Sjeverin Massacre
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The Sjeverin massacre was the
massacre A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
on 22 October 1992 of 16
Bosniak The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
citizens of Serbia from the village of Sjeverin who had been abducted from a bus in the village of Mioče, in Bosnia. The abductees were taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel in
Višegrad Višegrad ( sr-cyrl, Вишеград, ) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It rests at the confluence of the Drina and the Rzav (Drina), Rzav river. As of 2013, the municipality has a population of 10,668 in ...
where they were tortured before being taken to the
Drina River The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long river in the Balkans, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Al ...
and executed. Members of a Serbian paramilitary unit commanded by Milan Lukić were convicted of the crime in 2002.


Background

On the morning of 22 October 1992, a bus traveling from Rudo, Bosnia, to Priboj in the Sandžak area of Serbia, was stopped in the Bosnian village of Mioče by four members of the Osvetnici (Avengers) paramilitary unit under the command of Milan Lukić. The other members of the group were Oliver Krsmanović, Dragutin Dragicević, and Đorđe Sević. 16 Bosniak passengers from Sjeverin - 15 men and one woman, all Yugoslavian and Serbian citizens - were taken off the bus and forced onto a truck. They were taken to
Višegrad Višegrad ( sr-cyrl, Вишеград, ) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It rests at the confluence of the Drina and the Rzav (Drina), Rzav river. As of 2013, the municipality has a population of 10,668 in ...
, in eastern Bosnia, which was under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army. Along the way, the prisoners were forced to sing Serbian nationalist songs. The truck stopped at the Vilina Vlas hotel in Višegrad. The hostages were severely beaten and tortured inside the hotel and then taken to the edge of the
Drina River The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long river in the Balkans, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Al ...
where they were executed. The victims were Mehmed Šebo, Zafer Hadžić, Medo Hadžić, Medredin Hodžić, Ramiz Begović, Derviš Softić, Medhad Softić, Mujo Alihodžić, Alija Mandal, Sead Pecikoza, Mustafa Bajramović, Hajrudin Sajtarević, Esad Džihić, Ramahudin Ćatović, Idriz Gibović and Mevlida Koldžić. Their bodies have yet to be found.


Investigation

The investigative documentary ''Abduction'' (, director: Ivan Markov), produced by Veran Matić for TV B92 in 2002, reported the failure of the Yugoslav Federal and Serbian Governments to investigate the crime, determine the fate of the abductees and protect the other terrified inhabitants of Sjeverin. Yugoslav Federal Minister for Human and Minority Rights Momčilo Grubač visited the area two days after the abduction. The local member of the Federal Parliament Zoran Ćirković called on Grubač to protest urgently to
Radovan Karadžić Radovan Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Радован Караџић, ; born 19 June 1945) is a Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal ...
and demand the perpetrators' extradition. Ćirković, a Serb, has emphasised that the abductees were ordinary citizens, not soldiers or extremists or mujaheddin or members of Bosnian Green Beret units, just local residents. Ratko Mladić, Defense Minister of the
Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, ; also referred to as the Republic of Srpska or Serb Republic) is one of the two Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other bein ...
, was also present. He said that he knew nothing about the abduction, had come to see what was going on and say that the Army of Republika Srpska had nothing to do with it and would do everything in his power to help locate the abductees. Locals were subjected to further intimidation by Milan Lukić. Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...
refused to receive the missing persons' relatives while a special government committee set up by Yugoslav President Dobrica Ćosić came up with no further results. The remaining Bosniak inhabitants of Sjeverin fled to Priboj. Four days after the abduction, when Serbian police stopped Milan Lukić driving through Sjeverin, Lukić produced a forged ID and driver's licence, issued by the Višegrad police. In the car the police found weapons and ammunition. Lukić and Dragicević were charged with illegal possession of weapons and forging personal documents. After a visit to the area by Radmilo Bogdanović, president of the Defense and Security Committee of the Yugoslav Parliament's Chamber of Citizens, an influential figure in Serbian police circles, Lukić and Dragicević were released from custody on grounds that lacked transparency. Milan Lukić was arrested by the Serbian police two more times, in 1993, on suspicion of having murdered a resident of Višegrad on the Serbian territory, and in 1994, when he was suspected of being the commander of the group that abducted several passengers from a train in Štrpci. Each time the investigation was stopped and Lukić was released.


Prosecution

On 23 October 2002, after the fall of Milošević, the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Belgrade issued indictments against Milan Lukić, Dragutin Dragicević, Oliver Krsmanović, Djordje Sević and five other persons. Witness protection proved problematic in the trial. On 29 September 2003 Dragutin Dragićević, Oliver Krsmanović and Milan Lukić were found guilty of the torture and murder of the abductees and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment (the latter two in absentia) while Đorđe Šević was sentenced to 15 years. These convictions were the first following the appointment of a special war crimes prosecutor by the Serbian parliament. One explanation suggested for the abduction is that the abductees were kidnapped in order to be exchanged for 28 Serb soldiers and civilians that were captured days earlier by the Bosnian Army. After the exchange was refused, the abductees were murdered. Another is that the aim was to intimidate the Bosniaks in Sandžak as part of a plan to carry out ethnic cleansing of the frontier area bordering Republika Srpska.


