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Crimes in Silos Remain Subject of DisputeHadzici, Bratunac 01 June 2009 By Aida Alic
Tarčin
No one denies hundred of civilians were held in the building in Tarcin from 1992 to 1996. But whether they were well treated, or used as human shields and even killed, remains controversial.
Former detainees in the Silos building in Tarcin, near Sarajevo, say although grave crimes were committed against them, no one has yet been brought to justice.
Several hundred Serbian and Croatian civilians and some members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were held in the building from 1992 to 1996.
According to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, UNHCR, detainees in Tarcin were used, among other things, as “human shields”.
Vinko Lale, of the Association of Detainees of Republika Srpska from Bratunac, recalls Silos as “the central detention camp for that area.
“All those who committed the crime against Serbian civilians from Hadzici municipality are at liberty,” he complained.
In 1998, the Republika Srpska interior ministry, MUP, filed a criminal report with the County Public Prosecution in Bijeljina accusing 47 people of having taken part in war crimes in Silos.
In 2005, the MUP filed a new report with the County Prosecution of Eastern Sarajevo on the same issue, this time mentioning 48 names.
“This case was referred to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which marked it as a highly sensitive case,” says Simo Tusevljak of the Republika Srpska MUP. “The Prosecution is currently conducting an investigation.”
The 2005 report said prisoners were held in Silos and at another site, the Krupanjska rijeka “detention” camp, “without indictments being filed, trials being conducted or any other evidence being kept on their detention”.
The report claimed that 39 detainees died, were killed or disappeared over the years owing to “inhumane treatment, torture and starvation”.
According to Lale, some of those were killed in Hrasnica and Stup in Sarajevo while performing forced labour.
“Many had been arrested by the Territorial Defence[of BiH] and reserve police forces and brought to the detention camp,” Lale recalled.
Lale said conditions in the silo up to November 1992, when the International Red Cross Committee, ICRC, visited, were appalling.
“In the beginning the conditions were awful, because there was no food,” says Lale, who was detained there from July 1992 to October 1993.
“We would get one slice of bread per day. This lasted for two, or two-and-a-half, months.”
Lale said conditions improved after the Red Cross visited. After that, “we used to receive lunch packages, cigarettes and so on.”
Women were also held at the camp – some for several years. Radojka Pandurevic was held in the building for the entire four years.
In March 2009, she appeared before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina testifying in defence of Rade Veselinovic, who is charged with crimes against the non-Serbian population from the Hadzici area in 1992.
During her testimony she said she had been brought to Silos together with other residents of Gornja Rastelica, adding that “active policemen” from Hadzici took part in their arrest.
Prison or detention camp?
The wartime presidency of Pazaric turned the former silo in Tarcin into a de facto prison in May 1992. According to unofficial records, over four years, between 400 and 600 people were held there at some stage.
The reasons for their detention were listed in a report prepared by the Public Safety Station in Hadzici.
Of the total, 124 were held for “associating for the purpose of fighting the enemy” and 259 for “unlawful possession of weapons or explosives”.
“All those held in the prison were processed,” says a former member of the Public Safety Station in Hadzici. “The Interior Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina had received criminal reports against those people,” he added.
None of the detainees was treated with brutality, he continued. “Our work was creditable… We did not harm any people in the prison.”
Former members of the Police Station and soldiers of the Ninth Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian Army, with whom Justice Report spoke, also claimed that all those detained in Silos were held for justified reasons – usually because they were armed.
“Nobody was detained in Silos because somebody hated him for his ethnic affiliation but because they were all fully armed,” a former officer with the Ninth Mountain Brigade whose name is known to Justice Report, said.
“The fact that our soldiers were also detained there shows what the conditions were like in the silo,” the same ex-officer said.
“There are no secrets about ‘Silos’. From current perspectives, the conditions did not match normal living conditions, but at that time the conditions in the prison did not differ much from the way in which people lived in that area,” he added.
“There were no contagious diseases in the prison, or mistreatment, inhumane or incorrect treatment of prisoners because our staff members were professionals, who had done the same type of work before,” he continued.
Mustafa Dzelilovic, former mayor of Hadzici, who testified at the trial for crimes committed against Serbs in Celebici before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in June 1998, also spoke about Silos.
