1995 Congressional Hearings
Intelligence and Security

MASS GRAVES AND OTHER ATROCITIES IN BOSNIA
US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
Wednesday, DECEMBER 6, 1995

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Wolf, thank you for that very disturbing testimony. You have reminded us what kind of atrocities we are actually talking about when we see it in black and white and in color. I'd like to begin the questioning and then yield to my colleagues for any questions they might have.

Mr. Rohde, you mentioned earlier that, when you were held by the Bosnian Serbs, some of your guards with whom you had contact were obviously more decent than others. They weren't into intimidation. They even gave you a heads- up that things might turn out well for you. We've heard over and over that all of the Bosnian Serbs are not acting with the same kind of impunity in this war, and that there are some who really believe that these atrocities are not taking place.

Now, Hitler had his SS, he had his storm troopers, and he had people who committed atrocities as a matter of course. General Mladic-and Mr. Lupis, you might want to speak to this as well-must have a very elite group or corps of people who are given to these kinds of atrocities, who will follow orders to the letter, dotting the i's and crossing the t's, and doing the kinds of terrible things that we see here.

Is there evidence that those people are being identified? I know there have been a few names handed down, including Mladic, in terms of indictments. Are we gathering evidence that indicates there is a core group of Bosnian Serbs that committed the bulk of these atrocities? Mr. Lupis, would you want to start on that?

Mr. LUPIS. Yes. As a matter of fact, during this investigation, we've been trying to piece together a chain of command linking the soldiers in the field who committed these crimes and continue up the ladder until we get to Mladic.

In this case, for the Srebrenica offensive, most of the hard work has been cut out for us because General Mladic was witnessed, was seen at many of these massacre sites. The real problem now is to try to get the chain established between the infantrymen and Mladic. Human Rights Watch, in the last few days, has been successful in obtaining information, names of Bosnian Serb commanders who operated during this offensive and who gave the orders to the men.

The harder thing right now is to establish precisely who from Serbia proper-what military people from Serbia proper, what soldiers from Serbia proper-were involved, because there's strong evidence to support that troops from Serbia proper were also used in this offensive.

We collected many testimonies. People said they'd seen Serbian troops in Serbian uniforms, distinguishable mainly by accents. The Serbian accent is very different from the Bosnian accent. Also, the U.N. reports that Mazowiecki published also collected testimonies of people seeing Serbian troops involved in this offensive.

So right now, we have a pretty good picture of who's involved from the Bosnian Serb side. The more difficult question now is to see if we can determine who was involved in Serbia proper.

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Rohde?

Mr. ROHDE. I heard the same thing from survivors regarding Serbian accents and that kind of thing. And experts I've talked with over there-U.N. officials, various military officials-feel that President Milosevic of Serbia has one of the best intelligence organizations in the former Yugoslavia. He has very close ties. Serbians are able to slip into Bosnian Serb territory, so it's very possible that he knew these executions were going on but did nothing to stop them.

Chairman SMITH. Given the allegations of mass executions which have been spoken about today-and we've heard about previously-was there any attempt by the United Nations, particularly as related to the safe haven Srebrenica, to investigate those mass executions as they were occurring?

Mr. LUPIS. Well, the role of the United Nations is problematic in the fact that the United Nations Dutch battalion in Srebrenica was in a very difficult situation: undermanned and unable to protect the enclave from this attack.

The problem that Human Rights Watch has with the United Nations' role is that even if they were helpless in stopping this from happening, there was crucial information which was not released in a timely fashion. The Dutch peacekeepers witnessed some of these atrocities taking place, and instead of radioing it out real-time, these allegations and stories started coming out a few days after the fall of Srebrenica.

Now, Mazowiecki, the U.N. human rights rapporteur, had written up a report based on testimonies taken from people investigating the role of the U.N. troops there; and it has caused waves in Holland. The Dutch Government has apparently suppressed information, a list of men who were turned over to the Serbs.

