotional content, it might as well have been a discussion of how to clear useless trees and underbrush from a plot of land.

When Captain Nikolic received his orders on July 12 from Colonel Jankovic (intelligence officer from the Main Staff), there was no mention of the killing. He was to coordinate the evacuation of the women and children and the separation of men and their temporary transfer and detention. Later, he reported his activities to his commander, Colonel Blagojevic, including the information he received earlier that the detained men were to be killed. Mr. McCloskey then asked the witness what Colonel Blagojevic said in response and the following colloquy ensued.

Nikolic: 'Nothing special. When I was reporting to him about the situation in Potocari, I said it was extremely difficult. The situation was dreadful. He said he was aware that was so. He had no special opinion. These were orders and what was being done was what was ordered. I had the impression, about this operation being implemented, that he had been informed about it and was well aware of it. What I told him was nothing new.'

McCloskey: 'Did he do anything to dissuade you from carrying out future conduct with regard to the separation, detention and murder of the men?'

Nikolic: 'No. He didn't have any instructions or orders of any kind.'

McCloskey: 'Did he do anything to encourage your continued involvement?'

Nikolic: 'No. He didn't say anything along those lines that would give me the impression he was encouraging me to do anything other than that.' [The translation of 'other than that' is under dispute.]

This response of Colonel Blagojevic's is typical of how Mr. Nikolic describes his Commander's other responses to similar reports about the executions. There is so little reaction one wonders how he ever became a commander. Or perhaps it is evidence that obedience to the orders of those in power trumped adherence to the rule of law throughout society in both military and civilian life.

Further confirmation of the fate of the Muslim men and boys came from the Commanding General of the VRS, Ratko Mladic. On July 13, General Mladic spoke to assembled Muslim civilians in Konjevic Polje, who were to be transferred to Bratunac the next day. The witness described the event. 'He [Mladic] addressed the prisoners. He said not to worry, transport would be organized, they would be transported to free territory. When he completed his speech, I asked him, 'General, sir, what is going to happen to these men?' He simply gestured with his hand [making a sweeping gesture with his hand down across his chest]. I understood it to mean those men would be killed. I saw it to be a confirmation of what was already happening.'

Together with the Bratunac police commander (Mirko Jankovic) and his deputy (Mile Petrovic), Captain Nikolic drove a captured UN armored personnel carrier (APC), recognizable by its white paint and bold blue UN lettering, along the Konjevic Polje- Bratunac Road. Petrovic used the loudspeaker to call for Muslims to surrender. They took a group of 5 or 6 to Konjevic Polje where Nikolic ordered Petrovic to assemble them with other prisoners already there. The witness continued, 'After ten minutes, I heard a burst of fire not far from the spot where I was. It reached me from the direction of the building where the petrol station was, on the bank of the Jadar. Shortly after, Petrovic came and told me, 'Chief, I have taken revenge for my brother and I have killed them.'
Mr. McCloskey then inquired, 'What did you do?' Mr. Nikolic answered as he had before, 'I didn't do anything.' McCloskey: 'Did you report the killings up the chain of command?' Nikolic: 'I did not. I did not inform anyone about it because I felt that in view of all the numerous killings and my knowledge of what would happen to the other prisoners, it didn't make any sense.'

The witness described how he heard about an incident at the Kravica warehouse, where several hundred prisoners were killed. 'I learned that on the previous day, 13 July, an incident had occurred in a building known as OK Kravica in which . . . an automatic rifle was seized [by a Muslim prisoner] from a member of the police guarding them . . . . The person who grabbed the rifle shot at the police. One officer was killed and one to two others were wounded. Afterwards, a group of policemen used automatic and other weapons to execute prisoners in that facility. In addition . . . , they brought boxes of hand grenades, shut the doors and then killed people inside using the grenades.'

This was the only incident Mr. Nikolic described where any non-Muslim protested the abuse and murders. According to what the witness heard, Mr. Jovan Nikolic, Director of the Cooperative, witnessed what was going on and protested. 'He too was attacked and his life imperiled,' the witness told the Court.

Mr. Nikolic testified that he discussed the Kravica warehouse killings with his commander 'countless times.' Though he discovered that two members of the Bratunac Brigade were involved, neither he nor Mr. Blagojevic took any action to discipline them.

As plans for the main killing operation progressed, Mr. Nikolic was called to a meeting with Colonel Ljubisa Beara, Chief of Security from the Main Staff. 'Colonel Beara ordered me to go to the Command of the Zvornik Brigade and see Drago Nikolic [chief of security for Zvornik Brigade] personally and convey his orders that Muslim prisoners in Bratunac would be transferred to Zvornik the same evening [July 13] and that he should secure accommodation for them. He further told me to get his people ready because a lot of Muslim prisoners would be coming along. The people to be transferred would be temporarily detained and would be killed in Zvornik municipality.' Mr. Nikolic testified that he passed on the full content of this order to Drago Nikolic. [Both Beara and Drago Nikolic have been indicted by the Tribunal. Both remain at large.]

When Mr. Nikolic returned to Bratunac town, he found a chaotic situation. From 3500 to 4500 Muslims were being held prisoner in the town, while Bosnian Serb forces lacked the manpower to secure them. Buses and truckloads of more Muslims were arriving. As a result Colonel Beara scheduled a meeting at the SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) Offices with Miroslav Deronjic, head of the Crisis Staff [indicted by the ICTY and awaiting trial]. The main problem discussed by the assembled military and civilian authorities was where the executions should take place -- in Bratunac, Zvornik or somewhere else. No one protested the 'final solution' itself. In the end, Deronjic played the trump card by telling the others he had discussed the matter with Radovan Karadzic, President of the Republika Srpska, who had ordered that all prisoners be transported to Zvornik. The meeting ended with general agreement that the Muslim men and boys would be detained in Bratunac that night and transferred the next morning to Zvornik for extermination. Captain Nikolic conveyed this information to his superior, Col. Blagojevic. Once again, the Colonel had no reaction or comment.

