Harassment and Ethnic Cleansing in Western Slavonia by the Authorities of the Republic of Croatia

Part 3.
Part 1 is at this link.

DEPOPULATION OF VILLAGES IN THE WESTERN PART OF THE SLAVONSKA POZEGA MUNICIPALITY BASED ON ORDERS ISSUED BY CROATIAN AUTHORITIES

Ethnic Serbs in the Slavonska Pozega municipality began to feel the unhidden enmity and rude pressure of the ethnic Croats and the authorities during the first few months of 1991. This was most pronounced in the case of false default of the wood company "Spinvalis", as conducted by Croatian authorities on March 1, 1991, so they could in a mockery of a legal way fire from work all employees with ethnic Serb background. Firing of ethnic Serb employees, which gravely threatened the existence of many other members of the ethnic Serb community of Slavonska Pozega, continued in the following months in other state owned companies and institutions. However, there were no serious physical assaults on ethnic Serbs until July 1, 1991, when as subsequently discovered by an investigation conducted by Croatian authorities, one Jovo Kljajic (1938), from he village of Jaksic, Kolodvorska 8, was falsely accused of possessing lethal weapons and murdered in his own house. His liquidation, carried out in a most brutal manner, as well as the physical harassment of his family, provided a sound basis for fear in the local ethnic Serb community and its individual members began to temporarily hide in the Republic of Serbia. That their fears were well founded was amply demonstrated by a new wave of terrorism, directed towards ethnic Serbs. However, their leaving Slavonska Pozega was greatly inhibited by a prohibition of movement without special passes issued by a so- called Crisis headquarters, a state-party body, consisting of reliable CDU activists which, as in many other Croatian municipalities, replaced the suspended municipal authorities. Because of the strict control and slowed down tempo of execution, the diminishing of the local ethnic Serb community of Slavonska Pozega did not draw any particular attention of the general public at large, and it has accordingly for long remained unnoticed that in this city, like in many other Croatian cities, ethnic cleansing had in fact taken place.

The survival of ethnic Serbs in the villages around Slavonska Pozega could not be treated in the same manner as in the city itself, since those people based their existence on their own private property and generally lived in villages where they were the majority. Because of these facts, the Croatian authorities were forced to use far more brutal forms of pressure against them in order to affect ethnic cleansing there. As long as there were Yugoslav People"s Army barracks in Slavonska Pozega, the Croatian armed forces could not implement more drastic measures against ethnic Serbs in rural areas. Only after the surrender of the local Yugoslav People"s Army garrison, on September 17, 1991, which was conducted without any conflict, did the Croatian forces establish checkpoints and blockades towards ethnic Serb villages, and began to terrorize their inhabitants.

Among the first on the list was the village of Kantrovci, with a total of 25 ethnic Serb families. Members of the National Guard of the Republic of Croatia arrived in Kantrovci on September 25, 1991 and began to search the houses and to harass the population, so that most of the inhabitants left the village the next morning. Only a few elderly women remained in the village simply because they had nowhere to go, as did several elderly men, who remained in order to preserve their cattle and their property. When the Croatian forces had looted all the houses, gathered all the cattle and transported it to the agricultural institution of the Slavonska Pozega jail, only then did they order the remaining inhabitants to leave the village. Since three elderly women, Stoja Bozic (1917), Jela Dorontic (1937) and Stoja Radovanlija (1917) had no place to go, members of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia forcefully took them away in an unknown direction, allegedly to an elders" home in Velika. However, after leaving the village, all traces of them are lost. The village of Kantrovci, into which any and all return of its original inhabitants was strictly forbidden, was completely burned and destroyed on January 6, 1992, on the exact date of the fiftieth anniversary of its burning down by the Ustashas during World War II.