He said trials of detainees began in 1994, adding that the Ninth Mountain Brigade took over responsibility for the silo from the police, because “prisoners of war” were detained in it.
“The trials were conducted in a professional manner because the local judiciary did a quality job at the time,” one of the former member of the 9. Mountain Brigade said.
Turning to the accusations about forced labour, a former member of the Army said he did not deny that prisoners were taken to other locations in Hadzici area to work.
But he claimed the detainees “volunteered” to perform this labour, adding that they were never taken to the frontlines.
“In time of need, prisoners were sometimes used for digging trenches for future positions, cutting firewood, and planting vegetables,” the ex-soldier said.
“Naturally they performed some labour but they were not forced to do it. From the end of 1992 until their exchange, no men were mistreated there,” the former soldier stated.
‘Human Shields’ and Exchanges:
Nevertheless, due to a suspicion that crimes had taken place in Silos, the UN International Police Task Force, IPTF dismissed some members of the police in 2001 and 2002 on the basis of statements given by former detainees.
Moreover Mazowieci’s report of August 1995 alleged that the rights of prisoners, under the Geneva Conventions, were “not respected” in the Tarcin silo.
It noted that the Special Rapporteur had called on the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina to release all those detained in “the detention camp in Tarcin”.
In an earlier report, dated February 1993, Mazowiecki alleged that during a November 1992 visit to “the prisons in Tarcin, which were controlled by the government”, they established that heating was inadequate and an insufficient number of blankets was provided for the detainees.
In a report of November 1993 Mazowiecki alleged that detainees at Silos and other registered detention centres were being held for the purposes of exchange for Muslims, were prisoners of war, or were being used as a work force near the frontlines “or as ‘human shields’ during the course of attacks conducted by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
The same report said a former Interior Minister had “admitted” to the Special Rapporteur in August 1993 that civilians were being detained for the purposes of exchanges.
The former Bosnian Army member who spoke to Justice Report admitted this was correct. “Many of them were soon exchanged. This was mainly done through the exchange commissions,” he said.
Lale was among those who left Silos after an organized exchange of people in October 1993. Radojka Pandurevic left the silo three years later.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Section of the Association of Detainees of Republika Srpska has started an unofficial initiative to have Silos declared a monument to Serbian victims of the war. The campaign began in April 2008. However, the idea has still not been realized.
Aida Alic is a BIRN – Justice Report journalist. Aida@birn.eu.com. Justice Report is an online weekly publication of BIRN. www.bim.ba
Tarčin
No one denies hundred of civilians were held in the building in Tarcin from 1992 to 1996. But whether they were well treated, or used as human shields and even killed, remains controversial.
Former detainees in the Silos building in Tarcin, near Sarajevo, say although grave crimes were committed against them, no one has yet been brought to justice.
Several hundred Serbian and Croatian civilians and some members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were held in the building from 1992 to 1996.
According to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, UNHCR, detainees in Tarcin were used, among other things, as “human shields”.
Vinko Lale, of the Association of Detainees of Republika Srpska from Bratunac, recalls Silos as “the central detention camp for that area.
“All those who committed the crime against Serbian civilians from Hadzici municipality are at liberty,” he complained.
In 1998, the Republika Srpska interior ministry, MUP, filed a criminal report with the County Public Prosecution in Bijeljina accusing 47 people of having taken part in war crimes in Silos.
In 2005, the MUP filed a new report with the County Prosecution of Eastern Sarajevo on the same issue, this time mentioning 48 names.
“This case was referred to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which marked it as a highly sensitive case,” says Simo Tusevljak of the Republika Srpska MUP. “The Prosecution is currently conducting an investigation.”
The 2005 report said prisoners were held in Silos and at another site, the Krupanjska rijeka “detention” camp, “without indictments being filed, trials being conducted or any other evidence being kept on their detention”.
The report claimed that 39 detainees died, were killed or disappeared over the years owing to “inhumane treatment, torture and starvation”.
According to Lale, some of those were killed in Hrasnica and Stup in Sarajevo while performing forced labour.
“Many had been arrested by the Territorial Defence[of BiH] and reserve police forces and brought to the detention camp,” Lale recalled.
Lale said conditions in the silo up to November 1992, when the International Red Cross Committee, ICRC, visited, were appalling.
“In the beginning the conditions were awful, because there was no food,” says Lale, who was detained there from July 1992 to October 1993.
