Subject: YWS 9/1 From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov) 1. SEPTEMBER 1995. YUGOSLAV WEEKLY SURVEY CONTENTS: - ON KILLING OF SERB CIVILIANS, TORCHING OF THEIR HOUSES - CROATIAN AUTHORITIES COMPLETE JOB BY WWII FASCISTS - CARDINAL OF ZAGREB - A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING - KOSMET AND FALSE SPIRITUAL FATHERS - HELP IS NECESSARY - CROATS MADE A GRAVEYARD OF KRAJINA VILLAGES C O M M E N T S DOCUMENTED REPORTS ON KILLING OF SERB CIVILIANS, TORCHING OF THEIR HOUSES Croats have torched or destroyed more than 4,000 Serb houses (75-80 percent) in Serb Krajina, in Knin and environs, the Croatian Helsinki Committee said in a report on Monday. Croatian authorities say that 82 people have been killed in the area, while the Croatian Helsinki Committee has a list of 242 persons killed, 107 of them civilians, 156 soldiers and policemen, but none of them was identified. The latest figures about the killings of civilians and systematic destruction and looting of Serb property in Krajina were released by Croatian Helsinki Committee executive director Petar Mrkalj in an interview with the Split weekly "Feral Tribune" on Monday. Mrkalj toured Knin and environs with representatives of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF). Mrkalj said that the torching of Serb houses was no accident whatsoever and illustrated this by saying that Serb houses in Kistanje had been systematically torched one by one, before the local school and post office buildinigs were burned down. He also said the same situation was in the villages of Kricka, Ivosevac and Radicic and added that the U.N. force had information that most houses had been torched in the area of Srb and more than 70 percent of them in the areas of Donji Lapac and Kaldrma. The torching of Serb houses was also reported in the areas of Slunj and in the villages of Trzic, Primislje, Cemernica and Celemusnica outside Vrginmost. The representatives of the IHF and the Croatian Helsinki Committee have been denied access to Vojnic, Vrginmost and Topusko, but reports about the killings of Serbs there keep coming in. The killed Serbs have been found on the Gracac-Otric and Gracac-Posta roads and in Zagar, Zagrovic, Komazeci, Srb, Suma near Srb, Biljan Gornji, Bruvno, Kovacic, Licko Petrovo Selo, Frikasic, Ivosevci, Udbina, Cista Mala, Kricke, Licki Cerovac, at the Serbian Orthdox cemetery in Korenica, and in Knin. Mrkalj said that all these and other data had been recorded by people who had collected bodies and that the Croatian Helsinki Committee had obtained all of these documented information from the U.N. force command in Zagreb. Mrkalj also said that there were indications that a mass grave existed in the area of the Slunj municipality and that at least 80 persons had been killed in the area of Glina. These are civilians, Mrkalj said, who have been killed in a shelling that took place while they were fleeing to the town of Dvor-on-the-Una. Part of them was killed by the Bosnian Muslim army 5th corps that entered the area at the time of the attack. Mrkalj said that there were also reports about the killing of at least 10 civilians in Veljun between the towns of Slunj and Karlovac. He also said that a body of an old man, decapitated and with both his arms cut off, had been uncovered in the village of Josevci near Glina and that the remains of at least four charred bodies had been found in a hay-loft. He said the two of them had been identified as Cvijo Matijevic and his wife Desanka. He said that a decaying body of a child had been sighted on the road in the village of Bijeli Klanac. Despite all this and other reports, Croatian authorites, from Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and down to other officials, have persistently been denying that even a slightest 'incident' had occurred during and after Croatia's attack on Serb Krajina. (Tanjug Press Agency, Belgrade, August 28, 1995) CROATIAN AUTHORITIES COMPLETE JOB BEGUN BY WWII FASCIST PREDECESSORS (by Nikola Stanojevic) The current Croatian authorities have managed to complete in three weeks what their Nazi predecessors had failed to do during all of World War II - to banish Serbs from their ancestral lands. International organizations are sending in reports on torchings and destruction of Serb houses. The latest U.N. figures say that 25 houses have been burned to the ground in the village of Perna, 26 in Katinovac, 14 on the main road to Cremusnica and 20 in the village itself. In the village Dugo Selo Lasinjsko, seven houses have been torched and one blown up. The houses in Stipan have been looted, and civilians in vehicles with Zagreb plates were seen driving off with tractors left by Serbs