None of friends and colleagues received this news with pity; instead they received the news with uneasiness as an offence and humiliation, not only for myself but also for all those people who were there, at the front, because all of them know me, know who I am, what I do and how I feel. I'm not a butcher, some beast or I don't know what, but an ordinary man who likes all that is beautiful. And above all I love my people and my homeland, for which I fought, so that the families and children of those like me could live here.
(...)I worked close to [former] Minister of Defense, General Kadijevic, whom I admire and respected as my superior and the Minister for Defense and tried to fulfil all tasks connected with my position. I would behave in such a way with respect to anyone and the only task that I have ever refused to carry out was in connection with Stipe Mesic who was elected the president [of the Presidency] of Yugoslavia.
We were supposed to greet him at the White Court [official residence] and I refused to do so and organize security for him... I was criticized because of that but that is not important after all.
It was a humiliation for myself, to obey and carry out orders of a man who had said before he was elected: "I want to destroy Yugoslavia, it cannot exist, I don't fight for Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia as it is cannot exist any more..." And I was in love with Yugoslavia. I've always felt as a Yugoslav, I've never mentioned Montenegro, only Yugoslavia [Sljivicanin was born and raised in Montenegro]...(...)
Following the orders of the High Command we went to Vukavar, because at that time barracks in Vukovar and Vinkovci were in the most difficult situation.
The barracks in Vukovar was surrounded and under constant fire of Ustashe soldiers. Barracks in Osijek and Vinkovci as well... My brigade received orders to come to their aid.
Colonel Mile Mrksic was the commander of the brigade... Our task was to help the YPA units in that region, liberate barracks and establish conditions for a normal life; therefore, not to simply capture the barracks and allow them to shoot at you, but to disarm all those who can in any way endanger our soldiers in the barracks.
We were at the time the legal armed forces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, country which had been recognized by the whole world. Therefore, we were supposed to protect the population in our own country, to protect our fatherland. Briefly, we were supposed to ensure respect of the constitutional order, peace, freedom, equality, and rights to free movement.(...)
Besides, how could one hide that, keep it inside, when one could see someone destroying a barracks and killing young soldiers in your own country?! Let alone people, women and children... For example, an officer had lived and worked for fifty years there in Slovenia, but had been born, for example in Cacak [Serbia] or Niksic [Montenegro] or somewhere else; he married a Slovenian woman and suddenly everything he had had, his family, his property was gone; and he was not supposed to care?!
So, we set off towards Vukovar. Frankly, I believed that it was enough for the Army to show up and to say: easy people... I was talking with those Ustashe: "we are strong, you can't touch us, let us not shoot and kill each other for nothing." I didn't say that in order to build some sort of an image but because I believed in that. "That's stupid," I told them. Their commander was some lieutenant colonel , Mile Dedakovic Jastreb, who had been through the same military schools as myself; so I called him and said: "please colleague, we went to the same schools , gave oath to the same flag and same laws, let's get together and make sure that the people can leave the city without trouble.(...)
However, they would always respond by cursing, for example "you are chetniks", which I found extremely offensive. For example, I am not a chetnik. I was then a member of the Yugoslav Peoples Army. I was an officer of the legal army of that state.
How can I explain. All of us were feeling bad because a group of hooligans could go around and disarm soldiers and shoot. Why disarm? Because those soldiers and officers had not been taught to shoot at their own people. We thought of Croats as of our own people! I swear on my honor. We were not bloodthirsty with respect to them, the way they were towards us; they wanted to slaughter and kill young conscripts.
For example, in our unit there were a lot of Croat soldiers. None of them refused to carry out orders but instead they insisted to fight together with their comrades. Those young men were not influenced by nationalism as much as those who led that policy in Croatia.
For example, one of our first casualties was a soldier from Zagreb, a Croat. I remember that, he died from a mortar shell. As soon as we arrived and tried to set up a camp, they attacked us with mortars. We lost some soldiers and officers there...
There were several paramilitary formations and groups. They would call us officers communists, this and that, atheists and so on... All of that produced confusion in command and mobilization.
(...) I think that Arkan is a very capable man, very strong, also brave, a born soldier. Without YPA he couldn't have done anything, because YPA had tanks, artillery, hospitals, logistics etc.; still, Arkan always tried to assist YPA members. I never really talked to him about politics. we never discussed politics at the front - our goal was to liberate the city and establish the conditions under which anyone could live where he or she wanted to. We wanted to stop fighting in the city. Our enemies were Ustashe. We had to defend ourselves.(...) Serb and Montenegrin peoples have never in their history been involved in an expansionist war. They were simply forced to defend their territory, their humanity and the humanity of others and to assist those who were persecuted. We did not go to Vukovar to conquer somebody else's land or to steal. Today one can hear all kinds of stuff: war profiteers etc. That is a shame; those kinds of comments defame the graves of those who died... (...) These accusations are made by those who have never got even close to the front, sat in safety, and now think that one could do whatever at the front. Rubbish!
