Bozic et al: White House in Potocari
10 September 2008 A former UN observer claims to have seen VRS Military Police in Potocari when women and men were separated and driven away in different directions.
At the trial of four former members of the
Republika Srpska Army (VRS), Kenyan Colonel Joseph Kingori said the town of Srebrenica
was "heavily shelled" between 7 and 10 July 1995.
Kingori, a witness for the prosecution,
said he had managed to sneak into the Dutch Battalion base in Potocari,
where "between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians" had gathered. They
were subsequently separated and driven away in buses in different directions.
Zdravko Bozic, Mladen Blagojevic, Zeljko
Zaric and Zoran Zivanovic, members of the Military Police of the VRS Bratunac
Brigade, are accused of participating in guarding the buses that transported
the men from Potocari to Bratunac, where they were locked up.
Describing civilians in Potocari, the
witness said that they were overwhelmed with panic and fear. They said they were afraid the VRS would kill them and that the UN had not given them the
protection it should have.
"On 12 July 1995 several VRS officers
entered the Dutch Battalion base to separate the men and the wounded from the
others. They took them to the White House, where there were other men of
military age", Kingori said, explaining that they initially had not
allowed him to enter the house and that he had just seen "things of
Bosniaks who were locked up" lying around.
Among the things were their personal
belongings and wallets, which were subsequently "collected by local
Serbs".
Kingori said that the White House - which
was too small for all of the men locked inside - was guarded by soldiers that
included Military Police members who wore "berets", but the witness
could not remember what colour they were.
Kingori explained that civilians in the
Dutch Battalion base "did not have enough food" because the VRS did
not allow humanitarian convoys to go in. There were only a few toilets and
"water was everywhere", and everything "smelled like a pigsty".
"As we could not provide conditions
for the civilian population in the base, I spoke to Ratko Mladic and told him
that the UN would provide buses to relocate civilians from the Srebrenica safe
area. He told me that they had buses,
and they soon arrived", Kingori recalled.
He added that civilians in Srebrenica were
also separated when boarding the buses.
"Some men", Kingori said, "were crying and telling us not
to allow the army to take them as they would be killed". Kingori tried to
write down their names and surnames, but he did not "understand them"
and "did not write them down".
He also said that some men were exposed to
physical force when boarding the buses.
The trial resumes on 10 September.
Justice Report is a
specialist reporting agency focusing on war crimes trials taking place before
local courts; development of the local legal system; and efforts to come to
terms with the past.
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The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
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