Recent developments

On 22 October 2008, the 16th anniversary of the kidnappings and murders, Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Belgrade called on the Serbian government to investigate and identify the location where the remains of the 16 murder Bosniaks are hidden. HLC noted that "Serbia does not participate in marking the day the Bosniaks from Sjeverin were killed, nor is it ready to give the families of the victims financial compensation for their suffering". On 2 April 2009 the First Municipal Court in Belgrade rejected a lawsuit filed by HLC against the Republic of Serbia on behalf of 25 family members of the victims seeking compensation. Even though the victims were citizens of Serbia, Serbian legislation on state reparations for family members of civilian victims of war denies their families any material support because the state does not consider the victims' family members to be victims of war (unlike other citizens of Serbia who lost close family members during the war). On 20 July 2009 Milan Lukić was found guilty by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...
(ICTY) of the commission of crimes against humanity and violations of war customs in the Višegrad municipality of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from May 1992 to October 1994. Lukić's crimes were described as among the most grave brought before the Tribunal and he is only the second individual sentenced by it to life imprisonment. The ICTY Trial Chamber observed that two of the crimes of which he was found guilty, the Pionirska street fire and the Bikavac fire, "exemplify the worst acts of inhumanity that a person may inflict upon others" and they "must rank high" in the "all too long, sad and wretched history of man's inhumanity to man". It continues to be questioned whether Lukić's unit were acting as paramilitaries or were in fact part of the Republika Srpska Army's Višegrad Brigade. Oliver Krsmanović, one of Milan Lukić's accomplices found guilty by the Belgrade District Court livede as a fugitive from justice for years until his arrest was reported in May 2011.Report of Krsmanović's arrest in Višegrad Genocide Memories blog, 31 May 2011
accessed 16 June 2011
The bodies of the victims have yet to be found.


Contemporary significance

The Sjeverin massacre remains a live issue in Serbia. The Serbian state's failure in the post-Milosevic era to resolve the human rights issues associated with the massacre is seen as emblematic of the problematic status of national minorities in Serbia. In its report on the 2007 elections "Report on Status of National Minorities in Parliamentary Election Campaign 2007" Youth Initiative for Human Rights, an internationally respected human rights organisation, notes that the status of national minorities in Serbia has been determined "by the crimes and atmosphere of fear, which governed the country in the 1990s". During the Milosevic era grave crimes were committed against minority communities not just in neighboring countries but also in Serbia itself. The most serious were committed in Sandžak, against members of the Bosniak minority, in Vojvodina, against the Croats, and in southern Serbia, against Albanians. During the 1990s the Serbian authorities and various armed groups killed, persecuted and tortured the Bosniaks from Sandžak and one of the consequences has been a drastic decrease of the number of Bosniaks in Sandžak. The report identifies the Sjeverin massacre as one of the most serious of the crimes committed in Sandžak, referring to publications by the Humanitarian Law Center, the Sandžak Human Rights Committee and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights for further information. It goes on to say that "Not a single mass crime committed in Serbia in the 1990s has been fully investigated, nor have the persons responsible for them been prosecuted and appropriately punished. Court proceedings have been completed in the case of Sjeverin, where four perpetrators have been pronounced guilty and given long prison sentences. However, Serbia has done nothing to help the victims and their families, or to acknowledge the state responsibility for the actions of top state officials in the past. This is largely conducive to minorities' mistrust and lack of confidence in the Serbian state." Later on in the report Goran Miletic of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights identifies the second most important issue affecting minorities (after inadequate minority rights legislation) is "dealing with the past, or short – justice". He observes " Imagine that you belong to any of the national minorities in Serbia. Imagine yourself as Bosniak and remember only the weapon-search raids throughout Sanjak. Remember Sjeverin, remember everything that happened there. ..These were serious violations of human rights. ..The perpetrators have not been punished yet. Instead, they remain in police forces and still walk by the same people in Pazar, Tutin, Sjenica, and so on. I saw it myself."


See also

*
List of massacres in Bosnia and Herzegovina The following is a list of massacres that occurred during the Bosnian War. Incidents References Sources

* * * {{Europe topic , List of massacres in Lists of massacres by country, Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina history- ...
* List of massacres of Bosniaks *
Bosnian genocide The Bosnian genocide () took place during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 and included both the Srebrenica massacre and the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War, ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated throughout ar ...


References

{{Bosnian War Massacres in 1992 Massacres in the Bosnian War Massacres of Bosniaks 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbian war crimes in the Bosnian War October 1992 in Europe History of Sandžak