(...) I wanted then, and want now to talk publicly with all those who were coming from all sides [to Vukovar], those "peacenics". They were trying to give us advise on what to do, but I was convinced that all of them were Ustashe in disguise: those who emigrated in 1941 or in 1945 and now have foreign passports. They live abroad and then come here and set some conditions... I received them several times. I proposed to talk to them publicly, in front of journalists, but they refused. Only secretly, they said. Why? We were not doing anything against the law. We were working, sacrificing our lives and lives of our soldiers in order to save our fatherland. We had nothing to hide.(...)
If Ustashe were prepared to respect the laws of the country in which they lived, that was the policy then, I am convinced that all of them would have been alive today; exactly like those two or three thousands of prisoners whom we took to Sremska Mitrovica and later released; all of them are free, at their homes, no one's been hurt... If only they listened, didn't shoot at our soldiers, our barracks, and behaved like ordinary people.(...)
If those people [from Vukovar], who now live in Croatia or abroad cared to testify and had courage to tell the truth they would say that our soldiers never asked anyone for their nationality. Listen, we had cases when Ustashe would raise a white flag and drive towards our soldiers... our soldiers were young and innocent... Ustashe would get close to them, pull out hidden machine guns, kill those soldiers, drop the white flag and drive back to their side!(...)
For example, seven of our soldiers got lost; later the locals showed us in the courtyard of one building in "Sremskih Vladara" street... They killed them and then, instead of burying them like normal people do, they burned their corpses and left them like that. We found a man, and taped his confession; he admitted that he had killed those soldiers, pulled out their golden teeth, that he slaughtered a woman, raped a girl... Still, none of that had any influence on our soldiers. I was proud of them... At Mitnica, there were more than 5,000 people; 50 our soldiers approached them and they didn't kill anyone, but tried to clear up who those people were and where they should be taken.
I'm saying this openly.(...) I couldn't everywhere at every moment, but everywhere I went, I've never encountered a man who didn't behave properly, who committed all these crimes we are accused of committing.
Of course, in a big city like Vukovar, where there was a lot of Serb people, those people who stayed there to defend their homes, whose houses were destroyed, whose brothers, sisters, mother, father were killed... it is easy to criticize that now, but then, to live with all those devastated people... If one of them found a neighbor who had done what shouldn't have been done - who knows what happened between the two of them. It is hard to control that in a civil war.
It would be foolish to make a claim that no one was hurt. We will never know with confidence what exactly happened. Still, whenever the YPA members and those territorial defense and volunteer units which were under our command went, they behaved properly.
They say now: you had a list of Ustashe! Of course. What kind of an officer I would have been if I didn't have a list of those who incite the people and lead it to crime? I had a list, that's true.
I found a lot of people from that list. If I were a criminal I would have killed those people... I would have ordered my soldiers and officers to execute them and I wouldn't have brought them [to the jail in Sremska Mitrovica]; like we brought Vesna Bosanac, Marin Vidic, Njavro, Dmitar Karaula... and so on, I don't remember all the names... They all returned to Croatia. They are the greatest criminals and if someone should have died, it's them; not the innocent people. (...) No one pressured us to liquidate those people. A lot of Vukovar citizens demanded from us, officers, to behave properly towards those they knew. As far as the children, women and sick were concerned, if someone finds a single person who had been killed by our soldiers, I will hang myself in the center of Belgrade! I've read in the papers how those judges say that we drove them in trucks. What were we supposed to drive them in!? We had army trucks, and did all we could in order to save those people, women, elderly and sick people...(...)
We kept accurate records, diaries, orders... all we did. We are a regular unit and everything we wrote and reported and were ordered to do is still in the archive. (...) They are talking about some sort of war loot, about horrible things. Those are all fabrications.(...)
When I heard that I was indicted by the court in the Hague I was in the field with my soldiers, at the border, providing security because Ustashe were again staging provocations. If I remember well, that happened in November 1995. How can a man feel? I felt very bad. War crimes were mentioned for a first time in W.W.II and I've read about the court in Nuremberg; how is one supposed to feel when they are comparing him with some SS officer who came from Germany in order to kill women and children, destroy and burn all that can be destroyed and burned and to enslave a nation. To be called a war criminal is a great offence for a man.
I was not an aggressor; instead I tried to secure peace for all people and instructed my soldiers to protect the lives of those who had tried to impose evil on the people... and I am a war criminal! Then all kinds of things go through one's head. People, who have never been to the front now say: who knows what you did over there? How is one supposed to react to that?(...)
You ask me whether I'll go to the Hague...
No. First, I think that that would shame my soldiers, my fellow officers, all those who were with me, and my people as well. They say that everyone will be eventually extradited, but under what circumstances? If I did anything wrong, I should be tried by the court of my people. Not by the court of those who are paid to follow orders of some fascist or someone who had always hated Yugoslavia.