The Trauma of Testifying
Day 264-65
Thursday, 4 December, 2003
The Trauma of Testifying
Day 264-65
Thursday, 4 December, 2003
He continued, 'When I make a statement after 10 years I can't be 100% correct because it is very difficult when 10-11 years have elapsed. Today, when I talk about it, I will certainly not remember many details of what I lived through. That's the only difference, your Honors. Because a person who goes through something like this loses his concentration quite quickly and starts trembling. I can no longer concentrate because he [the Amicus] tried to make me relive what I'd gone through.'
It is easy for observers to forget or not know what the experience of testifying is like for survivors of extreme and sustained trauma. Even professionals -- journalists, academics and experts -- speak of feeling nervous when they take the witness stand in the Tribunal's imposing courtroom. Yet they are not in court to recount -- and thus, to some extent, relive -- horrors they were subjected to. Both Mr. Zulic (from Sanski Most) and Mr. Tihic (from Bosanski Samac)were arrested, imprisoned and subjected to unimaginable cruelties. Their testimonies highlighted conscious and unconscious survival skills which people employ to deal with extreme situations. These skills -- amnesia or selective memory, loss of concentration, dissociation from their surroundings and numbness, to name a few -- help them cope with the trauma, but they can cause problems in a courtroom. It is the Court's job, with assistance from the Prosecutor, to sort out truth under these circumstances -- and, as important and , to the extent possible, to protect survivor witnesses from being retraumatized by testifying.
Both men described relatively normal relationships among people of different ethnic groups in their communities before the war. Sanski Most is a country town in Bosnia's wooded and mountainous far northwest; while Bosanski Samac is in northern Bosnia, in the flat and fertile farmland along the Sava River, which forms the foundary with neighboring Croatia. In response to Milosevic's suggestion that the war began when Bosniaks made the decision to leave Yugoslavia, Mr. Tihic said, 'No. When the JNA got involved is when the aggression mounted. Serbs, Muslims, Croats wouldn't have waged war against each other without outside interference. We, as neighbors, would not fight each other.' He added that Bosniaks wanted Yugoslavia, but an equitable Yugoslavia, not one in which Serbs dominated other ethnic groups.
Both witnesses spoke of multi-ethnic community efforts to respond to signs of the impending crisis, though less so in Sanski Most. Both described how their communities disintegrated into separate, opposing groups under a relentless push toward war and ethnic cleansing. Croatia and Serbia (with help from the JNA) armed their respective nationals in Bosnia, while the Muslims struggled without a state sponsor to secure weapons to defend themselves. One day, paramilitaries from Serbia arrived in their respective towns, wreaked havoc, harassed and assaulted the citizens. The JNA came in to establish control and put an end to the chaos. For both men, this resulted in arrest, beatings and months of detention under inhumane, life-threatening conditions.
Sulejman Tihic is now the Muslim representative on the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the time leading up to his detention, he was President of the Bosnian Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in Bosanski Samac. Mr. Tihic testified about the arrival of Red Berets (Special Forces of the Serbian State Security (DB)) in his village via Yugoslav Army (JNA) helicopter about 10 to 15 days before their attack on Bosanski Samac (April 17, 1992). These 'Specials,' as the witness called them, beat up local Serbs who fraternized with local Croats. They cut men's hair they considered too long and molested women. Mr. Tihic said the 'Specials' were 'masters of the war, masters of life and death.'
Shortly after the Red Berets arrived, he and other prominent Muslims were arrested.
The detainees were interrogated and 'so badly beaten that the local [police] commander for Bosanski Samac called the JNA and asked them to pull us all out or we would die from the beatings.' The JNA, however, was afraid of the Specials.
Mr. Tihic was transferred to Bijeljina where he underwent more interrogations and beatings. From there he was forcibly transported to Batajnica in Serbia. He was blindfolded, handcuffed, tied together with eight other prisoners, and placed in a JNA helicopter. The prisoners were guarded by a JNA major and one of Arkan's men. The latter wanted to throw the prisoners out of the helicopter, but the major prevented him.
In Batajnica, the prisoners were guarded by young JNA troops. One Serb guard, named Aca Ilic, befriended the prisoners, brought them beer and biscuits and would not allow them to be beaten when he was on duty. In late May, Mr. Ilic told the witness that he had volunteered to go to the front, for which JNA reservists received a bonus. This occurred after the JNA had agreed to withdraw from Bosnia, evidencing its continued assistance to local Serb forces.
Mr. Tihic experienced one more Serbian concentration camp, as he called it, this one at Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia. While it was the site of a regular prison, a part was set aside as a concentration camp, he said. Near the end of August 1992, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange.
Mr. Tihic underwent a grueling cross examination by Milosevic. After a series of questions about various acts of sabotage allegedly carried out against Bosnian Serbs, most of which the witness knew little or nothing about, the Accused began arguing with the witness over his testimony. He argued about the cause of the war, the role of the JNA in establishing the 4th Detachment, disarming and arming of the local population, whether Croats or the JNA attacked Bosanski Samac, whether Arkan's men were present. While all of these are legitimate topics for cross examination, Milosevic attempted to bully the witness through his repeated assertions. As with most survivor witnesses, Milosevic attacked Mr. Tihic's credibility. Again, cross examination on issues of credibility is legitimate. But there are limits. It's sometimes a fine line between aggressive cross examination and badgering a witness, which is not allowed. Everyone in a courtroom should be treated with respect. Were a jury present, Milosevic's aggression and argumentation would not serve him well, particularly because he treats everyone testifying for the prosecution as a liar. While Judge May strives to assure witnesses are treated properly, he must balance this with allowing greater leeway to a self-represented accused. As a result, a victim witness undergoing cross examination by Milosevic may feel twice victimized. The following examples are illustrative.
