by Drago HEDL
While the Hague investigators know almost everything about the murders and disappearance of about eighty Serbs in Vukovar, Croatian judiciary has only recently initiated its investigation. Last week, the Hague investigators (more specifically, the duo from the Demographic Department of the ICTY Prosecutor's Office) focused on the deaths, missing persons cases and displaced persons and refugees with the goal of completing the mosaic of the population movements prompted by the war. It is possible that this data will provide wider context in the indictment that may be issued against some of the chief protagonists of the events in Vukovar on the eve of the war in 1991 early next year.
Hague Tribunal investigators, unlike the local judiciary, initiated their investigation of arrests, forced removal and executions of Serbs from Vukovar, conducted by Mercep's groups in the summer of 1991, as early as in May 1996.
On the other hand the Croatian judiciary opened its investigation of the same events seven years later, on November 5, 2002, three days after Feral Tribune published an interview with Ferdinand Jukic, a former SZUP agent in Vukovar, in which Jukic accused Tomislav Mercep of keeping more than a hundred Serbs in the cellar of the Territorial Defense building, where Mercep's headquarters were located. Most of those Serbs later "disappeared". The same day the county state prosecutor in Vukovar received the documentation from the Croatian Helsinki Committee, with information about 19 arrested ethnic Serb citizens of Croatia. Therefore, while the Hague Tribunal investigation about Mercep's activities in Vukovar in the summer of 1991 is about to be concluded, the Croatian investigation is about to start.
However, the Croatian state leadership, and even the former opposition leaders, later coalition partners [current Prime Minister] Ivica Racan and [HSLS leader] Drazen Budisa, were aware of what was going on in Vukovar at the time, while Mercep's groups illegally broke into Serb apartments in the town, looted, illegally confiscated cars and trucks, blew up houses and cafes, took into custody and murdered... Marin Vidic Bili, envoy of the Croatian government for the Vukovar municipality, sent on August 18, 1991 to president Tudman and Prime Minister Greguric, as well as to the ministers of defense and internal affairs (Police), a dramatic letter in which he described the situation in Vukovar. No one, including Racan and Budisa, who also received a copy of the letter, cannot claim ignorance regarding the summer of 1991 events in Vukovar.
More than five years ago, in September 1997, Feral was the first publication in Croatia to write about Mercep's "men of suspicious moral and professional qualities, former criminals" (as they are described in the mentioned letter by Marin Vidic Bili), who "have taken control of the Vukovar municipality", which is merely an euphemism for masters of life and death. Mercep's groups accosted and captured their victims in the street, at work places, in hospitals, and at their homes. Most of them were interrogated in the cellar of the Territorial Defense building, across the street from the well known Eltz Castle, while some were taken to the Weight Lifting Club, near the confluence of rivers Vuka and the Danube. Most of them were murdered there and their corpses were thrown into the Danube, while some witnesses claim that the executions were conducted at two more locations - several kilometers downstream, near the old slaughterhouse, and at one time favorite Vukovar excursion spot in Vucedol. Some of those corpses, as the analysis of human remains retrieved from the Danube will undoubtedly show, floated all the way to Sremska Mitrovica and Novi Sad, where they were buried.
In the days immediately after the fall of Vukovar, in November 1991, unlike today, Mercep did not deny that while in Vukovar he was a master of life and death corpses floated in the Danube. "I don't say that no corpses found their way to the Danube, in Vukovar. In such a large territory, in such a situation, anyone could do anything they wanted. However, in Vukovar, we controlled that well, so that it did not occur frequently," Mercep said in November 1991 in a newspaper interview. He did not specify what he meant by "frequently", but today, once the investigation about his actions in the summer of 1991 has started, he claims (in Novi List) that "during my time in Vukovar" only five Serbs were killed. Today he denies any involvement in the blowing up of Serb houses and cafes, charging instead the local SZUP. "Six to seven houses and all the restaurants and cafes were blown up. It should be investigated who did that".
However, it appears that Mercep forgets that in September 1990, long before any indication of the "log revolution" [Serb rebellion] in Croatia, precisely he requested from Branimir Glavas "50 kilograms of salami and as many detonators as possible". This request was written on a piece of notebook paper and still exists. Glavas had before delivered 100kg [220lb] of Vitezit 60 [plastic explosive], also known as "salami". There must have been more deliveries because in October 1990 Glavas took another 500kg [1200lb] of Vitezit 60, ten meters of slowly burning fuse, thousand meters of detonation fuse, and 200 detonators from the Orahovac quarry. It will be interesting to hear Mercep's explanation regarding what all that "salami" was used for.
