Bosnian Government Called to Hague
Representatives called on to clarify why documents requested by Karadzic have not been provided .
Bosnian Government Called to Hague
Representatives called on to clarify why documents requested by Karadzic have not been provided .
The Bosnian government has been ordered to send representatives to the Hague tribunal to explain its lack of progress in locating documents requested by former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic.
Stating that the Bosnian government’s cooperation regarding the document request has thus far been “problematic and fraught with delay”, the judges ordered “authorised representatives of Bosnia-Hercegovina” to appear at a hearing on October 15.
This week’s ruling arrives just over a year after Karadzic first asked judges to compel the Bosnian government to produce the documents in question, which relate to the distribution of “arms, ammunition and military equipment” during the Bosnian war.
A 1991 United Nations arms embargo prevented countries from supplying weapons to armies in the former Yugoslavia, but Karadzic claims that many funnelled weapons to the Bosnian government army, composed mostly of Bosniaks.
In his request dated August 31, 2009, Karadzic wrote that he has “uncovered evidence that leads him to believe that the government of Bosnia participated, along with other governments, in the clandestine supply of weapons – many of which were used to kill innocent civilians”.
Karadzic has requested documents from various countries including Germany, France, Iran and Croatia.
Earlier this summer, judges gave the Bosnian government until August 15 “to either complete that search or provide the chamber with a report on its progress”.
This week, judges noted that the Bosnia foreign ministry had indicated on August 24 “that little progress has been made in relation to its searches for the documents requested”. They therefore concluded that it would be “beneficial” to hold a hearing on the matter.
In related news this week, Karadzic has asked judges to subpoena Miroslav Tudjman, the son of the late former Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, so he can be interviewed about alleged wartime weapons smuggling.
Miroslav Tudjman was the director of the Croatian Intelligence Service from 1993 to 1998. Karadzic states in the subpoena request that the Croatian Intelligence Service “would have had intimate knowledge of the arrangements for and the actual shipments of arms into Croatia for Bosnian Muslims in 1994-95”.
Karadzic further alleges that according to United States intelligence reports, the then US ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, “gave the ‘green light’ to Croatian president Franjo Tudjman to import arms from Iran and trans-ship those arms to the Bosnian-Muslim army in violation of the UN arms embargo”.
Karadzic alleges that from May 1994 to September 1995, Croatia was used as a portal through which “Iran and other Islamic countries” smuggled “thousands of metric tons of infantry weapons and other arms” to the Bosnian government army.
Many of these weapons, Karadzic continues, ended up in the hands of Bosnian army units in Srebrenica and Zepa, and were “used to attack and kill Serb civilians in neighbouring villages”.
Both Srebrenica and Zepa were United Nations-designated “safe areas” until they were captured by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, resulting in the mass killing of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. The massacre forms part of the indictment against Karadzic.
In this week’s subpoena request, Karadzic states that he and his legal advisor, Peter Robinson, have made several efforts to contact Miroslav Tudjman, but that he has not responded.
An interview with Tudjman could be important for several reasons, Karadzic states.
“Mr Tudjman is particularly well placed to reveal what documents exist which reflect the agreement with Iran to ship arms to the Bosnian Muslims, the acquiescence of the United States and other United Nations member states, the opening up of naval or air routes which had been blockaded, the use of humanitarian convoys to smuggle the arms into Bosnia, and the nature and amount of arms which were smuggled into Bosnia during 1994-1995,” he wrote.
In addition, Tudjman may be able to “direct the Croatian government to the precise documents concerning these events, which it seemingly has been unable to locate,” Karadzic states.
After receiving the subpoena request, judges “invited” Croatia to respond to it, given how closely it relates to Karadzic’s previous request for documents. Should Croatia choose to do so, it has until September 30.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
