by Dejan ANASTASJEVIC
Psychologists say that a man facing unpleasant truths passes through four stages - denial, anger, rationalization and depression - before accepting unavoidable. The footage from Trnovo has initiated that process in the collective conscience of Serbs. And while Serbia goes through its phases, new, even more unpleasant issues are popping up. If everything had to do with only one tape, only one rogue military unit, and only one crime, everything would be much more digestible. Srebrenica is the worst crime in the Bosnian war, but it is definitely not the only one, and Scorpions were not the only unit that illegally murdered. However, the role of Scorpions in Slavonia, Srebrenica and Cazin Krajina, as well as its status within the Serbian police underground, makes it worthwhile to try to provide a more detailed history of their "heroic battles".
The history of the Scorpions began in the autumn of 1991, in the mud and chaos of the siege and fall of Vukovar. In addition to the regular JNA troops, numerous scoundrels and bullies seeking pillage and fun converged on eastern Slavonia. These included the brothers Slobodan "Boca" and Aleksandar "Gulja" Medic with their buddies from the area of Sid. It is not easy to tell when they named themselves Scorpions and chose Boca as their commander - there were hundreds of such groups. A Scorpion is a Czech-made handgun with a butt that folds on top of the barrel, resembling scorpion's sting; it comes with a silencer. This short-range weapon is not of great use in warfare, but is very handy for pillage, murder and other "special operations". The JNA distributed it in great numbers to the volunteers.
Oil and oak: The chaos spread by the volunteers and reservists with the logistical backing of the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA) was not uncontrolled, in fact: the gangs were supervised by Radovan Stojcic, a high-ranking officer in the Serbian police, who was sent to Slavonia as commander of the Territorial Defense. He made sure that the volunteers would not completely escape control and arbitrated in the division of spoils. He was aided in this by Arkan's Serb Volunteer Guard, which enjoyed a special status. After the fall of Vukovar in November 1991 and signing of the Vance plan, the YPA pulled out followed by most of the volunteers.
However, Stojcic and Arkan remained in Slavonia in order to help Goran Hadzic, the newly installed president of the Republic of Srpska Krajina (RSK), to build his state. At the start of 1992 the Scorpions were legalized and became part of the RSK army. They acquired new uniforms and an emblem: a yellow scorpion on a black background.
As things calmed down Stojcic was sent to more important duties and his place was taken by Milan Milanovic known as "Mrgud", who had been his driver and guide. (...) In the meantime everything that could be removed from Vukovar and its environs (down to kitchen and bathroom equipment) was gone, leaving behind only those things that could not be easily removed: oil and oak. The oil field was at Delatovci in the municipality of Nijemci close to the border, and the valuable Slavonian oak timber in nearby Ilinci. The Scorpions were given the lucrative and sensitive task of looking after these valuable resources.
They could not have been luckier. Sanctions raised the price of petrol to DM5 per liter [roughly $10 per gallon]. The oil from Deletovci eventually supplied 200f Serbia's needs. The world market price for oak timber was DM100 per cubic meter, but Arkan sold it to a firm in Cacak for one-tenth of this price. Some of this timber was used to build Milosevic's summer house at Crni Vrh near Bor.(...)
The trade in oil and oak timber, and later also in cigarettes and stolen cars, was controlled by the state security Service headed by Jovica Stanisic and Frenki Simatovic, which took the lion's share for "the state". After them came first Arkan, then Hadzic; what remained was taken by local "businessmen" such as Milenko Cancarevic, an interesting character who cropped up in the Operation Sablja (Saber). The rest of the spoils was more than enough for Boca and selected Scorpions, who became wealthy and started buying houses and business premises in Vojvodina. The "legal" side of their operation was secured by Mrgud, the Service's plenipotentiary, who in time became deputy defense minister of the RSK. The Scorpions thus got papers from the RSK police for use in RSK and Bosnia-Hercegovina, and from the Serbian police for use in Serbia. The latter had to be renewed every six months.
Lice and Spiders: Guarding the oil and oak timber from the Croatians - and even more from other Serb gangs - was an easy and profitable job for Boca and his friends. The war in Bosnia, however, was still going on and demanded their engagement. The Scorpions were not of great value as fighters (in Bosnia they earned a scornful nickname - lice). The author has heard an interesting anecdote from the fighting on the Treskavica Mountain, a spot known as Lisicja Glava, where Scorpions ran away after the first shot fired by the enemy, leaving behind the unit of the Army of Srpska they had been sent to assist. "We somehow pulled out and on the way picked up machine guns and other military equipment Scorpions had left behind to ease their escape, so that in the end we made some money by selling it," a demobilized Army of Srpska soldier relates. "We went to a bar, Ranko's pub, and got totally drunk. The whole table was covered by bottles. And every time we ordered a new round, someone would say: ‘If it wasn't for Boca and his Lice, we'd have never gotten this drunk'".
Although they turned out to be useless in fighting, they did well in a special operation called Pauk [Spider] linked to the Cazin area of northwestern Bosnia. In the autumn of 1993 Fikret Abdic took power in Velika Kladusa with the intention of creating an Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APZB), copying the model of the SAO (Serb Autonomous Regions) from 1991. He did this in agreement with Franjo Tudman and Slobodan Milosevic, who at this time favored the outbreak of an inter-Muslim conflict. Abdic received considerable aid in arms, ammunition, oil and other strategic raw materials as well as in manpower from all the "Serb lands" to fight against Atif Dudakovic, the local commander of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Many fighters from Srpska were confused by the situation in which they fought with one set of Bosniaks (Babo's) against another (Dudakovic's). It was one of the most bizarre (although also most profitable for some) episodes of the war in Bosnia.
