Vukovar - ten years after - its tormentors still at large:
http://balkansnet.org/vukovar.html
* News Release by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International
*
16 November 2001 EUR 05/002/2001 203/01
On the tenth anniversary of the fall of Vukovar (18th November), Amnesty
International expressed its great disappointment at the continuing
failure
of the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to arrest
those indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Vukovar
by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (Tribunal).
The Tribunal's Prosecutor has indicted three former officers of the then
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) for war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Vukovar, in particular the killings of over 200 unarmed men
taken from the Vukovar hospital on 20 November 1991.
"Despite several requests by the Prosecutor to surrender these men to
the Tribunal's custody, the FRY authorities have not done so," Amnesty
International said. The organization recognizes the internal problems
that the FRY has to confront in order to ensure cooperation with the
Tribunal, but stresses that as a UN member state the FRY must respect
its obligations to cooperate fully as set out by the Security Council
resolution which established the Tribunal.
"The need for justice for the victims and their relatives in Vukovar
is overwhelming," Amnesty International said, stressing that impunity
for
the massive human rights violations committed in Vukovar and other parts
of eastern Slavonia must be brought to an end. The organization believes
that establishing individual responsibility for these crimes would
significantly assist the process of reconciliation, and reintegration
of those returning to Vukovar after years of displacement.
Background
On 18 November 1991 the eastern Slavonian town of Vukovar fell to the
JNA
after a three month siege. JNA forces, aided by Serb paramilitaries, are
reported to have committed a large number of grave human rights
violations
during the armed conflict in 1991 in this region, including deliberate
and
arbitrary killings, torture, including rape and the forceful expulsion
of
large parts of the non-Serb population. Over 600 people are still listed
as missing in the Vukovar-Srijem region, many of them having
"disappeared"
during or after the fighting.
Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin were publicly
indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1995 in one of
the
first indictments issued by the Prosecutor. They are all charged with
the
command and supervision of the transfer of at least 200 Croatian and
other
non-Serb individuals from Vukovar hospital to a nearby farm in Ovcara.
At
the farm they were beaten and tortured for hours, before being executed.
In October 2001, former FRY President Slobodan Milosevic -- currently
awaiting trial before the Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Kosovo -- was in addition charged with crimes against
humanity
and war crimes committed in Croatia in 1991 and 1992. The charges
include
individual and command responsibility for large-scale crimes committed
in eastern Slavonia in late 1991.
Three other indicted suspects have been arrested in the FRY and
surrendered to the custody of the Tribunal during 2001; three others
have voluntarily surrendered. The most recent arrest, on 8 November, of
Bosnian Serbs Predrag and Nenad Banovic, indicted for war crimes at the
Keraterm detention camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina, triggered protests by the
Serbian State Security Police. This has precipitated another political
crisis around the legislation which the FRY claims it needs in order
to fully cooperate with the Tribunal.