WITNESS DONIA AT BLASKIC TRIAL CROSS-EXAMINED

THE HAGUE, July 22 (Hina) - The testimony of Prosecution Witness 1, Robert Donia, at the trial of Bosnian Croat general, Tihomir Blaskic, before the International War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague, ended on Tuesday after Donia's two-day testimony at the end of June and his cross-examination on 21- 22 July. On Tuesday, the Defence tried to relativise Donia's competence as a historian and expert in state of affairs in the former Yugoslavia. The American confirmed that while he was writing his book called "Bosnia-Herzegovina a Tradition Betrayed", he had a full-time job with Merril Lynch (where he has been employed since 1981), and that he gathered data from secondary sources. Donia confirmed during the cross-examination that Croat forces in Bosnia- Herzegovina were mostly of origins from western Herzegovina, and that central Bosnian Croats were not nationalistic extremists. He said that the HVO (Bosnia- Herzegovina's Croat forces) was not a professional, disciplined army and could not be compared with western countries' armed forces. During his testimony this June, Donia described the Bosnian Croat party's 2 April 1993 draft agreement on military cooperation as an ultimatum to the Moslem (Bosniak) party aimed at obtaining a pretext for (Croat-Moslem) conflict in central Bosnia. However, during Tuesday's cross-examination, he admitted that the Croat party, demanding the division of responsibilities for + territorial units in Bosnia, contributed to progress toward signing a Vance-Owen plan. Donia also said that Croatia had recognised the international border of Bosnia and gave arms to Moslems. The Lawyer of the Defence, Russell Hyman, asked Donia whether he would change his views on the HVO draft agreement as an excuse for starting the conflict when he heard of the opinion of an influential politician who is + Moslem and who did not see the draft agreement as Donia did. But the discussion on the matter was held behind the closed doors because of the protection of the identity of that man. On Tuesday afternoon, the Prosecution persisted in claiming that the HVO draft agreement was an ultimatum. For this purpose, they cited articles of Reuters, of the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, and a Yugoslav daily, Borba, from those days. But, the Defence portrayed articles of the Serbian media as biased. Then, the Prosecution wanted to prove that the draft military cooperation agreement was not signed by Alija Izetbegovic, and showed to the presiding Judge, Claudio Jorda, a letter by Izetbegovic which denies that he had signed + the deal. Judge Jorda declined to register the letter of 22 July 1997 as a piece of evidence. He said that he would not accept that written evidence as long as the Prosecution did not say whether Izetbegovic would be a witness at the trial. Donia eventually said that the 2 April 1993 draft agreement proposed by the Croat side was not an evident ultimatum and that the HVO had not demanded the complete withdrawal of Moslem troops from areas that should be controlled by Croats, according to the Vance-Owen plan. He added that the evidentiary documents did not show that the HVO threatened the Moslem party with force. During the cross-examination by Judge Fuad Riad, Donia said that Croatia's army had entered Bosnia and that in February 1992, power in Herzeg- Bosnia was taken by people who acted according to orders of Croatia's government. He added that Croatia intended to control Bosnian areas which it had attained under the 1939 Cvetkovic-Macek deal. At the end, Judge Jorda warned that it was too much to spend four days for the testimony and cross examination of Robert Donia regarding that about 300 Prosecution witnesses and about 150 Defence witnesses are registered. On Wednesday the trial resumes when Simon Leach, the ICTY investigation section team leader in central Bosnia, is expected to testify. (hina) mš 222215 MET jul 97