BALKANS: Slovenia Woken Up To Its Crimes

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Apr 13 2006 (IPS) - A tape showing the execution of three surrendering conscripts of the former Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) at the beginning of Slovenia’s independence war in 1991 has opened new questions over war crimes.

Serbs and to a lesser extent Croats have been blamed more than anyone else for war crimes. But the new tape raises questions about the blame all nations in the region must share.

“We expect the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to react to this footage,” said Serbian justice minister Zoran Stojkovic.

The three surrendering soldiers, killed by Slovene policemen, have been identified through military records as two Serbs, Goran Maletic (18) and Zoran Jesic (19) from the northern province of Vojvodina, and Antonio Simunovic (19), a Croat from Bosnia.

The video tape taken by the Austrian ORF television remained in Slovene archives for more than a decade. It was shown only last week on television channels in former Yugoslav nations.

The tape shows the three men being killed after waving a white sheet to surrender in Holmec village near the Austrian border Jun. 28, 1991.

“The effect of this tape amounts to the effects of the Srebrenica tape; this is an almost identical case and should not be disregarded or kept quiet about,” Stojkovic said.

The ‘Srebrenica tape’ shows the cold-blooded execution of six Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serbs in July 1995 after the United Nations (UN) protected zone fell into Serb hands.

Srebrenica became the symbol of war crimes committed in the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia, that raged from 1991 until 1995. More than 7,000 Muslim prisoners of war were massacred by Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica in July 1995.

Several Serb commanders have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison for these crimes by the United Nations founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague in The Netherlands..

At present 20 indictees, Serbs, Croats and Muslims, are serving prison sentences after being found guilty by the tribunal. Another 23 have either served their terms or been acquitted. Conditional parole was pronounced for 24 persons brought before the tribunal, while 25 indictments were withdrawn.

Most of the indictees are ethnic Serbs, but there are also prominent Croat army commanders accused of war crimes against Serbs, and Muslims accused of war crimes against the other two nations.

Ten indictees have died without any sentences pronounced, among them former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic last month. He was blamed for instigating most of the atrocities in the wars.

The new tape, dug up by Neva Miklavcic Predan, head of the Slovenian Helsinki Monitor human rights group, has started off a debate about the guilt of others too.

“This video shows the first documented war crime committed in the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia that has gone unpunished,” Miklavcic Predan told IPS on phone from Ljubljana in Slovenia. “Justice should be done, and this is the only motive for me to take up the case.”

But Miklavcic Predan instead faces a court case for slander and inflicting “enormous mental pain” on Slovene war veterans. She faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

Slovenia, the only former Yugoslav nation to have become a European Union member, waged a short 10-day war of independence in 1991. The nation of two million successfully hid grave breaches of international human rights conventions.

These include deportation of non-Slovenes since 1991 into war zones in Croatia and Bosnia. Croats and Bosniak Muslims, living for decades in Slovenia but denied local papers after independence, were simply bussed to their native countries. Thousands of non-Slovenes were erased from residence and working records, and forced to leave or to stay illegally.

Slovenian authorities have said they will not take up the case. Echoing a statement first issued by district state attorney Harij Furlan, the office of Slovenia’s state prosecutor general Barbara Brezigar insisted the case was closed.

They said the prosecution had established back in 1991 that there was no suspicion of crimes having been committed at Holmec. They added that this finding was corroborated in 1999 by a special task force of prosecutors.

The Serbian Special War Crimes Prosecution has decided to take up the case. Established recently under the auspices of the international community, the Prosecution deals with war crimes committed both by and against Serbs.

“The Holmec tape might present the first document on war crime in wars in former Yugoslavia,” spokesman for the Prosecution Bruno Vekaric told IPS. “But this calls for serious investigation and no hasty conclusions. In principle, all the guilty on all the sides have to face justice for their wrongdoings.”