Creation of Serb Crisis Staff Recounted
Former mayor of Ilidza tells Karadzic trial how Bosnian Serb control was established in 1992.
Creation of Serb Crisis Staff Recounted
Former mayor of Ilidza tells Karadzic trial how Bosnian Serb control was established in 1992.
The Hague tribunal trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic this week heard how a wartime Serb crisis staff and municipality were created in Ilidza in central Bosnia.
Nedjeljko Prstojevic, a former mayor of Ilidza who had also been chairman of the local board of the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, had previously appeared at the tribunal as a prosecution witness in December 2005, in the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik.
This week, he was once again examined by the same prosecutor, Alan Tieger, in the Karadzic trial.
Karadzic, former the president of Republika Srpska, RS, and the SDS, is charged with the expulsion of non-Serb residents and numerous other crimes in 20 municipalities in Bosnia, including Ilidza and Hadzici, two Sarajevo suburbs which were under the control of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 war.
As supreme commander of the RS armed forces, Karadzic is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the massacre of almost 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.
“We called for an assembly of the Serb people in Ilidza, consisting of all the councillors from the SDS, the reformists, and the social democrats,” Prstojevic said. “We were all present on January 3, 1992, at the founding of that assembly.
“That means that formally we founded such an assembly from all the Serb councillors. This was a public act, a fact we publicly published within a few days."
“Did you inform the Serb leadership in Bosnia, about this being done?” the prosecutor asked.
“I think so, I think that our administration - the assembly secretary, Momcilo Cekic - was supposed to send the document to the institutions of the Serb people in Bosnia, particularly to the chairman of the Serb people's assembly in Bosnia-Hercegovina,” the witness replied.
Tieger asked the witness about the composition of the crisis staff founded by SDS functionaries in the municipality.
"It was composed of municipal officials working in Ilidza, an assembly member, the commander of the territorial defence and representatives from local crisis staffs in individual areas of the municipality,” the witness replied, adding that, as mayor, he had been appointed commander.
Asked by the prosecutor whether the crisis staff had been responsible to any national or political authority, Prstojevic answered, “We took care of the formal part. Up to the beginning of the war, we didn't do anything and weren't responsible to anyone. No work, no responsibility.”
When asked to clarify his answer, the witness said that “there existed only a formal hierarchy of institutions”, and added that “the assembly of the Serb people in Bosnia-Hercegovina was above us. But nothing we did, and there is not a single piece of evidence to prove the contrary, implied that we had to report to anyone... Although there was a certain hierarchy, just like in every other country".
Contining his testimony, Prstojevic confirmed that at some point after April 10, 1992, a meeting was held which was attended by senior representatives of the local government and the RS authorities, including Karadzic, in which the security and political situation in the municipality was discussed.
“The issue at stake was where the seat of the RS government would be, and we couldn't agree,” he recalled. “We expressed our wish to have the seat of the government in the Serb municipality of Ilidza, while some claimed that the security situation was bad. We failed to reach an agreement.”
The prosecutor then asked about the atmosphere at this meeting.
“I heard about it from two of our men who were present. Some threatening words were used, in case someone made an aggressive move against the Serbs. I was told someone said ‘if we don't agree on the division of Bosnia and if we get attacked, we'll fuck their mothers,’” Prstojevic explained.
The prosecutor then asked about a meeting held in July 1992, and read out Prstojevic’s statements at that event, as recorded in the minutes.
“When the Serbs in Sarajevo rebelled and occupied a certain part of the territory, there was no government at all, and we didn't know whether Karadzic was still alive, but when he found out he was, we expelled Muslims from the areas where they were in the majority,“ the prosecutor read.
At this point, the witness objected and said angrily that he “didn't use the word expel, but the military term push down”.
“We knew nothing of anyone for about two weeks,” the witness added, explaining that they worked “independently and in isolation during the key and decisive part of the war in Ilidza.
“Only around April 20 did we find out that President Karadzic was alive, we saw some members of the government, and the president, that they were still alive. But we didn't know whether the leadership was formed and how and where, we simply didn't follow it back then.
“The wartime circumstances gave us more important things to do, we did what had to be done to protect our people from suffering.”
Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 in Belgrade, after 13 years on the run. His trial began in late October 2009.
Vesna Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Saraejvo.
