From: CP6uH@plains.NoDak.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: War Crimes ( VREME NDA 22 Jul 1992 )
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:21:18 GMT
Organization: University of North Dakota at Grand Forks


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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    War Crimes
    ----------


                             The Catalog of Shame


           Determining war  crimes and taking the  criminals in the
           Yugoslav wars to court  tomorrow will be least important
           for the world  public. If this job is  not done honestly
           and  completely,  the  wars  in  this  region will never
           really  end, painful  though it  may sound,  even if the
                          cannons go silent tomorrow

    On  the  long  list  of  unfulfilled  promises  which  Serbian President
    Slobodan  Milosevic  gave  to   various  international  negotiators  and
    institutions, there  is one made at  the end of January  to the Helsinki
    Watch. Slobodan  Milosevic's office promised  that all cases  which this
    international organization  for the protection of  human rights recorded
    will be  duly examined and,  if it  is  proved that a  citizen of Serbia
    committed a war crime, he will  certainly be "brought before the face of
    justice".  Almost half  a year  passed since  this promise  and not  one
    potential "criminal"  has been taken  to court, even  though it is  more
    than clear to  those who want to see this  done that new "crime catalogs
    of  human shame"  were being  filled  in  these parts  for months.  As a
    British newspaper observed last week,  the Serbs, Croats and Muslims are
    today  writing  these  catalogs  of  shame  and  death  together  in  an
    incomparably more bloody and brutal way than during World War II.

    At  the same  time when  Milosevic's office  promised the Helsinki Watch
    that it would "look into the matter", "Vreme" published a photocopy of a
    document  (report from  the front)  signed by  Lieutenant Colonel  Milan
    Eremija on  October 23, 1991. In  the report sent to  the Command of the
    First Army District, LTC Eremija described  the events in the village of
    Lovas, where the  members of the "Dusan the  Mighty" unit maltreated the
    local Croatian civilians (four people were killed on that occasion), and
    then used the captured locals to  clean the mine fields (17 dead). Since
    then to date, this report by  an officer of the former Yugoslav Peoples'
    Army, brimming with information about  an appalling crime, obviously did
    not  inspire  any  competent  institution.  Despite Milosevic's promise,
    everything  is more  or less  as it  was at  the time  when this  weekly
    published that  document and tried to  find out it anybody  would react:
    those who would like to try the criminals cannot, and those who can - do
    not think about it at all, or are afraid to do it.

    Croatia, too, is speaking timidly about  war criminals in its own ranks,
    even though must one admit that a similar (demented) policy there showed
    a greater  degree  of  wisdom  -   if  for  the  sake  of  international
    institutions alone, yet around 20  people from the Croatian armed forces
    were arrested  under the suspicion of  having blood on their  hands, and
    legal proceedings  have been instituted on  several accounts. Regardless
    of how these trials will end, and  whether only the small fry, which got
    caught in  the net (or was  consciously sacrificed so as  not to try the
    minds that invented  those horrendous crimes), will end  up in the dock,
    the Croatian side will have an advantage in the eyes of the world public
    and be in a position of trust because of what it has done to date.

    "The world is well aware that  such crimes were plentiful on the Serbian
    side  as  well,  and  that  silence  only  increases  the  international
    organizations' disbelief in  the information that is sent  from here and
    bears the  seal of Serbia or  the Federal Republic of  Yugoslavia", said
    Dr. Dobrivoje Radovanovic, director  of the Criminal Research Institute,
    in a talk with "Vreme".

    The tradition of not punishing war criminals (which is respected in this
    region) speaks  in favor of the  fact that it will  be very difficult to
    determine  war crimes  on both  sides. In  1943, during  World War II, a
    state committee  was formed to examine  war crimes. Five years  later it
    was  dissolved by  a political  decision, though  it did  not finish its
    work. Those  who are better  informed claim that  it was suspended  when
    proof of crimes committed by the victorious side started coming in.

    The examination of war crimes in the  current wars seems to have got off
    on the wrong  foot again. More than three months  ago, a state committee
    was formed, chaired by historian  Dr. Milan Bulajic, which was entrusted
    exclusively  with  determining  "genocide  committed  over  the  Serbian
    people". Dissatisfied with such a  formulation which concludes things in
    advance, some  prominent lawyers and  experts in this  field immediately
    withdrew.

    Even though he is convinced that we shall have to wait a while before we
    get  a true  picture of  the  war  and the  crimes, Dr.  Jovan Buturovic
    (former Supreme Court  judge) opposes the proposals voiced  from time to
    time  that the  entire matter   should be  handed over  to international
    courts. He believes  they cannot do better than us,  but they could help
    by  including  in  the  decisions  of  the  international  conference on
    Yugoslavia  the  obligation  regarding  war  crimes  and  genocide,  and
    determine the method of work. Asked will the war's creators and planners
    ever  appear in  the docks,  and not  just the  executors, Dr. Buturovic
    answered: "There  is a legal basis  for that. The only  condition is the
    rule of law. If the creators do  not face justice one day, that would be
    a negation of a legal state. Do not forget that after World War II Krupp
    was tried, and he made cannons."

