THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Hina) - In the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, witness David Harland said on Thursday that Serbs had shelled Sarajevo in order to force
Bosnian Muslim leaders to accept the results of ethnic cleansing.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Hina) - In the trial of former Yugoslav
president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in
The Hague, witness David Harland said on Thursday that Serbs had
shelled Sarajevo in order to force Bosnian Muslim leaders to accept
the results of ethnic cleansing. #L#
Harland, a former UNPROFOR official in Sarajevo, said that Bosnian
Serb leaders had told representatives of the international
community that the aim of the war was to create a compact Serb
territory that would stretch from the border with Serbia, which he
said was feasible only through relocation of populations.
The purpose of the military and humanitarian pressure on Sarajevo
was to force Bosniak (Muslim) leaders to agree to the relocation,
i.e. the ethnic cleansing. They told us that several times, the
witness said.
Harland spent six years in Sarajevo as officer of the UN mission in
charge of political and civil affairs. He often met Serb and Bosniak
leaders.
The witness said that during the war 1,000 shells fell on Sarajevo
on a daily basis.
According to the witness, UNPROFOR officers estimated that the
Serbs could have taken Sarajevo but did not because of political
pressure on Milosevic and fear of an international response.
Harland said that the accused had a heavy influence on the Bosnian
Serb forces, which he said was evident when he stopped an attack on
the eastern Bosnian town of Gorazde in the spring of 1994 and when he
made the Bosnian Serbs release more than 300 UNPROFOR personnel who
had been taken hostage in the summer of 1995.
The witness said that the Bosnian Serb army received financial and
logistical support from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that
it was part of the chain of command of the Yugoslav army.
Harland claimed that Milosevic was not directly involved in the
massacre of about 7,000 Bosniaks committed by Bosnian Serb forces
in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. The
witness referred to the results of a report on this event he
compiled in 1999 for the UN secretary general.
The accused must have known that the Bosnian Serb army was going to
attack Srebrenica because he had met Bosnian Serb chief military
commander Ratko Mladic before that, the witness said.
This is corroborated by the fact that only a couple of days later
Milosevic helped with rescuing Bosniak troops from Zepa who were
attacked by Serb forces immediately after the fall of Srebrenica,
he added.
Milosevic said that the authorities in Serbia had nothing to do with
the crime in Srebrenica nor did they know it had happened. He
acknowledged that he had given permission for an 850-strong Bosnian
army brigade to cross into Serbia before a Bosnian Serb offensive.
Milosevic is charged with genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
massacre of Bosniaks in Srebrenica.
Later, the tribunal said that there would be no hearing on Friday
and Monday due to Milosevic's ill health. No details were given.
The trial of the former Yugoslav president has been suspended for
the second time this month due to his ill health. Milosevic has been
suffering from high blood pressure and chronic fatigue since the
start of the trial.
(hina) vm