The most drastic form of terrorism, as used only by Ustashas during World War II, was along the lines of an order issued by the Crisis HQ of Slavonska Pozega on October 29, 1991, regarding the depopulation of ethnic Serbs from the following villages: Oblakovac, Vucjak Cecavacki, Jeminovac, Snjegavic, Cecavac, Koprivna, Rasna, Pasikovci, Kujnik, Orljavac, Crljenci, Slobostina, Milivojevci, Podsrece, Vranic, Njezic, Pozeski Markovac, Klisa, Ozdakovci, Poljanska, Kantrovci, Gornji Vrhovci, Lucinci and Oljasi. In this order, which was read over the local radio station several times over, and which was posted on public places in form of a poster in most neighboring villages, the ethnic Serb population from the above villages was obliged to leave them within 48 hours, carrying only the barest of necessities (the order explicitly states: "... food products, clothes and footwear, bedclothes, personal hygiene items, cutlery, the most necessary lighting items, gold items and money ..."). The only choice ethnic Serbs had was to move to villages with a Croatian majority, or into refugee centers - camps in Ivandol, Dezevci, Perenci, Toranj and Biskupci. In order to accommodate them, a barbed wire encircled camp was constructed in the village of Lipa, near Pozega. The very construction of this camp, as well as the rumors spread about it by Croats, caused panic in ethnic Serbs because it reminded them so well of the Jasenovac camp and the tremendous genocide conducted during World War II. Those who constructed that camp and spread rumors about it probably did want to strike terror in the hearts of ethnic Serbs, implanting and nourishing it on purpose, intentionally and aggressively using all symbols and methods of awakening associations of the genocide conducted on the ethnic Serb population in the Independent State of Croatia during the last world war - all this played a decisive role in the policy of ethnic cleansing conducted in the Republic of Croatia 1991-1992.

The inhabitants of the villages slated for depopulation reacted in different ways to this order, but nevertheless, they all suffered the same fate - they were irretrievably deported from their homesteads:

- In some villages, such as Slobostina for example, disturbed ethnic Serbs attempted to establish contact with Croatian authorities in order to obtain permission, despite the proclaimed order, to remain in their villages. Representatives of the people from Slobostina - Jovan Lazic and Milan Pavlovic

- on October 29, 1991 went to the Crisis HQ in Perence, but were told there, as written in a deposition made by one of the witnesses, that "it was out of the question for us to remain in the village, because if we don"t leave, their army would come with trucks and forcefully deport us from the village". Some villagers with relatives in Slavonska Pozega and other settlements, left the village as soon as they heard of the negative reply made by the Croatian authorities. Only those with nowhere to go stayed on in the village, or those who believed that the Croatian authorities, because of the world community views, would not actually implement the heralded drastic measures. However, the second day after announcing the measures, on October 30, 1991 early in the morning, Croatian national guardsmen barged into the village and threatening with their weapons, forced the remaining villagers to move out during that same day. After that, they began to loot, pillage and destroy ethnic Serb owned houses. First they destroyed the house of Mirko Stankovic, Slobostina 42, and the place on which it rested was levelled by a bulldozer. Most of the ethnic Serbs driven out of Slobostina in the coming days left the territory of the Republic of Croatia, and without any property, means or material aid, lives today on the territory of the Republic of Serbia or the Republic of Serbian Krayina;

