The village reeks of death. Rotted animal carcasses litter the roads, and at least 47 fresh graves have been dug in cemeteries, barnyards and overgrown hillsides. No house is unscathed. Most are burned to a pile of brick, ash and charred timber. The only signs of life in the rubble are kittens too scared to approach visitors.
Nothing is left.
But the destruction of Velika Krusa was not just part of some faceless military effort to wipe out a rebel stronghold or silence government opposition. It was, in the end, the very essence of what is so horrifying about this latest war in the Balkans. It was so brutal and so intense that the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, chose Velika Krusa as one of the first villages to undergo scrutiny by British forensic experts. They arrived here Sunday to gather evidence. Velika Krusa is one of seven towns specifically cited in the war crimes indictment of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.