Smoking cows in Croatia: Families of 600 people waiting 20 years for justice

Three men arrested in Croatia for crimes against Serbs

Boris Vuković | 21. 06. 2011. http://english.blic.rs/In-Focus/7765/Families-of-600-people-waiting-20-years-for-justice

 

‘Do you know that Serbian cows smoke? Yes, they do, they smoke and while smoking they doze off and that is why Serbian stables are in fire’ – this is a favorite joke that Djuro Brodarac, war police chief-of-staff of the Town of Sisak, Croatia used to tell in the 90s. Yesterday, he, as well as Vladimir Milankovic and Drago Bosnjak were arrested as per indictment for war crimes and murder of 611 Serbian civilians in Sisak in 1991 and 1992.

After more than twenty years of investigation, dismissal of prosecutor because obstruction of justice, political pressures on Croatian Attorney General and frightening of witnesses, Djuro Brodarac (67), his deputy Vladimir Milankovic (49) and member of police reserve unit Drago Bosnjak (53) were arrested yesterday over war crimes and killing of Serbian civilians in Sisak and the neighboring places.
 
The District Prosecutor Stipe Vrdoljak pointed out at the beginning of the last year that facts regarding war events in Sisak were under investigation as per decision by the Attorney General Mladen Bajic. He also said that the case had been transferred to Osijek because he ‘was not satisfied with the so far work’.


During investigation Croatian public believed that there were strong political pressures that killings in the area of Sisak are minimized and that witnesses were exposed to threats so that ‘dark secrets of the Handzar division’ – a special police unit led by Brodarac and Marinkovic are kept secret.

‘In September there shall be 20 years since my 19-year old daughter Ljubica was killed. I think that the arrested individuals are not the only ones to face the justice. The man who was chief of the crisis HQ in Sisak and his associates should be arrested. Such crime could not have happened without knowledge of those people. Brodarac knows who the people responsible for those horrible crimes are’, Vjera Solar says for ‘Blic’. She lives in Sisak.

It is interesting that in 2005 Brodarac was Ivo Sanader’s advisor in Croatian Government.

According to the indictment, members of Croatian police special unit were taking Serbian civilians from their homes and killing them at military objects. Their dead bodies were then thrown into the Sava River. Some Serbs tied with wire were thrown into the river live. Some were killed at their homes or in their years or taken to improvised concentration camps. Some were tortured and then killed.