Court Told Yugoslav Officers Wanted to Fight for Bosnian Serbs
Witness said some contacted the Bosnian Serbs about joining them but didn’t know how.
Court Told Yugoslav Officers Wanted to Fight for Bosnian Serbs
Witness said some contacted the Bosnian Serbs about joining them but didn’t know how.
A defence witness at the Hague tribunal trial of former Yugoslav army, VJ, chief Momcilo Perisic this week said that certain VJ officers originally from Bosnia asked to serve with the Bosnian Serb army, VRS.
Perisic, former chief of general staff of the VJ, has pleaded not guilty at the tribunal to 13 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Croatia.
These include aiding and abetting the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995.
Perisic is also charged with failing to prevent or punish the deadly May 1995 shelling by Croatian Serbs of the Croatian capital, Zagreb, which killed seven civilians and injured 194.
Perisic's indictment alleges that he provided financial, logistical and personnel support to Serb forces in both Croatia and Bosnia between 1991 and 1995, by personally establishing two personnel centres within the VJ to covertly deploy officers to those two break-away republics and pay their salaries.
The witness, Stojan Malicic, told the court that during the formation of the 30th Personnel Centre within the VJ general staff, he served as head of the personnel department at the VRS main command in Han Pijesak, eastern Bosnia.
He said former VRS general Ratko Mladic and other officers who were deployed in Bosnia, and who in the indictment were said to come under the 30th Personnel Centre, were, in reality, VRS officers from its founding in May 1992.
The witness said that the VRS had, from its formation, "very scarce" personnel resources.
"So what was undertaken to build up the military personnel of the VRS in early 1992," asked defence lawyer Novak Lukic.
"We initially made our own registry of all officers all the way up to general who had been born in [Bosnia] but were sent for education to the Yugoslav national army military schools throughout Yugoslavia. We considered that those born in Bosnia had their place in one of the armies formed in Bosnia," the witness said.
He said that he was referring to the Serb, Muslim and Croat armies formed at the time in Bosnia.
He also clarified that in the summer of 1992 certain VJ officers who were originally from Bosnia wanted themselves to come and serve with the VRS.
"Some of them called us by phone and told us that they wanted to join the VRS yet did not know how," the witness said.
"We put their demands on paper and would send them through the VRS main command to the VJ personnel centres, asking for their demand to be granted."
These officers would then, according to the witness, come either to the corps command stationed in their home area, or straight to the VRS main command in Han Pijesak from where, according to a decree from the Republika Srpska defence ministry, they would be deployed where they were needed most.
Continuing his testimony, the witness said that he had first heard of the formation of the 30th Personnel Centre in late 1993 through his superior officer at the VRS.
According to the indictment, Perisic personally established the 30th Personnel Centre in order for it to serve as a transfer point for payments and administrative management of former VJ officers serving in the VRS or VJ officers who were deployed in the VRS.
"I was informed by my superior, Mico Krugor, that the 30th Personnel Centre had been established and that we will now have a contact point from which to receive exact data on every active VJ serviceman on service in the VRS," the witness said.
"Do you remember who your contact at the 30th Personnel Centre was," defence attorney Lukic asked.
"It was colonel Gojko Mijic, who was the officer in charge of this department, but there were four or five other officers too. All of them were active military officers born in [Bosnia] but were either invalids or otherwise incapable of deployment," he replied.
The witness said that all were VRS members "and only doing these tasks for our [VRS] needs".
"Was anyone from that personnel centre ever in position to give someone an order?" asked the defence lawyer.
"Nobody from the 30th Personnel Centre was in position to give orders of any kind," Malicic responded.
He said his colleagues in Belgrade were "colleagues, not superior officers".
"They had no command role. It was just a service of ours for collecting precise data on VJ officers in the VRS. We had the joint task of keeping the records straight on these individuals," the witness said.
Perisic’s trial started on October 2, 2008. He surrendered to the Hague tribunal in March 2005, pleading not guilty to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo.
