Srebrenica Guilty Pleas Have Many Repercussions

The second Srebrenica trial has been halved in less than ten days. First Momir Nikolic pled guilty to one count of crimes against humanity and agreed to testify against his three co-accused. Today, Dragan Obrenovic joined him and moved to the prosecution's side of the aisle. Obrenovic also pled guilty to one count of crimes against humanity in exchange for the prosecutor's agreement to drop the other charges, including complicity in genocide. He, too, agreed to testify against the remaining two co-accused and in unspecified other trials, which could include the trial of Slobodan Milosevic where the prosecution has yet to establish the crimes of Srebrenica.

The two guilty pleas resonated throughout the Tribunal. Their effect in the region may be no less. While another indictee, Drazen Erdemovic, pled guilty earlier to crimes committed in Srebrenica, he was an ordinary soldier, one of those who followed orders and became a tool of the higher ups who decided to carry out a plan of genocide against the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica. Nikolic and Obrenovic are two of the higher ups and, as such, can testify that the killings of Srebrenica's Bosnian Muslim men were not spontaneous acts of revenge but part of a plan coordinated at the levels even higher than theirs.

With these pleas, it becomes harder for Bosnian Serb nationalists to maintain the lie that the killings in Srebrenica occurred in combat and that 'only' a couple thousand died, as the Republika Srpska's Bureau to Liaise with the ICTY declared last summer. If ordinary Bosnian Serbs are not so hardened that they can no longer take in information that contradicts the lies they've been fed for nearly eight years, the guilty pleas might initiate a broader reassessment and soul searching within the Republika Srpska.

In pleading guilty, both Nikolic and Obrenovic provided the prosecution with sworn written statements of facts. In his, Obrenovic states that he first learned of the large scale murder operation when Drago Nikolic (indicted by the ICTY, at large) informed him that thousands of Muslim prisoners were being transported from Bratunac to Zvornik. Why weren't they being sent to the prison at Batkovici, he asked. Not mincing words, Nikolic said it was because they were being sent to Zvornik to be shot. When Obrenovic protested that they couldn't do such a thing without informing their command, Nikolic said the command already knew, that the order came from General Ratko Mladic, head of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS).

His statement next contains a clear and unambiguous acceptance of responsibility. 'On hearing of this plan to kill the prisoners I, as acting commander, took responsibility for the plan and supported the implementation of this plan.' Obrenovic, though deputy commander of the Zvornik Brigade, was in charge due to the absence of his commander Vinko Pandurovic (indicted, at large). Nevertheless, after later briefing Pandurovic about the murder operation, problems of guarding so many prisoners prior to their executions and burying so many afterwards, he concluded that his commander already knew about the operation. At the very least, he took no action to discipline Obrenovic for his commission of war crimes, itself a war crime.

Describing his actions over the next several days to implement the plan, Obrenovic implicates by name a number of VRS and MUP (Ministry of the Interior) personnel who all knowingly participated. They include several who have been indicted by the ICTY: Ljubomir Beara, Vujadin Popovic, Drago Nikolic, Vinko Pandurevic and Ljubomir Borovcanin. All five remain at large and seem not to be an arrest priority among internationals who otherwise pressure local authorities to carry out their responsibilities to the ICTY.

Obrenovic describes a conversation he had with his former co-accused Dragan Jokic, head of an engineering battalion. Jokic told him he was having a huge problem with the burials, as well as guarding those still to be executed. While implicating Jokic, Obrenovic concludes his description of their conversation by using it to show his own guilt, 'I was aware of the killing.'

He also writes about trying to arrange a corridor to let some or all of a column of Muslim men pass through to Bosnian territory. When MUP Colonel Vasic proposed that they do this, Obrenovic felt they needed authority from higher up the chain of command. Contacted separately, both the acting chief of staff of the VRS and the Minister of Interior's advisor said the column should be destroyed. When he reached Radislav Krstic, acting Drina Corps Commander, the General told him not to worry, 'Pandurevic, Legenda (Captain Jovic of the Drina Wolves) and his men were on their way to Zvornik. . . .' Two-thirds of the column were captured, moved to temporary detention sites and executed. What emerges from Obrenovic's statement, on which he can be expected to elaborate when he testifies, is an operation planned and coordinated between the VRS and MUP at the highest levels.

According to Obrenovic, 'By the 18th [July], news of the execution of the prisoners was widespread and everyone was talking about it.' As a result, he gained a broader view of what happened. Riding in a car with Pandurevic, two escorts and the driver, they came upon twenty corpses lying next to the road. When he told his commander that he personally had information that Drago Nikolic took part in the executions there, 'one of the escorts said that this sight of the corpses was nothing compared to the scene on the Konjevic Polje road and further on.' Even if Pandurevic and other officers hadn't ordered the massacres, they were legally responsible to discipline those who did once they found out about them. Pandurevic, according to Obrenovic, said nothing and took no disciplinary action.

Obrenovic's written statement also describes opportunistic killings, where VRS soldiers massacred prisoners out of revenge rather than according to the overall plan. One such instance occurred at the Kravica warehouse, where soldiers opened fire killing all prisoners after one of them disarmed and shot an officer. In another act of revenge, Pandurevic, issued an order to shoot all prisoners after another VRS soldier was killed by a prisoner. The order was in effect for three days during which time no prisoners were taken alive.

After the main killing operation, on 23 July, prisoners being treated in a clinic disappeared. When he asked Pandurevic about it, his commander said Mladic had ordered that they be executed.

Obrenovic also provides corroboration for other executions and mass burials charged in the indictment including the Petkovci Dam and the Branjevo Military Farm. In addition, he gives information on reburial operations which were carried out in an effort to cover up the massive scale of the crimes.

Perhaps the most telling incident Obrenovic reports is one involving General Krstic, found guilty of genocide in an earlier trial, though he is appealing the decision. In August 1995, Obrenovic was with Krstic when a soldier nearby was listening to a transistor radio. 'A survivor from one of the executions was giving an account of what happened to him over the radio . . . . We stood there for about two minutes listening to the survivor and then General Krstic ordered that the radio be switched off and said we should not listen to enemy radio.'

Obrenovic continues, 'On the way back I thought about the survivor's story on the radio and this lead [sic] me to ask General Krstic why the killings took place. I had said that we knew the people killed were all simple people and asked for the reason why they had to be killed. I said that even if they were all chickens that were killed, there still had to be a reason. . . . Krstic cut me short and said that we would speak no more about this.'

While the statement humanizes Obrenovic, one can't help wondering why he didn't ask his question before he lent himself to the massive killing campaign. Without him and hundreds of others who followed orders, several generations of Srebrenica's Bosnian Muslim men would not have been wiped out. As some survivors welcome even such an equivocal show of remorse, one hopes for their sake it goes much deeper and is not entirely self-serving.

Certainly, the evidence Obrenovic and Nikolic can give is invaluable. It should greatly aid the prosecution's case against Blagojevic and Jokic, as well as cause Krstic a second thought on his appeal. But it will be significantly wasted unless the remaining five Srebrenica indictees, plus Mladic and Karadzic, are found, arrested and made to answer before the ICTY. The scale of the crime, the depth of its inhumanity demands a greater justice than the conviction of a handful of men, not including its primary architects. The guilty pleas of Obrenovic and Nikolic must give renewed impetus to the search for the seven men who have remained free for nearly a decade. Otherwise, impunity wins. And humanity loses.