by Sabina Hadzic
Slobodna Bosna, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, March 8, 1996
Newspaper correspondence between a Bosnian Presidency member Dr. Mirko Pejanovic and brigadier general Jovan Divjak has again brought attention to the Ristovic family murder which was a subject of rumors at the beginning of the war in Sarajevo.
According to an unofficial statement from the Defense Ministry and the General Staff of the Bosnian Army, on July 8, 1992, around 1:20 p.m., approximately at lunch time, the Ristovic family(Radosava (61), her two sons, Pero and Obren, daughter Bosa, then 14-year-old Danilo Ristovic and Mila Ristovic) was murdered in 144 Gornji Velesici. Mila's husband Dusko and a young woman Stojanka Mastilo were wounded. The official statement claimed that the crime had been committed by "three unidentified persons who drove away in a car, model Volkswagen Golf; the car was without number plates and was marked with Territorial Defense insignia."
The victims were buried at the "Lion" cemetery; the Defense Ministry and the Bosnian police issued a statement in which they condemned this "vile act" and promised to quickly find the murderers.
Murderers Were Policemen
In January 1993, Police filed a case with the Higher Prosecutors office in Sarajevo. It accused five policemen for the murder; two of the accused were at large, while the other three were still in Sarajevo.
After a short detention and a trial, the murderers of the six Ristovics were acquitted on the grounds of their mental incompetence and released to be "treated". This much was made public and the case was consequently closed.
During the last three years, no one has been paying attention to the murder. There have been no requests to reopen the investigation, although the people who know the truth about the case still live in Sarajevo.
On the day of the murder, Stojanka Mastilo, who was at the house at the time of the crime, was brought in for questioning to the Bosnian Territorial Defense Military Police. She said that the murderers had worn police badges and identified one of them. She also identified the car in which the murderers had arrived to the Ristovic house: a day before the murder the car had been, in addition to another vehicle and a tractor, confiscated from the Ristovics. Policemen who carried out the murders drove to the Ristovic house in that Volkswagen. A day after the murder, Stojanka saw the same car parked in front of the police headquarters.
General Jovan Divjak said the following about that case: "When we found out about the murder at the headquarters, Bilajac and myself immediately informed the chief of staff, Sefer Halilovic. Sefer said that he would see that the criminals were arrested and appropriately punished, and that he would inform the public about that. I know that Sefer Halilovic knew the identity of the murderers six hours later; however, nothing was done. Those who are responsible for that must explain why nothing was done. Six months after the massacre, I found out that some of the murderers had been arrested and released on the grounds that they were mentally incompetent. Sefer claimed in September that everything was being taken care of and that the public would be informed once the case was legally regulated. But the public hasn't been informed. Nothing has been done."
More Than 2,000 Sarajevo Serbs Killed and Disappeared in the War
Witnesses claim that Ismet Bajramovic Celo and Kerim Lucarevic demanded from the then police Minister Jusuf Pusina a permission to arrest some people from the police and the official who was responsible for the crime. Jusuf Pusina and Jerko Doko gave promises and official statements on behalf of the Police and the Defense Ministry. That was all.
"There were a lot of mistakes," says one of the people from "the inner circle". General Divjak doesn't want to talk about the perpetrators. "I don't want to, it won't change anything. I don't know their names, I only know where these people served at the time."
"If it turns out that there was outside pressure to find nonexistent mitigating circumstances in the case, that could have been tolerated at the time. However, if that is true, the case should be reopened now. And many others as well," says Mirko Pejanovic.
The question of 2,000 disappeared and killed Serbs is a public secret in Sarajevo. This figure is given by the representatives of Sarajevo Serbs.
Our sources in the Bosnian Army, who wish to stay anonymous, claim that the figure is even higher: more than three thousand persons.
Representatives of the Serb Civic Council have prepared a report about the suffering of the Serbs in unlawful prisons during 1992 and 1993.
That report was submitted to the international and state institutions. The goal of the action is to find out the truth. "Most likely, all the information will come out with the coming of peace. Families will begin to demand to be told the truth. The Ristovics are a drastic example of lenient sentencing, under the circumstances in which that sort of behavior was possible. We do not have enough resources to treat each case individually. It is questionable whether the authorities have managed to root out that sort of behavior. We must find who was responsible for every loss of life in this war. Crimes against civilians do not have a statute of limitations," says Pejanovic.
Divjak and Pejanovic do not agree on everything. Recently, we have seen in the papers general's objections that the Presidency member hadn't done enough to prevent, and later solve, the cases of vigilante "justice" against the Sarajevo Serbs.
