THE HAGUE – Miodrag Simic is the first witness of the defense of former chief of the VJ General Staff Momcilo Perisic. Simic contends that the VJ never ‘co-operated’ with the VRS and the SVK. The Drina plan that assumed deployment of the Yugoslav army outside of FRY was a ‘deception’, the witness maintains.
Former chief of the First Administration in the VJ General Staff Miodrag Simic continued his evidence at the trial of General Momcilo Perisic. Simic explained the term ‘operative-strategic deception’: it was used to ‘deceive the enemy and protect the commands of the VJ units’. According to the witness, an example of the operative-strategic deception was the ‘Drina Plan’ logged on 24 November 1993 in the VJ General Staff’s First Division. In Simic’s words, the top people from the VJ General Staff, Manojlo Milovanovic from the VRS Main Staff and Mile Novakovic from the SVK Main Staff drafted the plan for the deployment of the armed forces. The document was signed by Zoran Lilic, president of FRY and of the Supreme Defense Council.
The plan speaks in detail about ‘the probable aggression” of the Croatian Army against the RSK; the attack was assumed to target the Serb territories in Western Slavonia and Baranja. Another goal was to “embroil Republika Srpska and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the war’. According to the witness, some of the hypothetical elements the plan was based on came true with the Croatian Operation Flash launched on 1 May 1995.
The Directive on the Deployment of the Armed Forces, a part of that war plan, stated that ‘potential aggressors should be discouraged from threatening the territorial integrity by achieving full combat readiness of the VJ’. The witness clarified what it meant: the FRY should use its forces to ‘co-operate with the SVK in countering the attacks on Baranja and Western Slavonia, and with the VRS in the Drina River valley and eastern Herzegovina’.
The VJ ‘never co-operated according to the plan’, Simic said. In his reply to Judge Moloto, the witness explained that the VJ never did operate in line with that directive during Operation Flash because the document was not ‘a real plan’ for the deployment of the FRY armed forces. As the witness put it, the plan was ‘in the sphere of strategic deception’. As soon as he started working on the plan he ‘had some doubts’ about the sincerity of the document, because those who drafted it never signed any confidentiality agreements, the witness noted.
As the witness explained, the Drina Plan was never further elaborated or implemented, in part because chief of the VJ General Staff Momcilo Perisic ‘never authorized it or signed it’. Perisic is charged with providing logistic, material, personnel and other support to the Serb armies in Bosnia and Croatia. The prosecution alleges that Perisic ‘significantly’ contributed to the artillery and sniper terror campaign in Sarajevo, the rocket attack on Zagreb and the crimes in Srebrenica. General Simic continues his evidence tomorrow.
Sense News Agency
http://www.sense-agency.com/
Sense News Agency
http://www.sense-agency.com/
24. 02. 2010.
Vojska sputavala policiju
THE HAGUE – Obrana prvog ministra unutrasnjih poslova Republike Srpske Mice Stanisica tvrdi da policija nije mogla da obavlja svoje redovne duznosti suzbijanja kriminala, posto je vojska stalno angazirala redovne i rezervne policajce u borbenim djelovanjima. Obrana prvog ministra unutrasnjih poslova bosanskih Srba Mice Stanisica nastojala je da dokaze da je on tokom 1992. godine ulagao maksimalan napor kako bi obezbjedio da se policija pridrzava strogih profesionalnih normi. Stanisic se, inace, uz bivseg nacelnika Centra sluzbi bezbjednosti (CSB) Banja Luka, Stojana Zupljanina, tereti za zlocine koje su pripadnici srpske policije pocinili nad Hrvatima i Muslimanima u 20 bosanskohercegovackih opcina tokom 1992. godine.
Svjedok optuzbe Drago Borovcanin, bivsi inspektor u srpskom MUP, u najvecem djelu iskaza slozio se sa sugestijama branilaca optuzenih. On se suglasio sa navodima da nije bilo jednostavno obezbjediti postovanje autoriteta ministra na teritoriji koju su drzali Srbi, posto je lokalna vlast cesto vrsila kadrovski izbor i financirala policiju. Kao potvrdu ove teze branilac je naveo primjer Stanice javne bezbjednosti Skelane gde je lokalna vlast postavila nacelnika i zamjenika stanice, uprkos ranijim imenovanjima na iste duznosti iz ministarstva. U izvjestaju, koji je svjedok sastavio nakon inspekcije te stanice, navedeno je da su samo cetiri radnika imala resenje o radu iz ministarstva, dok je ostale imenovao lokalni komandant Teritorijalne obrane Marko Milanovic. U dodatnom ispitivanju od strane tuziteljice, svjedok je, medjutim, priznao da je slucaj u Skelanima rijesen tako sto su duznosti preuzeli ljudi koje je imenovao ministar, dodajuci da upravo to dokazuje posvecenost MUP da rijese probleme nastale uplitanjem lokalnih vlasti u rad policije.
Obrana je jos ukazivala i da je policija bila sprijecena da obavlja svoje redovne duznosti zbog ucestalih zahtjeva vojske da im pripadnici policije budu na raspolaganju tokom borbenih dogadjaja. Borovcanin se slozio sa tim stavom obrane i nazvao "intermecom za kriminalce" vrijeme kada bi veci broj policajaca bili na frontu. Ukazujuci da je ministar aktivno pokusavao da rijesi i taj problem, branilac je predocio Stanisicevu naredbu izdatu neposredno prije pada Vlade, u kojoj se nalaze da se svi redovni policajci povuku iz vojne sluzbe, a da celnici Stanica javne bezbjednosti treba da "obavijeste vojne komande da nisu duzni da im budu na raspolaganju". Prema toj naredbi, samo rezervni policajci su mogli biti korisceni u sudjelovanju sa VRS. Sudjenje bivsim celnicima policije bosanskih Srba nastavlja se sutra iskazom novog svjedoka optuzbe.
Sense News Agency
http://www.sense-agency.com/
