by Vildana SELIMBEGOVIC and Zeljko CVIJANOVIC
"In the recent months the tribunal has been intensively investigating crimes committed against Serbs in the camps Silos in Tarcin, Krupa, Igman and Hrasnica near Sarajevo, as well as the participation of the highest Bosniak officials in these crimes," a high security source told Reporter stating as well that the current president of the presidency of Bosnia-Hercegovina (BH) Alija Izetbegovic and the former commander of the Fifth Corps and present commander of the Federation Army General Atif Dudakovic are also being investigated.
Hague Full of Errors: Whether because of the last claim (what was the Fifth Corps doing in Silos?) or because of numerous mistakes made in the spelling of names of senior, lower and petty officers on the Reporter's list, the serious Sarajevo circles these day conclude that those who during the war committed crimes against civilians can be pleased. If for no other reason than because of the ridicule on Tribunal's account because of quasi-secret-intelligence auctioning of the names. However, the remark that the whole affair was conceived for the purposes of pre-election homogenization of the populace seems much more serious: regardless of all defects the high intelligence source managed to put together so far most far ranging charges against Bosniak authorities implying (by the structures represented on the list) that the crimes were premeditated, planned and organized.
Besides Izetbegovic for whom from the brief explanation it is not clear whether he has made a deal with the prosecutor Del Ponte and is resigning in time or is simply waiting for a next secret list, and Ganic, "who is considered responsible for crimes committed in the mentioned camps", as the most important members of the wartime Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the list put together by the Source includes two wartime commanders of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina (generals Sefer Halilovic and Rasim Dalic), then both still living commanders of the First Corps (generals Vahid Karavelic and Nedzad Ajnadzic, the latter listed as Ajnahodzic) and the commander of the Sixth Corps Salko Gusic (also mistakenly listed as Salko Gosto), then commanders of brigades, Fikret Prevljak (of the Fourth Knightly Brigade, spelled as Pljevljak) and Neazir Kazic (of the Ninth Mountain Brigade, spelled as Kozic)... To make sure the Police does not feel neglected, the list of eight allegedly indicted persons is spearheaded by Enver Dupovac, and ends with Gosto, or most likely Gusic... The claim from the list published in the previous issue of Reporter in which Naser Oric is also accused of crimes committed in Bugojno and Kazani is another confirmation that the Well-Informed Source is rather uninformed, to say the least?!
That is really too much, even coming from the Source. Families of Croats slain in Bugojno are still searching for the remains of their loved ones, the relatives of the people disappeared in Kazani are crying out for information about exhumed corpses that still haven't been identified and which were most definitely massacred long before the first helicopter made it to Oric... Nine young men died on October 26, 1993 in the Sarajevo action "Trebevic" in which the state took care of the parts of the Tenth Mountain and Ninth Motorized Brigades and in which, a day later, Musan Topalovic Caco was killed under still unclear circumstances. In a "show" trial meant for the international community, his soldiers characterized Topalovic as the main executor in Kazani.
It is clear that the story about Kazani will meet its end in the Hague Tribunal, which will certainly raise it to the level of responsibility of those who knew about the events there and did not act, as is also clear that other stories about crimes against civilians of all ethnicities will get a conclusion in some of the courts. However, it is absolutely certain that auctioning of organized lists which turn crimes in the election campaign fliers is not helpful. The Ministry of Defense did not react to the List 35 nor did for example Sakib Mahmuljin, the official deputy minister and the Bosniak representative in this institution offer at least the data from the Reports that this institution put together in response to the inquiries of the International Red Cross about the situation in the four mentioned prisons. The Party of Democratic Action (who else!) offered the only reaction, using yet another chance to lay a claim on Bosniaks and the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina and victims and war damages. Not a word about prisons, a whole paragraph about Alija Izetbegovic as a humanist and fighter for human rights... In any case someone else should worry about Silos, Krupa, Igman and Hrasnica and human rights of prisoners under the jurisdiction of the SDA authorities. Regardless of whether it is the Hague or the Well-Informed Source. Those who issue statements recognize themselves.
Following in Brdjanin's footsteps: Although reluctantly, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Srpska (RS), confirmed that the first list published by Reporter, with names of 61 secretly indicted Serbs, was authentic. Our source in the Ministry does not deny that their people put together the list, but he does not put it in any connection with the Hague. He describes it as a result "of analysis" of the military intelligence service. The same source produced a similar list with 20 names (another one?!) of persons that have likely been indicted by the Hague Tribunal. Although the second list includes less names than the one published by Reporter, it is "heavier". The second list includes almost all the members of the first government of the Republic of Srpska and Biljana Plavsic and Aleksa Buha, the last two wartime high officials of the RS besides late Nikola Koljevic who haven't been indicted.
