Indictee Gojko Klickovic presents thirty pieces of material evidence on the activities of the Serb Democratic Party and Crisis Committee in the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa.
Klickovic introduced several articles published in Oslobodjenje daily in the spring of 1992, pertaining to a curfew and the removal of barricades in Sarajevo. He said he was presenting these presented in order to demonstrate that crisis committees were formed in all spheres of life.
“I would like to demonstrate that crisis committees existed. They were not invented by Serbs, but by Croats and Muslims. Serbs just took the idea from them,” Klickovic said.
The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina charges Klickovic, Mladen Drljaca and Jovan Ostojic with crimes committed in the Bosanska Krupa area during 1992. The indictment alleges that the first indictee was President of the Executive Committee of the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, Crisis Committee and wartime Presidency of the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa.
Klickovic then presented a document titled “Submission of documents on referendum to the Party of Democratic Action”, which, he said, represented proof that “the basic principle” governing the work of the SDS and the Serb people was transparent and not “secret and mystic” actions.
He presented an article entitled “Independent municipality of Modrica proclaimed”, published in Oslobodjenje in March 1992.
“This document shows what was done in line with the political scheme described by the Prosecution. The Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa had its own referendum course. It was established in 1991. Here you can see who followed the political scheme. There were no schemes in Krupa, but there was law and the Constitution,” the indictee said.
The indictment alleges that the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa was officially proclaimed on December 11, 1991.
An Instruction on Organization and Action by the Serb people’s bodies in Bosnia and Herzegovina in extraordinary circumstances made on December 19, 1991 was then presented and partially read in court. This document maintains that, “due to a justified suspicion that some parties are working on forcible dissociation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia”, tasks and measures for protection of the Serb people had been developed.
“This is the most important document for this trial. Gojko Klickovic trivialized the document, because we consider this was done in line with a directive,” Prosecutor Philip Alcock said after the indictee said that the instructions were adopted because “the SDS was under pressure and had to do something”.
An article under the headline “Arrest was the last thing in mind”, published in Vecernje novosti daily, which speaks about Richard Holbrooke’s plans for “removing Radovan Karadzic” from the political scene, was presented by Klickovic in order to demonstrate “the continuous involvement of the international community in the conflict”.
“They were the ones who decided what actions would be taken each day. None of us had the power to decide. They decided who would be considered an
aggressor and who would be the victim,” Klickovic said.
Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is charged, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, with genocide and other crimes committed during the course of the war conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Richard Holbrooke was a Special US Envoy for the Balkans in the ninety nineties.
The trial is due to continue on October 7, 2009.