Trial Hears Sarajevo Barricades Were Spontaneous
Witness says March 1992 actions were response to shooting of Serb bridegroom.
Trial Hears Sarajevo Barricades Were Spontaneous
Witness says March 1992 actions were response to shooting of Serb bridegroom.
A witness in the Hague trial of two former Bosnian Serb police chiefs said this week that barricades set up in Sarajevo in 1992 were a “spontaneous” move to protect Serbs.
Nedjo Vlaski, a former official of the Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry of Internal Affairs, MUP, claimed that the barricades were set up after a Serb bridegroom was shot in Bascarsija in Sarajevo on March 1, 1992.
“The barricades were a political reaction to a political murder, they were not organised before the murder but after it, meaning that they came about spontaneously,” he said. “It is hard to control reactions of ordinary people when something that big happens.”
Vlaski appeared as a prosecution witness at the trial of the former senior Bosnian Serb police officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, who are charged with crimes committed against Croats and Muslims in 20 municipalities of Bosnia.
Zupljanin, the former head of the Regional Security Services Centre in Banja Luka and adviser to Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, is accused of the extermination, murder, persecution, and deportation of non-Serbs in north-western Bosnia between April and December 1992.
His co-accused, Stanisic, is charged with murder, torture and cruel treatment of non-Serb civilians, as well as for failure to prevent or punish crimes committed by his subordinates. The indictment against Stanisic states that he was appointed minister in charge of the newly-founded Bosnian Serb MUP in April 1992 and was also a member of the Bosnian Serb government.
Stanisic and Zupljanin are also alleged to have participated in a joint criminal enterprise in 1992, aimed at the permanent removal of non-Serbs from the territory of an intended Serb state.
Prosecutor Joanna Korner noted the transcript of an intercepted telephone conversation between Stanisic and Zupljanin on March 2, 1992, in which Zupljanin said that “all is ready and we are awaiting further instructions”, and Stanisic answered that he would “give a sign if a total blockade was necessary”.
The prosecution contends that Vlaski was with Stanisic at the Holiday Inn hotel in Sarajevo when this conversation took place.
“You said that the barricades were a spontaneous incident in Sarajevo in order to protect Serbs, do you therefore know why Zupljanin would tell Mico Stanisic that he is awaiting further instructions?” the prosecutor asked.
The witness answered that this did not prove that the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, had organised the barricades, but rather that it was a "logical answer" to an organised attack on the Serbs.
“We needed an organised reaction to an organised action,” he said. “This was a political murder, not a bar fight but a political murder of a bridegroom carrying a Serb flag, it was a Serb symbol that had been shot and it was a symbol worn by all Serbs in all of Bosnia. The forces of action always cause forces of reaction.”
Korner also pointed to an October 10, 1994 letter sent to the Bosnian Serb government, in which an individual identified only as Kecic suggested an apartment be given to Vlaski as he had been one of the first to initiate Serb opposition to Muslims and Croats in Bosnia’s ministry of interior.
The witness confirmed he was one of the organisers as he “was part of a group of desperate people working in the ministry and who were completely marginalised and had to self-organise because of the degrading treatment of Serbs in the ministry.
"And how much credit I ever earned should be clear from the fact that it was only in 1994 that I went on to receive an apartment.”
In the cross-examination, the defence opposed the introduction onto record of the transcripts of intercepted telephone calls of SDS leaders in 1991 and 1992, stating that these interceptions were carried out "illegally" by the Bosnian State Security Service, SDB.
According to Stanisic’s defence, during that period the SDB operated as a private intelligence service for the ruling Party of Democratic Action, SDA.
Stanisic surrendered to the Hague tribunal in March 2005. Zupljanin was in hiding until June that same year, when he was arrested in the town of Pancevo just outside the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The pair, whose indictments were joined together in September 2008, have both pleaded not guilty to all counts. The trial began on September 2008.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter.
Nedjo Vlaski, a former official of the Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry of Internal Affairs, MUP, claimed that the barricades were set up after a Serb bridegroom was shot in Bascarsija in Sarajevo on March 1, 1992.
“The barricades were a political reaction to a political murder, they were not organised before the murder but after it, meaning that they came about spontaneously,” he said. “It is hard to control reactions of ordinary people when something that big happens.”
Vlaski appeared as a prosecution witness at the trial of the former senior Bosnian Serb police officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, who are charged with crimes committed against Croats and Muslims in 20 municipalities of Bosnia.
Zupljanin, the former head of the Regional Security Services Centre in Banja Luka and adviser to Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, is accused of the extermination, murder, persecution, and deportation of non-Serbs in north-western Bosnia between April and December 1992.
His co-accused, Stanisic, is charged with murder, torture and cruel treatment of non-Serb civilians, as well as for failure to prevent or punish crimes committed by his subordinates. The indictment against Stanisic states that he was appointed minister in charge of the newly-founded Bosnian Serb MUP in April 1992 and was also a member of the Bosnian Serb government.
Stanisic and Zupljanin are also alleged to have participated in a joint criminal enterprise in 1992, aimed at the permanent removal of non-Serbs from the territory of an intended Serb state.
Prosecutor Joanna Korner noted the transcript of an intercepted telephone conversation between Stanisic and Zupljanin on March 2, 1992, in which Zupljanin said that “all is ready and we are awaiting further instructions”, and Stanisic answered that he would “give a sign if a total blockade was necessary”.
The prosecution contends that Vlaski was with Stanisic at the Holiday Inn hotel in Sarajevo when this conversation took place.
“You said that the barricades were a spontaneous incident in Sarajevo in order to protect Serbs, do you therefore know why Zupljanin would tell Mico Stanisic that he is awaiting further instructions?” the prosecutor asked.
The witness answered that this did not prove that the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, had organised the barricades, but rather that it was a "logical answer" to an organised attack on the Serbs.
“We needed an organised reaction to an organised action,” he said. “This was a political murder, not a bar fight but a political murder of a bridegroom carrying a Serb flag, it was a Serb symbol that had been shot and it was a symbol worn by all Serbs in all of Bosnia. The forces of action always cause forces of reaction.”
Korner also pointed to an October 10, 1994 letter sent to the Bosnian Serb government, in which an individual identified only as Kecic suggested an apartment be given to Vlaski as he had been one of the first to initiate Serb opposition to Muslims and Croats in Bosnia’s ministry of interior.
The witness confirmed he was one of the organisers as he “was part of a group of desperate people working in the ministry and who were completely marginalised and had to self-organise because of the degrading treatment of Serbs in the ministry.
"And how much credit I ever earned should be clear from the fact that it was only in 1994 that I went on to receive an apartment.”
In the cross-examination, the defence opposed the introduction onto record of the transcripts of intercepted telephone calls of SDS leaders in 1991 and 1992, stating that these interceptions were carried out "illegally" by the Bosnian State Security Service, SDB.
According to Stanisic’s defence, during that period the SDB operated as a private intelligence service for the ruling Party of Democratic Action, SDA.
Stanisic surrendered to the Hague tribunal in March 2005. Zupljanin was in hiding until June that same year, when he was arrested in the town of Pancevo just outside the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The pair, whose indictments were joined together in September 2008, have both pleaded not guilty to all counts. The trial began on September 2008.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter.
