Court Hears Yugoslav Soldiers Joined Bosnian Serbs
Perisic trial told of troops' motoves for agreeing to serve with VRS forces.
Court Hears Yugoslav Soldiers Joined Bosnian Serbs
Perisic trial told of troops' motoves for agreeing to serve with VRS forces.
A retired Yugoslav army, VJ, officer told the Hague tribunal last week that VJ officers and soldiers went to fight with the Serbs in Bosnia in the early Nineties not because they were forced to, but out of a “moral obligation”.
Petar Skrbic, a defence witness, testified at the trial of Momcilo Perisic, the former chief of the general staff of the VJ.
Perisic, the most senior VJ officer to be accused of war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia, has been charged with 13 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is accused of having provided material, personnel, logistical and other assistance to Serb armies in Bosnia, VRS, and Croatia, SVK, and therefore contributing to the crimes these forces committed in the two countries.
These include aiding and abetting the 43-month siege of Sarajevo; the shelling of the Croatian capital Zagreb; and the July 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
In his capacity as army chief, Perisic is also accused of not having taken necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or punish crimes committed by his subordinates.
This week, Skrbic said he left the VJ as a lieutenant in December 1993 and went "of his own will" to serve as assistant commander for morale, religious and legal affairs in the second Krajina corps of the VRS.
At the beginning of last week’s hearings, defence counsel Novak Lukic asked the witness to describe the state of morale in the VJ from 1991 to December 1993, to which he replied that "there was a series of indicators showing that morale in the VJ wasn't sufficiently high".
"We obtained these indicators by research, speaking to soldiers, officers, civilians in military service, which showed us that the morale wasn't high enough," he said.
Skrbic blamed "a campaign by media in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia against the Yugoslav army and its officers". He said that this campaign encouraged protests throughout former Yugoslavia against general wartime mobilisation.
"Some protesters even incited violence against the Yugoslav army," he added.
He also said that a large number of VJ troops who were of Croat or Muslim nationality had left the army, “and the reactions to our calls for mobilisation
varied significantly between April 1992 and 1994”.
“It was therefore necessary to mobilise a certain number of VJ troops to replace those who had left the army," he said.
In the indictment, the prosecution claims that the 30th and 40th personnel centres of the VJ were used to deploy soldiers to serve in the VRS and the SVK. The witness confirmed that there were meetings in the VJ which he admitted not having attended, but which he knew were used for "promoting deployment in the VRS".
These were gatherings with a "heavy atmosphere", the witness said.
The witness said the reactions of participating officers were mixed. "Some openly said they didn't want to go to war, some were asking about consequences to their status and some were silent," he said.
But the witness confirmed that nobody was threatened with any sanctions or punishment should they decide not to be deployed to the VRS.
Skrbic further said that, contrary to the indictment's claims, "no officer from Bosnia-Hercegovina was offered Serbian citizenship for military service".
The witness explained that he himself joined the VRS of his own free will, to "help defend his people".
Just as in his case, other VJ officers and soldiers agreed to be transferred to VRS ranks out of a "moral obligation".
He said that "soldiers who would decide to stay in the VJ, rather than go to the frontline, would be exposed to moral sanctioning".
This moral sanctioning, he said, referred to those born in Bosnia, who preferred to stay in Serbia rather than fight in the VRS.
However, Skrbic said no VJ officers were threatened with sanctions or retirement if they refused to serve in the VRS.
Defence counsel Lukic then asked Skrbic about his motives for joining the VRS. "My decision wasn't momentary - ever since the conflict began, I wanted to go and help my people. In 1993, I therefore decided to join the VRS," he said.
Perisic was transferred to the tribunal in March of 2005 and the trial began in October 2008. In late February this year, the defence started presenting its case. Perisic has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
The trial continues this week.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.