If you would like to read about this more in detail, it's in our report, but right now, the U.N. is really trying to feel out what it can do to explain this lack of action taken by it, and as a result of the Srebrenica debacle, Mr. Mazowiecki resigned his post in, I think, late August, early September.

Mr. ROHDE. There's just one thing. I also went to Holland and spoke to some of the peacekeepers who were in the enclave themselves, and they spoke of being very frustrated about being outmanned, outgunned, and almost being given an impossible mission to do. And the specific thing was that there was a list of, I believe, 142 men - 239, sorry-who were inside the U.N. enclave and ordered by the Dutch to leave.

As they left, they were separated from their families and taken away. All of those men are missing, and one of the survivors that I spoke to said he was also at Potocari, which leads me to believe that those men may very well be in the grave that I found near the village of Cajnice.

Chairman SMITH. Let me ask one final question before yielding to Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Lupis, I think this issue will especially apply to you as a researcher for a human rights organization. Mr. Rohde and Dr. Wolf, you also may want to go back to some of the places that you have visited. Do you believe that you will have access, unfettered access, to the sites where suspected mass graves and other kind of atrocities may have been held by all three sides?

Mr. ROHDE. I believe, according to the peace agreement, journalists do not have unfettered access to Bosnian Serb territory.

Mr. LUPIS. Yes, and this would be a good opportunity to call the Serbs' bluff and promise access to these graves under the Dayton peace agreement. I believe IFOR, the Implementation Force, has unrestricted access to any place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This would be a good opportunity to bring human rights groups, as well as forensic experts, along with IFOR troops, to the massacre sites.

I believe eastern Bosnia, where Srebrenica is, falls under U.S. jurisdiction, so a timely action would be to deliver a forensic team and a human rights team to be escorted to these sites by U.S. troops as soon as the Dayton peace agreement is signed.

One thing I think David said before, which may be dangerous, is that when he was captured, his maps of the sites were confiscated from him and, as well, his pictures were developed. Something like this should be done in a hurry; otherwise, the Bosnian Serbs would be able to dig up these graves and remove the bodies. I believe they've started in one place already.

Chairman SMITH. If I could follow up, is there something that should be coordinated with Justice Goldstone and his prosecutors, or is it something that would be done independently? How would you work that? Dr. Wolf, how did you work yours?

Dr. WOLF. Well, our trip was under the auspices of AmeriCares and in collaboration with the Split Medical Center. There are several forensic teams in place, a team in Split, a team in Zagreb. They have all of the knowledge and techniques, including DNA technology, to do the identification process, but basically we are talking about just a few forensic pathologists and dentists.

So I think we would need both the resources, in terms of monetary resources, as well as assistance from other forensic experts. They are certainly very appreciative of any forensic help in that regard.

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Lupis, how does your information make its way to Justice Goldstone? Do you work with him, or do you feed them information?

Mr. LUPIS. No, we work independently. They have their own investigators, and we have ours. But we work in a parallel fashion. Whatever we uncover or discover we send immediately to them just to help them build the cases for the indictments. But it's a solid system.

So far, everything we've published since 1991-1992 about the war has been handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal, so it's effective. I think they could do a good job if they fully carried it out.

Mr. ROHDE. I just want to state that I don't work in a parallel fashion with the War Crimes Tribunal. I just try to get the information public and give it to the public. It would be good, though, if this proposed trip you've talked about would include journalists so they could also go, and we don't have unfettered access; but I'm sure that there are journalists who would volunteer to go along if there were adequate security guarantees.

Chairman SMITH. I yield to the distinguished chairman of the International Committee, Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I just wanted to commend you and Senator D'Amato and members of the Commission for conducting this hearing at this time. It's very timely, and I hope that the evidence unearthed by our investigators will get to the proper hands, the tribunal that's examining the war crimes. Many of us in the Congress are very much concerned about further pursuit of those war crimes, that they not get buried in all of the paperwork that's going on in trying to give some peace to that area. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I regret I'm being called to another meeting.

