This article is taken from CNN report on Bosnia on July 2, 1996. Go here to see the original document.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CNN) -- Bosnian war crimes investigators testified in graphic detail before the U.N. tribunal Tuesday about the sexual assault of Muslim women and girls by Bosnian Serb soldiers and paramilitaries.
United Nations investigators believe former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, had ultimate control over the systematic rapes by Bosnian Serb soldiers and paramilitaries. The tribunal has indicted the two suspects, but neither man has surrendered.
Rape and other types of sexual assault, according to prosecutors, were an established part of ethnic cleansing.
The investigators, who found reported rapes in 80 cities and villages throughout Bosnia, found victims as young as 13. Many of the women were corralled into "rape camps," where their captors abused them.
"The women we spoke with were raped by soldiers, guards of camps, and sometimes even the commanders of the camps and even the chiefs of police," said investigator Irma Oosterman.
"All the women we spoke with are civilians, ages are from 13 years about, until even 60. Of course, we found out that the more younger and attractive were taken out more to be raped." The younger girls were often still virgins, she said.
Many women became pregnant by their rapists. Some women terminated their pregnancies; others put their newborns up for adoption. Oosterman said one victim told her, "They said I'm going to rape you, I'm going to make you a Chetnik or a Serb baby." Chetniks were anti-Communist Serb guerrillas during World War II.
Evidence shows men were subject to sexual assault as well.
"Victims may be sexually assaulted with foreign objects like glass bottles, guns and truncheons. Castrations are performed through crude means -- such as forcing other detainees to bite off a prisoner's testicles," Oosterman said.
Prisoners also were forced to perform other types of abuse on each other, and Oosterman said several men made statements that fathers and sons had been coerced into performing acts upon each other. (366K AIFF or WAV sound)
On one occasion, a man was ordered to bite off the penis of another. When he couldn't do it, "a soldier came and cut off the part of the penis and another one had to eat it," Oosterman said.
Prosecutors hope to prove that the Bosnian Serb leadership could have prevented the rapes. One witness supported that statement, claiming that critical news reports made the leadership try to halt the rape campaign. As a result, she said, by the summer of 1993 the reports of rape became less frequent.
"This can be relevant to the issue of command and responsibility," said U.N. Commission of Experts member Christine Cleiren.
Not all Bosnian Serb soldiers followed orders to rape. Some women confirmed that soldiers told them to pretend they'd been raped, investigators said.
Although many women have come forward, scores of others are hiding their experiences. In the Balkans, victims of sexual abuse often are victimized twice: once by their attacker and again as their communities shun them. Other victims may be ashamed more than afraid. In many cases, interviews with investigators were the first time they talked about it.
They are afraid to testify in front of television cameras, because their husbands and children don't know what happened to them, and they don't want to confront their attackers again, even if it is in the relative safety of a courtroom.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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