- Ethnic Serbs from other villages, such as for example Jeminovci and Snjegavici, did not comply with the issued order, because they didn't know where to go. They were not welcome in Croat dominated villages, they had good reason to fear going to centers-camps, and they didn't have any means of moving to ethnic Serb villages on the Papuk mountain because the roads leading there were blocked by Croatian forces. After receiving the order to move out, most inhabitants of the above villages hid during the day in nearby fields and forests, and came back at night to feed the cattle and to spend the night in warmth, since those were late autumn and hence cold days. Only the eldest never left their homes, the sick and the immobile. After the predetermined time for moving out had passed (October 31, 1991), and since the Croatian authorities did not materialize their threat of forceful expulsion, most people from Jeminovci and Snjegovici began to hope that nobody would harass them any more, especially since they were innocent. Some villagers even went on to continue unfinished work in the fields. However, on November 10, 1991, Croatian national guardsmen raided all non- depopulated ethnic Serb villages in the western part of the Slavonska Pozega municipality and without any warning began to throw a flammable substance and hand grenades into houses. In this way they raided Jeminovac and Snjegavic, burned down most of the houses and slit the throats, shot or burned several tens inhabitants in their own houses, all of whom were subsequently buried in a mass grave. Some corpses were temporarily buried in hidden places by surviving ethnic Serbs, who survived due to the circumstance that they happened to be in fields or in cellars of their houses at the time of the Croatian pogrom against ethnic Serbs. Their testimonies, and other documents about the pogrom of ethnic Serbs in the Slavonska Pozega municipality, will soon be submitted to the Secretary General of the UN, in form of a special dossier of the Serbian Council Information Center. At this time, for the sake of witness safety and because we wish to inhibit the removal of remaining traces of crimes fro m their locations, we quote only a partial list of ethnic Serbs killed on November 10, 1991, by Croatian armed forces in Jeminovci and Snjegavici: Mile Mijatovic (about 82 years old), Milan Radulovic (1910), Ljubisa Protic (about 52, throat slit in the orchard of Dragan Jovanovic), Anka Radmilovic (about 52, killed in her house), Andja Stankovic (about 60, killed in the house of Milan Radmilovic), Nikola Zivkovic (about 40, killed in the house of Milan Radmilovic), Milan Protic (about 60, throat slit in bed in his own house), Ana Radmilovic and her son Ilija Radmilovic (1950). Protic Stanko (1922) was taken from his house, where he was massacred, and was finished off in the house of Nikola Milosevic. The surviving inhabitants of these villages, all of them eyewitnesses of crimes committed by Croatian army members, today live as refugees on the territory of the Republic of Serbia or the Republic of Serbian Krayina. Their villages have been razed to the ground, they cannot return, nor can they ever again feel safe on the territory of the Republic of Croatia.

Similarly to the inhabitants of Slobostina, Jeminovci and Snjegavici, other ethnic Serbs, inhabitants of other villagers slated for depopulation on basis of the order issued by the Crisis HQ of Pozega suffered as well. In some of them, more ethnic Serbs were killed. For example, in Vucijak Cecavski, according to eyewitness testimonies, the following ethnic Serbs were killed: Ljuba Carevic (about 60), Milan Carevic (1920), Kata Dulic (1917), Mile Dulic (1952), Jagoda Dulic (1917), Radojka Dulic (1944), Branko Ivanovic (about 33), Mileva Ivanovic (1944), Mara Starcevic (abou t 55), Milka Starcevic (about 72), Jagoda Starcevic (about 75), Rajko Starcevic (about 32), Milka "Mica" Simic (about 55), Milka Simic (about 70) and Janko Zivkovic (1924).

Their success in depopulating ethnic Serbs in 24 villages, as well as the fact that the world public opinion was ready to close its eyes before even the most drastic Croatian crimes and the most brutal forms of ethnic cleansing, represented a stimuli for the Croatian armed forces to depopulate other ethnic Serb settlements in the Slavonska Pozega municipality, even though these settlements were not slated for depopulation as per the Crisis HQ order of October 29, 1991. One of such villages was the village of Rusevac:

- The inhabitants of the small ethnic Serb village of Rusevac, situated near to the ethnic Croatian village of Ivandol, did not receive any orders to move out, so the raid by members of the National guard of the Republic of Croatia which happened immediately after they burned down other ethnic Serb villages caught them unaware and mostly in their homes. After entering the village, the Croatian army began to burn down the houses and kill people. During this pogrom, the population was decimated, and the following people were burned alive in their homes: Jagoda Milcic (about 80), Ljuba Trlajic, Andja Trlajic, Kata Cickovic and Djuro Vasic (about 70).

After the pogrom of peaceful inhabitants of some thirty (30) ethnic Serb villages in the near vicinity of Slavonska Pozega, performed by the Croatian armed forces and the Croatian population from villages with ethnic Croatian majority, a mass exodus of ethnic Serbs from mountain villages from the north-western part of Slavonska Pozega municipality did take place. People from these villages left their homesteads and fled the Republic of Croatia using the only available route - across ethnic Serb territories on Papuk, where the population self-organized in August 1991 and was ready to use arms to resist the violence of the Croatian armed forces.

