We address you because of several-years-long ruthless media and political manipulation in connection with the trial of Nebojsa Ranisavljevic, one of participants in the abduction of nineteen citizens at the train station Strpci on February 27, 1993. This manipulation opens many questions regarding the individuals who ordered, organized and carried out the abduction, and at the same time is nothing but an extension of the crime by legal institutions, this time over the victims and their relatives, as well as their compatriots, as the ethnicity of the abducted individuals was their only crime.
There are many reasons for such a conclusion and this letter to you. The immediate reason is the most recent manipulation with the trial of Nebojsa Ranisavljevic that, as well as everything else in connection with this case, took place on the eve of the forthcoming elections and the visit of the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Ms. Carla Del Ponte, to Montenegro. Namely, we are referring to the press conference called by the president of the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje, Dr. Vukoman Golubovic, who is also the presiding judge in the trial of Ranisavljevic. The conference was held on February 9 in Bijelo Polje. At the conference (most definitely for the purposes of media and political propaganda) Mr. Golubovic repeated for the third time the decision the court made at every of the last two hearings - that an investigation will be conducted in the Republic of Srpska and that a reconstruction of the crime will take place at the train station in Strpci.
The very fact that the press conference was timed on the eve of yet another election and the visit of Ms. Carla Del Ponte, as has by the way been done many times in relation with this trial, and everything said at the conference clearly indicate that the press conference was organized for only one reason - to assist you and your party in winning the votes of citizens of Bosniak-Muslim ethnicity who, because of the massive support they offer to you, consist more than a half of your supporters. On the other hand, the legal, and even logical analysis of the bizarre manipulation with the trial of Ranisavljevic as well as suppression of information in connection with crimes committed in Bukovica and Pljevlja, and especially the abduction of twelve citizens in Bukovica and the police action of abduction of 59 Bosniak refugees on the Montenegrin coast, reveals numerous omissions and contradictions. These omissions and contradictions not only make the authorities justifiably suspect, but clearly and undeniably point out the illogical, almost organic and natural series of acts by the authorities, starting from the motive for the crime, and its executors, all the way to the most recent manipulation at the mentioned press conference.
The Sandzak Helsinki Committee for Human Rights has conducted a special study about all of that, but we shall here present to you only some facts that, if you desire so, could help you reach the same conclusion and take corresponding and forceful measures to stop the extension of crime against innocent citizens.
As you are probably aware, Ranisavljevic was arrested four years and four months ago, on October 15, 1996, but the investigation in his case was concluded on March 14, 1997. An indictment was issued on the same date. Previously, following the claim of Ranisavljevic's defense attorney that the district court in Jagodina [Serbia] had jurisdiction of the case, the Supreme Court of Montenegro decided that the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje should conduct the trial. However, in spite of that decision and in violation of the article 26, clause 3 of the Criminal Law Procedures, specifying that a court cannot give up jurisdiction in a case after an indictment has been issued, the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje in late October 1997 decided that the case was not within its jurisdiction and thereby tried to pass the "hot potato" to Serbia and transferred the case to the allegedly competent court in Jagodina.
As that attempt failed, since the Supreme Court of FR Yugoslavia in the meantime decided that the case was within the jurisdiction of the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje, this marked the start of a very vulgar but systematic and long lasting manipulation with the trial of Ranisavljevic in Montenegro.
In the meantime, a start of the trial has been announced fourteen times and only two hearings, totally staged, have been held. Both hearings were immediately adjourned and no new hearings have been scheduled until today without any plausible justification. It is also indicative that in most instances the new hearings in the trial were announced by the former State Prosecutor of Montenegro, Vlada Susovic, and always timed so that the new hearings were always announced and scheduled exclusively just before the visits of representatives of international factors (Elisabeth Rehn, a special rapporteur of UN for human rights, Robert Gelbard, USA president's envoy for Yugoslavia, Louise Arbour, the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, etc.), on the eve of the visits of the state prosecutor and Prime Minister of Montenegrin government, Filip Vujanovic, to the Hague Tribunal, and just before presidential, general and local elections in Montenegro; however, as we said, only two hearings were ever held in the case, one in early May, 1998, and another one in early June 2000, again just before for you important local elections in Podgorica and Herceg Novi.
At the first hearing, the trial was adjourned until autumn of 1998, but in October 1998 the president of the court Dr. Vukoman Golubovic, on his own (without a hearing) postponed the trial until 1999, allegedly due to an ongoing investigation in the Republic of Srpska. However, the second hearing was held almost two years later, in June 2000, again just before an election. At that hearing it turned out that in the meantime the court had not done anything in connection with the investigation and the decisions made in the 1998 hearing and the announcement from October 1998. At the time it was said that the investigation would question individuals residing in Cacak and Despotovac [towns in Serbia]. The trial was adjourned immediately after the election and since then nothing has been done to obtain additional information regarding other culprits in the crime. Similarly "witnesses" and suspects from Cacak and Despotovac haven't been questioned.
Therefore, it is clear that the hearings in the trial were scheduled and held for the sake of political manipulation. Besides, some additional evidence strengthens the above conclusions. First, once again, just before the forthcoming election, the authorities yet again found it appropriate to announce that an investigation would be conducted. Furthermore the decision announced at the February 9 press conference was nothing but the essentially and literally repeated decision made at the first hearing held in May and June, 1998, which was again announced at the press conference held in October 1998 and hearing held in June 2000.