Between April 15 and July 30 1991, numerous Serb houses were blown up, as well as cafes "Krajisnik", "Sarajka", "Tufo", "Brdo", "Mali Raj", "Popaj", "Tocak", "Cokot bar", and "Sid", and dry cleaning businesses owned by Serbs. In his letter to Tudman Marin Vidic Bili warns that such Mercep's activities are creating "psychotic fear among local Croats and Serbs, which has prompted many to leave the town".
Sasa Lalic, the head of the Vukovar office of the Croatian Helsinki Center for Human Rights, says for Feral that evidence and individual testimonies indicate that Serbs from Vukovar were not murdered randomly, but that there must have been a premeditated plan and lists of people who were supposed to be captured and then executed. Mostly distinguished, respected or wealthy Serbs were chosen. Strong media propaganda that at the time spilled over from Serbia, with stories about Ustashe coat of arms, resuscitation of the Croatian pro-nazi state from WWII etc. would not have had any effect if the people in Vukovar did not have a chance to first hand experience everything that Belgrade was warning them about.
There are a few more indications that the Croatian state leadership knew every detail of what was happening in Vukovar in the summer of 1991 thanks to Mercep and the people around him, such as Nebojsa Hodak, Sinisa Rimac, or Igor Mikola. Namely, even before on August 18, 1991, the state leadership was sent the dramatic letter by Marin Vidic Bili, Tudman had a chance to personally inform himself about the situation in Vukovar, when he visited the town together with Gojko Susak, Vladimir Seks, and Slavko Degoricija on July 24, 1991. It is likely that at that time he already realized that Mercep had gone too far, because soon afterwards Mercep was briefly arrested and taken by force to Zagreb.
However, in Zagreb, although the state leadership was informed about his actions in Vukovar, Mercep was not prosecuted. On the contrary, he was appointed for the advisor of the then Minister of Internal Affairs (Police) Ivan Vekic. Mercep's further wartime path, from Pakracka Poljana and Gospic to a seat in the parliament and presidential candidacy in 2000, is mostly well known.
However, even the new authorities, after ousting the HDZ in the 2000 elections, despite its pre-election promises that all war crimes would be prosecuted so that Croatia does not have to bear the guilt for crimes of individuals, failed to do anything. Horrific suffering, to which Vukovar was exposed soon after Mercep's departure from the town, beastly destruction by Yugoslav People's Army and Serb reservists, and bloody revenge exacted against prisoners after the fall of Vukovar and finally the gruesome crime in Ovcara, were the most likely reasons why Mercep's activities in the town in the summer of 1991 were never investigated.
The Hague also most likely waited. Aware that it would be inappropriate to now indict Croats for crimes committed in Vukovar, while Sljivicanin and Radic are still at large, Carla del Ponte placed some of files at the bottom of her drawer. However, that does not imply that the investigation had not been conducted thoroughly and that the Hague Tribunal prosecutor's office, unlikely the Croatian judiciary, does not have all the evidence necessary for an indictment.
During the first year of his tenure, Minister of Internal Affairs (Police) Sime Lucin received an anonymous report from "concerned citizens of Vukovar" which described executions of Serb civilians whose bodies were later tossed in the Danube. The report mentions incidents that occurred at the time when Tomislav Mercep was a master of life and death in Vukovar. It cannot be said that absolutely nothing was done. On June 12, 2000, the county state prosecutor requested from the Vukovar Police documentation regarding murders committed in Vukovar in the summer of 1991. Stipe Pole and Zvonimir Rados, police chief and his deputy, respectively, in 1991, were questioned. They claimed that the Police documentation was left behind in Vukovar after the fall of the town. However, after several years of occupation, which ended with peaceful integration of the Croatian Danube Region on January 15, 1998, that documentation was not found. Thus, the investigation was stopped.
In the meantime, two books about the suffering of Serbs in Vukovar were published. "Crimes without punishment" ["Zlocini bez kazne"] (1997) and "Your sight, our road" ["Vas lik, nas put"](1999), despite all doubts, can be used as a starting point for a police investigation. Several non-governmental organizations are active in Vukovar and they have so far investigated and collected evidence about the suffering of both Croats and Serbs in the town. The best known among them is the Association of Families of Missing and Abducted Persons, led by Ruzica Spasic. Croatian police has shown interest in the voluminous documentation collected by that organization only very recently.
It is difficult to predict how and how far the investigation will progress, but a recent incident is probably telling. Last Saturday, there was a mass brawl between Croats and Serbs in the Vukovar hotel Danube. Some ten Croat returnees attacked ethnic Serb guests. Glasses, bottles and tables were used in the fight. Special police had to intervene, and later, in the police press release, journalists were asked not to mention names of the culprits.
Namely, the attackers were led by Nebojsa Hodak, one of Mercep's closest collaborators during the hot summer of 1991 in Vukovar.