Bosnian Survivor Testifies About Atrocities

For once, Milosevic didn't contest the credibility of a witness -- at least not about his experiences in two detention camps. Instead, he asserted that the atrocities were committed by criminal gangs, some of whom were later prosecuted by authorities in Serbia.

In a low monotone, protected witness B-1461 gave some of the most riveting testimony in Milosevic's 15 month trial. In March 1992, the citizens of his mostly Muslim village of Divic in the Zvornik municipality of Bosnia began to notice the massing of military men and equipment on the Serbian side of the Drina River. This was followed by shelling of a nearby Bosnian village and the appearance of corpses in the Drina. The Serbian attack against Divic began on April 26 and ended shortly thereafter with little resistance from the basically unarmed citizens.

For a month, Divic was occupied by alternating police and military forces. In late May, with the military in charge, about 500 Muslims were loaded in buses, supposedly to be driven to safety. They spent 2 1/2 days in Zvornik, where women, children and elderly were separated from the able-bodied men and older boys. Out of 174 men, 162 were eventually bussed to Celopek. Eleven were reportedly shot and killed in Zvornik. While B-1461 didn't see what happened to them, he saw them taken out, heard the gunshots and 'witnessed' their disappearance.

Celopek was the site of some of the most barbaric actions of a barbaric war. The worst occurred on the Muslim holy day of Bajram, when a group of paramilitaries or criminals were given access to the prisoners. In the building of a former cultural center where the men were held, the leader, Dusan 'Repic' Vuckovic ordered all father and son pairs up on the stage, while the rest of the prisoners were ordered to sit facing them. Repic, which means 'pigtail' in Serbian, then ordered additional men on stage, had them all strip and forced them to perform oral sex on each other. Apparently, this degradation wasn't enough to satisfy his sadism. He demanded that certain men bite off the penises of other men and swallow them, and that one prisoner anally rape another with a broom handle. The group of criminals accompanied this 'performance' by randomly shooting prisoners.
One who died that day was B-1461's uncle. Another uncle also died in Celopek of wounds from a beating.

Repic's group was not the only one that came to Celopek to abuse, torture and kill prisoners. Witness B-1461 said there were two or three others; sometimes two came together, but never all at the same time. Another group was led by a man called 'Zoka.' Someone called 'Major' was also involved. The men, he said, spoke with the accent of Serbs from Serbia.

For their amusement, one group demanded that prisoners fight each other. When B-1461's father and his neighbor refused to fight one another, they were badly beaten, leaving the neighbor in a coma for two days until he died. His father was black and blue all over and unable to remember everything that happened. Another pastime the criminals devised was mutilating prisoners, driving knives into their thighs and between fingers. One of B-1491's hands was stabbed through, the other not quite.
Another occasion selected by Repic's group of sadistic killers for a 'visit' was a Serb holiday, St. Vitus Day. Putting aside their usual 'creativity,' they contented themselves with firing their automatic rifles indiscriminately at the prisoners, when none would talk about some people they were looking for. When it was all over and the prisoners were cleaning up, B-1461 found his father and 'saw he was no longer alive.' Shortly afterwards, the witness was transferred to another camp at Batkovici, about which the Trial Chamber has heard testimony from another witness. [See CIJ Report April 2, 2003: 'Camp Survivor Confronts Milosevic']

Milosevic did not dispute what the witness said happened in Celopek, nor that it was perpetrated by Serbs from Serbia. In cross examination, he questioned why the witness had been brought to testify at all, since Serbian authorities allegedly had arrested and tried Repic for war crimes in 1993. 'What happened during his detention I myself and the authorities in Serbia considered a war crime,' Milosevic told Judge May. 'It was tried 10 years ago. Every normal man would feel sick hearing the details. It is enough to turn one's stomach.' While the witness learned about Repic's arrest through the newspapers, he didn't know the outcome. Nor did Milosevic say. Judge Kwon found a defense exhibit that documented Repic's arrest and investigation, but the charges did not include sexual abuse. Neither the witness nor to his knowledge any of the other prisoners at Celopek was contacted during the investigation by Serbian authorities.

Milosevic attempted to get the witness to say that atrocities were committed solely by paramilitary or criminal gangs without the knowledge of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) or police. While B-1461 agreed that paramilitaries carried out the assaults, he also testified that he and the other men were taken from Zvornik to the camps by Serbian military and police and were guarded at the camps by Serbian police.

Milosevic asked, 'What did the police . . . who stood guard . . . what did they have to do with the group that came to abuse you?' Witness: 'I don't know. Or if they had any connection.' But asked if they were present when prisoners were beaten, the witness said no, they were outside, then added, 'They would come in sometimes.'

It seems highly unlikely that atrocities such as B-1461 described could occur without the knowledge of the military or police who operated Celopek. Someone had to bury the mutilated bodies. Someone had to unlock the door and let Repic and his men back in after the first round of assaults and killings. One can anticipate that the prosecution will introduce additional evidence on the precise identity or affiliation of those running the camp, as well as their knowledge and involvement.

Milosevic could see no way that these atrocities concerned him or the indictment against him. The connection can be made in a variety of ways, one by establishing that members of the joint criminal enterprise decided to meet their need for fighters by opening jailhouse doors or their objective of ethnically cleansed territories by terrorizing Bosnian Muslims into flight. Another is showing knowledge of atrocities without appropriate intervention and punishment.

Regardless of what remains to be proven, B-1461's testimony left no doubt that the Bosnian war provided fertile ground for men to express the extremes of degradation and inhumanity. B-1461's courage in coming forward to bear witness manifests the other extreme of humanity: the capability to survive, to stand for the truth and to hope for justice, however inadequate.