FACTS ABOUT BOSNIA WAR STILL CONFUSING FOR ICTY JUDGES

THE HAGUE, March 18 (Hina) - Six years after the war in Bosnia- Herzegovina and almost two years after the beginning of the court proceedings against Tihomir Blaskic, facts about that war in that country could still baffle the Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Who fought whom here? I cannot understand it, exclaimed Judge Claude Jorda, the chairman of the trial chamber at which the trial of Bosnian Croat General Blaskic is being conducted. Blaskic is accused of violation of the Geneva Conventions, the law and customs of war and crimes against humanities, which his subordinates committed during the Croat-Moslem conflict in the Lasva River valley in 1993. He is charged in line with the principle of commanding responsibility because he was the commander of the Central Bosnian operational zone at the time when crimes happened. Following the defendant's testimony about the work of the joint commission of the Croatian and Moslem military forces in central Bosnia in 1993 in the defence against Serb armed forces just during the days when the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) command in the central Bosnian town of Vitez was receiving intelligence information about the movement of 2,000 Moslem soldiers from Sarajevo in the war against Croats, the French judge Jorda said: "But, it is a bit surrealistic." In this way the Frenchman described the enigma of relations in the war-time Bosnia-Herzegovina with which the International Court is faced in its attempts to find and punish war crimes perpetrators in that country. That there are many questions without answers is demonstrated by another response of Judge Jorda to Blaskic's testimony. After hearing Blaskic's testimony on the conduct of the investigation into the Ahmici crime, he posed a question whether Pasko Ljubicic rather than Blaskic should be in that court now. While speaking in his defence in the past few days, Blaskic said he believed that some members of the Fourth Military Police battalion, commended by Ljubicic, had been behind the planned and organised attack against Moslem civilians in the village of Ahmici in the Lasva River valley. On Wednesday, Judge Almiro Rodrigues tried to comprehend why Serbs had not descended to the Lasva valley during the Croat-Moslem conflict and turned it to their benefit. The Croat and Moslem forces which fought against each other in the valley, held together the battle-line against Serbs in Travnik and Novi Travnik, and the strategic interest of the Serb party was probably the corridor in northern part of the country rather than central Bosnia, Blaskic explained. Now you have a bit helped me to understand, Rodrigues added. I am talking about the situation which was difficult for me, a soldier, to understand, Blaskic said in response. Blaskic's defence counsel, lawyer Anto Nobilo, was also of assistance to the judges. Nobilo asked Blaskic who had been the enemy of the (Moslem-led) Bosnian Army. The Bosnian Serb army and the HVO, the defendant answered. The attorney then asked who had been the enemy of the HVO, and received the answer - the Bosnian Serb army and the Bosnian army. Do you agree that the situation was absurd, the Croat lawyer asked. "Yes, the situation was absurd," Blaskic answered and cited an example of western Bosnia where in Bihac, Bosniaks (Moslems) in league with Serbs fought against Bosniaks and Croats on the same side. (hina) ms