CRYSTAL POWER

by Zoran DASKALOVIC

Feral Tribune, Croatia, Split, February 10, 2001

On 16th October 1991 Gospic was already covered by the darkness. The deadly meeting of the Crisis Headquarters in Gospic had also been finished. At that meeting, it was concluded time had come for the Gospic Kristal Nacht, in which Croatian victims of the failed attempt to liberate Licki Osik, especially the civilians form Siroka Luka, were to be avenged. Masked groups of military and civil policemen visited many houses and shelters in Gospic to gather Serbs according to the previously made list.

Half and hour before midnight, masked men came to the house in which Marica Barac lived with her husband, mother and seven months old daughter. Since the house was deserted, they went to the basement, which the tenants had transformed into shelters. They first went to the shelter where Milica Smiljanic was hiding with her family. The soldiers asked them to tell where Radovan Barac, a clerk in the Gospic post office, was. Under gun threat, Milica Smiljanic took them to the basement where Barac's family was. The family at first refused to open, and then Danica Barac went to see what the armed intruders wanted.

Black Masks

Marica Barac testifies about what happened afterwards: "A young man without a mask came at the door. I found out later he was Mirko Norac, a commander in the Croatian Army. He told us he was from the State Security Service and that he was taking us to be interrogated. He approached me, I was holding my daughter in my arms, she woke up and began to cry. He asked me: 'Who is the mother to this child?' I said that I was. He said: 'You stay, the rest of you get ready to go with us.' They told them nothing would happen to them. Ivica Rodic also didn't wear a mask, and I recognized him. Martin Markovic was wearing a mask, but he was easily identifiable by his voice and figure. I didn't see the rest of them. Two people with masks and several without masks were in the hall. I am not sure whether they took them immediately or they waited to gather the rest of the people. They probably loaded them into the trucks and drove them towards Perusic and the former barracks."

Marica Barac's testimony, which was broadcast several months after the pogrom in Gospic on Radio Knin, was recorded by the late Milan Levar, who gave it to Feral in the end of 1997 to publish it with other testimonies. Nine years after these events, Mirko Norac became the first general of the Croatian Army to be detained on the suspicion of committing a war crime against civilians in late 1991. According to Marica Barac, Norac spared her and her daughter, but not her mother-in-law Danica and her husband Radovan Barac. Together with other Serbian civilians, they were taken and executed near Gospic on October 16, 1991.

Some of the bodies of the murdered Serbs from Gospic were found several months later in no man's land. A forensic medicine expert from the Military Medical academy in Belgrade wrote these words under the code number US-16: "Radovan Barac, a senior postal technician from Gospic. The victim was shot with five missiles fired from hand-held firearm. Burns on the head, neck and front side of both thighs were found."

Reports of the forensic medicine expert from Belgrade, testimonies of Marica Barac and other witnesses, whose friends and family members were executed during that bloody October, have been a part of the files in The Hague Court for a long time. Carla del Ponte's associates will deliver them to the County Court in Rijeka at their request.

Bloody October

But those testimonies and other pieces of evidence will be only an addition to those found by the Croatian police and the investigating judge from Rijeka Sajonara Culina; they are not the main reason why Mirko Norac has become a general in custody.

The decision to change the status of Norac to that of a suspect was mostly influenced by the testimonies of several witnesses and suspects in the investigation against Tihomir Oreskovic and five other men from Gospic, who have been suspected of inspiring and executing the murders of civilians in Gospic. The turning point was when the commander of the barracks in Perusic Ivan Grandic admitted he had formed a firing squad at Norac's order, which, together with Norac's masked people, killed a group of Serb civilians, whose bodies were found and mostly identified.

Grandic's confession corroborated the written statement of one participant of the deadly meeting and execution taken in 1991, when Oreskovic and the group of suspects were held in custody, but were released by the government officials. The statement was probably written by Zeljko Bolf, the chief of the Gospic police at the time, though he said the statement was extorted. But, since several other witnesses corroborated claims made by Bolf, especially Sinisa Glusac, what followed was a demand for a broader investigation. This demand changed the witness status of General Norac and his deputy Milan Canic into that of suspects, and they were supposed to be held in custody.

The arrest warrant for Mirko Norac issued last week was sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Police) and the Zagreb police department, which had the obligation to carry out the arrest since Norac has been living in Zagreb for some time. Norac was immediately informed about the warrant, he came to the police and promised to surrender, but asked to do this in Rijeka in order to avoid crowd and journalists with cameras. Norac allegedly started for Rijeka on Wednesday, accompanied by several of his war comrades, still active police special agents, but did not appear in court at the appointed time. At the same time Milan Canic was brought in and placed in custody in Rijeka prison.

Pressure Season

Some of the soldiers in the barracks in Sinj, Norac's hometown, protested against Norac's arrest, even threatened to free Norac by force if the arrest happens, and settle accounts with the governmental officials who, in their opinion, authorized his arrest. The parliamentary representatives of HDZ, HSP and HKDU, and Gospic Headquarters for the Defense of the Dignity of the Homeland War also showed disapproval.

HDZ's request, supported by Djapic's HSP and Veselica's HKDU [extreme right political parties], that the Croatian Parliament should decide about Norac's destiny, will be remembered as another example of political defiling of legal procedures. Threats from Sinj and HDZ's politicization of Norac's case have opened another season of pressures on Rijeka's judiciary, which is supposed to pass the verdict. One of the prosecutors who took part in some investigations into war crimes during the war, told us that the police and judiciary did not need political pressures to halt the procedure as the pressures from the street and threats with explosive and murder were much more convincing.

Norac's long voyage to Rijeka only enforces the scenario according to which the street influences the decisions made by the judiciary. And the court officials are supposed to pass a verdict after they verify the statements given by the witnesses' among other whether Norac really shouted at the execution squad at Lipova Glavica: "Shoot, shoot, who hasn't shot yet!"

Translated by Feral Tribune and M.Kocic