Supplemental report on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia - Transcript

US Department of State Dispatch, Nov 2, 1992

Introduction

This report supplements the previous United States Submission of information pursuant to a paragraph 5 of Security Council Resolution 771 (1992) relating to the violations of humanitarian law, including grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, being committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. We have tried not to duplicate information provided to us from other countries, which we expect will be submitting their own reports by the November 6 deadline in Resolution 780.

Recent reports out of the former Yugoslavia reaffirm the need for further investigative work, such as that to be done by the newly established UN War Crimes Commission. For example, reporters have been unable to locate any former prisoners of the camp at Omarska; this relates concerns for the prisoners' safety. In addition, the United States is continuing to receive reports of forced deportations. We strongly believe that these reports require expeditious investigation, so that substantiated information can be obtained about the persons responsible. While interviews with refugees once they have left the territory of the former Yugoslavia do provide valuable information, the international community needs to conduct investigations within the territory of the former Yugoslavia to assemble a more complete picture. Further, there is a need for forensic evidence regarding the various allegations of mass atrocities. The United States will pursue such information actively and will continue to urge other governments to do so as well.

In accordance with paragraph 1 of Resolution 780 (1992), the United States will submit additional supplemental reports when other relevant information comes into its possession.

As in the initial US report, the notations at the end of each of the following items indicate the source from which the information was drawn.

Former Yugoslavia: Grave Breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Second Submission

21 September: Serb forces with automatic rifles about six miles outside Travnik fired on Muslim refugees who were leaving Bosanski Petrovac. "They shot at us from the forest beside the road," according to a 21-year-old man. "Four were killed in my truck and three were wounded." He gave the names of five relatives, all civilians, whom he said he saw dragged from their homes by Serbian soldiers in Bjelaj on September 21 and shot point-blank.

Other refugees from Bjelaj said they believed more than 100 men and boys were killed in their village over a four-day period ending on September 22.

27 August: Croatian paramilitary forces attacked a convoy of buses carrying over a hundred Serbian women and children, according to a peasant woman from Gorazde who was in the convoy. She said the Croats killed 53 and left about 50 wounded. She escaped by hiding under some bodies. Her son, one of two "Serbian Republic" soldiers with the convoy, was badly wounded but survived. (Department of State) 21 August: More than 200 men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb police on a narrow mountain track at a place known as Varjanta, near the confluence of the Ugar and Ilomska rivers about 15 miles north of Travnik, according to at least three reputed survivors.

Semir, a 24-year-old man, told reporters that he was one of the last off the bus.

I saw three Serb policemen standing there, and in front of them there were big pools of blood. I decided at that moment to jump. I rolled a long way down, until I was caught on a tree. I heard shooting up above for about an hour after that. Bodies were tumbling past me. There were a lot of them.

"Cerni," a 31-year-old Muslim, described how the prisoners were taken off the buses.

I jumped as soon as they started. I protected my head and arms and tumbled down. When I stopped, the other bodies were falling on me. The blood was all over. The other people...were all killed at this place.

Semir, who lost a brother and a 16-year-old nephew during this incident, said he had recognized several of killers because they were from his home village, Corakova. He recognized two brothers in particular--naming them as among those who had rounded up this group of Muslims in Corakovo.

A third witness threw himself over the edge of the cliff as his guard turned to speak to another soldier. He had seen a Serbian soldier put a pistol in the mouths of several men and fire. (Department of State; The Washington Post; The New York Times; Reuters) 24 July: A Muslim locksmith, who was interned at Keraterm camp in northwestern Bosnia, reported that on July 24 Serb guards with automatic weapons systematically had killed as many as 160 men who were locked inside an enclosure known as Room 3. The locksmith and three other Muslims imprisoned in an adjacent room said that another 50 prisoners were killed the next morning and that the killing continued the next night against an outside wall. "In the morning, they would collect the remains in a wheelbarrow--brains, blood, pieces of flesh."

20 July:

A 31-year-old Bosnian Muslim refugee stated that on July 20 all the men living in Biscani were called out of their houses and forced to lie down in the center of town on asphalt. Serb soldiers beat them with iron bars, and forced them to sing patriotic Serbian songs. The most prominent women in the village, about 100, were brought together. As the women were told to disperse, they were shot in the back. The bodies of the women lay in the road for four days until Serb trucks came to collect them.