Court Hears of Mladic Rage at Bratunac

Velma Šarić

IWPR-trained journalist

Friday, 29 October, 2010

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A former Dutch military official told the trial of Zdravko Tolimir this week of the intimidating atmosphere in meetings with Bosnian Serb Army, VRS, officials in Bratunac in July 1995.

Evert Rave was the liaison officer and assistant commander for terrain security of the United Nations Protection Force, UNPROFOR Dutch battalion stationed at Potocari, in the municipality of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Appearing as a prosecution witness in the Tolimir trial, he gave testimony this week regarding a meeting held on July 11, 1995 in Bratunac, between VRS commander Ratko Mladic and UNPROFOR Dutch battalion commander Thomas Karremans.

Tolimir, the former assistant commander for military intelligence and security in the Republika Srpska, RS, army general staff, is charged with eight counts including genocide, conspiring to perpetrate genocide, extermination, murder, expulsion, forced transfer of population and deportation of Bosniaks from Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995.

Rave previously testified before the Hague tribunal in the 2000 trial of VRS general Radislav Krstic - who was found guilty of complicity in genocide and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment - and his testimony from that trial was included on the record of the Tolimir trial this week. During the Krstic trial, Rave appeared as a protected witness, but he asked to testify without protection measures in the Tolimir trial.

Reading the resume of Rave’s statement from 2000, prosecutor Peter McCloskey repeated the chronology of VRS attacks against the enclave, including attacks on UN observation posts on July 6, 2005.

On the afternoon of July 11, Rave returned to the Potocari base, where he estimated that there were “10,000 to 15,000 scared Muslims in the UN compound”. In the evening, Karremans ordered Rave to join him for a meeting in Bratunac with Mladic and other VRS representatives.

This meeting on July 11 in the Fontana hotel is seen as a key event in trying to establish the actions and intentions of the VRS during this time and has been part of every Srebrenica-related trial.

“Entering, I saw that some [UNPROFOR Dutchbat] soldiers had left their observation posts and surrendered to the VRS,” Rave’s 2000 statement continued.

It also included an observation regarding how Mladic shouted at Dutchbat representatives during the meeting at the Fontana hotel.

Rave recalled this week how he had described the incident in his notebook, writing that “it seemed to me like they were going to take us out and shoot us all outside”.

He said that, despite having heard Mladic shouting very loudly, he was unable to hear much of the details, because “Petar [the interpreter] was translating to Lieutenant Karremans, and was sitting far from [Rave]”.

Rave told the Tolimir trial that another meeting held late in the evening of that same day had included a representative of the Srebrenica Bosniaks, Nesib Mandzic. Mladic had previously ordered his troops “to find a Muslim and bring him at 11 o’clock”, he said.

Mandzic was the school principal in town and was, according to Rave, “scared” because “Mladic told him (Mandzic) that he was holding the fate of his people in his hands”.

In the beginning of the meeting, a strange event “seemed to additionally increase pressure on the already scared Mandzic”, Rave added.

“A very loudly screeching pig could be heard from the outside,” Rave said, adding that he had recorded at the time that “somebody was slaughtering a pig”, noting the “smirk on some Bosnian Serb soldiers’ faces”.

Judge Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua said he wanted the witness to come back to this issue and explain it in more detail.

“I had the impression that this was to scare and terrify the people on the non-Serb side, it was Lieutenant Kosoric who started smirking and some others on the Serb side; again, we heard the pig’s screeching, and as soon as it finished the window was closed and the curtains were drawn, so that the meeting began on a horrible note,” Rave said. “I had the impression that they had planned this beforehand, knowing our reaction.”

Judge Prisca Matimba Nyambe then asked the witness what it was that he found terrifying about the pig’s slaughter.

“It was the sound, it sounded very un-normal and bizarre, I had the impression that they were trying to say that what they were doing to the pig, they could to the Muslims, too,” Rave said.

“I didn’t know about the religious aspect and Muslims not eating pork, but I guess it wasn’t specifically about the pig, what they were doing outside they could have done to another animal, a dog, a cat or another animal.”

In the cross-examination, Tolimir who is defending himself, devoted a large part of his questioning to this issue. He first suggested that the animal in question was not a pig, but another creature.

Rave, however, said that he “relied on personal experience from his grandpa's farm in making his judgment”.

Tolimir then pointed out that a significant number of Muslims in Bosnia “ate pork despite the religious canon”, which prohibits observant Muslims from eating pork products.

Finally, the general pointed to a July 10 document from the Bratunac agricultural estate which referred to “providing a male pig, up to 80 kg in weight, for the needs of the Dutch soldiers at the Fontana hotel”.

Rave, however, pointed out that the soldiers at the hotel were not “guests, but hostages”.

The first indictment against Tolimir was presented on February 25, 2005, and he was arrested on May 31, 2007. On December 16, 2009 he pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.