AERA Asahi Shimbun Weekly, Tokio 12. January 1998 Written by Takako Sakamoto
The Hague does not have fairness.
The largest controversy after the war in Bosnia is how to restore the trust and the harmony among the three different ethnicities. The way which the world currently takes to reinstate the faith in the ethnicities is to blame only Serbs as an evil. A series of incidents which discourage Serbs from trusting the world have happened in these days here in Bosnia.
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (the Hague) is the court which was established in Hague in Holland in order to bring war criminal suspects particularly for "ethnic cleansing" during the war in former Yugoslavia to justice. The distrust in the Hague, however, is specially tenacious among Serbs because the court has the preconceived notion; it was Serbs who took the weapon first. Among the 76 war criminal suspects, Serb suspects total as many as 56. On the other hand, Croatian and Muslim suspects number only 18 and 3, respectively. In these days, the attitude of Serbs toward the Hague has been hardened more than ever. The largest reason is a series of lawless operations of NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR), which performs the duties of policemen to arrest war criminal suspects.
15 soldiers jumping out of the bush
One of the operations which ignited the anger of Serbs was the murder of July 1997, when a former police chief was shot to death by SFOR. This is the report which reveals what happened indeed on the spot on the day. The author went to the spot of the murder together with two witnesses, a brother-in-law and a son of the killed, to inspect the evidence and their statement thoroughly, and reached the conclusion that SFOR shot unlawfully the suspect who had not dared to resist.
The war criminal suspect who was killed by SFOR was Simo Drljaca (49), a former police chief in Prijedor, a city in the northwestern part of Republika Srpska in Bosnia. On July 10th, he was enjoying fishing in a lake, which was located 45km away from the city, together with his eldest son, Sinisa (19) and brother-in-law, Spiro Milanovic (43).
Having finished fishing which had started at 5 a.m. in the lake, the three of them were preparing for breakfast around 9 a.m. Then, all of a sudden, 15 solders jumped out of the bush where they hid themselves, shouting "Lie down on the ground" in the local language. Sinisa and Milanovic, who were wearing only swimming pants, were tackled down onto the ground at once, and felt the hard touch of the guns of the soldiers at the back of their heads. Because the two were pushed, facing down, onto the ground on the hilltop, they did not have to raise their heads in order to see what was going on in front of them. Before their eyes, Drljaca was edging backwards to the lake.
"This is the place where SFOR suddenly shot my father without warning with a pistol or a machine gun in the front left side of the stomach," said Sinisa, who was standing exactly on the spot where his father was shot. Milanovic nodded his head to agree with Sinisa. However, Drljaca was not dead as he was a large man weighing more than 100kg. He shot back a soldier in the lower part of the leg with a pistol which he carried in the pocket of the pants. The wounded soldier pushed Drljaca onto the ground together with several other soldiers, shouting "Look at what he did, son of the bitch!," and shot Drljaca, who had already lain down on the stomach, twice in the back.
Shot in a close distance
What Sinisa described in the above was proved by an on-the-spot investigation of the primary court of Prijedor. According to the record of the investigation, blood pools remained near a sandal which Drljaca was wearing, together with two bullets and their cartridges. This indicates that SFOR shot Drljaca in a very close distance. Furthermore, the autopsy result of Banja Luka district court said that his skull was fractured. A SFOR soldier seemed to hit Drljaca in the head probably with the butt of a gun, and confirm his death.
The city authority of Prijedor released a statement that SFOR had employed five helicopters and several armored vehicles. Apparently, the operation of SFOR was grand-scale to arrest only one suspect. Sinisa and Milanovic, who survived, were arrested on the spot and transferred to the Hague. (Sixteen hours later, both of them were released.)
Questionable indictment
According to the statement of SFOR, the squad directly in charge of the attack was British Special Air Service, or SAS. Mike Wright, a spokesman of British troops of SFOR, said afterwards that SAS shot back Drljaca as a self-defense because he shot the soldier in the leg. However, the witnesses' account was different from SFOR's statement. Although the suspect could have been caught alive under the condition, it was SFOR who had shot first. More accurately, SFOR had fired a gun first, targeting at the fatal area which was close to the heart, the upper left side of the body, without any warning in a very close distance. In addition, they shot Drljaca, who had been already fell down on the ground, twice. Moreover, in concluding the attack, they hit him so hard on the head that it fractured. Judging from the situation, it is skeptical that SFOR had the will to catch him alive.