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much. I want to thank all three of you for your testimony, but much more important than that, I want to thank you for the work you're doing. In three different areas, you are critical players, making sure that the cycle of vengeance and lack of justice and redress of atrocities that I talked about will not occur.

Let me ask a few questions. Dr. Wolf, you indicated that there were, in fact, pathologists on the ground in Bosnia who are competent and capable of doing good forensic work.

Dr. WOLF. Very much so, and I think this was really an example of science crossing political lines. The techniques that we use in the United States were very much the same techniques that they were using there, including the DNA laboratory in Split .

Mr. HOYER. The problem, I take it then, is the volume of work to be done and the scarcity of numbers there to do the work?

Dr. WOLF. The volume of people to be identified, and the lack of available information which aids in identification. The forensic teams have done a tremendous amount of work in gathering whatever information is available about the missing persons. They have a data bank and have gathered whatever dental or other medical information about these missing persons, but in many cases, because the entire towns are destroyed, there is very little to use.

Traditionally with identification of a decomposed body, we work with dental records, that sort of thing. In many cases, those records aren't available there. So that puts a greater need for DNA techniques. The laboratory in Split has been up and running for about a year and they're now expanding beyond traditional DNA, hopefully into the more sophisticated mitochondrial DNA techniques.

I think that's going to become very important in this process. In that way, samples from relatives can be used to identify some of these missing people when other methods of identification aren't available. Croatian scientists have come to this country and spent time working with the technologies. Our DNA experts, Dr. Lee, Dr. Schanfield, and others, have looked at their work and the technology. The capabilities are certainly there. It's resources and people that are needed.

Mr. HOYER. Doctor, you have reflected upon the identification of individuals who have been killed. Obviously your job is not so much about identification, but to determine why they were killed, particularly in trying to make some connection with a criminal act, in this case, a war crime.

Are you confident that we're going to be providing the kind of forensics work that will be needed in the Hague?

Dr. WOLF. As you said, usually as a forensics pathologist, my work is in dealing with a criminal situation. In this case, with this particular trip, the specific decision had been made not to look for evidence of atrocities, although I think, obviously, the mass graves themselves and the people in those graves, in some part, speak for themselves. We didn't specifically examine the bodies for torture or even cause of death. This trip was purely for identification.

Mr. HOYER. Identification.

Dr. WOLF. It's work that certainly-looking for---

Mr. HOYER. Do you see the other happening?

Dr. WOLF. As far as our work goes, we made this trip. We don't have specific plans to go back. It's certainly being documented by the team that we worked with from Split; but, at this point, they're overwhelmed with just attempting to provide the families some closure. As I mentioned, we're still identifying our remains being sent back from Vietnam.

Mr. HOYER. Vietnam?

Dr. WOLF. And I think the feeling in Split was that the people are well-aware of what's going on with atrocities in that country and they're attempting to give the families the ability to go on and just the overwhelming numbers of missing people have-each body is not being autopsied for evidence of torture or atrocities.

Mr. HOYER. I understand.

Dr. WOLF. We're only doing this for the purpose of the families.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you. Mr. Rohde, you mentioned on a couple of occasions the gravesites which you had identified, took pictures of, and talked to survivors. You mentioned on a number of occasions determining whether these were civilians or whether they were soldiers-that the Serbs were claiming that these were soldiers.

Now, I wanted to follow up at that time and did not. That may or may not be relevant. Obviously you can't kill soldiers that have been captured and are unarmed and are no longer combatants. It is a war crime to murder them and put them in a mass grave as much as it is any other individual. At that point in time, they're essentially subject to the same protections that civilians are, as I understand it.

Was there a contention that these soldiers were killed in battle? Is that the defense?

