Srebrenica Survivor Gives Glimpse of Enclave's Defences

Saturday, 27 March, 2010

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Rachel Irwin

Senior Reporter

Former Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir, on trial for war crimes at the Hague tribunal, this week questioned a witness who survived the 1995 Srebrenica massacre about his role in the defence of the enclave and the exodus of people after it fell.

The witness, Mevludin Oric, was part of a large column of people who fled Srebrenica after the town fell to Serb forces on July 11, 1995. The group decided to go to Bosnian-held territory near the city of Tuzla, Oric said.

“[So we can] conclude that the whole column went of their own free will?” asked Tolimir, who represents himself.

“We had to go,” Oric said. “It was not of our free will. This was our only option. We had to go towards Tuzla.”

Tolimir is the former assistant commander for military intelligence and security in the Bosnian Serb army, and prosecutors say he reported directly to the chief of staff, Ratko Mladic, who is wanted by the tribunal for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, among other crimes.

Tolimir is charged with eight counts, including genocide, extermination, murder, and the forced transfer and deportation of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) from Srebrenica and Zepa from July to November 1995.

Because the witness testified in the Vujadin Popovic trial in 2006, his previous testimony was entered into evidence and prosecutor Nelson Thayer asked few additional questions.

Popovic, along with six other high ranking Bosnian Serb army officers, are charged with helping to plan and carry out the Srebrenica massacre. The charges include genocide, murder and forcible transfer. The trial adjourned in September of last year and judges are currently deliberating on a verdict.

According to Oric’s previous testimony in the Popovic trial, the column heading to Tuzla was ambushed by Serb forces on July 12. Oric was subsequently captured and taken to a school near Zvornik, which was packed with Bosniak men and boys who were forced to sit with their knees under their chins.

After waiting many hours in the school gym, he said that Bosnian Serb soldiers began taking people out in groups, blindfolding them, and putting them on trucks. Oric said his group was taken to meadow a few minutes away and told to jump out. When they did, the shooting began, and Oric said his cousin was shot and fell on him, at which point he pretended to be dead.

“[My cousin] died on me,” Oric told judges in 2006. “And the rest of the group, maybe two or three of them, started wailing and screaming because they were wounded, and these other men came and finished them off. And that's how it continued. People were being brought there and killed.”

This week, over two days of cross-examination, Tolimir asked many questions relating to Oric’s experience in the Bosnian army and the exodus from Srebrenica after it fell to the Bosnian Serbs.

Before Oric fled, he was a commander of a small squad of ten men who mainly guarded the lines of their village. The squad had one rifle between them, Oric said.

In his previous testimony, Oric said that he left Srebrenica with two hand grenades, but lost them after the ambush by Serb soldiers.

“Did you consider yourself to be armed if you had hand grenades?” Tolimir asked.

“You could say that, for defence purposes,” Oric responded.

Tolimir showed Oric a document, which apparently showed a list of weapons brought into Srebrenica for use by the Bosnian army.

“I don’t know how Srebrenica fell, if we received all these weapons,” Oric responded.

Tolimir also showed Oric several video clips, one of which depicted soldiers in uniform speaking to a row of plainclothes men.

“Are these all members of the [Bosnian army’s] 28th division?” Tolimir asked.

“You can see they are not sheep,” Oric responded.

Many of the men in the video clips were not in uniform and Tolimir asked the witness how he could tell the difference between soldiers and officers.

“You can’t tell,” Oric responded. “They are all in civilian clothes.”

“You were an officer in this division,” Tolimir said. “[Were] you familiar with the provisions of the Geneva conventions?”

“I [had] never heard of the Geneva conventions,” Oric responded. “If they were violated, the violations were on your side.”

Tolimir asked how it was possible to differentiate between soldiers and civilians, if no one was in uniform.

“That’s what your soldiers were supposed to do - differentiate between elderly men and children,” Oric replied.

Tolimir also questioned Oric on the fact that he is a cousin of Naser Oric, commander of the 28th division of the Bosnian army, which included Srebrenica.

Naser Oric stood trial at The Hague tribunal in 2004, charged with murder and cruel treatment of Serb civilians in Srebrenica. He was found guilty on some of the charges and sentenced to two years in prison in 2006. However, appeals judges in 2008 acquitted him of all counts.

The witness identified Naser Oric in some of the video clips and in several photographs.

Tolimir additionally showed footage of what appeared to be one of the columns that fled Srebrenica, comprised of some soldiers in uniform and other people in plain clothes, including some women.

“Are these people from Srebrenica?” Tolimir asked.

“I don’t know,” responded Oric, who said he did not recognise anyone in the video and did not know where it was recorded.

Tolimir then showed Oric a photograph of a man in a black sweater, taken from the video depicting the column.

“Is that you?” asked Tolimir.

“No,” responded Oric.

Tolimir then asked that prosecutors take a photograph of the witness, “in the same way that one takes a passport or ID photo”, Tolimir said.

Thayer, the prosecutor, objected, saying that Tolimir seemed to want to use the photo to compare it to the person seen in the video. He said the proceedings are video recorded and a still photograph could easily be extracted from that recording.

“This ties into the prosecution’s questions about where Tolimir is going with these questions,” Thayer said.

Thayer said that if Tolimir was suggesting that Oric was lying about where he had been after the fall of Srebrenica, then the accused should say so.

“Neither I nor my defence have any intention of claiming anything here,” said Tolimir, adding that his group of experts advised that it was “preferable to have a photo of quality”.

The judges said that if Tolimir wanted a special photograph taken of the witness, he would have to make a written submission.

Rachel Irwin in an IWPR reporter in The Hague.