MAY 20
The big news today was not from The Hague but from Pale, the capital of Republika Srpska, where endless intrigue and speculation surrounds Radovan Karadzic. Will he wind up here at the International Criminal Tribunal defending himself against charges of genocide? Or will he remain the power behind the Bosnian Serb government.

The international and local press have continued to headline events from Bosnia and the Former Yugoslavia. The infighting has intensified between Karadzic's "nationalist hard-liners" and more moderate elements surrounding Prime Minister Rajko Kasagic, based in Banja Luka. Last Thursday, Karadzic fired Kasagic amid press speculation that Karadzic's continued visible presence in the Bosnian Serb government might force NATO troops to arrest him and turn him over to the tribunal. Kasagic was reported to have met with tribunal prosecutors. The international community responded to Kasagic's ouster by saying that the dismissal was a "coup" against the Dayton Agreement.

However, today's London Times carried a front page story entitled, "Defiant Karadzic Clings to Power," accompanied by a picture of Bjiljana Plavsic, a Karadzic ally named to replace Kasagic. Nonetheless, the International Herald tribune quoted an extremely optimistic monitor, Carl Bildt, who claimed that Karadzic "will step out of public life and not be seen or heard." These beliefs about Karadzic's political demise were based on talks between international mediators and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, and contacts with Karadzic's political opponents in Pale.

Meanwhile, sources say that those close to the trial would like to see Karadzic in custody. He is at the top of the current prosecution hit list. The judges believe his trial would enhance the credibility of the tribunal, and the defense thinks Dusko Tadic's chances of acquittal or mistrial would increase if Karadzic was locked up.

"Plus Ca Change, Plus La Meme Chose"
Meanwhile, the trial continued with the prosecution drawing down the curtain on its Northern Bosnia policy witnesses with Elvir Pasic, a Muslim refugee from Rogaltica. Pasic was a former military and reserve policeman whose testimony followed that of previous witnesses.

He also observed the steady increase in Serb political and paramilitary aggressiveness beginning in the summer of 1991. In fact, he said he resigned his police responsibilities when the Serbs built a wall down the middle of the police station which had been under the command of a Muslim.

Like previous witnesses, Pasic noted the disappearance of TV Sarajevo and its replacement by telecasts from Pale, Belgrade, and other locations in Serbia. He also noted the formation of the Serb Autonomous region.

He said the shelling of Muslim area began in May 1992. After resistance by 50 Muslims with small weapons, the Serbs took over the town. During the bombardment, Pasic and others hid in the basement of his building. When Serb paramilitary troops in Black Berets rousted them, one young Muslim "lad" remained in the basement. The Serbs tossed a hand grenade in the basement to flush him out, Pasic said.

For the first time, the court heard allegations of rape. Pasic told the tribunal that every night Serbs came to the secondary schools where Muslims initially were imprisoned. They would remove Muslim women, returning them the following morning weeping and distraught from being sexually assaulted and abused.

Pasic's imprisonment lasted until July 21, 1993, and included time spent in Susica and Batcovic. He witnessed the now routine beatings and killings of detainees, including the shooting of one man called the professor" and two unoffending old men. Pasic noted that prisoners were beaten if they complained to International Red Cross personnel during camp visits. In fact, he said that women, children, the aged and those who obviously had been beaten were removed from the camps before such inspections.

Cross-Examination
Defense lawyer Stephen Kay briefly cross-examined Pasic on the reliability of his claim that Muslim resistance consisted exclusively of 50 Muslims with pistols and hunting rifles.

He maintained that Pasic had no way of knowing this because he was hiding in the basement. The questioning had a strange obligue character because Pasic evidently thought that Kay was questioning his courage in declining to join the resistance forces. Pasic protested that it was hopeless to resist artillery with rifles. Actually, the defense was raising its intermittent claim that witnesses are minimizing the military opposition faced by the Serbs.

Testimony on "Ethnic Cleansing"
The prosecution's next witness was Hanne Sophie Greve, a Norwegian judge and international consultant to several international relief and human rights agencies. Her experience includes work in Thailand, Ethiopia, Angola, Romania and Cambodia. In October of 1993, she joined the U.N. Commission of Experts and was assigned to Prijedor. She talked to any government and relief personnel she could find, read as much literature as she could, and directed the more than 400 interviews of victims and witnesses from the Opstina.

