Muslim Forces Attacked “Legitimate” Targets

The trial of Naser Oric - the wartime commander of the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica - continued this week in The Hague with testimony on the attacks his forces allegedly conducted on two adjoining Serb villages in the winter of 1992.

Oric, 37, is charged with destruction and looting during a series of attacks on Serb villages around Srebrenica in 1992 and 1993. He is also accused of the mistreatment and the death of Serb detainees captured at the time.

The Srebrenica enclave sheltered some 40,000 Bosnian Muslims who fled from Serb ethnic cleansing operations in eastern Bosnia in the spring and summer of 1992. Oric and his forces operated as a defence force for Srebrenica in the years before the town was proclaimed a United Nations-protected safe area in 1993.

The three prosecution witnesses who testified this week spoke of attacks by Oric’s forces on their villages of Bjelovac and Sikirici in December 1992.

Their testimony raised again the issue of whether the villages the forces attacked were military hubs for the Bosnian Serb army, or civilian settlements that fell victim to wanton destruction by Muslim forces. The prosecutors are trying to prove that these attacks were deliberately directed at civilian targets, while the defence insists they were legitimate actions against military ones.

Slavka Matic, a 60-year-old Serb woman, said she worked part time at a school in Bjelovac as a janitor and used to distribute food to the village’s local guard force. The morning of the attack she was walking to work when she heard gunfire.

“It was still dark when the attack started,” said Matic. “Shooting started from all sides. I didn’t know what was going on.”

She said that she heard Oric was in command of the attackers, although she admitted that she never saw him on the day of the attack.

During cross-examination, the defence tried to prove that the village was used as an outpost for the Bosnian Serb army, and produced a document showing “hundreds of kilograms of beans and potatoes” were being delivered to the school where she worked - suggesting she was distributing food not to a small village guard force, but to a well-organised military unit.

On December 1, the trial chamber heard from Slavoljub Rankic, a 53-year-old Serb construction worker who said he was “on good terms” with Oric’s family. He testified as a partially protected witness with facial distortion.

Rankic told the trial chamber that the attack on Bjelovac was “well orchestrated”. The attackers, he said, took control of the Drina river by splitting into two groups and completely encircling the village.

“We couldn’t flee anywhere,” said the witness. “The people who tried to escape were just killed.” Rankic told the trial chamber that the soldiers who attacked their village also blew up its water pipeline.

During cross-examination, the defence claimed that Rankic was more than a local village guard commander, and produced signed documents to show he was commander of a local territorial defence unit and later a ranking member of the Bratunac brigade’s “mortar unit”.

But Rankic persistently denied that he or anyone in the village guard was in any way connected with the Serb army. He said the only reason his name and signatures were on the documents was because it was local practice for names to be put on lists to “fill posts” and receive rations. He said that it did not necessarily mean that the person carried out any duty.

“Some people tried to get their names on all possible lists” to get rations and salaries, he said.

The defence seemed to believe this particular witness may actually have had something to hide, and produced documents alleging that he took part in ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the nearby town of Voljevica on May 13, 1992. This is also the main reason - the defence claims - why Rankic wanted to obtain protected status as a witness.

The final witness of the week, Slavoljub Filipovic, gave testimony about how his wife and two children – aged six months and 3 years – were taken prisoner by Oric after the attack on Bjelovac village.

He said that he overheard a radio intercept between Oric, whose codename was “Boss”, and another person codenamed “Lion”, saying that they were going to organise a prisoner exchange, but that the children and woman from Bjelovac would not be exchanged.

At that point, Filipovic heard a friend of his taking part in the radio conversation, and asking Oric, “What kind of commander are you? Aren’t you ashamed that you’ve captured a six-month-old baby?”

Oric allegedly replied, “Whoever was on the front line was a soldier for me.”

During cross-examination, the defence claimed that Filipovic had never met Oric, and so would not have been able to recognise his voice.

Lauren Etter is an IWPR contributor in The Hague.