War in Serbia (1991-2001): It Did Happen War in Serbia (1991-2001): It Did Happen IMPRESSUM Authors Maja Žilić Anđela Savić Marko Milosavljević For the publisher Youth Initiative for Human Rights Dobračina Street 4, Belgrade Design & layout Ivo Matejin Translation Ivana Radović Printing Draslar List, Belgrade Circulation 1000 The contents of this publication represent the views of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and do not in any way reflect the views of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Federal Repub- lic of Germany © Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Belgrade, Serbia May 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acronyms 2 Introduction 5 Secret Mass Graves in Serbia 6 Prison camps in Serbia in the 1990s 18 Prison camps for Croats 1991-1992 18 Prison camps for Bosniaks 1995-1996 29 Forcible mobilisation in Serbia 39 Paramilitary Units in Serbia 53 Terrorising Minorities in Serbia in the 1990s 70 Terrorising Croat Minority in Vojvodina in the 1990s 70 Terrorising Bosniaks in Sandžak in the 1990s 80 Insurgency in the South of Serbia (2000-2001) 89 The Anti-War Movement in Serbia (1991-1999) 110 Instead of a Conclusion 126 Bibliography 127 ACRONYMS APV Autonomuos Province of Vojvodina MBT Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav BH Bosnia and Herzegovina Army BIRN Balkan Investigative Reporting MNCS Muslim National Council of Sandžak Network MNE Montenegro BNC Bosnian National Council MUP Ministry of Internal Affairs of the CZKD Center for Cultural Decontamination Republic of Serbia ECHR European Court for Human Rights NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization HDZ` Croatian Democratic Community NOB National Liberation War, name HLC Humanitarian Law Center for World War II in Yugoslavia HLC Kosovo OSCE Organization for Security and Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo Co-operation in Europe ICRC International Committee of the Red OUP Department of internal affairs of the Cross Republic of Serbia ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for OVPMB Liberation Army of Preševo, Former Yugoslavia Medveđa and Bujanovac IRMCT International Residual Mechanism PJP Special units of police within the for Criminal Tribunals Ministry of Internal Affairs JNA Yugoslav People’s Army RDB Security Service of Republic of JSO Special Operations Unit Serbia JUL Yugoslav United Left Party RECOM The acronym RECOM stands for the KFOR NATO military peace mission in Regional Commission Tasked with Kosovo Establishing the Facts about All KLA Kosovo Liberation Army Victims of War Crimes and Other KOS Counterintelligence Service of the Serious Human Rights Violations JNA Committed on the Territory of the KPZ Detention Facility Former Yugoslavia from 1 January LSV League of Social Democrats of 1991 to 31 December 2001. Vojvodina 2 RJB General Police Directorate of TRZ Prosecutor for War Crimes of the Republic of Serbia Republic of Serbia RS Republic of Srpska UB JNA Security Service RSK Republic of Serbian Krajina UJDI United Yugoslav Democratic Initiative SAJ Special Antiterrorist Unit of the UKP Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia Ministry of Internal Affairs SBZS Serbian Autonomous Region of UN United Nations Slavonia, Baranja and West Srem UNHCR High Commissioner of the United SČP Serb Chetnik Movement Nations for Refugees SDA Party of Democratic Action UNMIK United Nations Mission in Kosovo SDG Serbian Volunteer Guard or “Arkan’s UNPROFOR Tigers” NATO peace mission in Bosnia and SDS Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia Herzegovina and Herzegovina VCC Vojvodina Citizen’s Centre SEECP South East Europe Cooperation VIZ Military Prison Process VJ Yugoslav Army SFRJ Socialist Federal Republic of VRS Army of Republic of Srpska Yugoslavia VSO Higher Defence Council SNS Serbian Progressive Party YUCOM Lawyers’ Committee for Human SNV Serb National Council in Croatia Rights SPC Serbian Orthodox Church ŽTP Railroad Transport Company SPO Serbian Renewal Movement ŽUC Women in Black SPS Socialist Party of Serbia SRJ Federal Republic of Yugoslavia SRS Serbian Radical Party SSNO Federal Secretariat for National Defence SUP Secretariat of Internal affairs of the Republic of Serbia SVK Serbian Army of Krajina TO Territorial Defence 3 INTRODUCTION THE ARMED CONFLICTS on the territory of Former Yugoslavia in the period of 1991 to 2001 re- sulted in the violent deaths of 130,000 persons, forcible deportation of several million people, while more than ten thousand are still listed as missing. From the very start of the wars up until today, the authorities and institutions of the Republic of Serbia, with few exceptions, have been denying the involvement of the armed forces of FRY and Serbia in the armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Kosovo, as well as the existence of war crimes on the territory of Serbia, which are tightly connected to these armed conflicts. As a counterpoint to the oblivion of war events, the publication: “War in Serbia: The Forgotten Vi- olence (1991-2001)” aims to inform, educate, and remind all