Enver Hogic, former assistant commander for legal affairs in the Bosnian army’s Second Corps, told the trial of Srebrenica Muslim commander Naser Oric that his unit had tried and failed to deliver the journal to the eastern enclave.
“Physical delivery could only be done through the courier and it was too risky,” he told the court. “We tried to send copies on several occasions but it was impossible.”
In any case, he added, getting vital supplies such as food and salt to the starving population “was far more important than any document in the world”.
Hogic had been called by prosecutors in an apparent effort to show that Oric was well informed about international war crimes law in 1992 and 1993, the period covered in the indictment against him.
Prosecutors argue that during that period, when the relevant laws had been published in the army gazette and elsewhere, troops under Oric’s command were running riot, burning and looting villages and mistreating and murdering Serb prisoners.
But little of what Hogic said in court appeared to show that the defendant had ever had a chance to review the kind of documents in question. And at times, the witness’ testimony about what he knew of the desperate situation in besieged Srebrenica during the war seemed to play directly into the hands of defence counsel.
Oric’s defence team claims there was little organised military structure in the town at the time, and that much of the looting and destruction mentioned in the indictment was in fact carried out by starving civilians.
Near the start of his two-day testimony, Hogic confirmed that according to an order issued by the Bosnian presidency on August 23, 1992, the Bosnian army was obliged to abide by a national criminal code which included provisions of the Geneva conventions.
Prosecutors argue that the terms of this presidential order required Oric to initiate criminal proceedings against individuals under his command who violated the international laws of war, but that he had failed to do so.
Hogic also said that units within the Tuzla-based Second Corps – to which Oric’s men were formally subordinated – were advised by their commanders to behave in accordance with the Geneva conventions. They were reminded of the content of these conventions before offensive operations were carried out, he said.
Hogic even went on to confirm that specific crimes mentioned in the indictment against Oric, including the burning and looting of villages, had been discussed in this context.
“The [Second Corps] commander always insisted that such acts should be prevented and [any] perpetrators punished,” he said.
But the witness also spoke in detail about the difficulties involved in getting copies of these regulations into Srebrenica.
The Second Corps command, he said, tried to get UN food convoys to take copies of the army gazette, in which they had been published, into the town. But UN officials, he said, “categorically refused the possibility of carrying any military documents into Srebrenica”.
Hogic said communications between the Second Corps and Oric’s besieged command only became more regular after a laptop computer appeared in the town in the second half of 1994 – well after the time period referred to in the indictment.
But even then, questioned on the possibility that an electronic copy of the Geneva conventions could have been transported into the town, the witness explained that there were still many problems.
“There was no electricity most of the time and no paper on which they could print these documents out,” he said.
Asked whether Oric could have used court documents left over in Srebrenica from before the war as an alternative source of guidance concerning the proper conduct of armed forces in the enclave, the witness remained sceptical.
The desperate besieged population would already have “used these documents to roll cigarettes”, he said.
Eventually, during his second day of questioning, Hogic confirmed defence counsel Vasvija Vidovic’s suggestion that he had “no information that an order on the application of international law of war was... ever delivered to Srebrenica, at least prior to... 1994, when [the] laptop appeared”.
Vidovic was also keen to hear Hogic’s evidence about the desperate situation faced by the besieged population of Srebrenica.
Defence lawyers argue that no one, including Oric, could have controlled the hordes of starving civilians trapped in the enclave, who often latched on to military operations in order to loot whatever food was to be found in captured villages.
Hogic agreed that civilians attacked Serb villages in the area as “a question of bare survival”.
He even confirmed having heard reports of cannibalism in the town. “Whenever this sort of information reached us in Tuzla we would just hold our heads in despair, not knowing what to do,” he said.
“We ourselves were short of what was necessary ... and we didn’t know how to deliver it to them anyway.”
As part of their cross-examination of Hogic, defence lawyers referred to an interview Oric gave to tribunal investigators in 2001, in which he claimed the only way his men could have stopped the desperate civilians would have been to stand there, “right on the front line, linking hands to form a human chain”.
Hogic also spoke in favour of the important argument by defence counsel that the men under Oric’s command during the war did not constitute an organised military force. “The whole of Srebrenica and its entire defence structure was to a large extent a matter of improvisation,” the witness said.
The trial is due to resume on May 17. This week, prosecutors announced their intention to wrap up their case by June 2, giving defence counsel the chance to begin presenting evidence.
Merdijana Sadovic is an IWPR contributor in The Hague.