The importance the establishment of Abdic's statelet for Serbia is confirmed by the fact that a special staff was formed to aid Abdic at the village of Samarice on the very border between the APZB and the RSK. The head of this staff was Jovica Stanisic, his deputy was Frenki Simatovic. General Mile Novakovic of the RSK was attached to the staff. Stanisic and Simatovic brought in everyone they could lay their hands on to fight for Abdic: Arkan's Tigers, Ljubisa Savic Mauzer's Panthers, Boca's Scorpions, etc. The battles around Kladusa and Bihac that lasted intermittently until the summer of 1995 were in fact the cover for a huge smuggling operation. Everyone traded with everyone else: Serbs with Abdic, Abdic with Atif Dudakovic, Serbs with Dudakovic, Croats with all of them... The trade involved all sorts of goods: from weapons and ammunition to oil, flour, and coal, all shipped in endless convoys of strictly controlled freight trucks. The special units provided the convoys with security and kept away the curious. The APZB soon became a duty-free state and as such lost every other purpose. Peasants from the RSK died like flies on the approaches to Bihac, Legija of the Specials imposed French Foreign Legion standards, Boca made profits here and there... It is impossible to attach a figure to the overall revenue collected in the operation, but serious estimates speak of billions of Dollars.
Operation "Pauk" ended up as a disaster for everyone involved: Milosevic, Dudakovic, Stanisic and Simatovic were all indicted by the Hague tribunal, while Abdic was tried on war crimes charges in Croatia. Arkan and Mauzer were murdered later, while small fry, like Legija and Boca, managed to survive and even prosper. The footage recently shown on TV B92, in which Boca and Legija are apparently conspiring about exchange of certain "packages" (commonly used codeword for prisoners) is a good illustration.
In the meantime, the Scorpions were also asked to help in Srebrenica. According to reliable Vreme sources, they were sent there as part of a wider group composed of three elements: a unit of Red Berets from Bilje, commanded by Vasilije Mijovic (now working for the Montenegrin police); a unit of Arkan's "Super-Tigers", in which Arkan's son Mihajlo was involved; and a unit of Boca's Scorpions. Mijovic was the overall commander.
Podujevo and Consequences: Up until the Erdut Agreement, Boca's Scorpions were officially a unit within the RSK army, but they received an additional salary as guards of the Delatovci oil field. After Slavonia was returned to Croatia, however, they had to return home. In the meantime many of them had acquired property in Sid, Novi Sad and other places in Vojvodina, while the majority, who got nothing, ended up poor and destitute. As a good shepherd and commander, Boca assisted them as much as he could. "We preserved the core of the unit, according to the instructions we had received. We also wanted to assist unit members in their return to normal life. After the Erdut Agreement, the Scorpions became a reserve unit of the Special Anti-Terrorist unit of the Serbian police," Boca testified in front of the District Court in Belgrade two years ago in a trial of a Scorpions' member on war crimes charges involving crimes in Kosovo.
Vreme has written extensively about the trial, which brought Boca and company to public attention for the first time, although the public did not know about their "heroic deeds" in Srebrenica at the time. Briefly, at the start of the NATO campaign the Scorpions were activated from the reserve status and sent to Podujevo. As soon as they arrived, on March 28, 1999, they went into the first Albanian house that looked promising. The outcome: fourteen dead civilians including women and children, plus fourteen wounded children. The loot? A gold cigarette lighter, a handgun and a few dollars. Boca, who was at a meeting at the time, realized what was going on as soon as he had heard fire from machine guns. "Motherfuckers, I cannot leave you alone for a minute". He ordered Scorpions to immediately return to buses that had brought them to Podujevo. The unit was immediately returned to Serbia proper, although there are indications that they had later returned to Kosovo. Several Scorpions took part in the massacre, including Boca's brother Gulja, but only one was brought to justice: Sasa Cvjetan. The other accused, Dejan Demirovic escaped to Canada.
The trial that started and continued in Belgrade was long and complicated and most likely would not have happened had it not been for Natasa Kandic, the president of the Humanitarian Law Centre, which supplied the key evidence and persuaded some key witnesses (a member of the Scorpions and a group of surviving Albanians) to appear before the court. During the trial, both witnesses and the judge received threats. Nevertheless Cvjetan was in the end sentenced to twenty years in jail. However, the Supreme Court of Serbia abolished that sentence because of procedural lapses and ordered a retrial. The new trial started on June 7, six days after Nice showed footage from Srebrenica in the Hague. During the trial Cvjetan insulted and then attempted to physically assault the judge, saying "who the fuck do you think you are?", and the trial had to be adjourned. This time, Boca, Gulja and the rest cannot help him because they were arrested with a few other Scorpions.
In the meantime Nice announced that he would show more footage, while the indictment for Srebrenica was expanded to include Jovica Stanisic and Franki Simatovic. Srebrenica may also affect the indictment against former Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army, Momcilo Perisic, while additional evidence that would shed more light on the role of the Yugoslav Army in the massacre is expected. Unpleasant revelations are still to come.
One must wonder how much truth Serbia can take without, as Aleksandar Vucic from the Serb Radical Party said at one point, getting sick. Psychological phases mentioned at the start of the article (denial, anger, rationalization, depression, acceptance) do not have to affect every individual in the same order and in similar time spans. Reactions of nations are even less predictable. Where were we?