VECERNJE NOVOSTI: After all of the new information learned after the fact, do you still think that that was "your" war?
DIVJAK: In this, as in every other war, people were misled because someone offers an idea and you simply fall for it. I was personally disappointed that the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA) did not enter Slovenia, because at the time I was indoctrinated and convinced that Slovenia was destroying Yugoslavia. Later, I realized that all of that was a rehearsal for what was yet to come - Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. According to what I have learned since, everything started with the idea to create a state in which a sort of a new Tito, that is Milosevic and the clique around him, would dominate. In turn he created on the other side Tudman and Izetbegovic who said - well, then we can be bosses in our own states. I am sorry that the idea about the historical agreement between Muslims and Serbs in 1992 was not implemented, because that was a chance to avoid war. As far as my participation in the war is concerned, I must say that I participated in the defense of human rights and lives. It would have been immoral to leave and not defend something that I considered for my own, because I have been living there for 37 years and my conscience told me to stay with the victims, whatever their name.
As early as September 1991, at the request of the Kiseljak Territorial Defense Staff and mayor of that municipality, I made the decision to turn over weaponry - one hundred guns and 20,000 bullets - to the local police. Of course, I should not have done that without consulting my superiors, because the commander of the Territorial Defense of Bosnia-Hercegovina, General Drago Vukosavljevic, should have decided about that. At the time the Government of Bosnia-Hercegovina had made the decision to raise combat readiness because of the war in Croatia and I believed that I should assist the police.
It was demanded that those weapons be returned, and since that did not happen, I was sentenced to nine months in jail, conditionally to two years. The sentence was issued in December 1991, and I waited to start serving the sentence until April 1992...
At that time Kiseljak was already a "Croat" municipality...
Since I stayed there... then messages started arriving from Belgrade saying that Jovan did not want to go with the YPA because he had been paid $40,000 by the "Ustashe" [derogatory term for Croats]. And military prosecutor Budo Corlic told me that I was a fool for not giving weapons to the Serb municipality Han Pijesak instead of to Ustashe. I did not have to turn over those weapons, but I believed I had to help Bosnia-Hercegovina.
As a Serb in the leadership of the army whose commander in chief was the leader of the Bosniak national movement you were from the start exploited as evidence that the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina was multi-ethnic and that Izetbegovic was not a nationalist. Did you believe in that?
I accepted the ideal of multinational Bosnia-Hercegovina and I really believed that something like that could be created. In the first six months of the war the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina had 12 percent of Serb soldiers and 18 percent Croats, while the ethnic composition of the police was even more mixed. I was not misled. You say I was exploited. Well, I used to make jokes at my own expense. When in September 1992 I went with Alija to America, I said that he actually took me along as a trained Serb bear and proof that there are Serbs in the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. However, my presence contributed to at least reduce the number of stupidities in Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina and elsewhere.
You say that for six months you believed in multiethnic Bosnia-Hercegovina, but as early as May 1992, as the Federation Bosnia-Hercegovina (FBiH) TV has recently shown, first mujahedin arrived in Travnik, while some Bosniaks claim that the same happened in Visoko.
Perhaps I haven't been informed well about that. I learned about mujahedin from General Rasim Delic in July 1993. Then we demanded that they be placed under control of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. At first mujahedin were on their own, but formally under the command of the Second and Third Corps of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. There were 300-400 of them and half of them were spies. Alija used to say that they had been sent by Croats. Although there are different assertions, but I can only speak about what I know.
That wasn't the first time I spoke about that. I had resigned previously three times, written letters to Izetbegovic disagreeing with what was going on in the Army. Still, I completed the directive about the defense of Bosnia-Hercegovina. But even the fact that I taught military tactics for ten years did not help to get me involved in the planning of combat related activities. With a group from the Chiefs of Staff in 1993 we created a plan for lifting the blockade of Sarajevo, but no one reacted to that. Later I did not participate, because generals Delic, Muslimovic, and Vranj did not trust, not only me, but also their own officers.
The Army of the Republic Srpska did include Bosniaks. For example, Bosniak unit "Mesa Selimovic" in Bosanski Brod and Derventa with about 120 fighters. Their commander Osmet Djuheric says that they were volunteers and that the Army of RS was not an aggressor army.
As far as Muslims are concerned they are traitors of their nation, just as they say I betrayed Serbs. All three sides that fought in the war have their own views. They do not want to talk about positive examples. I know well, reading the press and literature that there was a lot of solidarity. During the whole war, 20,000 Bosniaks lived in Banja Luka, and they did not have any troubles. But this [Bosniak] side does not want to talk about that. Daily in the Federation BiH we can read about mass graves in which Bosniaks were buried, but there are hardly any reports about Serbs who ended up in similar mass graves. In June or July 1994, snipers killed here in Grbavica, at the time held by Serbs, two children, aged 12 and 13. For three days the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina denied that something like that could happen. Even Alija [Izetbegovic] said that something like that was impossible, only to latter admit that it did happen and say that some madman did it. Let me return to that Bosniak who was in the Army of the Republic of Srpska. He stayed, like me, with his people and his neighbors. I do not have a problem with that, but he is hated here and denounced as a traitor of the Muslim nation.
Could you say to what extent Alija Izetbegovic shares responsibility for the war, given that he first rejected the historical agreement between Muslims and Serbs, and later Cuteliero's plan as well?
Alija Izetbegovic was a great believer and he convinced himself that he was God's messenger on Earth. He was convinced that God had sent him to the Earth. In May 1995 he rejected a military action with the goal of lifting the blockade of Sarajevo explaining that the city was going to be liberated by September. He was convinced that he had received a signal from God confirming that Sarajevo would be liberated soon. Alija says that when choosing between slavery and freedom he chose freedom. He claims that he would be a slave had he stayed in the same state with Milosevic, and this way he is free. And the price for that freedom included lives of 150,000 Bosniak victims.