along the stretch of road between the towns of Vrginmost and Glina. About 250000 Serbs have been banished from Croatia in the biggest ethnic cleansing operation in the territory of former Yugoslavia, which began on Aug. 4 with the Croatian army's offensive on the Republic of Serb Krajina. The Serb Krajina center of Knin is an example of the extent of the looting of Serb proprety. People are freely roaming the town, peering into stores through the broken windows and 'when they find something they like, they go in and fill their bags, and then continue happily on their way to new spoils', a reporter said. Just few items which nobody wanted remain in the town's department store. Croatian police are not doing anything to prevent the all- present looting and plunder, although the authorities claim that police 'intervene immediately'. Nevetheless, the looting and torching of property and murders of civilians, who are often also brutally mutilated, cannot be concealed in spite of efforts by the regime to touch up the tragic pictures of Krajina with its propaganda. A mission of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee which visited Knin and the surrounding area a few days ago, said they had observed systematic destruction, torching and looting. The mission members said that what they had seen was sufficient grounds to address the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. All this is done so that it would not occur to even one Serb to return, a Helsinki Committee representative said. Like U.N. representatives, these international officials also maintain that Croatia practiced ethnic cleansing unrecorded in the world since World War II. International organization warn that there are also brutal killings and executions. Many people have simply 'disappeared', they say. Some of the victims seem to have been burned in their own houses. The Croatian authorities answer all these argumented accusations with the words that Croatia troops 'have not committed war crimes' and that Croatia 'can rest easy'. All these attrocities, Zagreb says, were 'concocted' by those people who 'have not wished well to the democratic state of Croatia' throughout the war. These and similar warnings indicate that it is very dangerous to oppose the regime. However, an unsigned commentary in the opposition weekly "Feral Tribun" was brave enough to say: 'A charge raises a cloud of dust. The dust makes it impossible to see those who were run over. We still know very little about how many people were trampled in the charge on Knin, how many were expelled, and how many exterminated. However, the fate and number of victims (those who will be visible after the dust settles) can give an additional, pestilential smell to the sweet smell of success - it is not wise to doubt that. The Croatian flag is now flying high up in the air - blood, as always, has been spilt on the ground. It all depends on where man was fated to live - on earth or in the clouds'. The lonely and brave warning of "Feral Tribun" about the catastrophy caused by the 'Storm' (Croatia's offensive on Serb Krajina was called 'Operation Storm') presents, for the time being, a rare testimony in Croatia that there was a voice of reason, sense and civic courage in these times of storms and tin. ("Tanjug Daily Bulletin", Belgrade, August 28, 1995) CARDINAL OF ZAGREB - A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING (by Momir Brkic) A reply by Cardinal Franjo Kuharic of Zagreb to a letter recently sent to him on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church by Patriarch Alexei of Moscow confirms the old saying that 'the wolf may lose its teeth but never his nature.' Patriarch Alexei voiced deep concern over Croatian authorities' terrorizing the Serb Krajina people and urged Cardinal Kuharic to protect the expelled. Cardinal Kuharic said in his reply that he 'understands' the Patriarch's concern over the recent developments 'on the formerly occupied Croatian territory called Krajina,' but added that he had no objective sources from which he could get information about the developments in the area of Knin, despite U.N. observers' reports about torched Serb villages and the killing of civilians who have remained there. Cardinal Kuharic stressed that the Croatian authorities had 'guaranteed the Serb population that their human rights will be observed, but they have moved out upon a call by their authorities and the Serbian Orthodox Church.' This is the essence of Cardinal Kuharic's reply. The reply full of hypocrisy and with no feeling for the people of other religion. The Serbs have a 'rich', but unfortunately tragic experience with representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. More