DEPOPULATION OF ETHNIC SERB VILLAGES ON BILOGORA [Mountain]

In response to the pressure exerted by Croatian armed forces and militia organized by the CDU, which ensued after the arrival of National guardsmen in Grubisino Polje in mid August 1991, the population of ethnic Serb villages on the mountain of Bilogora, mostly in the Grubisino Polje municipality, organized its own defence of its homesteads. In that resistance, it had verbal but not factual support of the Yugoslav People"s Army, so they obtained their weapons by actually breaking in into an army warehouse. Yugoslav army units, due to gross incompetence of army leaders, were blocked in their barracks in Virovitica and Bjelovar until the end of September 1991, when these barracks were taken over by Croatian armed forces.

After the surrender of the Virovitica barracks and the fall of Bjelovar barracks, and in the barracks of Daruvar and Varazdin, the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia obtained large quantities of modern weapons and equipment, so they were able to recruit several tens of thousands of fresh troops. During October, for the attack on some twenty or so ethnic Serb villages in the Grubisino Polje region about ten thousand National guard troops were being prepared, with over one hundred artillery weapons and 36 tanks.

The attack commenced on October 31, 1991, and Croatian troops who were "cleansing the terrain" could be resisted on the ethnic Serb side only by sparsely numbered village defenders - according to the documentation which was saved from destruction and which belonged to the resistance command of Bilogora ethnic Serbs, there were only 227 men armed with light infantry weapons, and according to testimonies of eyewitnesses, there were some 600 defenders. Because there were so few poorly armed defenders, the Croatian forces encountered no real resistance, but rather the ethnic Serb population was evacuated in order to prevent their massacring.

At that time, almost completely depopulated were the following ethnic Serb villages: Brdjani, Cremusina, D. Rasenica, G. Rasenica, Loncarica, M. Barna, M. Dapcevica, M. Grdjevac, M. Jasenovaca, M. Peratovica, Sibenik, Turcevic Polje, V. Barna, V. Dapcevica, V. Peratovica and Zrinska.

The population from these villages, some 3,500 civilians, at first took shelter in mass convoys to the Papuk mountain, and after that, via Bosnia-Herzegovina on to Serbia. When the Croatian forces entered the depopulated and undefended villages, they destroyed and burned down most of the houses, and according to as yet unverified data, murdered several elderly women and men who would not abandon their homes.

We sincerely hope a future investigation will establish the state and whereabouts of those inhabitants of Grubisino Polje region villages who are reported as missing by their relatives. It has been established that during December 1991 some of them, despite their advanced age, were arrested and jailed in Grubisino Polje, where they were exposed to terrible torture. One of the younger ethnic Serbs, Mirko Stojic (1952) from Velika Peratovica, could not take any more of this torture and attempted suicide in jail.

EXODUS OF ETHNIC SERBS FROM PSUNJ AND PAPUK [Mountains] IN MID DECEMBER 1991

The ethnic Serb population from villages on the Psunj and papuk mountains, generally sparsely populated and in a forested part of Western Slavonia, self-organized during the second half of August 1991, determined to resist armed pressure exerted upon them by Croatian authorities and the ever more frequent raids of Croatian guardsmen. Armed resistance to Croatian armed forces was offered only by ethnic Serbs from Okucani and from hillside settlements in several Western Slavonian municipalities. After a prolonged delay, the ethnic Serbs from the Okucani and Pakrac regions were supported by the Yugoslav People"s Army, primarily with the objective to draw upon itself the fire of a part of Croatian forces, thus making easier the deblocking of its barracks and weapons depots in Croatia. The Yugoslav People"s demonstrated the narrow limits of its objectives by its staunch and hopeless attempts to perform the role of an intermediary and to play a peaceful role in the conflict between Croats and ethnic Serbs, followed by its refusal to move its Varazdin and Bjelovar corps to ethnic Serb regions, and ending in its refusal to let the ethnic Serb population from Papuk and Psunj use a part of its modern weaponry.

Limited to only a part of the ethnic Serb regions in Western Slavonia, without closely knit organization ties and without any serious logistics support from the Yugoslav army, the ethnic Serb armed resistance movement merely managed to delay the beginning of ethnic cleansing and exodus of ethnic Serbs from villages of papuk and Psunj, but could not prevent this from happening.