It was October in 1997 when the author met the two persons who witnessed almost everything. Sinisa was a university student of computer engineering, and was full of youthful curiosity in automobiles. Milanovic was a banker with a stout build. Compared with Zdravka (45), a wife of the suspect, who was often in tears in speaking, Sinisa and Milanovic were always calm, and explained the situation dispassionately. "It was obvious for anybody that there was no way out. The lake behind the back, several helicopters above the head, and more than a dozen soldiers in front of us. Nobody would think that he could run away," said Sinisa while he was placing flowers on the spot. This was the first time for him to come here since the murder of his farther. Sinisa continued to say, "I think my father did not try to escape. I believe that he wanted to draw the attention of the soldiers to him in order to save us."
According to the first indictment (which did not specify the date of the issue) by the Hague, Drljaca was charged with genocide. It says as follows; "Between 30 April 1992 and 31 December 1992, Simo Drljaca --- planned, instigated, and ordered the establishment of the camps --- and the detention therein of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from the municipality of Prijedor under conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the detainees, with the intention to destroy part of the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat groups, as such. Further, --- Simo Drljaca --- knew or had reason to know that their subordinates who staffed the detention facilities were killing or causing serious physical or mental harm to Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats with the intent to destroy them, in part, as a national, ethnic or religious group or had done so and failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof." However, at the same time, the indictment said that Drljaca was responsible for briefing visitors, including media, within the detention camps. In other words, he was in charge of public relations. How could a person in charge of public relations such as Drljaca have been involved in genocide? The indictment did not answer to this question. More surprisingly, the indictment had not been disclosed until he was shot to the death. Without knowing that he was wanted by the Hague, therefore, he did not hide himself, and led his life as an ordinary citizen.
Protest of International Red Cross
"Genocide", the charge which the indictment declared, is also questionable. According to the War Crime Commission in Republika Srpska, one of the three detention camps in Prijedor was just like a refugee camp, allowing detainees to come and go freely. One of the video tapes which the War Crime Commission showed the conversation between Muslim detainees and a British TV reporter. In the tape, one of the Muslim detainees answered to the reporter's question, saying "I came here because I lost my home due to the war. This is safer than other places which are located in the war zone. The living conditions are not so good here. But we cannot expect the normal conditions because the war is going on." The tape also revealed an absurd scene; British TV crews selected an extremely thin Muslim who was suffering cancer among other healthy detainees, focused the camera on him, and showed a food storage building surrounded by the barbed wire as if it were a camp, thus implying the maltreatment of the detainees in the facility like a concentration camp. The Commission argued on the charge in the indictment, saying as follows; "We do not insist that nothing terrible happened in the camps. There must have been awful incidents such as murders. However, I swear that there were no such genocide to destroy other ethnicities systematically as the indictment claims."
SFOR's operation for the unlawful arrest is not limited only to the case of Drljaca. On the same day when Drljaca was killed, SFOR arrested Milan Kovacevic (57), director of a hospital in Prijedor, by pretending to be officers related to the International Red Cross. Afterwards, the International Red Cross protested against SFOR. According to the local reports, four persons who put red cross emblems on their clothes or a parcel visited the hospital about 9:45 in the morning, saying that they would like give the aid of medicine, which the Red Cross in Belgrade had asked them to deliver. While Kovacevic was extending his gratitude for the aid, however, the four visitors took out guns and pointed at him. He was arrested without any resistance, and transferred to the Hague afterwards. Because of the neutrality of the International Red Cross, it protested against the misuse of the emblem as follows; "The ICRC objects to any organization using the Red Cross in a manner which jeopardizes the neutrality and independence of the Red Cross movement."
Serbian attitude toward SFOR was aggravated not only by these unlawful arrests but also by their arrogant response to the judiciary body in Republika Srpska. For the purpose of the autopsy, the police asked SFOR to return the body of Drljaca. However, they did not return the body immediately. When the body was returned two days later, it was found to be stripped off clothes. Although the police persistently requested SFOR to return the clothes, it was 1.5 months later, appallingly, when the T-shirt and the pants of Drljaca were finally returned. People concerned have considered that SFOR might try to conceal the clothes because the gun powder on the clothes proves the short distance of shooting. Furthermore, although the primary court of Prijedor asked SFOR to be present at its on-the-site investigation, nobody showed up from the side of SFOR.
To the eye of Serbs in Republika Srpska, a series of these incidents are nothing but the arrogance of 'supernational forces' of foreign countries. They are trampling on the local judicial system in the guise of 'justice'.