than 900 Roman Catholic Priests had been directly involved in Ustasha (Croatian Fascists) pogroms of Serbs in Wold War II. Almost the only exception was the Bishop Alojzije Misic of Mostar, who on November 7, 1941, sent a letter to Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac deploring Ustasha bestialities and urging Stepinac to place the Serbs under his protection. The government of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, under the patronage of powerful sponsors, are consistent in continuing the Ustasha policy. A figure that more than half a million Serbs have been expelled from Croatia since the outbreak of the Yugoslav crisis through Croatia's aggression against Krajina is highly illustrative of this. A total of 183 Serb localities and 10 cities have been completely cleansed of Serbs, with 87 villages having been partly cleansed of Serbs. More than 15,000 Serb children have been converted to Catholicism. There are about three percent of Serbs now living in Croatia as against 12 percent of them according to the 1991 census. Croatian Ustasha troops' early August aggression against the Republic of Serb Krajina drove more than 250,000 Serbs out of their ancestral homes. The remaining Serbs, mostly the ill and the elderly, have been killed by Ustasha or taken permanently to prisons, while thier houses and entire villages have been burnt to the ground. Representatives of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee have said after touring the region that the torching of Serb houses was performed in such a manner as to prevent any surviving Serb from ever thinking about coming back. Only the naive ones can believe Kuharic's excuse that he had no objective sources to learn from about the developments in the Knin area. Seldom are those representatives of the Roman Catholic Church who have summoned enough courage to speak up these days. One of them is Bishop Srecko Badurina of Sibenik who has said after touring Krajina that he 'sympathizes with all those who have lived here with us (with the Croats) until recently.' ("Tanjug Daily Bulletin", Belgrade, August 30, 1995) KOSMET AND FALSE SPIRITUAL FATHERS (by Djordje Jevtic) These days the ethnic Albanian leaders in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet) and officials in adjacent Albania have been trying to convince world factors that an alleged colonization of Kosmet is underway. The aim of this colonization, they say, is to alter the ethnic pattern of this province by settling there a number of Serbs expelled from the Republic of Serb Krajina. By resorting to the most ordinary forgeries, they assert that 'Albania's centuries-old territories' comprise what are now predominantly ethnic Albanian populated parts of Kosmet, certain other places in Serbia and Montenegro and in the ex-Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The fact is, however, that it is precisely here in Kosmet that Europe's first ethnic cleansing had begun - with the largescale migration of Serb poulation before the invading Turks as far back as the year 1690. At that time, as historians found, 37,000 Serb families (between 250,000 and 300,000) had moved out. Shortly later, the Turks began to settle there the entire tribes from Albania who were islamized servants used for ethnic cleansing of the Serbs. Albanian leaders do not say that the Serbs there had been damaged by all the subsequent changes in the ethnic composition of Kosmet, which was the Serbian spiritual and cultural centre and the cradle of the first Serb state, as may be seen from about 3,000 monuments. But those who allege now that the dominant Albanian ethnic pattern in Kosmet is jeopardized by the newly-arriving Serb refugees from Krajina, are in fact well aware that less than 2,000 refugees cannot upset this pattern even by one thousandth part. The pattern would stay unchanged even of ten or several tens thousands Serb refugees would have settled in Kosmet for good. This is because two million ethnic Albanians in Kosmet account for more than 90 per cent of the local population, as their separatist leaders boast almost every day. Neither the Albanian leaders, nor those who fear the ethnic composition would be upset by refugees, are willing to admit how the current 'ethnic purity' had been achieved. They do cynically advertise Kosmet as Europe's most homogeneous space. They do take this as a sufficient argument for secession from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Yet, the ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosmet, officials in Tirana and U.S. administration representatives are very well aware that not so long ago, in 1971, ethnic Albanians had contributed 73.7 percent to