Mr. ROHDE. That is the Bosnian Serbs' explanation. They say these were all soldiers killed in combat, and for sanitary reasons, the bodies were collected from the areas and put in these mass graves. But again, the evidence I found contradicts that in terms of civilian clothes, and all the evidence I found has buttressed the accounts of the nine survivors who say civilians were executed.

Mr. HOYER. OK.

Mr. ROHDE. It's also important to point out that I believe only a third of the men who fled the enclave were armed. So the idea of combat going on is also difficult to prove from that.

Mr. HOYER. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee is leaving because she has another meeting to which I've also got to go on Bosnia and on the peace agreement. But I appreciate her being here.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you. Appreciate your testimony.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Rohde, you've testified, we've seen pictures of the Dutch commanding general, as I recall, raising a glass of wine or champagne with Ratko Mladic. I had an opportunity to take that picture-it was on the front page of the Washington Post-before the House of Representatives.

I had a 1-minute observation, as scathing as I could possibly muster, about raising a glass with a war criminal and a murderer, Ratko Mladic. Why do you think Mladic addressed these folks? Why do you think he was onsite?

Mr. ROHDE. I was told that at that meeting or one of the meetings with the Dutch commander, the initial meetings, Ratko Mladic had a pig brought into a hotel room. He had a soldier cut the pig's throat and told the Dutch, "you have to be able to watch this before we can talk." He then told the Dutch he would shell the compound if they resisted any efforts his troops made to take away the men at the site.

So he was there. It was negotiations. There are questions about the Dutch conduct, but to be fair, talking to the Dutch people---

Mr. HOYER. I'm not so much questioning the Dutch conduct. I was just offended by that picture and offended by the action of that general. That aside, however, you referred in your comments about his addressing those who subsequently became the victims.

Mr. ROHDE. Yes.

Mr. HOYER. And represented to them they were going to be released.

Mr. ROHDE. Consistently on at least four different locations.

Mr. HOYER. Now, I'm wondering whether or not you had discussions with folks who were there or who have analyzed that situation in trying to establish this chain of command and the connection between Mladic and Milosevic, and those who actually inflicted the death blows or death shots or however the death was brought.

Mr. ROHDE. He was only seen at the one site that I visited. According to one survivor, he got out of the car and watched as the executions were going on. At other locations, he spoke to prisoners a few hours before the shooting started. Again, everything else that survivor told me matched perfectly in terms of the description of the site and everything I found.

Mr. HOYER. And we have the names of those people? You talked to one witness who saw Mladic observing the killing go on?

Mr. ROHDE. Yes. Others put him at the site addressing prisoners hours before they were executed.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Lupis, how many witnesses do we have that fall in that category in number?

Mr. LUPIS. How many witnesses who have seen Mladic?

Mr. HOYER. Yes.

Mr. LUPIS. I believe we talked to about six survivors of the massacres, I think of which four had witnessed Mladic at different sites. Two of them saw Mladic in the Karakaj area and two other ones had witnessed him in the Nova Kasaba area; he was addressing the civilians, telling them that they would be taken care of and they would be exchanged. And then after he left, they were massacred.

Up in the Karakaj area, he was apparently watching the massacres as they took place.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Lupis, do you know what kind of protections are being accorded to those whom I would perceive to be critical witnesses, as a result of the critical nature of the testimony they could provide, I would think, in great danger if they're in the area? Do we know what protections are being accorded to them?

Mr. LUPIS. At the moment, the Bosnian Government is taking all measures to make sure their safety is guaranteed. They have already been relocated to private homes, unknown to the public; and some of them are still in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Others might have left, but at the moment, I think they're quite safe. And also, once the Dayton peace plan is signed, they'll fall into the-they'll be in the American sector up north.

Mr. ROHDE. Just one thing to add. My Bosnian Serb captors were very eager to know the names of the survivors I had talked to, which is alarming in a sense; but I made up fake Muslim names and did not name any of them. But the Bosnian Serb police were extremely interested to know who they were and where they were now.

