World Heritage Site Becomes World's Largest Prison, Former Dubrovnik Mayor Testifies

Dubrovnik is a special place not only to Croats or former Yugoslavs, but to people from around the world. The United Nations declared it a 'World Heritage Site' for which it deserved special protection. Yet on October 23, 1991, an army of Serbs and Montenegrins began a sustained, systematic attack on the Old Town and the people living there. From that date until the last day of 1991, a total of 1,056 shells fell on this protected city of worldwide significance.

Mr. Petar Poljanic, former mayor of Dubrovnik, testified about the destruction at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and crimes against humanity in The Hague. He described the consequences of the attack on December 6, 1991, as 'disastrous destruction, the greatest in the history of the whole area.' When asked by the prosecutor whether the shelling seemed to target specific buildings or was indiscriminate, he replied, 'My impression is that buildings were not targeted. The whole of the Old Town was shelled. On December 7th when I climbed the walls, I could not find a single roof on which a shell had not fallen or been destroyed by falling next door. The target was the Old Town itself.'

The prosecutor then handed the witness a long list of people killed during the shelling. As he read over the list, he identified friends and people he'd helped bury. He testified that he had been informed of each of these deaths shortly after they occurred. He could not find a single soldier among them, though a newspaper account declared five members of the National Guard had been killed in the shelling. There were no military installations or artillery units inside the Old Town, according to Mr. Poljanic. There was nothing to provoke the attack, he said. 'We were not in a position to provoke them. . . . They were the third or fourth strongest army in Europe and we numbered less than 100 men.'

The attack took place despite a pledge by Admiral Djurovic to Mr. Poljanic at a meeting in Herzeg Novi in early September. 'While I'm commander of this district, you can rest assured that not a single shell will fall on Dubrovnik.' The Admiral was arrested on October 4, released within a few days and then killed, most likely by Serbian/Montenegrin forces. The witness learned this from one of the men who carried the Admiral's body as he was dying.

The assault on Dubrovnik was part of a larger campaign by the Yugoslav Army (JNA) beginning in mid-September to take control of the region between the border of Montenegro and Karlobeg, the far border of the new Yugoslav state Milosevic allegedly wanted to create. As justification for the campaign, a man accompanying Admiral Djurovic to the meeting in Herzeg Novi claimed there was a nest of Croat Ustasha in the bell tower of St. Ana's church. Mr. Poljanic told him that St. Ana's had no bell tower, nor any Ustasha nest.

After Admiral Djurovic's death, Mr. Poljanic met with his successor, Admiral Jokic. He testified that Jokic was accompanied by a psychologist who authored the propaganda that 30,000 armed Croats were forming for an attack on the Bay of Kotor. It was this false information that ignited Montenegrins to take up arms and join in the attack on Dubrovnik and the Croatian coast. A prior witness, former Montenegrin foreign minister Mr. Nikola Samardzic, testified how the false announcement about 30,000 Croat troops turned the tide in Montenegro from negotiating with Croatia to joining Serbia in Milosevic's war. (See CIJ Report 'Deception and Threat Led Montenegro Into War,' October 8, 2002.)

Even as Mr. Poljanic met with the mayor of Trebinje, who assured him the Serbs had no territorial ambitions beyond the Prevlaka Peninsula, 6000 JNA troops were amassing in Trebinje. Within days, a coordinated, all-out assault was launched against Konavle and the municipality of Dubrovnik by forces under JNA command. Mr. Poljanic showed on a map how they were attacked from all sides, including from the air and sea. Water, electricity, and telephone lines were cut. The television station was destroyed. The forces took over the Cilipi airport and cut off access by land and sea. Mr. Poljanic characterized the situation: 'Just then we were probably the largest prison in the world.' That situation continued during much of the siege, with citizens unable even to tap the vast resources of the nearby sea for water out of fear they would be killed by snipers.

In the Konavle area south of Dubrovnik, JNA troops rolled relentlessly through villages, destroying one after the other. As the prosecutor read off a lengthy list of villages, the witness described their fates: Brgat – destroyed. Cilip – destroyed. Dubravka – destroyed. Gruda – destroyed; terribly. Slano – beautiful place in a little bay – destroyed. Popovici – a lot of it destroyed, not completely. Donja Luta – destroyed. Mihanici – destroyed. Drvenik – destroyed. And on and on. At the conclusion of this dirge, the prosecutor asked, 'Did any of the destroyed villages have military installations of the Croatian Army?' Mr. Poljanic replied, 'As far as I know, not a single one.' With isolated exceptions, the JNA met with no resistance from the unarmed villagers and no one among the attackers was killed.

When the villages in Konavle were attacked, the villagers fled to Dubrovnik, Northern Dalmatia and the Islands, with the exception of mostly elderly people. Those captured by the JNA forces were killed or detained in JNA camps at Morinje in Montenegro and Bileca in Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to the witness who gained his information from friends who were interned in the camps, suffered atrocities and survived. When asked what kind of atrocities they suffered, he replied, 'People were tortured in amazing ways. I think you'll have a man here who was there, rather than my speaking about the issue. It is too sad.'

Many of those who fled to Dubrovnik did not find refuge, as the JNA shelled the hotels in which they were housed. Hotels, private homes and even boats in the harbor were looted and carried away by JNA troops. This also confirms testimony from Mr. Samardzic who saw looted items at JNA facilities and entering Montenegro.

Dubrovnik, perhaps because of its historic and symbolic significance and its totally wanton destruction, was given twelve separate counts in the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, and included in several others. For what happened in Dubrovnik, Milosevic is charged with murder, wilful killing, willfully causing great suffering, cruel treatment and attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, imprisonment, torture and inhumane acts, deportation and forcible transfer, and the wanton destruction and plunder of property from October 1 to December 7, 1991.

In war, nothing can be more tragic than the deaths and brutalization of innocent people. Yet something also outrages the conscience when a significant symbol of a people's (and, in this case, the world's) heritage is intentionally targeted for destruction. It threatens a sense of who we are in time, where we came from, what good we are capable of, and what we can leave to future generations.

Despite the wanton and sustained attack on Dubrovnik, it was not destroyed. More than 10 years after the assault, it continues to be lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt. The psychological scars will remain much longer – of those who sustained the attack and those deceived into perpetrating it, and between them. The hope is that the trial of at least one of the chief perpetrators will aid their healing.