Thus far, she had quantified the number of "missing" persons from Prijedor as 43,000 Muslims and 3,000 Croats. She also has highlighted the strategic significance of Prijedor to the Serbs in the spring of 1992. It was a "corrider" which could link the Serb areas in Northeast Bosnia adjacent to Serbia with the Krajina Serbian sector in Northwestern Bosnia and Croatia.

She also highlighted the propaganda used by Serb leaders to frighten and inflame Serbs in Northern Bosnia who Greve claimed had lived peacefully with their non-Serb neighbors since World War II. In the most telling metaphor of the trial testimony so far, she quoted from Serb publications which indicated that "corrider" was too weak a term to use for this connection of Serb-dominated lands to Greater Serbia. The correct term for Prijedor is the neck. The "neck" is more than the "corrider" between the head and the body.

MAY 21
The war crimes tribunal plans to start hearings next month on the charges against Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

The so-called Rule 61 proceedings provide for a public, ex parte proceeding against any indicted person who has not been served or arrested. It is kind of a probable cause hearing. If the prosecutor prevails, then an "international arrest warrant" may be issued. The tribunal is empowered to notify the United Nations Security Council if any nation fails to fulfill its obligations to arrest and turn over such persons within its borders.

Karadzic and Mladic have both been indicted on charges of genocide, including the killing of thousands of Muslim civilians at Srebrenica last year. The tribunal has indicted 57 people but only Dusko Tadic and three others are in custody.

The tribunal's announcement comes several days after intense efforts by the Western powers to remove Karadzic from office.

Euphemistically Speaking
The day's testimony again focused on "ethnic cleansing." And at the end of today's parade of horrors, Judge McDonald asked witness Hanna Sophie Greve to define "ethnic cleansing" for the record. The witness almost apologized for using the term. "It is a euphemism." It means rounding up an ethnic group by violence or force and taking them to concentration camps like Omarska for torture, murder and deportation.

Greve also described the "informative talks" that Serbs had with their captives at "military investigation centers." Simo Drljala, Serb Interior Minister, admitted that 6,000 of these "informative talks" took place at camps during the summer of 1992. Greve indicated that these "talks" exceeded 6,000 by a significant number and invariably involved torture.

Horrors of the Day
There was no escaping the continuing torment in the camps. "Informative talks," beatings and killings were constant in Omarska and Keraterm. Particularly insidious was the practice of beating inmates who were trying to make it to the canteen for a meager portion of gruel or to the field to relieve themselves.

Greve placed the massacre at Keraterm in July of 1992. Some 150 detainees were machine-gunned in the night, their bodies left until the following day. Then the bodies were disposed of at one time. Since the event took place adjacent to a road near the camp, the road was simply blocked off for the day to obstruct the views of bystanders.

Some of those not kept in the camps were deported. Many were forced to sign over all their possessions as a condition of departing from Prijedor. They also signed pledges never to return to their homes. This, however, was just the start of a journey frequently made in cattle cars so tightly packed that children, the elderly and the inform perished along the route.

The worst account of deportee travel offered by Greve today involved 250 males who had been deported and thought they were on their way to freedom. They were taken, however, to the top of Mt. Vlasic and forced to kneel on the edge of a cliff. They were then shot and pushed off the cliff. Only six men survived.

MAY 22
Dusko Tadic was mentioned today by prosecutors for the first time since opening statements two weeks ago. The reference, in connection with the Serb bombardment of Kozarac, came during the redirect examination of witness Hanne Sophie Greve. It came on a day of intense defendant watching for me.

The Face of the Accused
I had seen very little reaction on Tadic's face to the frequently dramatic testimony about "ethnic cleansing" offered thus far during the trial. I'm not sure any reliable conclusions can be drawn from a defendant's physical reactions, but they are worth observing. Maybe Tadic was stoic, perhaps he had become immobilized by fear, or just possibly I had been so caught up in watching the other activity in the courtroom that I missed his reactions.

Since it is his trial, Tadic -- appropriately -- is the last to enter the courtroom in the morning. Only after the judges have settled behind their bench and the usher has told us in impeccable French and English to be seated does he take his place in the dock. Flanked by U.N. guards, Tadic takes his seat.

He seldom smiles. And when he does, it is in the direction of one of the two elderly women who seem to constitute his only non-legal human contact. They are his Hague family, and if one of them is present he makes eye contact and his face lights up briefly, then returns to stone. If he does not see either of them after making one visual pass through the gallery, he opens his notebook, glances at the computer and looks across the courtroom.