the Kosmet population. in 1961, this figure was 67 per cent. Going further into the past, the ratio between Albanian and Serbian populations in Kosmet differs more and more, in favour of the latter. The most drastic persecutions of the Serbs were taking place in the latter half of the 19th century, following the Berlin Congress. In 1878-1912, around 400,000 Serbs were expelled from the then Serbia (150,000 from Kosmet alone), as the Serbian and Yugoslav scientist Jovan Cvijic found out in his research. During World War Two, about 10,000 Serbs in Kosmet were killed, while about 100,000 Serbs or Montenegrins were driven out of Kosmet pressurized by Albanian Fascists and German soldiers. Those driven out at that time had been barred by a law carried by the post-world war two communist authorities from returning to their homes. Pressures on Serbs continued there throughout the post-world war two period, when an estimated 200,000 Serbs or Montenegrins were moved out of Kosmet. All these large migrations, together with settling Albanian immigrants and the enormously high Albanian birth rates, have changed the ethnic pattern of the province in an inverse proportion in favour of ethnic Albanians. Comparable data show that in the past 100 years' time in Kosmet, the number of ethnic Albanians has risen fivefold, while that of the Serbs has fallen to one-fifth of what it originally was. This is why the 'warnings' against 'colonization' are just as cynical as they are extremely uncivilized. The arrival of Serb refugees, expelled by the Croatian army early this August, in the areas of their mother country could in no way be called 'a colonization.' So the proponents of the 'colonization' thesis in real fact have some other objectives, siding with all those who want to destroy the Serb state and see a fresh bloodshed in the Balkans. This is borne out in the war-mongering statements by officials in Tirana, calling for assistance from the world power wielders and saying they will 'not remain indifferent and passive' towards the alleged colonization. ("Tanjug Daily Bulletin", Belgrade, August 21, 1995) FROM FOREIGN PRESS HELP IS NECESSARY (by Judith Betak) REFUGEES: "The trade blockade against Serbia must be lifted and humanitarian assistance is necessary so that the country could accommodate 160 000 Serbian refugees from Krajina" - says the General Secretary of "Red Barnet". "Humanitarian issues must be more important than the political ones. Because of the latest wave of refugees, Serbia is faced with a humanitarian catastrophe. Therefore, it is high time to lift the economic blockade against Serbia" - stresses the General Secretary of "Red Barnet", Nils Kristian Andersen. He and the representatives of the Danish Foreign Ministry are currently visiting Serbia to see the conditions of life of 160 000 Serbian refugees from Krajina who arrived in this country in the last few weeks. "The way in which the Serbian authorities and the Red Cross of Serbia deal with such difficult situation deserves all our praise" - he says. "We have visited Sombor, in northern Serbia, a town of about 40 000 people receiving 10 500 refugees. The majority of refugees are accommodated in local families and all is functioning precisely because the local population is ready to help. They bring food, clothes, etc. But, they will not be able to keep on for much longer. Serbia already provides shelter to half a million refugees and the trade blockade against this country is the reason why even the basic items, such as soap and diapers, are terribly expensive". The assistance of 140 million krones that the Danish Parliament approved for the former Yugoslavia has been already used, but the Foreign Ministry will discuss the humanitarian situation in Serbia and Montenegro next week and Nils Kristian Andersen hopes that additional financial assistance will be approved. "Winter is approaching. It is important not only to help, but also to let the Serbian people know that the world is dealing with humanitarian issues always when help is necessary. The Serbs, and many refugees in particular, feel abandoned" - says General Secretary Nils Kristian Andersen. ("Berlingske Tidende", Copenhagen, August 21, 1995) CROATS MADE A GRAVEYARD OF KRAJINA VILLAGES (by Sarah Helm) The village of Kistanje, in what was Serb-held Krajina, isnt't there any more. For two weeks explosions blasted the streets; Croatian soldiers and civilians, in groups of four or five, roamed the village, looting what they could, then starting giant bonfires. House after house was set on five. Finally yesterday all was quiet, because there was nothing else to burn. What was once a prosperous farming community of sturdy, proud stone houses