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Members of the 5th Corps of the Army BiH killed 286 Serbian civilians between the towns of Glina and Dvor na Uni: The evidence came from statements from UN Monitors, as well as the war diary of a HV General which was filed away in the SIS archives

Nacional has learned from well-informed military sources that during the military action Operation Storm, the 5th Corps of Army BiH killed 286 Serbian civilians in the villages of Zirovac, Cavlovici and Ostojici, between the towns of Glina and Dvor na Uni. The report published by the Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) on July 1 of this year confirms these claims: witnesses claim that the civilian victims in Zirovac were brutally slaughtered.

To date, no one has attempted to bring to light the participation of the 5th Corps, with their commander Atif Dudakovic, in Operation Storm. The silence regarding their role both during and after Operation Storm was the result of a pledge in order to stabilize relations between Croatian and Bosnia Herzegovina. In addition, the partnership with Army BiH in that operation was of strategic importance: they guarded the line marked by the River Una in order to deblockade the so-called Bihac pocket, in order to protect Croatia from being cut into two isolated pieces. In short, no one publicly called upon the Bosnians, the greatest victims of the war, for their brutality and torture of civilians, and for the violations of war conventions.

This issue was touched upon by Mate Granic, former Foreign Minister, and by Pavao Miljavac, former Defense Minister and organizer of Operation Storm during the war, at a seemingly typical political gathering of Democratic Center in Vir.

Sector North

In speaking of the importance of prosecuting war crimes for the political future of both Croatia and BiH, regardless of who committed them, they informed the public that the ICTY was interested in the investigation into the fates of the Serbian civilians who had disappeared in Sector North, near Dvor na Uni. They did not specify who had done what, rather they only warned about the information which had been kept from the public: that a certain number of Serbian civilians had died in the territory where the 5th Corps had been active.

Intense reactions followed from the Bosnia Herzegovina military leadership. The political officials kept quiet about the accusations. Those well acquainted with the political situation in BiH claim that on the brink of the autumn elections, that the Democratic Action Party (SDA) did not wish to discredit the support of the 5th Corps. However, the Bosnian military ranks, led by Atif Dudakovic, reacted harshly to the accusations. Dudakovic, who was formerly the commander of the 5th Corps and today is the commander of the Military Chief of Staff for the Federation Army, is connected to the unexplained disappearance of HVO General Vlado Santic in the Bihac area. Furthermore, in the early 1990’s he was also accused of participating in the attacks on Zadar as a JNA officer.

Dudakovic called the message from the DC meeting construed accusations, whose aim is to transfer the responsibility from those who are truly responsible for all that which occurred during Operation Storm. He stated that Granic was lying, and called upon him to submit any evidence he might have to the Hague Tribunal. In an official statement by the Federation Defense Ministry, he pulls on the thesis which the HDZ government used for years in defying cooperation with the ICTY: that these false allegations minimize the war effort of Army BiH. Dudakovic declined to comment for Nacional’s journalists.

Ten days later Granic and Miljavac tried to tone down their statements that the HV Chief of Staff should publish document related to those crimes by claiming that they had no intentions to accuse anyone for the crime. They stated that instead had only intended to warn of a well known fact: that the Serbian refugees had met with misfortune during their withdrawal on territory where the 5th Corps was active, and that UNPROFOR reports on this issue exists. The result was an inundation by the media in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Based on these leads, Nacional attempted to reconstruct the role of the 5th Corps of Army BiH in Operation Storm. It is no secret that the 5th Corps was to provide significant military support to the Croatian Army. Military analysts warn that Army BiH also deserves credit for the success of Operation Storm. Army BiH provided the military support for the liberation of the occupied areas, for they engaged significant Serbian forces, thereby isolating the battlefields in so-called Krajina. It is well-known that the cooperation between HV and the 5th Corps did not stop even during the Croat-Muslim conflict, that HV provided them with arms and food via the Bihac airport, and transported their soldiers to the Bihac region.

It is well known that Atif Dudakovic ordered strict rationalization within the 5th Corps units on the brink of Operation Storm: not a single soldier was permitted to fire more than seven bullets daily. In addition, the critical situation within the 5th Corps in the Bihac region was further reason for the Croats to decide on military action. The operative plan for the liberation was based on the simultaneous penetration of several enemy defense lines and then to later surround and cut off the strongest enemy stronghold…

The majority of Croatian generals, who had directly planned and commanded the liberation of the occupied areas of Croatia, so-called Krajina, are still not in the right mood to talk about Dudakovic’s role. Nacional, however, has learned the relevant details of the role of the 5th Corps from unofficial sources close to the military leadership.

In order to understand his role, Nacional’s source said that it was worthwhile recalling the geopolitical situation of Sector North at the time, where, according to the HHO report, the Serbian civilians met their tragic deaths.

