Court Hears of Bosnian Serb's Prijedor Protest

Velma Šarić

IWPR-trained journalist

Friday, 8 October, 2010

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A former Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, chief told the trial of ex-senior Bosnian Serb security officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin this week that he sought to resign from the party in 1992 because it was being blamed for abuses in the Prijedor region.

Zupljanin - the former head of the regional security services centre in Banja Luka and adviser to Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, who is on trial for genocide - is accused of the extermination, murder, persecution, and deportation of non-Serbs in north-western Bosnia between April and December, 1992.

Stanisic - a former minister in the Bosnian Serb ministry of internal affairs, MUP - is charged with murder, torture and cruel treatment of non-Serb civilians, as well as for his failure to prevent or punish crimes committed by his subordinates.

Stanisic and Zupljanin are alleged to have participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent removal of non-Serbs from the territory of an intended Serbian state. They are accused of crimes committed between April 1 and December 31, 1992, in 20 municipalities throughout Bosnia, including Prijedor.

Their alleged crimes include persecution, extermination, murder, torture, inhumane acts and deportation as crimes against humanity, in addition to murder, torture and cruel treatment as violations of the laws or customs of war.

At the beginning of his statement, prosecution witness Simo Miskovic, the former SDS chairman in Prijedor, recounted how his party had taken over the municipality.

“Serbs in Prijedor took power as soon as the risk of eventual conflict became obvious,” he said, adding that this action was implemented in the early hours of April 30, 1992.

He explained that the “final decision” to seize power in the municipality was made on April 29 at a meeting of local Serb officials held at the Yugoslav army, JNA, barracks, where it was agreed that “the police and territorial defence forces should get ready for action”. The takeover began at 4 am the next morning.

Prijedor is a large municipality in north-west Bosnia and an important regional centre, where prior to 1992 the ethnically mixed population and administration included Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats. During the war, the municipality was the site of a number of crimes, including the murder, deportation and imprisonment of non-Serb civilians.

The witness said that, by 6 am on April 30, the police, the municipal assembly and all other institutions in the municipality were under Bosnian Serb control.

Miskovic stated several times during his testimony that the “action went peacefully, without any incidents or a single scratch”. He emphasised that the decision to take such measures was made as a reaction to the “imminent risk of possible conflict in Prijedor municipality”.

Prosecutor Belinda Pidwell then questioned the witness about an encounter with Zupljanin and a delegation of Bosnian Serb officials to the Omarska camp, in July 1992.

The indictment against Stanisic and Zupljanin enumerates more than 50 different detention facilities, including Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps, set up by Bosnian Serb forces where non-Serb captives were beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, humiliated, harassed and psychologically abused.

“When were you first told that there was a delegation coming from Banja Luka to visit this place of detention?” Pidwell asked.

“I was not told, I didn’t even know they were coming, it was just by chance that I was on the pavement before the [municipal] assembly building when the delegation arrived by car, so I ended up with them,” Miskovic answered.

The witness explained that it was “only when we came out of the cars at the Omarska building, I saw who was in the delegation” which he said included Zupljanin and Radoslav Brdjanin, the former head of the Banja Luka crisis staff of the self-declared Autonomous Region of Krajina.

In April 2007, Brdjanin was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment at the Hague tribunal for crimes committed against non-Serbs in Krajina.
“Were you told what the purpose of the visit was?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” the witness answered.

Pidwell went on to ask Miskovic whether he knew that Omarska was being used as “what [Bosnian Serbs] referred to as an ‘investigation centre’”.

Miskovic replied that “he had the information that a large number of persons were being held at Omarska and subjected to an investigation by the active and reserve elements of police and intelligence services”.

At Omarska, he said he saw many people from Prijedor, but explained that since they were bearded and dishevelled he “couldn’t recognise them, but I knew they could recognise me, so I felt uneasy and lowered my head from all the discomfort, and thus entered the hall”.

“Apart from being unshaved, how did they seem in general when it comes to their health and appearance?” Pidwell asked.

“You know how men are, I don't have to explain,” the witness replied. “When you don’t shave for a longer time, you get a beard. The other thing is, well, if you don’t change clothes, they look wrinkled, perhaps because they slept in them, perhaps because they had nowhere to hang their clothes - that’s what it looked like.”

He added that he had no knowledge of the condition of the detainees’ health.

“I didn’t know who had what problems with his health, whether he came with them or they appeared there [in Omarska]. I didn’t know - the doctors who looked into them knew this,” he continued.

Miskovic said that the prisoners were mostly Muslims, with some Croats.

Pidwell then asked the witness to clarify why he tried to quit his role in the Prijedor municipality in October 1992.

The witness explained that he had been attempting to “protect his dignity and the dignity of the party” because the “talk of the town was to pin every illegal act in town, every lawless matter of fact, to the SDS”.

“There were certain….acts committed in Prijedor municipality by individuals, and these acts were used to harm the party’s image,” he continued.

“Because of the attempt to create such an image of the party in the citizens, and because this didn’t correspond to the true state of affairs, as chairman of the local party board and in order to protect my dignity and the dignity of the party, I wrote a platform document in which I stressed that because of activities happening in Prijedor municipality and because of the wish to attach these activities to the SDS, I resign from my function.”

The witness said he directed this open letter to the local media in Prijedor, calling on the relevant bodies to act to stop the trend of blaming the SDS for various activities.

The prosecutor asked the witness three times what these “activities” were supposed to have been.

Eventually, the witness replied that “pillaging, murder, removal of property from other people's homes” was being attributed to the SDS.

Stanisic surrendered in March 2005, while Zupljanin was arrested by the Serbian authorities on June 10, 2008, after 13 years as a fugitive. Their indictments were joined together in September 2008 and both have pleaded not guilty to all counts.

The trial continues this week.

Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.