Courtside

Serbian Forces “Masters of Life and Death”

Former prisoner speaks of wartime ordeal at hands of elite Serbian troops.

By Velma Saric in Sarajevo (TU No 633, 6-Feb-10)

A Bosnian politician this week told the Hague tribunal of abuses by special Serbian military units in north-eastern Bosnia in 1992.

“You could clearly see that these people could handle warfare and weapons, unlike the locals. You could see from their behaviour that these were professional warriors,” said Sulejman Tihic, president of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and chairman of the House of Peoples, one of the two chambers of the Bosnian parliament.

Tihic said that the Special Operations Units, JSO, of the Serbian State Security Service, DB, played a key role in the takeover of the Bosanski Samac municipality in early March 1992.

He was giving evidence in the trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, former DB officers, have been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise, with the objective of forcibly and permanently removing non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia through persecution, murder and deportation of the Croat, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat populations.

Stanisic served as DB head from 1991 to 1998, while Simatovic worked under the authority of Stanisic as JSO commander.

According to the indictment, Stanisic and Simatovic established, organised and financed training centres for Serb forces, with the purpose of establishing military actions in Croatia and Bosnia.

The indictment states that Stanisic and Simatovic sent these forces to Croatia and Bosnia, where they committed crimes and took control of towns and villages in Serb-held areas in Croatia and Bosnia, forcing non-Serbs to leave the territories.

Tihic said members of the JSO were particularly noted for their brutality, and had beaten him in the Bosanski Samac police station.

The witness, who was SDA party chairman in Bosanski Samac at the beginning of the war, had previously testified at The Hague in 1994 and 1995 in trials relating to the ethnic cleansing of Bosanski Samac.

He also gave evidence in 2001 in the trial of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, accused of masterminding attempts to ethnically cleanse non-Serbs from lands coveted by Belgrade. Milosevic died in 2006, a few weeks before his case was due to end.

Transcripts of his testimonies and three statements he had given to prosecution investigators were included on record this week.

The witness said that the proclamation of the Serbian Municipality of Bosanski Samac in 1992 was the sign of “a clear political project running throughout Bosnia and Hercegovina.

“They had created the pre-conditions for some kind of ‘para-statal’ (self-proclaimed state) which would later join Serbia.

“There had therefore to exist a force which would help them achieve their goals. They would never have been able to do this without support from Belgrade.”

He explained that support for local Serbs in Bosnia was reflected in everything from backing by Yugoslav army, JNA, troops to assistance from the Serbian police, as well as logistical and financial aid.

According to his statement, members of the Crvene Beretke (Red Berets), a JSO unit, came to Bosanski Samac by helicopter in February or March of 1992. Together with the JNA, local Serb police and territorial defence forces, they participated in the attack on Bosanski Samac on April 17, 1992.

"According to my knowledge, they were the first to attack the town and were in fact the fist of the attack,” Tihic said.

The Red Berets were, according to the indictment, the elite unit of the DB founded by the indictees in 1991 in order to carry out secret operations outside Serbia.

Answering the prosecution's question as to who commanded the attack on the town, the witness answered, “I do not know exactly, but there probably was some kind of coordination between all structures, but I do know who was the chief and who had the biggest say in the event.

“It was the Special Operations Units - they were masters of life and death. They were the first to storm the town and occupy the police station and the municipality.”

Tihic also recounted his experiences in the police station in Bosanski Samac and various other places of detention in Bosnia and Serbia. He explained that after he was arrested on April 18, 1992, he was detained alongside some ten other persons at the police station, on the orders of Dragan Djordjevic Crni, whom Tihic considered to be “the chief of the Special Operations Units in Bosanski Samac”.

He said that JSO troops "kept beating other prisoners and myself, regularly on a daily basis".

The prisoners were taken from Bosanski Samac to the JNA barracks in Brcko, then to Bijeljina, from where a certain number, including Tihic, was transferred to Batajnica, close to Belgrade.

Tihic finally ended up in the prison in Sremska Mitrovica, also in Serbia, from where he was exchanged on August 14, 1992. Although he said he was beaten more often in Sremska Mitrovica, Tihic said he had suffered the most while in Bosanski Samac. He described how nine people were crowded into a room only a few feet across, with only one bunk to sit down on, no water, no food and no toilet.

He added that the prisoners were beaten relentlessly. “Any moment someone could just come in to kill you,” Tihic added.

“In Sremska Mitrovica they did beat me up, but at least there was a sense of orderliness, they would beat us after lunch or dinner, but nobody would come with a gun to threaten to kill us.”

Among the Red Beret members present in Bosanski Samac in 1992, Tihic singled out Zvezdan Jovanovic as particularly brutal. He had recognised him on the video recording of a JSO parade.

Jovanovic has been sentenced to 40 years in prison in Serbia as one of the assassins of former prime minister Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2003.

The defence teams for Stanisic and Simatovic suggested in cross-examination that Tihic lacked adequate knowledge of operational command as he had never served in the army. The witness countered these claims, arguing that he had a certain knowledge which he had acquired through legal studies, as he was a lawyer by profession.

The defence also suggested that the attack on Bosanski Samac and the crimes committed there were the responsibility of the JNA. The witness said that the dominant role in the crimes was played by the JSO.

Stanisic and Simatovic, arrested by Serbian authorities on June 13, 2003, both pleaded not guilty.

The trial continues next week.

Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo.