Courtside

Ex-Yugoslav Army Chief on Trial for War Crimes

Prosecutors will seek to prove that Belgrade was directly linked to military campaigns in Bosnia and Croatia.

By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 571, 03-Oct-08)

The trial of Momcilo Perisic, chief of the Yugoslav army, VJ, at the time of the Srebrenica genocide and the siege of Sarajevo, began in The Hague this week.

Perisic, who was head of the VJ from August 1993 to November 1998, is charged with 13 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including persecution, murder and the extermination of civilians in Bosnia and Croatia between 1993 and 1995.

The allegations relate to the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, the massacre of 8,000 Bosniak and men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995 and the shelling of Zagreb in May of the same year.

“New benchmarks of human depravity were added to history’s long list of horrors – Srebrenica, the siege of Sarajevo, ethnic cleanings,” prosecutor Mark Harmon told judges in his opening statement at the Hague tribunal this week.

“The ambitions and ethnocentric fantasies of politicians fuelled the war, and this war laid waste to parts of Bosnia and Croatia.”

According to Harmon, the prosecution will seek to prove that the Belgrade administration of ex-Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was directly linked to the deployment of troops and the supply of weapons in the military campaigns in Bosnia and Croatia.

“This case will pierce the veil of elaborate deceptions and will expose the roles of Momcilo Perisic, one of Milosevic’s principle collaborators, and will expose his unstinting support for Milosevic’s policies to establish a single state of the Serbian people,” said Harmon in court.

“The prosecutor’s evidence will show that the VJ was the sole supplier of critical munitions during critical periods of the war.”

The prosecution will show there was a connection between ammunition provided to the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, and ammunition found at sites such as Srebrenica, he said.

In its pre-trial brief, Perisic’s defence team contests that he knew nothing about the operation that was to be undertaken in Srebrenica.

However, Harmon said Perisic “was kept well aware of the events that were taking place in Bosnia because they directly affected the interest of his country”. The prosecutor also told the court that Perisic was “fully apprised” – especially by international observers – of crimes relating to the siege of Sarajevo.

According to the indictment, Perisic’s authority allowed him to “transfer and second VJ personnel to the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and the Army of the Serbian Krajina (SVK)”.

Prosecutors believe this was crucial to the capacity of the Bosnian Serb military force during the break up of the former Yugoslavia.

“The war engine of the Bosnian Serbs would have collapsed without the massive military assistance of the VJ and the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia],” said Harmon.

Harmon alleged that collusion between the Yugoslav army and Bosnian Serb forces was concealed.

“This assistance was a carefully guarded state secret since it was in breach of UN resolutions prohibiting the FRY from interfering in the affairs in Bosnia,” he said.

In November 1993, according to the indictment, “Perisic personally established special purpose personnel centres within the general staff of the VJ to disguise the provision and payment of these officers”.

“The 30th and 40th personnel centres were created as legal cover to hide the fact that the VJ was ordering its personnel to serve in Bosnia and in Croatia in contravention of FRY law and in contravention of international…obligations,” said Harmon.

According to prosecutors, the 30thpersonnel centre was for troops serving in the VRS, while the 40th was for those in the SVK.

“The FRY and VRS took considerable efforts to hide the participation of VJ units in Bosnia,” said Harmon, presenting a document issued by the deputy commander of the VRS marked as “very urgent”.

“‘In order to protect confidentiality and other activities that we have been undertaking, I forbid the use of or any reference in regular telephone conversation to the term ‘Yugoslav army units’,” Harmon read aloud from the document.

The prosecution also identified the promotion of VJ soldiers while serving in Bosnia as an area where secrecy had to be maintained.

Harmon showed an order of the VJ general staff instructing that there should be “no paper trail reflecting that promotion in the VJ was based on service in the VRS or SVK”.

The prosecution contends Perisic failed to prevent crimes up to the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which brought peace to the region in 1995. His failure to punish those responsible stretches until the end of his time as head of the general staff in 1998, it alleges.

Prosecutors intend to present 155 witnesses over approximately 90 days. However, said Harmon, they will not call witnesses who have already testified at the tribunal, and will instead “rely on the substantial public record of their past testimonies”.

Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.