UN Report

The operative plan included three directions of attack: the first at the north towards Kostajnici and Dubici, the second from Petrinja to Glina, and the third from Ogulin to Saborsko, then on to the Bosnia Herzegovina border.

Already on the second day of Operation Storm, HV had succeeded in cutting off the area of Serb rebels. In the area of Korenica, in then Serb offices, HV seized their complete files and documentation, among which was also the plan for pulling out the Serbian population in case of a HV attack.

In accordance with this, the members of the of then chief of staff in the field decided to direct the action towards several critical places, near Kapela, behind Ogulin and towards Rokovici, in order to move quickly cut off the Serbian army. In Operation Storm, the 5th Corps practically switched from defensive position to attack when they entered the region near Rakovica, which accelerated the withdrawal of Serbian troops and civilians from the former Sector North. Withdrawal via the so-called Bihac pocket was no longer an option. On the other hand, the 5th Corps had been blocked in a counteroffensive in the region of the self-proclaimed Western Bosnia under Fikret Abdic. The only free corridor remained though Vojnici, Vrginmost, Topusko and Glina towards Dvor na Uni.

Nacional’s source claim that on the third day of the operation, in the village Zirovac, between Glina and Dvor na Uni, a convoy of civilians, soldiers and a portion of their armed divisions met up with the members of the 5th Corps, or some other armed Muslim groups. He claims that it was theoretically impossible that HV be present in the wider region surrounding Dvor na Uni at the time when the refugee convoy was hardest hit, because at that time HV was fighting the battle for Petrinja.

On day three of Operation Storm, as we learned from the same source, a communication arrived in the early afternoon hours at the headquarters, from UN military observers, concerning events which are out of military control near Dvor na Uni. They suggested that the Croatian side, if possible, get in contact with General Atif Dudakovic and ask him to get control over his troops or paramilitary formations in that area, because things which have no connection with combat nor with the military are happening there. Then military observers, supposedly, made no mention of a large massacre. Headquarters contacted Dudakovic via satellite, and the results were encouraging. Three hours after the conversation, they received a communication that the troops which had lost control had been withdrawn. Only after the fact did they learn that the place at issue was Zirovac, not far from Dvor na Uni, which takes up a great deal of space in the HHO report due to the large number of killed, missing and abused civilians there.

War Diary

After the retaliation on civilians was stopped, chaos continued to rule in Zirovac. The main road was obstructed by tractors and cars. Serb tanks also penetrated into this chaos on their retreats from Kordun and Banija. Witnesses claim that these were modern, high quality tanks in which the members of the Serbian forces were pulling out of Croatia, by order of Belgrade. Some of the civilians on that road were run over, for the tanks did not stop in their retreat.

This was a convoy of people fleeing towards the BiH border, and the international community has suspected HV for shooting at these people from airplanes. Nacional’s source stated the following to that suspicion:

It is a fact that we confirmed the presence of the convoy fleeing towards the border with pilotless aircraft, it is a fact that we flew MiGs and that the pilots sought permission to fire on the convoy. However, considering that civilians were among those in the convoy, and we do not have such sophisticated equipment to hit such isolated targets, we can only hit regions, permission was not granted to use the MiGs. The pilots complained to General Imra Agotic that those same tanks would tomorrow be firing upon their planes. Nonetheless, the attack was not permitted. We attacked the tanks later, after they passed Bosanski Novi, they were parked one next to another, very close. However, after two strikes, NATO warned us to stop, or they would attack us if we didn’t.

The same source claims that the communications with the UN monitors and the conversation with Dudakovic are recorded in the war diary of a HV general. The diary was later filed in the SIS archives, and could be used as irrefutable evidence for the involvement of the 5th Corps in crimes committed during Operation Storm. Allegedly, in that same diary is information concerning seven mentally handicapped people from a center in Dvor na Uni, who were killed in unexplained circumstances.

Ambassador Salaj

Their fate would have passed by undetected had Branko Salaj, at that time Ambassador in The Hague, not received a letter of protest which attributed the death of the handicapped individuals to HV. At that time, an internal investigation was conducted, in which they uncovered the report by a Danish battalion on the case. This report contained a detailed list of the victim’s names, but not their nationalities, and the crime was attributed to the Serbs.

One of the primary coordinators for Operation Storm explained to Nacional the agreement that Croatia had with Army BiH before Operation Storm.

There was a principle agreement that at the moment that HV crossed the first enemy line, that Army BiH would increase pressure from their side. In this way, the Serbs were cut off, and they found themselves between the Croatian military and Army BiH.

