THE HAGUE, May 18 (Hina) - Has the former commander of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, General Tihomir Blaskic, truly done everything to punish the perpetrators of crimes among his soldiers, and remove the criminals from the
Croatian Defence Council (HVO)? Prosecutors on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) confronted Blaskic this week with his command on the appointment of a local leader of a mafia group to a duty at the command of the Operative zone in July 1993. They told him to recall one case in which Zarko Andric "Zuti" had been punished for cimes committed while he was a member of the HVO. Andric was in the HVO from September 1, 1992, and his private troops snatched convoys of humanitarian help, looted, evicted Moslems from their homes, the prosecutor said, citing concrete cases. Andric at the time was not under my command, but under the command of Mostar, Blaskic said.
THE HAGUE, May 18 (Hina) - Has the former commander of the Central
Bosnia Operative Zone, General Tihomir Blaskic, truly done
everything to punish the perpetrators of crimes among his soldiers,
and remove the criminals from the Croatian Defence Council (HVO)?
Prosecutors on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) confronted Blaskic this week with his command on
the appointment of a local leader of a mafia group to a duty at the
command of the Operative zone in July 1993.
They told him to recall one case in which Zarko Andric "Zuti" had
been punished for cimes committed while he was a member of the HVO.
Andric was in the HVO from September 1, 1992, and his private troops
snatched convoys of humanitarian help, looted, evicted Moslems
from their homes, the prosecutor said, citing concrete cases.
Andric at the time was not under my command, but under the command of
Mostar, Blaskic said. Blaskic explained Andric's appointment into
the command as his wish to "pacify him and place him under control by
appointing him assistant of non-existing troops".
After this, Blaskic said, Andric never took part in any incident.
Blaskic testified during February and March that he had, from the
beginning of 1993, invested great efforts in removing criminals
from the HVO in order to strengthen discipline, and punished
perpetrators of crimes. The defence entered as evidence in support
of his statements, some of his orders.
Asked if he believed he had done everything he could to sanction the
crimes, Blaskic said "Yes, I am deeply convinced I did everything in
my power".
Last week the prosecution spent quite a lot of time reading
documents in which the international community and the Moslem side
in 1993 described Herzeg-Bosnia as an extreme structure which
evolved from a repression of Moslem rights.
The prosecution requested Blaskic to say whether he had taken part
in the orchestrated plan to ethnically cleanse central Bosnia
through murders of Moslems, setting fire to their homes and other
forms of pressure.
"Never was an order issued to any person or unit to set fire to
villages in an organised manner," Blaskic said last week.
"I am not familiar with the fact that there was an orchestrated
policy of burning Moslem houses".
"There was no organised fire setting, except in Ahmici," Blaskic
said, adding the homes had been torched within a long period of time
so as to cover up individual lootings.
(hina) lml