"Besides the list published by Reporter, there are a few other similar documents that are composed from time to time combining intelligence work and analysis," said our source. "But the Hague hasn't given us any list of secretly indicted persons. If they have, there would not be another twenty lists floating around." An officer from the Ministry of Defense claimed that the list was probably composed last year, "under the impression of the arrest of Radoslav Brdjanin," the wartime president of the Crisis Headquarters for Bosnian Krajina, arrested by SFOR in Banja Luka on July 6, 1999.
Under that impression, claimed our source, the Ministry was concerned for many Serb civilian officials whose wartime role was similar to that of Brdjanin. Thus, the List 61 included Miroslav Deronjic who was in the crisis headquarters for Bratunac-Srebrenica, Dragomir Vasic (Zvornik), Rajko Dukic (Vlasenica-Milici), Velibor Ostojic, Vojislav Maksimovic, Petko Cancar (Foca), Jovo Rosic, Stojan Zupljanin, Vojo Kupresanin, Radoslav Vukic, Rajko Kasagic (Banja Luka), Krsto Savic, Bozo Vucurevic (Hercegovina), Trifko Radic, Nedjeljko Prstojevic (Sarajevo)...
Our source claimed that that explained the lack of any persons with military background on the list. "But the lists put together after the arrests of General Momir Talic and Radislav Krstic most likely included the whole Chiefs of Staff and no civilians," he said.
However, some claim that the list was not even composed by someone who is knowledgeable about the way the Hague Tribunal operates. "Those who speculate with these lists should have kept in mind that the Hague Tribunal only prosecutes highest political and military officials, while the list of the Ministry does not include such persons," claim SENSE correspondents from the Hague. The news agency SENSE is definitely the medium with best connections with the Tribunal, at least as far as the former Yugoslavia is concerned. "Most of the people on the lists are local politicians or middle or lower ranking officers, for whom the Hague investigators haven't been showing a lot of interests lately," claims SENSE.
Mirko, watch out Carla!: According to the information from the RS Ministry of Defense, the goal of the lists is "to warn people that the Hague may be interested in them". "At this point it is still impossible to confirm that, but these lists have most likely disturbed many people with no good reason. But it is certain that all those who have been arrested so far had been warned previously, as well as several others who have 'disappeared' in time," claims an officer of the RS Army. He mentioned several specific cases. For example, the analysts with the RS Army warned Talic about the possibility that he could be arrested, since his name was mentioned in the indictment against Dusan Tadic and, especially, in the indictment against Radoslav Brdjanin. But Talic trusted more his post-war "achievements" and his support for Biljana Plavsic, while at the request of the then SFOR commander, American General Erick Shinseki, he generously agreed to take aiming devices off the RS Army anti-aircraft guns on the eve of the bombardment of Serbia. At times of greatest mistrust he even requested from Shinseki a written confirmation that he hadn't been secretly indicted by the Tribunal. He got the document, but was arrested only a month after Brdjanin's arrest. He can be consoled by the fact that he is the only Hague prisoner who was not arrested by SFOR.
General Stanislav Galic, the wartime commander of RS Army Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, was similarly warned. He took the warning seriously and requested to be stationed with the Yugoslav Army in Belgrade. Then he stayed in Banja Luka for several days to pack up and was arrested three weeks later, in late December of 1999. A former commander of the Drina Corps, General Radislav Krstic, also closely cooperated with SFOR, so that he took the warning as a Ministry's trick. He believed that the Ministry was seeking an easy way to replace him. Although he had been twice in the SFOR command in Sarajevo and once even, in spite of a ban by his superiors, spent a night in the SFOR base in Tuzla and flew over Srebrenica with American soldiers showing them, purportedly, where the lines of separation lay during the war, he was arrested on December 2, 1998.
All this indicates that the lists of the RS Ministry of Defense are actually warning lists, while the publication of these lists in the media is still far from an attempt to initiate a discussion about war crimes. Of course, the Hague is not seeking only Serbs, Reporter consoled the spokesperson of the Serb people's Alliance (SNS) Mira Lolic-Mocevic, who protested: "We are surprised that only Serb names are included in those lists, although it is known that members of the other two nations also committed crimes." Perhaps that is the purpose of the Bosniak list that was, as the magazine emphasizes, "not published in order to hypocritically pamper emotions of politicians and state officials". However, the text that followed the Serb and Bosniak lists in the latter issue indicates a sell out. Namely, Reporter brings up in its defense exactly national arguments:"The whole circulation was sold out in literally two and a half days. That, in our mind, indicates that the citizens want to cleanse themselves of crimes and separate themselves from criminals." By buying newspapers, of course.