In addition, the exhaustion of the 5th Corps of Army BiH accelerated the final decision for the military operation. It was estimated that the 5th Corps no longer had the strength to hold out. They had already begun to split into groups, which in military terms is a serious sign that a unit is facing breakdown. The Croatian military leadership applied the following logic: if the Muslim enclave disappears, Serbia will be ten and a half kilometers from the Croatian border, and Croatia would lose its connection between its southern and its northern parts. President Franjo Tudjman was well aware of this danger, and he immediately decided on action. Operation Storm was supposed to start on Tuesday, however it was postponed due to negotiation talks with the Serbs. They decided to wait and see whether the Serbs would recognize Croatia, turn themselves in and hand over their weapons. The Serbs refused on Thursday, and Operation Storm began on Friday.

The claims that HV entered into Zirovac, where the greatest number of Serbs were killed, only at the end of the military operation was confirmed by a statement made by a Croatian general at the time. General Zvonimir Cermak gave an interview for Vecernji List on August 10, 1995, in which he spoke if the problems of neglecting civilians: HV still has not fully regained control over communications between Glina-Dvor and Kostajnica-Dvor. The communications from Zirovac to Dvor, the Serbs have blocked with civil vehicles, tractors and civilians…

Controversy Surrounding HV

There are controversial statements concerning the arrival of HV. Some witnesses confirmed the HHO activists statements that Zirovac was already attacked by members of HV on August 7, who approached the convoy because those in uniform had Serbian military badges.

Zirovac received much attention in the HHO report, which also refutes the claims of innocence of the 5th Corps under the command of Atif Dudakovic. The report, consisting of 150 pages, describes the tragic fates of Serbian civilians, who did not die in typical military attacks during Operation Storm, but rather were brutally tortured and killed. A part of this crime is directly attributed to members of the 5th Corps of Army BiH, in addition to members of HV, and in some cases, members of the Serbian military.

The report concerning the village near Dvor states that members of the 5th Corps entered, and committed serious murders on the remaining population, the majority of which had their throats slit. Those who managed to survive returned home after their stay in the collection camps, to an abandoned and looted village.

Although the reports by the offices of the former UN Sector North recorded a large number of victims, who did not leave their homes, they reported that the refugees who fled and were in the convoys were subject to various attacks: from airplane shelling, tank grenades, firing and stone throwing. In several cases, they recorded that the men were taken away from the convoy in which they were travelling with their families, and all traces of them were lost. Due to the battles being fought between the opposing sides, the refugee convoy found itself in several cases in the crossfire, and in such they recorded the greatest number of those killed, as well as those wounded. A portion of the responsibility can certainly be attributed to the 5th Corps of Army BiH, as well as to the Serbian Generals themselves, whose tanks should have given way to the refugee convoy, states the report.

A witness from Plasko, gave this account of his escape when the convoy was cut off on August 7 in the region of Zirovac:

I was in the convoy which was stopped at Zirovac, on the way to Dvor na Uni. Soldiers and tanks began to fire on the convoy. People began to run, and those which couldn’t get away were killed. The tanks drove over the dead bodies. There were many dead there, there were old men 80 years old. There, Bosko Klipa and Jovo Grkovic were killed, shot in the chest, both civilians. They forced one man to walk uphill towards the tank. When he began walking, the soldier riddled him with bullets. The Muslim army was on the hill, and the Croatian army on the road. Their badges said Thunder.

Murdered Civilians

Due to the frequent air and artillery attacks, they changed their direction, and the refugees hid in the forest, in order to reach their destination by way of a different route. Refugees from Vojnici and Vrginmost headed in the direction Topusko-Glina-Zirovac-Dvor, intending to find refuge in BiH. That is the convoy which suffered the heaviest attacks on their travels from Topusko-Dvor, especially in the villages of Glina, Maja, Zirovac and Trgovi. On that journey, they suffered many losses, and the victims were primarily from Karlovac, Slunj, Vojnici and Vrginmost.

The second convoy headed from Topusko-Glina-Petrinja-Sisak, and from there they headed towards Serbia via Lipovac on the main highway. The convoy was stoned in Sisak, and a large number of the refugees were seriously injured.

The third convoy headed from Slunj-Cetingrab-Banja Luka. The refugees, primarily from Plasko and Slunj, found themselves the targets of aircraft attacks, although there was a much smaller number of victims than at Zirovac, as the HHO report states.

A refugee from Vojnici, who began her journey on August 6, 1995 at about 2 p.m. and headed in the direction of Glina gave the following account:

We reached Zirovac, where we stopped for 24 hours. There we couldn’t go forward or backward. In front of us, the convoy was attacked from the right side. That was the Muslim component, they shot at us. Panic started, people began to run and hide themselves. There were dead on the road and to the sides. I saw twenty dead bodies.

In the chapter List of killed and missing civilians, the HHO report states that the majority of the population in the Dvor district after Operation Storm had either been killed or were missing. The report listed the names of killed Serbian civilians, and reported statements by witnesses that these had been killed by members of the 5th Corps of Army BiH. These were mainly elderly people, who had remained in their homes, and the report states that the members of the 5th Corps had slit their throats.