The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Securing Verdicts: The Misuse of Witness Testimony at The Hague
who brought with them “photographs taken from an AWACS of alleged
mass graves of Muslim victims. They insisted that we should take them
to the sites in the photographs so that they could assess for themselves
the truth of the Muslim allegations. Without hesitation…I agreed to
take them personally to every place in which they were interested….I
spent 44 hours with them driving round the area and allowed them to
see for themselves whether the alleged mass graves existed, allowing
them to move around freely and investigate the whole area, and I also
expressed willingness to take them to other places, if they had information
of large Muslim graves there.” Deronjic boasted that “Wallace personally
thanked me and expressed his belief that the allegations were
completely unfounded and that the entire international public had been
manipulated, and he promised that he would put his view objectively
in the world media.” 86 Whether Wallace made this promise to Deronjic
or not, that 60 Minutes report never saw the light of day.
As an ICTY witness, however, Deronjic tells a very different tale. At
Momir Nikolic’s sentencing hearing, Deronjic claimed that, as the
newly appointed civilian commissioner of Srebrenica, he had a phone
conversation on the evening of July 13, 1995, with Karadzic, who told
him that someone would come with instructions about how to deal
with the Muslim prisoners in Bratunac. Later that evening, a drunken
Colonel Ljubisa Beara arrived at Deronjic’s office. According to Deronjic,
he told Beara that Karadzic’s orders were that the prisoners were to
be “transferred towards Bijeljina and Zvornik, and…Batkovici.” Beara
allegedly replied, “I have orders instructing these prisoners to be killed
in Bratunac.” 87 Deronjic understood him to be referring to Karadzic as
the source of the order. Deronjic also claims that on July 13 he learned
that some buses with Muslim prisoners had left Bratunac in the direction
of Zvornik. However, under questioning, Deronjic admitted that
the first time he had ever mentioned Beara’s nighttime visit and the
order to kill Muslim prisoners was just prior to his guilty plea.
By Deronjic’s own account, the order to kill the prisoners was at odds
with every other order that Karadzic had previously issued. During his
testimony at the Milosevic trial, Deronjic claimed that Karadzic, on appointing
him to the civilian commissioner position, had suggested three
alternatives for the Muslim population of Srebrenica. First, the Muslims
could continue living in Srebrenica. Second, they could go where
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