"He is an honorable, good and wonderful man," was everything general Divjak was willing to say about Dr. Pejanovic for Slobodna Bosna. The rest is the description of events, as seen by general Jovan Divjak:
Case "Hrasnica"
"Taking into account the fact that he was a member of the Presidency and that he was in possession of a lot of information, my judgment is that he didn't do enough, although we did urge him, individually and together, to be more assertive. We know that in September 1992 he had a list of missing persons.
"Munir Alibasic, then the chief of state security police in Sarajevo, was surprised that Pejanovic hadn't reacted more forcefully. He didn't have enough courage. I've told him many times that in February 1993, when Dr. Gagula and a Serb woman, I think her name was Jovanovic, were killed, Miro Lazovic [Croat member of the presidency] reacted and "our people" didn't. When told this, Pejanovic responds that it was better for us that Lazovic reacted. It seems to me that there was not enough assertiveness and clarity regarding those who stayed in Sarajevo."
Mirko Pejanovic says that he found out about every single case of murdered and disappeared Serbs. He didn't get the information from the police but from the relatives. First information leaked from the prison in hotel "Zagreb". He could write a book about everything. Hundreds and hundreds of citizens waited in lines even in front of his house in order to see him and tell him about their problems.
According to the data of the Serb Civic Council, there is no documentation regarding the majority of 2,000 disappeared and killed persons. Nobody has a "reliable" list of names, because people were simply taken away from their homes and workplaces. In most cases there is no information about the people who took them away nor where they were buried. Some of the cases were explained during the trial of Musan Topalovic Caco. After that, some families demanded to move the corpses of their loved ones from a mass graves on the "Lion" cemetery; bodies of the people who had been executed in Bistrik were buried there.
Pejanovic refers to his efforts in prevention and solving of cases of this sort as "numerous initiatives." Laws which regulate police and courts have been enacted, disobedient commanders of some units have been replaced or arrested and the illegal prisons for Serbs disbanded. During 1992 and 1993 there were prisons in Alipasino Polje, Otoka, Dobrinja, in restaurant "Sunce", Hrasnica, Kosevo and the tunnel along the exit towards Pale. According to the reliable sources, all of these prisons have been disbanded except for the illegal jail in Hrasnica; there are indications that this jail is still operating. Serb Civic Council representatives have visited Hrasnica several times. On two occasions they were told that the jail had been disbanded. However, according to SCC informations, there is still a jail for Serbs in Hrasnica, operating under the "auspices" of the Fourth Brigade of the First Corps, .
According to the same source, 20 Serbs died in this place as members of single-nation forced labor platoons.
A Tooth for A Tooth
The murder of Dr. Najdanovic, a professor at the Medical faculty, hasn't been solved until this day. He was a member of the Bosnian parliament and the Serb Democratic Party before the war. He was taken from his house to a questioning by people wearing police uniforms. He was found later at the Kosevo stadium with a bullet in the back of his head. His wife tried to open an investigation, but the case has never been solved.
Mirko Pejanovic says the following about the circumstances in which all this was happening:
"Uncontrolled groups were in power at the time. The authorities haven't yet been consolidated. Local warlords, Caco, Juka and other self-proclaimed warriors, took upon themselves to dispense justice in the situation of total hopelessness and incessant bombardment. In their own way they avenged the bombardment victims by killing some families in Sarajevo. We fought against that by consolidating legal authorities and establishing the Council for the Protection of Constitutional Order. Consequently, by the end of 1993, we have managed to get rid of that mode of living in Sarajevo. Once we got rid of self-will, we reached a normal situation in which it was possible to investigate everything."
Jovan Divjak emphasizes that it is impossible to talk about the status of Serbs without consideration of the total situation. Mistakes were made, there was confusion, some events spun out of control. In the Ristovic family case, he emphasizes that some extremists took it upon themselves to "punish" people who did not behave according to their standards. Therefore, the murder of Ristovic family is the consequence of the chaos which ruled at the time.
"Even today I insist that more than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo, 1,600 of them children. Bosniaks were the main victims. I keep repeating that, that must be repeated all the time. But, I'm against that Serb proverb, a tooth for a tooth. I know of cases in which local commanders would enter Serb apartments, say that the Serbs were guilty of something and take them to their private jails, as was the case in Dobrinja," says Divjak.
In the Serb Civic Council they say that they could have and should have been more assertive in their condemnations of crimes. Not only crimes against Serbs but crimes in general. The problem is how to find a way to issue a statement about a death of one or two persons, after the condemnations of the exodus of 30,000 Srebrenica inhabitants or a murder of several tens of persons at the Sarajevo market. They admit they were afraid. All our collocutors started conversation by saying: "The one you've just talked to knows much more about this than I do." It seems that there is enough knowledge.
Whether that "knowledge" will stay where it is, in filing cabinets and drawers, or whether it will be used in order to solve numerous unsolved cases, is as important as the "consolidation of legal authorities" was at the time.