Suit After Eight Years

Fourth Municipal Court ordered that a fine of 400,000 dinars, based on the suit by Petar and Mile Cajevic because of the serial about crimes in Foca, be collected by force. Srpska Rec and Bogoljub Pejcic are appealing to the Supreme Court of Serbia

by S.BISEVAC

Danas, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, April 6, 2001

"Tafro Faik, a Muslim and a Yugoslav, experienced and survived the worst moments of every civilization, the totally unjustified destruction of humanity and everything human on behalf of that very same humanity. When the human tragedy takes the magnitude apparent in the senseless war, in which we actively participate against our will, every detail, name, religion, ethnicity, address, profession or something else, lose significance and become ordinary details in the conflict of all against all and all against themselves.

"To that extent this short lived tragic story from Foca is only a drop in the bloody ocean of human evil, human illusions and suffering. There is no 'our' and 'their' side. There is only good and evil. Everything else is only a testimony that should serve as a lesson for some other people in some other place and another time."

With this words Srpska Rec started in the summer of 1993 the publication of the serial about the crimes of Serb armed forces against Muslims in Foca in 1992. Srpska Rec reprinted the testimony of Faik Tafro, a former inmate of the camp located in the Foca prison.

At that time Srpska Rec was the only medium in Belgrade that dared publish this serial in the midst of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and speak out about the crimes committed by the Serb side in east Bosnia. According to Sefko Alomerovic, the president of the Sandzak Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, who provided accommodation for Tafro and another ten residents of Foca after their release from the camp, the testimony of Faik Tafro was first offered to Borba and Vreme. Both publications refused to publish the testimony. Eight years after the publication, Srpska Rec is in danger of folding for good exactly because of the serial published under headline "Stories form the East Side: Summer in Foca, 1992". In the forth installment of the testimony, published on August 2, 1993, in issue 77 of Srpska Rec, Faik Tafro besides the names of about fifty Muslims murdered in the Foca prison between July 2 and August 25, 1992, mentions another 16 names or nicknames of alleged criminals and murderers.

Forced Collection Because of Recognition

"All these and similar crimes were committed under the auspices of the Military Police. Its members were the worst criminals, vultures and psychopaths," says Tafro and mentions, among other, "the Cajevics". Petar and Mile Cajevic form Foca recognized themselves in the serial published by Srpska Rec and are suing the magazine for the publication of a lie that inflicted on them spiritual anguish "of extreme nature and long duration" and damaged their honor and reputation. In the hearings that followed since 1998 until last year, Srpska Rec and its editor-in-chief Bogoljub Pejcic were first fined 600,000 dinars each, but that was later reduced to 400,000 dinars in total, 200,000 dinars each, by the verdict of the District Court in December 2000.

The Fourth Municipal Court issued a notice of forced collection of the fine, and Bogoljub Pejcic claims that neither he nor the magazine can pay and that they will be forced to shut down the magazine. They appealed to the Supreme Court, but the appeal does not postpone the collection.

In the testimony in front of the Fourth Municipal Court in Belgrade, Petar and Mile Cajevic, father and son, submitted birth certificates and the official confirmation of the Municipal authorities in Foca that they were the only Cajevics in Foca. Petar claims that after the start of fighting in Foca he left the town "with a group of friends, ethnic Muslims" and escaped first to Montenegro and then to Serbia. He never returned to Foca, and in the list of murdered Muslims he spotted names of some of his friends.

His son Mile Cajevic was recruited and served as a guard in front of important buildings and objects. In his testimony in front of the court Cajevic junior did not deny that various crimes did take place in Foca, that people were murdered, but he said that he "never shot at or killed anyone". In front of the court he also stated that seven individuals on the list published in Srpska Rec have been in the meantime indicted by the Hague Tribunal and that his honor and reputation have been sullied by the fact that his name "ended up on the same list". He stated that he still had friends among Muslims and is currently working as a legal advisor of international organizations for the return of refugees, and he could not get that job without a thorough check of his "wartime record". It is interesting that the Cajevics did not accept Bogoljub Pejcic's offer to tell their version of the events and have it published by Srpska Rec. From that it can be surmised that money is the main motive for their suit.

Editor and Identity

In a conversation with Danas Bogoljub Pejcic emphasizes that nowhere in the text is it mentioned that the claims refer exactly to Petar and Mile Cajevic, and that it can be concluded that they are not the only Cajevic's in Foca. "It is not the job of an editor-in0chief to check the identity of individuals mentioned in an article. If I had to do that, that would consume all of my time," adds Pejcic. "At the time I was the president of the Security Issues Committee in the Serbian Parliament, and was immediately dismissed because of this serial and my insistence that Muslims in Sandzak be protected. I still feel consequences of my political stand taken at the time, and now they want to fine me," says Pejcic and accuses "Bosnian judges" in the Court.

"They immediately asked me "Are you the editor-in-chief of Srpska Rijec?" to which I replied, "No, I am editor-in-chief of Srpska Rec"[the ekavian dialect of Serbo-croatian language is spoken in Serbia, while Serbs in Bosnia speak the yekavian dialect. In the ekavian dialect the word for "word" is rec (pronounced rehch), while in the yekavian it is rijec (pronounced riyehch)]. To that they replied: "You should be careful about what you publish in your magazine about our Serbs in Bosnia," claims Pejcic, adding that Faik Tafro testimony is not anti-Serb as it mentions numerous examples of Serbs who helped their Muslim neighbors.

Are There More Cajevics?

Pejcic says that he requested from the Court to question Sefko Alomerovic as a witness, but that was rejected. In a statement for Danas Alomerovic stated that he did not know why he had not been allowed to testify, but that he was certain that there were more Cajevics in Foca. He knows of Cajevics from the villages around Foca, Buncica and Focanska Jabuka. "Everyone knows that at least 2-3 families share the same surname." For the proof submitted by Petar and Mile Cajevic to the court Alomerovic says that it is not valid as it originates in a different state and was not stamped in a consulate.

"There are indications that one of the Cajevics who committed crimes and to whom Tafro Faik probably referred, was killed in the fighting," says Alomerivic, adding that Srpska Rec was "courageous and honest" to publish the serial at that time.

Faik Tafro in the Hague as Defense Witness in Case Against Camp Commander

Alomerovic adds that Faik Tafro is currently in the Hague and is supposed to testify in the trial against Milorad Krnojelac, who was the warden of the prison in Foca in April 1992. It is interesting that Tafro will be a defense witness as he witnessed an event in which Krnojelac, his friend from before the war, refused to execute a group of Muslims.

At the end of his testimony for Srpska Rec Faik Tafro mentions an encounter with Krnojelac's son while freed Muslims were taken in buses through Foca. "I was spotted by one of Milorad Krnojelac's sons. He was also in the Military Police. He told the driver to open the back door so that he could greet me. He was about to start crying... In the end, he said good bye and gave me 500 dinars. He said he did not have cigarettes. Money can help you at least a bit," said Tafro.

Translated on April 10, 2001