This week, I have noticed that he has been alternating black and blue suits, while wearing a subtly patterned blue and yellow tie.

He seems alert, but he has not put on his earphones for more than a few minutes during the testimony of Greve. He does, however, carefully watch his monitor with its simultaneous transcript, exhibits, or any video being offered. Tadic is such a prolific note taker that it is hard to believe he is not comprehending and reacting to the proceedings.

This morning, as Greve resumed her testimony, she began enumerating the military units active in Prijedor during the "ethnic cleansing" campaign. Tadic seemed to take detailed notes as she talked about the 343rd Motorized Brigade, the Fifth Kozarac Brigade, the 11th Partisan Brigade. He did not stop taking copious notes until she stopped talking about the military units.

Later, he resumed note taking and closely examined exhibit 123 as Greve contrasted the 6,056 person increase in the Serbian population in Prijedor in 1992 with the 43,227 person decline among the Muslims.

Surprisingly, Tadic did not move a muscle as one of his lawyers questioned Greve over the reliability of the census data on which she had relied. On the other hand, he did confer with his lawyers at each break today.

The defense strategy with Greve, as it as been with other witnesses, is to suggest that events were more complicated than portrayed by the prosecution. In particular, they want the court to conclude that Muslims were well armed, organized and vigorous in resistance. Today, Greve would have none of it. In fact, this defense tack paved the way for the most interesting testimony of the day, when they challenged her version of the bombardment of Kozarac. Greve maintained that Muslim life and property took a pounding in the town from Serb artillery on May 24, 1992. Defense counsel Steven Kay suggested that Serbs also were victims of the attack. Greve responded that Serbs left the town before the attack.

On redirect examination, prosecutor Alan Tieger asked Greve if the few buildings left standing after the attack were the Serb Orthodox Church and the home and cafe of Tadic. Greve said yes. (It is alleged in Count 1 of the indictment that Tadic lit signal flares to assist in the bombardment.)

MAY 23
"Their eyes! That look! Their eyes were not on the outside, but somewhere deep, deep inside!"

That is how journalist Muharem Nezirevic remembers the faces of Omarska.

In the most emotional testimony of the trial so far, he testified about his recollections of the Serb propaganda offensive and about how his own position at Radio Prijedor became tentative and dangerous once the Serbs took over. He was powerless to prevent them from broadcasting attacks on prominent non-Serbs. He recalled that they accused one Croat physician of being "Doctor Monster," and they charged that he castrated Serb women and newborn children to prevent the procreation of the Serb people.

The Serbs denied Muslims access to the radio station, even preventing a group from Kozarac from offering assurances that they would personally guard the Serbian Orthodox Church in their town.

When finally arrested for deportation to Omarska, Nezirevic and other detainees were forced to run a gauntlet of Serb police, who beat them. They were beaten again when they arrived at the camp, and then sent to the infamous White House, where Nezirevic observed prisoners in crowded conditions, stacked on top of one another with "their eyes inside their heads."

The inmates were primary Muslims, but he also saw abuse heaped upon a Serb, incarcerated as a Muslim sympathizer.

The prisoners were beaten every night. On one of Nezirevic's first nights in Omarska, a man was taken out and returned with signs of having been beaten badly about the face and head -- but he was smiling -- happy that he had survived.

Those who did survive had little reason to thank their Serb captors. There was no medical care except for that provided by an inmate doctor. Lacking any tools or facilities, he used a needle and thread to suture wounds. He tended to a man who had been beaten till his brains were exposed by using the man's own hair to sew up his head.

And The Children
On his first night in the White House, he saw an elderly man throw his body across his young son to shield him from the being beaten. Another man gave half of his food ration (1/8 loaf of bread each 24 hours) to his son through an intermediary who was quartered near the son. One day, the intermediary approached Nezirevic and said he did not know how to tell the man that his son had been taken away and killed. His dilemma was short lived; the father was soon dead.

Testimony at a trial like this had to be affected by the fact that the human mind apparently reacts to horror like Omarska by dimming memory. Like others before him, Nezirevic hinted at this when he said, "I do not like to remember these things or to speak about them, but I must."

The defense declined to cross-examine the witness. And the judges did not ask any questions.

MAY 24
The court was in recess.