BALKANS: Serb Executors Sentenced At Last

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Dec 12 2005 (IPS) - Fourteen Serbs were given prison sentences of up to 20 years each Monday for the execution of 200 Croatian prisoners of war.

“History will have its say on what was going on in Croatia in November 1991; was it an already independent state or still part of former Yugoslavia, but all the evidence presented here undisputedly says that war crime was committed,” Judge Vesko Krstajic of the newly established war crimes court in Belgrade said as he pronounced the verdict.

The execution happened in the course of an armed Croatian uprising against Serb domination of former Yugoslavia.

Joined by local Serbs in the eastern town Vukovar, ‘volunteers’ who were really units of what was then the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) destroyed the town. Croatia was recognised as an independent state two months later, in January 1992.

Hundreds of prisoners of war from the Vukovar operation were taken to Serbian prisons. Others moved into the local hospital for shelter after surrendering their weapons.

But they were taken away by the Serb paramilitary and shot to death at the nearby Ovcara pig farm. It was these executors who were sentenced Monday.

Those killings continued from the afternoon of Nov. 20, 1991, into the whole of the next day. The bodies were buried in a shallow mass grave, and identified only recently.

“The sentences show that justice can be achieved, even many years later,” prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric told IPS. “It’s also important to note that this is the first time any Serb perpetrators of war crimes in Croatia were sentenced in Serbia proper.. This is also the first ever sentence by this court.”

The war crimes court was established in Belgrade only two years ago. It marked a significant break from the times of Slobodan Milosevic who led Serbia into wars with Croatia and Bosnia in the 90s with the aim of keeping former Yugoslavia together and to protect the interests of up to two million ethnic Serbs who lived outside Serbia proper.

But many people seen as war criminals by non-Serbs or by the international community are cherished as war heroes among large numbers of Serbs. The Serbs refuse to acknowledge that any atrocities were committed against non-Serbs.

The verdict could help change that view, human rights activists say. “There is no stern enough sentence for those cruel crimes committed,” Natasa Kandic who heads the Humanitarian Law Centre told IPS. “If Serbia holds more trials like this, people will finally learn what happened around us and in the name of all of us.”

Rajko Danilovic, a lawyer who represented the families of some of the Croat victims said the Ovcara killings remain deeply embedded in the memories of many Croats.. “Only a clear picture of what happened can help the wounds heal, and close the page of the recent past,” Danilovic told IPS.

Legal experts say the ruling Monday will have a strong bearing on a similar case before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague in the Netherlands.

“The commanders of the JNA at the time, who allowed the crime to happen, are being tried before the ICTY,” lawyer Nikola Barovic told IPS. “The complete truth should come out after that so that neighbours, distanced from one another by the war, yet so dependent on each other, could start living in peace.”

But families of victims who attended the trial did not see it that way. “It was good that there was sentencing at all, but nothing can bring the dead back,” said an elderly woman who lost her son in Ovcara. An elderly man said the punishment is “too little for what they did.”

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Croatia said in a statement that the sentencing should lead to truth and tolerance. “Tolerance lessens the hatred that poisoned the region, and now we have a step in the right direction.”