Unfinished Business at the Prlic Trial

BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen, who testified this week in the trial of six former Bosnian-Croat leaders, dismissed the defence claims his 1993 documentary dubbed “Unfinished Business” was pro-Muslim and one-sided.



He said his only intention was to show how 60,000 people in the southwestern Bosnian city of Mostar lived at that time, adding the situation was so dire that “there was no need to fabricate anything”.



Bowen, now the BBC’s Middle East Editor, was a prosecution witness in the trial of Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic, who are charged with crimes committed during the Croat-Muslim conflict in Bosnia.



The indictment against the six states the authorities of self-proclaimed territory Herceg-Bosna claimed Mostar as its capital when it came into existence in 1991.



It says that in May 1993, Herceg-Bosna forces, HVO, attacked and expelled “hundreds, if not thousands” of Bosnian Muslim men, women, children and elderly into east Mostar, while hundreds of others were detained at the “Heliodrom” prison in the town.



This action resulted in Mostar town being divided between HVO and Bosnian army forces, with most of Bosnian Muslim civilians of the town surrounded in a small area east of the river, while Bosnian Croats and HVO forces occupied the west bank, it says.



“By June 1993, the Herceg-Bosna/HVO forces had commenced a siege against east Mostar which continued to April 1994 and involved continual shelling, sniper fire, blocking of humanitarian aid and horrible deprivations, directed against the Bosnian Muslims in east Mostar,” the indictment continues.



This week, Bowen testified about his film Unfinished Business – which he made in August and September 1993 – and which covered the Bosnian army's view of the conflict.



The documentary shows scenes of civilians being evacuated from west Mostar by HVO forces, and contains interviews with civilians, and medical staff in a Mostar hospital.



In the film, Bowen also draws attention to the forced labour Croat prisoners apparently endured at the hands of the Bosnian army.



But the defence accused him of only telling one side of the story.



They refuted his claim that he was not given access to film on the HVO-occupied west side of Mostar.



Slobodan Praljak, the HVO commander in late 1993, produced several documents to show that he personally allowed journalists and humanitarian-aid workers into HVO-controlled territory on many occasions.



This included one order that allowed British journalist Ed Vulliamy into HVO detention centres, Gabela and Dretelj, in September 1993.



Praljak also claimed to have “entreated” Bowen’s producer Eamonn Matthews to come to the west bank and film both sides.



“A minimum of journalists’ ethics would require him to do so,” he said.



But Bowen claimed that bemusing as it sounded, the team was allowed to pass through HVO-occupied territory, but not to film on the western side of the Neretva river.



Michael Karnavas, Jadranko Prlic’s defence counsel, said that when making his documentary, Bowen came in “during the third act of a four-part play”.



“He is projecting the entire film from the east side point of view... Don’t you think it is also relevant to know what is happening on west side?” he asked.



But Bowen insisted that his producer had gone to great lengths to get permission from the Herceg-Bosna authorities to film in West Mostar. However, he says, this was denied.



Praljak also cross-examined the witness about 14 British mercenaries he claimed fought with Bosnian army units for payment in Croatian dinars.



Bowen said he was unaware of there being any British mercenaries on the Bosnian side.



“I only wish I had,” he said. “It would be an interesting development and a strong story even now.”



Lawyer Bozidar Kovacic, representing Praljak, challenged Bowen about his claim in the documentary that on the HVO front lines there were tannoys broadcasting war propaganda for several hours a day.



He pointed out that the tannoy announcement presented in the documentary had nothing to do with propaganda.



Although he didn’t deny that the announcement heard in the documentary wasn’t the best example and was used merely because of high audio quality, Bowen insisted the tannoys were on the HVO frontlines for a purpose - “to get over the political points of one side.”



At one point, he became visibly irritated by the defence’s questions, which he took as an attack on his professionalism.



“I don’t make things up!” he said, adding that in Mostar at that time, there was no need to fabricate anything.



“What was happening there was extraordinarily dramatic - that’s why we’re still talking about it 14 years later,” he added.



During his re-examination of the witness, the prosecutor Kenneth Scott attempted to demonstrate the journalist’s objectivity.



He asked Bowen why he included information on Croat prisoners being used as forced labour by the Muslim side.



“I was aware that using forced labour on the front line was a war crime…I made the point that this was not a good thing to do,” he said.



He was “not trying to make Bosnian army out to be the good guys”, he said, but was merely “interested in the pressure and plight being put on civilians in Mostar”.



The journalist previously testified in the trial of Mladen Naletilic and Vinko Martinovic - also known as Tuta and Stela - in 2001.



Tuta and Stela were jailed for 20 and 18 years respectively in 2003 for war crimes committed while they ran a paramilitary force - the Convicts’ Battalion - in Bosnia in the early Nineties.



Caroline Tosh is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.