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Croatia Excludes 811 from from Serb Amnesty Law By Mark Heinrich
At Western insistence, the Croatian parliament in May pardoned Serbs who were in the eastern region during or after a 1991 revolt against Croatia's move to independence from the Serbian-dominated federal Yugoslavia. The amnesty, intended to reassure local Serbs in advance of Eastern Slavonia's U.N.-supervised transfer back to Croatian authority by 1997, does not cover Serbs suspected of war crimes as defined by international law.
Urged by the enclave's U.N. Transitional Authority (UNTAES) to identify excluded Serbs to help clear up ambiguities in the amnesty, the Croatian Justice Ministry released a list of 811 cases but stressed it was incomplete. It included names of Serbs who live outside the enclave in rump Yugoslavia but who were said by Croatian authorities to have ordered or committed war crimes including genocide against Croat civilians during the vicious 1991 conflict.
Among 561 Serbs listed as "under investigation" were generals Veljko Kadijevic, Blagoj Adzic and Zivota Panic, who Croatia blames for directing Yugoslav army (JNA) operations to crush its independence bid. The three are now retired.
The JNA supported radical Serb paramilitary units which murdered and expelled Croats en masse. Vojislav Seselj and Zeljko "Arkan" Raznjatovic, notorious militia bosses in Croatia and later in wartime Bosnia, were on the investigation list.
Others included Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin, three JNA officers who have been indicted by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the murder of 261 non-Serbs removed from an Eastern Slavonia hospital. The eight men are believed to live in Serbia aside from Mrksic who may be in Serb-controlled northern Bosnia.
Goran Hadzic, current political leader of the estimated 150,000 Serbs in Eastern Slavonia, is both on the investigation list and another of 191 suspects whose cases have gone to hearings or trial in absentia. Hadzic was previously convicted in absentia of war crimes for rocket attacks on Croatian seaside towns from former rebel Serb territory.
The Justice Ministry list also named 59 Serbs convicted and sentenced in their absence for war crimes in Eastern Slavonia. "The accused are (suspected) or were charged with genocide, war crimes against civilians, the sick and wounded or prisoners of war, and with destruction of cultural and historic sites."
All 811 cases were in the jurisdiction of the county court in Osijek, the main city in eastern Croatia on the government side of U.N.-policed ceasefire lines with Eastern Slavonia.
Eastern Slavonia, a fertile plain on the Danube River border with rump Yugoslavia, was one of three scattered chunks of Croatia seized by rebel Serbs in 1991. The Croatian army recaptured the other two enclaves in blitz attacks in 1995. U.S. diplomats brokered a treaty setting up UNTAES to avert a war for the recovery of Eastern Slavonia that would have jeopardised the new peace in nearby Bosnia. UNTAES has disarmed the Serbs in Eastern Slavonia to prepare the way for joint Serb-Croat police patrols and repatriation of Croat refugees, key steps towards reinstating Croatian government rule next year. |
ZAGREB, June 27 (Reuters) - Croatia on Thursday published a list of more than 800 people, including eminent retired and current Yugoslav army officers, excluded from a war amnesty for Serbs in the rebel enclave of Eastern Slavonia. 
Berserkistan, June 17 · Zagreb Ready to Normalize Relations with Belgrade
Berserkistan, June 17 · Croatia Clarifies Serb Amnesty Law for Eastern Slavonia
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