on tree-line roads, home to 300 Serbian families, is now a graveyard of gutted, blackened masonry and twisted timber. In the two weeks which have elapsed since Croatia recaptured Krajina, village after village has been incinerated. In the southern sector alone, near the former Serb "capital" of Knin, United Nations monitors have classified 20 Serb villages as "completely destroyed" and as many - if not more - "badly burned". The United Nations has reported similar destruction in the north. Throughout the Bukovica valley, west of Knin, the air is filled with the stench of incineration and rotting flesh. Around are strewn the carcasses of rotting animals. On the road towards Kistanje yesterday lay the bloated bodies of a man and a woman, face down in a ditch. It scemed that they were killed in mid- fight - their shot-up trailer lay beside them. There is no body-count - as yet. But there are 96 neat wooden crosses on 96 neat mounds at an instant cemetery at Knin and more rows of crosses at a similar "cemetery" at Gracac. Yesterday, Croatian workmen arrived with shovels to spread gravel neatly on the top of the mounds. Some of the crosses contained numbers, but there was no sequence. "NN" said on cross - apparently signifying that the body had "no name". "158 Sava Besevic" said another cross, next to "NN 170". The mounds were built on top of giant troughs, say U.N. monitors who saw the diggers at work before, the offensive began. But nobody can know how many bodies lie beneath. And nobody can say how many bodies will be buried into a second giant trough which yesterday was waiting to be filled. It has been useful for U.S. and some European politicians to view the Krajina offensive as quick and clean. The west's peace- makers argue that the Croatian assault, however distasteful, may have laid the ground for a settlement. They want to believe that "means" used by Croatia will justify the "end" of lasting peace. It has also been important for Croatia to present its offensive in Krajina as a relatively clean war. President Franjo Tudjman promised the United States that his assault would not endanger civilians, and that human rights would at all times be observed. Croatia wants to build its relationship with the West, and particularly the European Union. President Tudjman claims that Serb refugees will be able to return to the area to live, along with Croatians who fled from a Serb assault in 1991. Yet the destruction wrought in the past two weeks bears horrific testimony to Croatian determination to annihilate all trace o Serbian life from the land - just as Serbs sought to annihilate all Croatian life by similar destruction four years before. The destruction makes a mockery of Western calls for a "right of return for refugees". Nobody who has witnessed the carnage belives that any of the refugees can return. There is nothing for them to return to. The carefully constructed dry stone walls, which may have stood for generations, still mark out patches of farmland, but in many areas the crops have been razed as well. In areas spared the burning, the grapes are ripering on the vines. But there will be nobody here to gather them when harvest comes around in about two weeks. More than 1000 refugees - too old or petrifed to join the mass flight which followed the assault - still wait at the U.N. compound in Knin for a convoy out to safety in Serbia or Serb- held areas of Bosnia. As they pass the time in make-shift shelters they hear the news of their burning villages and they have learned to give up any hope of returning to their homes. "Individual acts" is how many western diplomats have dismissed reports of burning and looting. But U.N. monitors and other humanitarian agencies are building up a detailed dossier of what they term a "systemetic" campaign of destruction. The dossier contains a litany of horror, reported by teams of human rights monitors whose words go unheeded. Again and again the monitors complain that their access has been deliberately barred by Croatian authorities. The reports cite eye-witness accounts of Croats in uniform and civilians near the scene of burning houses. The U.N. produces evidence of uniformed soldiers and civilians openly looting and vandalising property. The dossier says: "It is a fair assessment to say that Krajina is burning. Kistanje, Devrske, Otric and other towns have become virtually unliveable". - (London Independent Service, "The Irish Times", Dublin, August 25, 1995) =============================================================== -- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me -- D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com ===============================================================