Mr. HOYER. My suspicion would be that they would be very interested because I would imagine they would get pretty good rewards, in one way or another, maybe not monetarily, but career-wise if they could identify and silence these witnesses.

Chairman SMITH. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Yes.

Chairman SMITH. If the gentleman will recall, that's one of the issues that was raised in previous hearings by some of our witnesses, that there was not enough money allocated for witness protection. We ourselves raised that with Justice Goldstone and offered our support to try to get that amount of money boosted so that if anyone does come forward with information, again, they're not liable to be killed or in any way harmed. It's an excellent point. Thank you for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last question, and I've already taken more time than I should have and I apologize to Mr. Porter who's waiting patiently to ask his questions. I would like all three of you to comment from your perspectives, which obviously are different, some more long-term than others.

I made the observation in my statement-and I think generally you have also implied this, if not said it directly- that the importance of the war crimes tribunal is that justice has to be obtained so we don't have a continuing cycle of vengeance and violence. Could you comment on the importance of bringing to justice those who have perpetrated the acts which you have witnessed and investigated?

Mr. LUPIS. I think that is the fundamental principle which must be carried out to the end. Many of these atrocities which have been committed during this war have come about as a result of unhealed wounds from World War II when nationalists slaughtered various ethnic groups. When Tito came into power, he just basically suppressed any talk or any doings of resolving these issues.

Many people we talked to, especially Serbs, often refer to crimes committed against them. The Muslims of eastern Bosnia have suffered many massacres by the Serbs over the years, and nothing has been addressed. And the Croats as well have suffered. So by bringing these war criminals to justice, I think it will help resolve some of these feelings of complete loss and frustration and people will be able to start the healing process.

Right now, the American-backed federation between the Bosnian Muslims and the Croats is at a very critical juncture, because these issues have not been resolved. There are still war criminals on both sides, more so on the Croat side, that have not been removed from positions of power. And as long as they remain---

Mr. HOYER. May I stop you 1 second, Mr. Lupis?

Mr. LUPIS. Sure.

Mr. HOYER. When you say "both sides," you're talking about the federation, so you're talking about Croats and Bosnian Muslims?

Mr. LUPIS. I'm talking about both sides in the federation, the Croats and the Muslims. There are still leaders who are war criminals who are in positions of power who have not been removed and there can't be any repatriation, any healing, while these people are still there. So that's the most fundamental issue. For the Dayton peace agreement to be successful, this is the first issue that has to be addressed.

Mr. ROHDE. I can't really comment on the importance issue. I can just tell you the evidence I had just speaking to survivors from Srebrenica and going to some military bases around that were filled with soldiers who had made it through the woods. There are many Muslims calling for revenge for what happened-many Muslims saying "My father and my brother are dead," and they are going to carry out justice of their own if justice is not carried out by someone else.

One of the more chilling stories survivors told of these mass executions was that the Serbs would line up these Muslims and would call them Bovia, which is a slur for Muslims who fought with Fascist forces allied with Germany in World War II. It was very clear that the rationalization in the heads of these execution squads was that they were carrying out revenge for World War II, 50 years later. The Serbs did suffer a tremendous amount in World War II. So again, there's anecdotal evidence of the possibility of what you're talking about.

Dr. WOLF. I think the basis of my trip, my experience in Bosnia and Croatia, was really not to address the question that you're asking. I was dealing with individual families whose immediate concern was really whether their husband or their son was alive or dead. Were they being held prisoner somewhere and might be released? So I think that for the people that I was dealing with, that was the immediate issue.

To answer the question that you're asking, I think, clearly what we have seen is that it will happen again, it can happen again. But my own experience there was not to look at that question.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you, Dr. Wolf. Again, thank all three of you and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Porter.

Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for holding this hearing and for the focus that you've made on the situation in Bosnia. I think it has been very helpful. I am very sorry I didn't get here until perhaps halfway through Mr. Rohde's presentation and didn't hear Mr. Lupis. I want to ask one thing.

First, how were you allowed in? I guess you got in, Mr. Rohde, and then were arrested or held?

Mr. ROHDE. Yes. Throughout the war, the Bosnian Serbs have limited access to their territory to both human rights groups and journalists. The first time I was in was in August when I went to Nova Kasaba. I was in reporting another story and without their permission went to these graves.

The second time I went in, I had changed the date on a Bosnian Serb press accreditation and used that to get through checkpoints. It got me into this area. Again, the Bosnian Serbs had denied access to anyone to the Srebrenica area for 3 months, and I felt that action was warranted to see what had really happened there.

Mr. PORTER. Mr. Lupis, did you go in there also? I didn't hear any of your testimony unfortunately.

Mr. LUPIS. Unfortunately, Human Rights Watch, and I think other human rights groups, have consistently been denied access to Bosnian Serb-controlled territories. So our job basically, the best we could do, was to travel to the Tuzla area where many of these refugees were crossing over. The people who trekked through the mountains crossed over into Tuzla where most of the men, elderly, women, and children were bused to.

From there, we basically went to the refugee camps and attempted to interview people, trying to get their accounts. It was a traumatic experience because many of these people had just crossed over and they were still in shock about what had happened.

The one important thing is, I think, in order for something like the Dayton peace plan to work, is that all territories in Bosnia-Herzegovina should be accessible to human rights groups, to IFOR troops, in order to be able to find out exactly what happened to everyone in the territories.

At this moment, and during the history of the U.N. presence in Bosnia, the majority of Western aid organizations and Western efforts have been stationed in federation territory, which is held by Croats and Muslims. The Bosnian Serbs did not let many people into their territory and that was the biggest problem.

Mr. PORTER. Am I correct, because I wasn't here-are all the sites that we are talking about sites where the perpetrators are Serb?

Mr. ROHDE. In terms of Srebrenica, yes, the alleged perpetrators would be Bosnian Serbs; and I just want to point out that President Milosevic of Serbia, according to U.S. officials, has twice promised the United States that there will be access to these graves since the peace talks began in Dayton. He himself has promised that.

Mr. PORTER. Well, I want to go off the factual side. It seems to me that unless the world does something about this, that 50 years from now it will be the same story again. It will be a Bosnian whose father or grandfather was killed in a mass grave in 1992 or '3 or '4, putting someone else in another mass grave.

If we look at what has happened even in recent history to the Jews in World War II, where most of the world, including our own country, did not help and certainly didn't recognize even until almost the end of the war what was happening, even though they apparently knew it. Looking at Cambodia recently where millions of people died and where one of our members said today that they were in Cambodia and the first thing that was said to them by a very perceptive Cambodian man was, "Where were you? Where were you?"

What's happened here in Bosnia, to a lesser extent what is happening to the Kurdish people at the hands of the Iraqis and Turks and others, how much of this is on our own hands? How much have we a responsibility for having allowed this to go on when we knew it was going on or at least it seemed fairly evident fairly early?

And now, from your testimony, from other testimony that we've heard, it's clear that it was widespread, that it was repeated, that it was planned or premeditated in some instances, it was decided at a high level. Let me have your thoughts on that.

Mr. ROHDE. I can just say that-I think Mr. Lupis can address this better, but from seeing the Dutch peacekeepers on the ground here, the reason that enclave fell was a lack of NATO air strikes to stop the Bosnian Serb attack. There was no way the Dutch peacekeepers themselves could have stopped that, and that was according to sources I spoke to for an article I wrote about it.

You know, there was no political will there among the international community, and also there was no will or not a strong enough push from the United States to actually have those air strikes carried out.