The concentration of large Croatian National guard units, possessing modern weapons and supported by a large number of artillery weapons and tanks, left to them by the Yugoslav People"s Army during the surrender of its barracks, on December 11, 1991 caused a spontaneous falling apart of ethnic Serb village defenses in parts of the Daruvar and Podravska Slatina municipalities and the beginning of a mass exodus of ethnic Serbs from papuk and Psunj. The exodus of the civilians, whose villages had until then been defended by few peasants with no military experience and without any professional officers, was in fact caused by fear of the onslaught of the Croatian armed forces. This fear was caused by numerous rumors of Croatian crimes, especially regarding the burning of ethnic Serb villages and liquidations of ethnic Serbs in those parts of Western Slavonia constantly under control of Croatian authorities, in which there never was any armed revolt. The mass exodus of ethnic Serbs could have been stopped only by a much more extensive engagement of the Yugoslav army units against the Croatian armed forces, but this never came to pass. The Banja Luka corps never received any orders from the Yugoslav army high command to undertake any military activity outside its "zone of responsibility", which is to say outside the communication route along the Pakrac-Okucani line.

By far the greatest part of the ethnic Serb population fled their settlements in panic stricken terror of Croatian armed forces, and only a small part was evacuated in any ordered manner because it was feared that they might be subjected to tremendous massacres. Some villagers stayed on in individual ethnic Serb settlements on Papuk and Psunj (Potocani, Pakrani, Miokovicevo, Puklica, Gornje Kusonje, etc), but many of them disappeared without a trace after the Croatian armed forces entered these villages, and their actual fate is not known to us at this time. It has been reliably established that a certain number of ethnic Serbs, who had not abandoned their villages, have been murdered during the second half of December 1991. The Serbian Council Information Center has also collected data on several sites in Western Slavonia where, as it is now assumed with good cause on basis of eyewitness depositions made by the few survived ethnic Serbs, several tens of people have been liquidated. A separate and special dossier on these crimes will be submitted to the United Nations.

At the time of the ethnic Serb exodus from most ethnic Serb villages on Papuk and Psunj, where the defence was not coordinated with the activities of the Yugoslav army, there also came to pass an unplanned and temporary exodus of ethnic Serb population from settlements within the zone of responsibility of the Banja Luka corps and along the Pakrac-Okucani line. However, because of the fact that due to greater engagement of the Yugoslav army they managed to defend their settlements, ethnic Serbs held their place, or later on returned to the following villages in Western Slavonia: Bjelanovac, Brusnik, Bukovicani, D. Caglic, G. Sumetlica, G. Caglic, Japaga, Kovacevac Caglicki, Kraguj, Kricke, Lipovac Kusonjski, Skenderovci Caglicki and Seovica in the Pakrac municipality, Borovac, Mlaka, Radanovci, Rajc municipality and Benkovac Okucanski, Bobare, Bodergaji, Cage, Caprginci, Covac, D. Rogolji, D. Bogicevci, Dubovac Okucanski, G. Trnava, G. Rogolji, Gredjani Okucanski, Kosovac, Ladjevac, Ljestani, Medari, Okucani, Ratkovac, Smrtic, Trnakovac and Vrbovljani in the Nova Gradiska municipality.

Despite being hit hard during the fighting, and some were temporarily evacuated because they were on the very line of contact, the above ethnic Serb villages were not ethnically cleansed. To this day, as part of the Western Slavonian part of the Serbian Republic of Krayina, they remain a haven to many victims of ethnic cleansing in Western Slavonia.

We state with great concern that in case of several villages under ethnic Serb control, some former inhabitants, ethnic Croats who lived there prior to the Croat-Serb clash of 1991, have not yet returned. This primarily applies to the villages of Bijela Stijena, Rozdenik and Kosutarica, which were almost entirely throughout the fighting controlled by ethnic Serb forces. There is no reason for ethnic Serbs, as the hardest hit ethnic group in the process of ethnic cleansing in individual parts of former Yugoslavia, to deny other ethnic groups the right to peacefully live on their centuries old homesteads, just as no-one else should deny that same right to ethnic Serbs.