    Sociologist Natasa  Kandic has probably  collected the most  material on
    international wartime  rights' violations during  the war in  Croatia to
    date.  Analyzing the  daily writings  of BORBA,  POLITIKA and the Zagreb
    VJESNIK from July  1, 1991 to January 15, 1992,  she amassed hundreds of
    indications  of what  took place  and who  committed a  large number  of
    crimes. A  remark was made  that newspapers were  not the most  reliable
    source  for such  research, considering  that many  journalists on  both
    sides could be  placed in the category of  "media criminals", but Natasa
    Kandic replied that  she was dealing with indications  only and that the
    next step would be to determine the true state of affairs. "It is true,"
    said Natasa  Kandic, "that most  newspapers wrote only  about the crimes
    committed over one  nation, but a lot can be  determined on the basis of
    such reports.  Had we had  unbiased information, since  the beginning of
    the war, about crimes committed  over the civilian population regardless
    of  nationality, today  we would  have had  a committed political public
    that  would  pressure  the  authorities  in  the  right  way not to hide
    anything... It was  impossible anywhere to find the  information that 20
    civilians  were  killed  in  Borovo  Selo  alone  and  that  nobody  was
    investigating  this at  all, or  was allowed  to speak.  The village  of
    Hrtkovci is an obvious example that something is changing in Belgrade in
    that respect, and that a political  public is appearing slowly that will
    exert pressure on the authorities in future. We will soon, hopefully, be
    able to speak  openly about the fact that lately  over 40 inhabitants of
    Belgrade  were  being  threatened  to  leave,  that armed individuals or
    groups forced their way into their flats and that a trail leading to the
    members of the Serbian Radical Party is visible almost everywhere."

    Natasa Kandic also talked with people who have committed mass crimes and
    who are in prison today. She points out that to most of them there is no
    difference between people in uniform and  civilians who would have to be
    protected. "It seems that this war has  done a lot to change many things
    in  human  psychology,  and   to  have  somebody's  surname  experienced
    immediately as a uniform. When I  complete this research, I will turn to
    the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is  even more cruel than the one in
    Croatia, judging  by the information provided  so far. One may  even say
    somewhat cynically that the war in  Croatia was "noble" compared to what
    is happening in many camps in Bosnia,  and not much is known about them.
    The ethnic  purging of territories  is almost completely  legal, and the
    persecution and  exchange of people  are acquiring market  traits," said
    Natasa Kandic.

    Although this  war deviates from all  known international standards, Dr.
    Radovanovic  is,  on  the  basis  of  hitherto  research,  close  to the
    conclusion  that there  were less  crimes than  imagined considering the
    press writings. "Both sides are  obviously hard put to exaggerate things
    and  to  instigate  hatred  as  much  as  possible  as  a motive for war
    operations.  The  acme  of  this  exaggeration  is  making up crimes for
    propaganda  purposes, as  was the  case with  the "Vukovar  babies". The
    research  published  to  date  gives  me  the  right  to  state with 75%
    certainty  that there  was no  massacre and  mass crime  in Sarvas, even
    though the  press wrote about this  for months. Many things  stress that
    one should not  hurry to draw conclusions on who  is responsible for the
    deaths of the  people waiting in line for bread  in Vase Miskina St. and
    reject the possibility that somebody really did place pressure mines. It
    will  be said  one day  probably that  one's own  people were killed and
    sacrificed often in  these wars to achieve a  propaganda goal before the
    world."

    Dr. Radovanovic  mentioned several possible ways  to collect proof about
    war crimes. The least probable, but the most effective, would be a joint
    professional  team of  experts from  Serbia and  Croatia that would work
    without  prejudice. Everything  else  would  considerably slow  down the
    process of  collecting proof or  would leave the  researchers relying on
    much more unreliable and indirect sources. Dr. Radovanovic believes that
    there  is no  question of  the war  ending without  bringing the "local"
    criminals before  a court of justice.  If the excuse prevails  that many
    murderers  and  criminals  did  what  they  did  only  because they were
    allegedly  offering resistance  and  protecting  the interests  of their
    people, everything  will end up by  sweeping the dust under  the carpet.
    "If the authorities do not wish  to confess to something like this, then
    the opposition  at least could play  an honest role and  help break this
    myth that covering  up crimes is in the interest  of the Serbian people.
    Obviously  the opposition  is afraid  to do  this, even  that part which
    could  have the  moral strength  for something  of the  sort, because it
    knows  that in  that case  it cannot  count on  being a  favorite of the
    nationally  oriented and  indoctrinated people.  Small wonder  then that
    nobody is asking such questions in Parliament," said Dr. Radovanovic.

                                                        Nenad Lj. Stefanovic
                                                                 Tanja Topic

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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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