Having in mind that such impermissible "omissions" should not be expected even from a first year law school student, and that they essentially reveal the technique used to transform a public crime to a "perfect crime", we are convinced that ultimately such behavior is all but self incriminating. The crime in Strpci is thereby turned into an extended crime, having in mind the goals of the abduction and the violence against the relatives of the abducted individuals and their fellow Bosniaks-Muslims. You probably do not know that a son of one of the victims from Strpci committed suicide, father of another victim and mother of yet another one have died in the meantime, while more than a half of the relatives of the victims have left the country. The rest continue to live in the atmosphere of uncertainty regarding the fate of their missing loved ones and despair over the committed crime that has now been extended against them.
Finally, the attitude of the authorities with respect to the crime in Strpci can and must be viewed in the context of the fact that neither courts nor you, earlier as Prime Minister and later as President of the Republic of Montenegro, did anything to arrest Dusko Kornjaca from Cajnice, even though it is public knowledge that on February 15 and 16, 1993, Kornjaca organized an abduction of twelve citizens form Bukovica. Five of the abducted citizens were murdered (one an elderly man aged 91, two women, one teenager, a minor, and two small children, one aged two and a half and the other one eight months). The remaining six citizens (five elderly women and one elderly man), were brought back by Dusko Kornjaca to the Police Station in Pljevlja. Judging by the statement of the then Minister of Internal Affairs [Police], Nikola Pejakovic, made at a parliament session, this happened "thanks to pleas from president [Momir] Bulatovic, president [Dobrica] Cosic, and president [Radovan] Karadzic."
However, the victims were never questioned, as they later confirmed to the Helsinki Committee on a video tape. The committee also has taped testimonies of the victims in which they claim that they were held in the Cajnice City Hall (at the time the Crisis Headquarters, i.e. wartime headquarters led by Dusko Kornjaca), that he had questioned them, maltreated, threatened that he would slaughter them, pushed burning cigarettes up their nostrils etc. Dusko Kornjaca was at the time, and continues to be, within the reach of the Montenegrin authorities, as he frequently visits Pljevlja and Podgorica and spends summers on the Montenegrin coast.
Certainly the trial of Ranisavljevic should be viewed within the context of the fact that you also failed to do anything, both as the Prime Minister and later as the President of the Republic of Montenegro, against the identified organizers and executors of the abductions carried out by the Montenegrin Police in May 1992. In those abductions 59 Muslim-Bosniak refugees from Bosnia-Hercegovina were arrested by the Montenegrin Police and turned over to the Bosnian Serb authorities. Most of them were eventually murdered. According to the reliable data in our possession, previously published in the daily newspapers Nasa Borba and Sarajevo weekly news magazine Dani, 45 of them were executed in a very brutal manner, two died in the Prison in Foca due to a burst ulcer, i.e. denial of medical assistance, two were released after payment of high ransom, and eight were exchanged for captured Serb soldiers.
We understand that, due to state obligations, you may not know about all the details of the above mentioned cases, but we are convinced that that cannot be a valid justification. If in the summer of 1992 British Jews managed to see from London violence against Bosniaks in Pljevlja and to recognize in it their own "Kristal Nacht", then you should have been able to from Podgorica, Cetinje, or the top of Lovcen Mt. see the fire of Bosniak stores or at least provide compensation for the damages inflicted in "terrorist acts".
Because of all that, but also because of compassion and democratic principles that you've been spilling for the last few years at the feet of your interlocutors from the international community, and especially for the sake of the highest ethical principles of your ancestors, for the sake of honor and courage, which, as we are sure you know, specify that it is courageous to defend oneself from others and honorable to protect others from oneself, we beg you to take all measures within your authority to make sure that the executors of the abduction in Bukovica and organizers and executors of abductions of Bosniak refugees on the Montenegrin coast in May 1992 face justice and be punished according to the law.
We do that because we hope that you agree with us that, first, culprits of the crimes and crimes themselves (in spite of the fact that most of the public has so far accepted those crimes as patriotic acts because of which even ordinary, god fearing individuals, accepted and justified them as acts approved by God) were not heroic acts but simply disgusting and cowardly crimes against innocent and unprotected people; secondly, because these were dishonorable acts - the others were not protected from ourselves; thirdly, neither you nor anyone else who was obliged to protect citizens from crime and especially to make sure that the criminals face justice and are prosecuted for their crimes, cannot have clear conscience unless he lacks conscience, honor, and courage.
I beg you to take into account that the eighth anniversary of the abduction in Bukovica is soon, that in a few days we shall also commemorate the eighth anniversary of the abduction in Strpci and in May, 2001, nine years since the abduction of Bosniak refugees on the Montenegrin coast, and all of that indicates that such approach leads to the final outcome. Then, the very fact that crimes have been committed will become questionable, or, as in the case of abductions in Bukovica, Sjeverin and other places, the information will be suppressed to the extent that no one would know about them or mention them. Ultimately, this reveals the method for the transformation of a public crime into a "perfect crime".
(The author is the president of the Sandzak Helsinki Committee)