those interested in the matter about the existence of mass graves, camps and torture, murders and persecution of the members of the minorities, forcible conscription of refugees, and the paramilitary units on the territory of Serbia in the period of 1991 - 2001. Likewise, the publication offers a text on the rebellion in the south of Serbia (2000 - 2001), as well as the summarised chronology of the actions of organisations and individuals who had tried to resist the commencement of wars and protest against the politics of crime in the period of 1991 - 1999 through anti-war and peace movements. By thematising said patterns of violence and crimes collectively called War in Serbia, the publi- cations consists of seven texts based on the information of other organisations documenting the loss of lives in Serbia, linking together court-established facts, official information of domestic and international institutions, as well as the statements of witnesses, survivors, and victims’ families. All the texts include contexts, chronologies, statements of witnesses and victims, court epilogues, descriptions of the persons responsible for the crimes, as well as the memorialisation for partic- ular topics of a forgotten cycle of violence, and the individual crimes against minorities in Serbia. In the era of the widespread glorification of war criminals in Serbia, this publication represents an effort to, in the simplest and most comprehensive way, bust the myth that there was not a war going on in Serbia, and that the state of Serbia never participated in the war disintegration of the second Yugoslavia. 5 SECRET MASS GRAVES IN SERBIA The armed conflict on the territory of Kosovo in 1998-1999 was fought between the Federal Re- public of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia, i.e. the Yugoslav Army (VJ), police and paramilitary units on one side and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) on the other. After the mayhem in Albania in 1997 gave the KLA easier access to weapons,1 their activities intensified. Between March 5-7 1998, in the village of Prekaz, Serbian police units attacked the compound of Adem Jashari, KLA commander, and other than Jashari himself, killed 58 of his relatives – KLA members, women and children.2 After the Prekaz massacre, which the international community assessed as the use of unnecessary force, KLA gained broader support of the Albanian population.3 During the armed conflict of 1998-1999, Serbian forces, by torturing, raping and murdering Al- banian civilian population, as well as by destroying property and persecuting Kosovo Albanians, wanted to make a permanent change of the demographic situation in Kosovo. The violence of Serbian forces against the Albanian population was the retaliation of JA and police for KLA attacks,4 while murders served to intimidate the population and encourage Albanians to leave their settlements. Attacks on civilians intensified during the NATO intervention in the period between May 24 and June 10 1999. It is estimated that from the end of March until the beginning of June 1999, around 700,000 Albanians left Kosovo.5 According to the data of the Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC), in the course of 1998, 1099 civilians, Kosovo Albanians, were killed, while by the end of war, that is, June 20, a total of 5009 Albanian civilians were killed.6 At the same time, the planning of an operation to transfer and conceal the bodies had also begun in March. This operation had to start in April at the latest and continued into May. The Albanians killed by Serbian forces were first buried near the locations in which they were killed and subse- quently, when the entry of NATO forces into Kosovo became certain, their bodies were removed and buried in mass graves in Serbia,7 often in locations that belonged to the army and police. 1 Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo, Human Rights Watch, 2001, p.34 https://www.hrw.org/re- Watch, 2001, p.36 https://www.hrw.org/re- ports/2001/kosovo/part_two.pdf; ports/2001/kosovo/part_two.pdf; 5 Trial Chamber judgment in the case of Šainović et al. 2 Labinot Leposhtica, “Kosovo Probes Killing of Gue- before ICTY, 26 February 2009: https://www.icty. rilla Commander and Family”, BIRN, 06 March 2020: org/x/cases/milutinovic/tjug/en/jud090226- https://balkaninsight.com/2020/03/06/koso- e2o f4.p d f; vo-probes-killing-of-guerrilla-command- 6 Dossier: The cover-up of evidence of crimes during the er-and-family/; war in Kosovo: The Concealment of Bodies Operation, 3 Filip Švarm, “Cena pogrešnih procena i još gorih odlu- Humanitarian Law Center, Belgrade, 2017, p. 9: h t t p:// ka”, Vreme, 19 August 2010: https://www.vreme. www.hlc-rdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ com/cms/view.php?id=946183; Dosije_OPERACIJA_SKRIVANJA_TELA._eng.pdf 4 Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo, Human Rights 7 Ibid, p. 9. 6 Gunshot wounds to the head8 show that these were executions, while the concealment of bodies undoubtedly indicates that the planners and executors were well aware that they had committed a war crime.