I tried to draw attention to that attitude towards Serbs in July 1992 when I advised Behireta Sljivic to talk to journalists, because her husband had disappeared.
She told newspapers that her husband had been in the Tenth Mountain Brigade under command of Musan Topalovic Caco, when he was murdered in Kazani, or more accurately burnt alive. That was published. Every time I had information of that sort I tried to officially react through the Staff, whose member I was at the time. In early January 1993, I had a list of 90 names, not only Serbs, but also Croats and Bosniaks, who were murdered in the first days of the conflict. I do not know about disputes regarding figures, but I have been informed that in 1996 during the exhumation of the grave in Kazani 26 or 27 bodies and one head without a body were found... I did draw attention to the problem of prisoners There were camps in the restaurant "Sunce" ["Sun"] in Dobrinja, in Hrasnica, Silos in Tarcin, and Celebic near Konjic. I insisted that the latter two be moved to Zenica, because there is a true prison there. No one paid attention to what I was saying. Alija Izetbegovic knew about all of that. Nothing could be done without his knowledge. Prison "Sunce" was formally shut down, but the prisoners were actually only transferred to a different location. Every unit on the Sarajevo front had two or three Serb hostages who were kept to be exchanged for Bosniak prisoners of war if necessary. I also informed Izetbegovic about that practice and demanded that he put a stop to that.
As far as the crime in Kazani is concerned, who was officially in charge of Caco's unit, the Tenth Mountain Brigade?
That brigade was a unit of the First Corps of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina, under command of Mustafa Hajrulahovic Talijan. I warned about the problem with Caco, Celo and some others who behaved like that for a long time. Together with colleagues I demanded that Alija Izetbegovic solve that problem. You know, Caco could see Izetbegovic whenever he wanted, as did Celo. For a whole year and a half commanders of units in Stari Grad municipality were people without any military education. Two of them had not even served the mandatory military service as they were mentally disabled. Alija trusted them more than he trusted educated military officers.
Do you now think that you might have made some mistakes?
No, I do not regret what I did for a moment. If I had a chance to do it all over again, I would do the same. During the war I was contacted by about 5,000 persons with all sorts of ethnic background, most of them Serbs, who were requesting some sort of assistance. I helped all of them as much as I could. Recently a young man, a Serb, stopped me in the street. He said I had saved his life. They took him to the Igman mountain, he knew that he was going to be killed. He stopped me and requested help. He claimed that I had saved his life in a conversation with some soldier... In the end, some people say that I prevented a worse massacre in Dobrovoljacka Street by shouting through a bullhorn, ordering that they cease fire. Unfortunately, in Pale they edited a tape on which I supposedly order "fire".
According to Jovicic, Divjak tried to soothe his bad conscience, but camp inmates haven't forgiven him his participation in the war and operations in which war crimes were committed.
"Next to Ejub Ganic, Divjak bears most responsibility for the crime in Dobrovoljacka Street, because at the time he was the highest officer of the then Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and led the attack together with Zaim Backovic," Jovicic says. "In his interview for Novosti he claimed that he shouted through a bull horn orders to hold fire, which is true. But he started doing that only when there was no one left alive. The massacre of the military column in Dobrovoljacka Street had already been over. As a high officer of Izetbegovic's army he must say what happened with 12 soldiers who were executed in front of the Police Hall in Sarajevo, only a hundred meters away from his offices. Where were those young men buried?" Our collocutor also criticized Divjak for failing to say anything about the infamous prison camp "Viktor Bubanj", which held, at one time or another, according to Jovicic, 1,750 Serb prisoners, and where tens of women were raped.
"He personally visited that camp, together with Alija Izetbegovic, as can be confirmed by numerous camp inmates. He did not mention that in the so called multiethnic Sarajevo Serb civilians were buried after being brutally murdered. He did not give a damn at the time. He forgot to mention that in hotel ‘Zagreb' there was a brothel in which Serb women were being raped. Besides prison ‘Sunce' Divjak does not mention any of 88 locations where Serbs were held, from kindergartens, café ‘Borsalino', stadium ‘Kosevo', ‘Geoinzenjering', student halls of residence..."
Jovicic claims that the general also forgot to mention that during the construction of the tunnel under the airport runaway 50 Serb prisoners were shot dead, as well as where the mass grave of Serbs murdered in Hrasnica has been moved.
"He tried to pass responsibility for crimes to criminals such as Juka Prazina and Musan Topalovic Caco, who are now dead. The only good thing is that he confirmed that Alija Izetbegovic knew about all of these crimes. I hope that, the way he testified twice against Serbs in the Hague, he has the guts to volunteer to testify about crimes for which Alija Izetbegovic and his collaborators are responsible. Isn't his story about the way his son was shot in both legs, only because of flashing a Serb salute, a sufficient illustration of how Serbs lived in Sarajevo? You can imagine what happened to Serbs whose fathers were not generals and who had no one to protect them".
Finally, Jovicic emphasizes that in the Silos camp in Tarcin, where he spent almost four years, there were 550 Serb male prisoners, all civilians aged between 14 and 85. One cell, of forty square meters [360 square feet] held between 50 and 60 prisoners. They survived horrible torture, were beaten with baseball bats and phone cords, and from time to time the guards let starving dogs loose at prisoners.
Jovicic mentions that all other prisoner camps for Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina were closed in 1994, while Silos was only shut down several months after the signing of the Dayton Agreement.