VUKOVAR HOSPITAL DOCTOR TESTIFIES BEFORE ICTY

( Editorial: --> 8894 ) THE HAGUE, 2 Feb (Hina) - Dr Vesna Bosanac, director of the Vukovar General Hospital, on Monday testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Bosanac is the prosecution's fourth witness in the trial of former Vukovar mayor Slavko Dokmanovic. She spoke of the shelling of the hospital, which started in August 1991, and the abduction of male patients and civilians who were waiting to be evacuated following the entry of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary units in Vukovar on 18 November 1991. Bosanac said that after a shell hit the hospital's administration building on 15 August, the shelling continued despite the clearly visible Red Cross insignia on the hospital's roof and in the yard. Between 60 and 200 projectiles of various types hit the hospital daily between 14 September and 17 November 1991, the doctor said, adding they were coming from JNA positions. Bosanac stressed that even though no military objects were situated in the hospital, it was shelled more than other parts of Vukovar. Every day, the doctor said, she forwarded notes protesting about the attacks on the hospital to Croatian authorities, the Croatian defence headquarters, the Belgrade-based headquarters of the JNA, the then Yugoslav prime minister, European politicians, the Zagreb-based European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Before Vukovar was seized in November 1991, the hospital with a capacity for 200 patients accommodated 450, situated in corridors, far from windows, said Bosanac. The most serious patients were placed in an atomic shelter, where a recovery room, a delivery room with incubators, an intensive care room and a room for staff children were located as well, the doctor added. She illustrated the situation in the hospital with two incidents. A shell once penetrated three floors and stopped at the feet of patient Pero Vukasin, while another explosion destroyed the surgery department, said Bosanac. At another time, a shell penetrated the roof of an underground passage between the hospital's old and new buildings, collapsing on a patient, she added. Intensive negotiations to stop attacks on the hospital began in early October 1991. On the 11th, a convoy of Doctors Without Frontiers was supposed to come to Vukovar to evacuate a first group of 100 wounded people and bring medication but, said Bosanac, the JNA detained the convoy in a Vukovar barracks. Another convoy reached the hospital on 18 October, without bringing one pill however, and then, said Bosanac, took 13 hours to transport 105 wounded to the nearby town of Vinkovci. She said that neither one ECMM nor two ICRC teams, which were to reach Vukovar on 18 November for the evacuation, arrived. "In the hospital, we were getting patients ready for evacuation, by giving them their hospital cards, even putting some in plaster casts for transport," said Dr Bosanac. At the time there was neither food nor water available and there were cases of gangrene as well, she added. Civilians started leaving their shelters and coming to the hospital, she said, even though "then, as before, there were no weapons in the hospital (...) I strictly banned (them)". On 19 November, Bosanac and the commander of Vukovar's defence travelled to Negoslavci for talks on evacuation with the JNA commander in charge of operations in Vukovar, Mile Mrksic. Mrksic had promised the evacuation of the wounded would take place the next day, but when she returned to the hospital, said Bosanac, the JNA had already broken in. "The crime would have been prevented had the ICRC and the ECMM sent 100 and not three teams, which were manipulated by JNA Major Veselin Sljivancanin," the doctor said. Both Mrksic and Sljivancanin, now generals, are on the ICTY's list of persons accused of war crimes, but the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia refuses to surrender them. In the afternoon of 19 November, JNA soldiers started taking away civilians who had come to the hospital, separating the men from the women. Sljivancanin told her this was necessary to list the men, the doctor said, adding there were some 1,000 people at the hospital at the time, including women and children with bags. "The ICRC, which disappointed me greatly, arrived in the evening, when the hospital had been emptied, and concluded it was unnecessary for them to come the next day at all," said Bosanac. Bosanac was then taken by JNA soldiers to Negoslavci for interrogation. She was returned to the hospital the day after, 20 November 1991, where Sljivancanin said that the staff of the military medical academy were taking control over the hospital. He told Bosanac the hospital staff were required to state whether they wanted to stay or go, and that the evacuation of the remaining patients would then begin. After being taken to a JNA barracks, Bosanac was told the evacuation had been carried out. She was then taken to a prison in Sremska Mitrovica, a town in Serbia, where she was told she would be charged for having vilified the JNA as the aggressor in her appeals for help. Bosanac was released on 13 December 1991 as part of an exchange of prisoners. The doctor told the ICTY that her father-in-law and her husband's cousin were among the 108 bodies identified from Ovcara, a mass grave near Vukovar. She told the defence of Slavko Dokmanovic that between 18 and 20 November she had not seen Dokmanovic, whom she knew by sight from before. In answer to the defence, Bosanac said nobody had lost their job at the hospital because of their Serb nationality, but for failing to turn up at work for five days. The defence wanted a confirmation that in November 1991 Dokmanovic was no longer mayor of Vukovar, because he had been replaced by a Croatian Government commissioner for the municipality of Vukovar, but Bosanac said she did not know who was performing that task behind the JNA's lines in the town. Asked to be more precise in stating whether she had negotiated with Serb civil authorities or the JNA, Bosanac said that people in Vukovar did not pay attention to what was Serbian and what was Croatian. One-third of Vukovar residents killed during the siege of the town were Serbs, she concluded. (hina) ha jn 022006 MET feb 98