Stevo Pasalic, defence witness of Mico Stanisic

The examination-in chief of Stevo Pasalic, demography expert called by the defense of Mico Stanisic, the first Bosnian Serb interior minister, was completed today. Pasalic wrote a demographic report on the migrations of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the trial of Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, who face charges related to the crimes of the Serb police against Bosnian Croats and Muslims in 1992.

During the war, the witness did research in the War Crimes Research and Documentation Center, an organization investigating war crimes against ethnic Serbs. The witness used some of those findings in the part of the report dedicated to forced migrations of the Serb population. As the witness explained, his research focused on the migrations of Serbs because prosecution expert Ewa Tabeau investigated other ethnic groups.

The report also covered the demographic features of the population in BH from 1918 to 1991. According to Pasalic, lack of historical aspect ‘diminished the value’ of demographic reports drafted by Ewa Tabeau and the Research and Documentation Center from Sarajevo. Tabeau’s methodology relied mostly on statistical and mathematical methods, or ‘the laws of numbers’ instead of empirical findings, the witness argued. According to Pasalic, this is not enough for a report to be accurate because ‘numbers can say whatever the person who knows how to play with them wants them to say’. The witness nevertheless admitted that Ewa Tabeau’s report and The Bosnian Book of Dead issued by the Research and Documentation Center ‘dealt with the issue of the number of victims most extensively’.

Today Pasalic explained the differences between various categories of migrations, including deportation, population transfer and ethnic cleansing. According to Pasalic, ethnic cleansing is a quick and violent expulsion of an unwanted group. Deportation is different: although its purpose is also to get rid of the undesirable population, it is not fast and does not involve force; the people are not forced to leave their homes within a few hours, packing only the barest necessities and little money. Pasalic concluded that ethnic cleansing ‘was not a feature’ of the conflict in BH.

The defense counsel put it to the witness that the war created a situation in which people were made to chose the lesser of two evils; they had to ‘decide of their own free will’ whether it was better to leave the territory and save their lives or to stay. The witness agreed that life was paramount. Such ‘massive transfers’ were a part of ‘the voluntary migrations’ he also included among the categories of population movements.

The prosecution will cross-examine Stevo Pasalic tomorrow.

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