Mr. LUPIS. I'd like to answer your question in a more general sense. I would like to comment that the whole experience of the war in the former Yugoslavia, which started in 1991 until the present, the tragic thing about it is that the West was right there. Everywhere, from the media, from television shots to the United Nations to Western diplomats running in and out of the country. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the tragic thing is it's been happening in front of our eyes and we keep on using the United Nations as the vehicle by which we pass resolutions and we do nothing about them.

This Srebrenica case is one of the greatest examples of having Western presence right in the middle of it-in the form of a United Nations safe area, and it was overrun. Resolutions were passed, condemnations, those who have committed crimes against humanity and that is proceeding, although my understanding is that the NATO forces will not have authority to apprehend or arrest those accused of war crimes. So that is taken off the table.

What can we do in a broader sense about this, not just Bosnia, but all of this genocide that goes on? What can we do to change the apparent acceptance of it by the world? And I don't mean that in an accusatory sense at all. I think that every American has been deeply disturbed about what they have seen and understood about what has happened in Bosnia.

But what do we do beyond this? Do we pursue this judicial direction only? Does Mr. Rohde write a book that reaches to our soul? Does the U.S. Congress pass another resolution? What are your thoughts?

Mr. LUPIS. Again, I think the most important thing is to stop passing the buck to the United Nations. The international community should stop relying on this convenient bureaucratic machine to pass resolutions and not act. I believe NATO, now being the legitimate military leader in this post-cold war era, should formulate a concise and clear mission in order to try to bring these war criminals to trial. Now it's off the table that IFOR can't apprehend these criminals. It's starting to sound like another United Nations mission.

The War Crimes Tribunal should be supported by all means so at least these war criminals can be tried and accused and the people who have lost families will be able to receive some kind of justice. Therefore, this would set an example for other countries, other situations where the International War Crimes Tribunal would have some formidable stature.

Mr. ROHDE. There is some talk, and I believe the United States does support the formation of a permanent war crimes tribunal that would exist permanently to address these kind of situations. I really don't have an answer to that and don't feel qualified to comment on it, but I can just tell you anecdotally that the power of deterrence is tough to measure. My Bosnian Serb captors were very surprised to find me so far into their territory and that I was able to get through their checkpoints. I think they were shocked when the United States publicly released these satellite photos.

There's a case to be made in terms of deterrence. I think one of the reasons they were convinced I was a spy was because they themselves had to say only a spy could do such a thing. So I just think they were very shook up by where they found me, by these photos, and just anecdotally, it seemed to have an effect on them and maybe made them curtail some of their behavior.

It appears that executions of this size have not occurred since these things were made public in August.

Mr. PORTER. It seems to me, and I thought this most strongly at the time of the Nigerian Government's execution of the Agani 9, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, that if the world can react strongly and overwhelmingly at a situation like that one to cut off-and this does not necessarily apply to Bosnia because it's a different situation-but to cut off all diplomatic, political, economic intercourse with such a society until the government is changed, if we could speak in a unified voice from Europe to Asia to North America and South America and express our outrage in such a way that the country is completely isolated. ..

We did this, of course, over a much longer period of time in South Africa, and it finally proved its worth. But if we could speak in that voice about these kinds of horrible atrocities that shake all of us so much that there would be a message to all others who would perpetrate them.

To the extent that we do not do that, to the extent that Shell Oil Company says to the Nigerian Government, "Don't worry about the World Bank. We'll make up the $100 million and the project will go ahead. We don't care that you killed nine people. So what?" It seems that is exactly the kind of thing that encourages this kind of conduct.

I think we've reached-we should have reached long since, but we have reached a level of information-sharing in a level of common humanity that we ought to learn how to speak in one voice; and perhaps the United Nations isn't the place to do it, but somehow we have to all rise up in such righteous indignation about these things that they can't happen again; that everything is brought to bear to prevent them. And unfortunately, the world has just not done that.