The next morning, July 14, Captain Nikolic watched as the column of buses and trucks carrying the Muslim men and boys to their deaths wound its way out of Bratunac. He also received a report that mass killing had begun the night of July 13-14 in Bratunac when a group of 80 to 100 Muslims were taken off buses and out of a hangar and killed. His informant was the man in charge of cleaning the killing site and disposing of the corpses. Nikolic also reported this to Blagojevic, who continued to be passive in the face of war crimes by soldiers under his command. When McCloskey asked the witness how he knew that Blagojevic was aware of 'these things' even before he reported to him, the witness answered, 'I know this because the transport operation, operation of detaining persons and everything going on in town in those days was so comprehensive, so large scale, the logistics support and everything . . . that most of the Bratunac Brigade officers and organs and some of the units took part. It is normal that the Commander would know what was going on in town. It was all happening in the center of Bratunac. It would have been normal for the Bratunac Commander to know what was happening in town.'

In addition to his role in coordinating the ethnic cleansing and executions, Mr. Nikolic was also involved in attempts to cover up the massacre. In September 1995, Chief of Security of the Drina Corps, Colonel Popovic ordered him to see to the transfer of bodies buried in Glogova to new locations in Srebrenica municipality. Popovic told Nikolic that he would be in charge of coordinating the operation, which would require securing additional heavy equipment from civilian authorities. After this was done, 'the graves were dug up in Glogova and the bodies moved to new grave sites in Srebrenica. As for officers of the Bratunac Brigade who took part, I for one coordinated the functioning of the entire operation, which 'went on for quite awhile' and involved nearly the whole Military Police Platoon. 'Col. Blagojevic was aware of my involvement and of the others in the Military Police Platoon. I regularly informed him about the operation and process of reburial of corpses,' Mr. Nikolic told the Court. He also said he knew more or less where all the new graves were located, as did Dragisa Jovanovic (assistant to the chief of staff for intelligence in the Bratunac Brigade) who selected the sites. This is potentially important information for those still searching for the remains of their loved ones.

To complete the cover up, Mr. Nikolic testified that he burned all his reports to the Drina Corps concerning the Srebrenica operation. He was ordered to bring all his documents and the contents of a safe to hand over to his successor, Lazar Ostojic. Instead of handing them over, he burned them in front of Ostojic, new Chief of Security for the Drina Corps Major Pajic and two other officers from the Corps Command. Mr. Nikolic said he burned the documents on his own initiative because the information they contained compromised him and the Bratunac Brigade.

Mr. Nikolic negotiated a guilty plea agreement with the Office of the Prosecutor, which was accepted by the Court in May 2003. In it, he agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor and to plead guilty, thus eliminating the time and expense that would have been needed to try him. The prosecutor agreed to drop charges including genocide (or, in the alternative, complicity to commit genocide), forcible transfer and murder and to recommend a sentence of imprisonment from 15 to 20 years. Given Mr. Nikolic's testimony of his knowledge, involvement and failure to do anything to stop the mass murder that one Trial Chamber has found constituted genocide, it appears Mr. Nikolic made a good bargain.

It is equally good for the prosecution and the public. His testimony is a powerful confession of personal responsibility, as well as a significant admission by a Bosnian Serb Army officer that ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Bosnian Muslims in the UN safe haven at Srebrenica was a well-planned and coordinated operation originating at the highest civilian and military levels, that is, by President Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic. After Mr. Nikolic's testimony, it should be far more difficult to deny that the Bosnian Serb leadership, and those who followed them, perpetrated genocide on the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica.

Mr. Nikolic's testimony brought the monstrousness of the operation into dramatic relief by his unemotional rendering of the development and implementation of a plan to commit mass murder. That it was carried out with little, if any, objection from the hundreds of men (soldiers and civilians) required to accomplish it is a stark testament to the mindless obedience of groups who take their identity in opposition to a dehumanized 'other.'

But there is also a contrast between the 'cool' responses of commanders and captains like Blagojevic and Nikolic and that of a foot soldier like Drazen Erdemovic, who carried out orders and pulled the trigger over and over again, shooting into the backs of hundreds of defenseless men and boys, as the corpses piled up. Unlike the commanders, Drazen Erdemovic protested, but chose to become a killer rather than be killed. Also unlike the commanders, Drazen Erdemovic was nearly destroyed by what he did, requiring months before he was psychologically able to appear in court to enter a guilty plea.

Momir Nikolic will have an opportunity to express his remorse at his sentencing hearing, which has yet to be scheduled. Perhaps at that time the important unasked questions will be put to Mr. Nikolic: Why did you do it? Why did you not protest? What, if anything, did you feel when Petrovic told you he had taken revenge for his brother's murder by killing a dozen prisoners? Or when you saw bodies of civilians on the side of the road? Or heard about hundreds of prisoners murdered at Kravica by machine guns and grenades? And what did you feel when you saw the column of buses and trucks filled with Muslim men, taking them to their deaths? Did you have any struggles with your conscience? And now?

When court resumes, Mr. Blagojevic's and Mr. Jokic's lawyers will cross examine Mr. Nikolic, attempting to discredit his testimony. The witness admitted to lying about two matters, falsely claiming responsibility for crimes he had not committed. He said he did this under the mistaken belief it would help him to secure a plea agreement, which he very much wanted.