human security in an uufinished state - Helsinki Committee for ...

Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
dangerous and demanding, there’s no provision for them to be better paid and
to have more benefits than, say, their colleagues regulating traffic. Also, there
is the embarrassment of encountering in the course of their work a great many
of their colleagues who figure as perpetrators. The fact that the police do not
want to take the initiative regarding war crimes is another problem. To be fair,
they do everything you tell them to do, but if you don’t, they do nothing on
their own initiative. Which is how they ought to be working.’ 21 In April 2005
the situation was not much better compared with 2004: the special MUP unit
supposed to be assisting the Prosecutor’s Office numbered only five, receiving
no benefits and no support from the relevant Ministry. 22
Regarding this unit, things came to a head on 1 January 2006 when
Slobodan Borisavljević was appointed its head: it will be recalled that from 1
January until 20 June 1999 Borisavljević was chef de cabinet of Vlastimir
Đorđević, the Serbian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Head of the
Public Security Department of the Serbian MUP. In this connection, the
Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) announced that it had requested
Borisavljević’s replacement from the post and dismissal from the MUP, as well
as filing a criminal complaint against him with the War Crimes Prosecutor’s
Office. In explanation of the complaint, the HLC said in the announcement:
‘The grounds for suspicion that Borisavljević was involved in war crimes in
Kosovo stem above all from the written statement Slobodan Borisavljević made
on 23 May 2001 at the request of Captain Dragan Karleuša, then head of the
Serbian MUP working group conducting the investigation into the refrigerator
truck that was packed with bodies and found in the Danube, the statement
having been submitted as a document to the Hague Tribunal and produced in
the case against Slobodan Milošević.’ 23 Media reported later that Carla del
Ponte had personally insisted that Borisavljević should be removed from the
post of head of the MUP war crimes detection unit. Borisavljević was replaced
at the middle of February under public pressure. 24
Non-Governmental Sector
and the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office
Proceedings of the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office have been
criticized by non-governmental organizations and individuals representing
victims’ families. Šefko Alomerović, President of the Helsinki Committee for
21 Vreme, ‘Možemo da sudimo i Šešelju’, Dejan Anastasijević, 15 December
2004.
22 Nedeljni telegraf, ‘Optužnice za Batajnicu do kraja godine’, Vojislava
Crnjanski Spasojević, 13 April 2005.
23 www.hlc.org.yu/saopstenja
24 Kurir, ‘Koštunica smenjuje Borisavljevića’, R.K., 14 February 2006.
Human Security in an Unfinished State
Human Rights in Sandžak and attorney for the victims’ families in the Sjeverin
case, pointed out that Vukčević had at the last moment renamed the
paramilitary formation Osvetnici (Avengers) an ‘armed group’. 25 HLC analyst
Jovan Nicić explained that calling the Osvetnici an armed group or a
paramilitary organization was an attempt to avoid linking them to the Army of
Republika Srpska (VRS), that is, to avoid referring to the fact that they
belonged to the VRS Višegrad Brigade. Nicić says that this fact is of great
importance given that the VRS commanding officers were once members of the
Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). Nicić says: ‘Thus the commanders of the
Višegrad, Goražde and Rudo brigades (Dragićević, Metrašinović and Tuba)
were JNA officers assigned to the VRS by decision of the General Staff, after
which all three were assigned duties in the then Army of Yugoslavia following
the signing of the Dayton Agreement...This close cooperation between the VRS
and the JNA, later the Army of Yugoslavia, points to one of the main reasons
for avoiding reference to regular VRS units in the context of these crimes, since
this would almost certainly raise the question of responsibility of the superiors
and of the participation of the state in them.’ 26
Commenting on the first-instance proceedings and judgement against
the persons indicted for the Ovčara crime, HLC Executive Director Nataša
Kandić availed herself of the opportunity to say what she thought of the
indictment: ‘The indictment was calculated to show that others were to blame;
even one of the defence attorneys, Đorđe Dozet, wondered today whether the
object of the trial had been to find guilty persons other than the officers
indicted at The Hague. So, the objection of both the victims’ representatives
and defence counsel was that the indictment had been calculated to shield the
officers from criminal responsibility. It applies selectively to the Šešeljites and
territorials, in spite of the fact that the investigation yielded sufficient proof
that officers in high positions were heavily involved in the execution at
Ovčara. The prosecutor obviously had been given a political assignment, to
make sure the indictment doesn’t apply to the officers.’ 27
On 12 January 2006 the HLC announced that Executive Director
Nataša Kandić had written to Vladimir Vukčević and asked him to revise
several important points of the indictment against six members of the
Škorpioni charged with the execution of Srebrenica Bosniaks. The HLC insists
that the unit be qualified as one belonging to the Serbian MUP and operating
under the immediate command of Serbian State Security (DB), given that there
is ample proof of this in the amended ICTY indictment against Jovica Stanišić
and Franko Simatović of 11 January 2006. The HLC also said it had asked
2005.
2005.
25 Danas, ‘Činjenice nema ko da čuje’, Milanka Šaponja-Hadžić, 25 February
26 Danas, ‘Dug je put do pravde’, Jovan Nicić, 25 February 2005.
27 Danas, ‘Briljantno suđenje po manjkavoj optužnici’, B. Tončić, 7 December
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