Milosevic misquoted the witness by saying he was beaten by paramilitaries. Mr. Tihic corrected him: he was beaten by special units from Serbia. Milosevic shot back, 'they were paramilitaries.' 'Not with the kind of weapons and uniforms they had,' the witness said, 'They were Specials.' 'No,' Milosevic insisted, 'they were part of the local Territorial Defense (TO).' But Mr. Tihic would not be bullied into agreeing.
'You say you were beaten and mistreated by the JNA,' Milosevic taunted the witness. 'It sounds very improbable to me.' Judge May interrupted what Milosevic meant only as a comment, to give Mr. Tihic an opportunity to answer the accusation. 'Yes. I was beaten by members of the JNA. Mr. Milosevic, I found that improbable, too, that children, soldiers were beating me because my name was Sulejman. . . .'
Milosevic then quoted from an interview Mr. Tihic gave to the Belgrade newspaper, Borba, during his imprisonment, to the effect that when he was handed over to the JNA by the Specials, the JNA saved his life. In the interview, he was also quoted as saying that the prison in Sremska Mitrovica wasn’t anything like a concentration camp, as rumored. He was not treated like a prisoner but like a hostage, though better. Mr. Tihic insisted the interview was given under duress and threats and did not reflect reality. He was due to be freed through a prisoner exchange in three to four days. If he didn’t say his treatment had been okay, he would have stayed in prison. Explaining the duress, he told the Court, 'We were beaten after breakfast, lunch and dinner every single time. I have never been beaten as much. In three to four months, the JNA was transformed to such a great extent . . . from the JNA in Brcko that wouldn’t allow beatings to the JNA in Mitrovica that beat us. It was a concentration camp within a former prison.'
On re-examination, Prosecutor Dermot Groome brought out some of the treatment that Milosevic sought to make light of. Before another interview for Novi Sad TV, his captors placed a gun at his temple and in his mouth and threatened to shoot him. In addition, he sustained injuries to his kidneys from the beatings so that he urinated blood. He watched the killing of a man from Samac who died after being struck on the back of his head with brass knuckles. When Mr. Groome asked if the prisoners were forced to perform sexual acts, the witness simply answered 'yes'.
Ahmet Zulic was arrested on June 18, 1992 in Sanski Most. A month earlier, the JNA set up road blocks and paramilitaries (White Eagles) arrived from Serbia. Mr. Zulic was taken to a factory where about 90 other men were detained in hot, overcrowded conditions. They were regularly beaten. Four days later, he and about 20 men were taken out and driven to Kriva Sesta. JNA soldiers and the President of the local SDS were present. He was handed a hoe and told to start digging his grave. As he faced the freshly dug grave, he saw or heard Serb soldiers slitting the throats of other prisoners. A knife was drawn across his own throat, causing it to bleed. Then a pistol was put into his mouth and another at his temple. When the pistol was withdrawn, it broke his front teeth. A shot was fired through his hair, but his life was spared through the intervention of one of his captors. Two other men also survived.
Mr. Zulic gave three slightly different accounts of this incident -- one written in a diary he kept almost contemporaneously, another during his testimony in an earlier ICTY trial, and the third in his statement to the Office of the Prosecutor in 2001. In an understatement, he told the Court he had not reread his diary because it is something that 'does not give me pleasure.' And he explained the discrepancies as noted at the beginning of this article. It is up to the judges to decide whether the discrepancies are significant in light of his experience, though his explanation is wholly plausible.
On July 7, the witness was transported with others to the Serbian detention camp at Manjaca. The prisoners were severely beaten before they were put in a hot, overcrowded vehicle for transport. There was no water; people were crying for help, Mr. Zulic told the Court. A young 18 year old boy died in his lap. When they arrived, 18 to 20 bodies were lying motionless in the truck. Some showed signs of life, but were left on the truck to die because the camp commander didn't want to deal with them.
At Manjaca, Mr. Zulic was severely beaten (to unconsciousness), denied adequate food (he went from 90 to 55 kilos during his stay), witnessed two murders and suffered broken ribs and injuries to his head. He was released in late November 1992.
Though he was not as harsh with Mr. Zulic as he was with Mr. Tihic, Milosevic made much of the fact that Mr. Zulic lied in two statements he made to the Bosnian police. At the witness's request, the Court went into closed session to hear his explanation. He told the truth in his 2001 statement to the OTP investigator, he swore in court, as well as in the 2002 Brdjanin trial. Milosevic quoted from his prior testimony, 'you said your diary was lengthy and contains information not in your statement and that your statement contains things not in your diary.' Mr. Zulic's response was telling: 'You're putting the wrong questions to me or trying to say something wrong. I stand by what I said to the judges. It [diary] doesn't even contain 10% of the things that happened to me in Sanski Most. Second, I did not want to write many things in the diary because when it was written no one knew anything about the Hague. . . I wrote on the first page, 'Lest Our Grandchildren Forget.' Many things I didn't write because I didn't want my grandchildren to know everything that had happened to me. There would be more hatred in their hearts.'
The witnesses did not leave a tidy record for the Court to review. Rather, their accounts were a bit messy, sometimes contradictory or incomplete, one lied under duress, the other omitted information to protect people. Theirs was the testimony of survivors of horrible crimes, committed over lengthy periods of time when they were totally helpless and dependent on their torturers for life itself. That they survived was a miracle. That they came to testify before the Tribunal and the world public about their experiences took great courage. One hopes the experience was not retraumatizing to a great extent, but perhaps provided some measure of satisfaction for participating in this quest for justice. In the end, both witnesses provided valuable evidence to the Court showing Serbian involvement in fomenting the war and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. It is a significant achievement.