We can talk all we want in the United States about our caring about human rights; but we know today that our weapons supplied to the Turkish Government are used to kill Kurds without trial, people who simply disappear, whose homes are plowed under or they're driven from them; and yet we don't put that at high enough priority.

I don't know if you want to comment on that. It's more of a statement than a question, but feel free if you'd like.

Mr. LUPIS. In terms of Bosnia, the Dayton peace plan seems to be the perfect opportunity to reverse the trend of the last 4 years because with Rwanda and Bosnia, I think, leaders around the world-nationalists who are thinking of carrying out some similar campaigns as have been carried out in the aforementioned countries-are feeling pretty comfortable because so far, no international action has been taken up that really changed the tide of these conflicts.

Mr. Rohde and I had spoken earlier about, as soon as the Dayton peace agreement is signed, immediately calling the Serbs' bluff and bringing a forensic team with human rights people and journalists to these grave sites. Exposing these graves sites would, I think, help start turning the mechanisms for the International War Crimes Tribunal to issue more indictments and just get the ball moving with the War Crimes Tribunal in general.

So the Dayton peace plan, I think, offers an opportunity where we can reverse the last 4 years.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Porter. Before we conclude, I'd like to ask one final question. Mr. Lupis, I noticed that you used the word "calling their bluff" on two occasions, and I heartily agree. One of the concerns that I have-and this has been picked up at least by my staff and myself for months now-that there are some within the United Nations and some who are part of this process in the international community who really don't want the War Crimes Tribunal to succeed all that much.

Perhaps a few indictments, some show cases, and that's it, put the atrocities behind us and move on. I think that would be a travesty if that were the case. That's why I think there are some at the United Nations particularly who have made it very hard for Justice Goldstone to proceed. From my perch as chairman of the International Operations Subcommittee, we have tried to pressure the United Nations, over which our committee has jurisdiction, as well as the administration, really to be more aggressive, to make sure sufficient funds are allocated in a timely fashion.

You know very well how damning the Shell study was in terms of what evidence was being lost. I met with administration officials earlier this week who told me they don't have one shred of evidence on Milosevic in terms of committing war crimes. I was astounded that this has not been an ongoing fact-finding accumulative process, and I was very disappointed, frankly, when the administration official told me this.

As a Commission we are in the process of putting together a letter that will ask a number of serious questions about the War Crimes Tribunal as it relates to IFOR. I'd like to point out, the Dayton agreement summary that was provided to us by the State Department contained a paragraph that states, "The agreement gives IFOR, the peace Implementation Force, the authority and discretion to use military force to prevent interference with the free movement of civilians, refugees, and displaced persons, and to respond appropriately to violence against citizens, civilians. IFOR has the authority to arrest any indicted war criminals it encounters or who interfere with its mission, but it will not try to track them down."

A review of the text of the Dayton peace agreement, its annexes, and its appendices, and the accompanying side letters failed to locate anywhere in these texts a provision or provisions conferring upon IFOR "the authority to arrest any indicted war criminal it encounters."

In your read of the Dayton agreement, Mr. Lupis, have you found anything that confers this capability upon the IFOR to make these arrests? Because we haven't found it.

Mr. LUPIS. Actually I haven't read the fine print of the whole agreement. My colleague back in New York has done that and is issuing a critique shortly. But what you just stated about IFOR not having the authority to seek out and capture war criminals is disturbing, and I think that's something that should be lobbied in order to change it before the London conference coming up in a week.

Our organization is working actively to try to alert member states of the United Nations, and the international community to try to put some pressure on the relevant players at the London conference to reverse this IFOR role, because of the Dayton agreement. If IFOR will have this diminished role, it will start to look a lot like the United Nations operation in former Yugoslavia.

Chairman SMITH. I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for your outstanding testimony, for the good work you do on behalf of humanity, the Bosnians in particular, and for taking the time to come and present your testimony to the Commission. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon at 3:48 p.m., the Commission adjourned.]