“We would get one slice of bread per day. This lasted for two, or two-and-a-half, months.”
Lale said conditions improved after the Red Cross visited. After that, “we used to receive lunch packages, cigarettes and so on.”
Women were also held at the camp – some for several years. Radojka Pandurevic was held in the building for the entire four years.
In March 2009, she appeared before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina testifying in defence of Rade Veselinovic, who is charged with crimes against the non-Serbian population from the Hadzici area in 1992.
During her testimony she said she had been brought to Silos together with other residents of Gornja Rastelica, adding that “active policemen” from Hadzici took part in their arrest.
Prison or detention camp?
The wartime presidency of Pazaric turned the former silo in Tarcin into a de facto prison in May 1992. According to unofficial records, over four years, between 400 and 600 people were held there at some stage.
The reasons for their detention were listed in a report prepared by the Public Safety Station in Hadzici.
Of the total, 124 were held for “associating for the purpose of fighting the enemy” and 259 for “unlawful possession of weapons or explosives”.
“All those held in the prison were processed,” says a former member of the Public Safety Station in Hadzici. “The Interior Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina had received criminal reports against those people,” he added.
None of the detainees was treated with brutality, he continued. “Our work was creditable… We did not harm any people in the prison.”
Former members of the Police Station and soldiers of the Ninth Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian Army, with whom Justice Report spoke, also claimed that all those detained in Silos were held for justified reasons – usually because they were armed.
“Nobody was detained in Silos because somebody hated him for his ethnic affiliation but because they were all fully armed,” a former officer with the Ninth Mountain Brigade whose name is known to Justice Report, said.
“The fact that our soldiers were also detained there shows what the conditions were like in the silo,” the same ex-officer said.
“There are no secrets about ‘Silos’. From current perspectives, the conditions did not match normal living conditions, but at that time the conditions in the prison did not differ much from the way in which people lived in that area,” he added.
“There were no contagious diseases in the prison, or mistreatment, inhumane or incorrect treatment of prisoners because our staff members were professionals, who had done the same type of work before,” he continued.
Mustafa Dzelilovic, former mayor of Hadzici, who testified at the trial for crimes committed against Serbs in Celebici before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in June 1998, also spoke about Silos.
He said trials of detainees began in 1994, adding that the Ninth Mountain Brigade took over responsibility for the silo from the police, because “prisoners of war” were detained in it.
“The trials were conducted in a professional manner because the local judiciary did a quality job at the time,” one of the former member of the 9. Mountain Brigade said.
Turning to the accusations about forced labour, a former member of the Army said he did not deny that prisoners were taken to other locations in Hadzici area to work.
But he claimed the detainees “volunteered” to perform this labour, adding that they were never taken to the frontlines.
“In time of need, prisoners were sometimes used for digging trenches for future positions, cutting firewood, and planting vegetables,” the ex-soldier said.
“Naturally they performed some labour but they were not forced to do it. From the end of 1992 until their exchange, no men were mistreated there,” the former soldier stated.
‘Human Shields’ and Exchanges:
Nevertheless, due to a suspicion that crimes had taken place in Silos, the UN International Police Task Force, IPTF dismissed some members of the police in 2001 and 2002 on the basis of statements given by former detainees.
Moreover Mazowieci’s report of August 1995 alleged that the rights of prisoners, under the Geneva Conventions, were “not respected” in the Tarcin silo.
It noted that the Special Rapporteur had called on the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina to release all those detained in “the detention camp in Tarcin”.
In an earlier report, dated February 1993, Mazowiecki alleged that during a November 1992 visit to “the prisons in Tarcin, which were controlled by the government”, they established that heating was inadequate and an insufficient number of blankets was provided for the detainees.
In a report of November 1993 Mazowiecki alleged that detainees at Silos and other registered detention centres were being held for the purposes of exchange for Muslims, were prisoners of war, or were being used as a work force near the frontlines “or as ‘human shields’ during the course of attacks conducted by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
The same report said a former Interior Minister had “admitted” to the Special Rapporteur in August 1993 that civilians were being detained for the purposes of exchanges.
The former Bosnian Army member who spoke to Justice Report admitted this was correct. “Many of them were soon exchanged. This was mainly done through the exchange commissions,” he said.
Lale was among those who left Silos after an organized exchange of people in October 1993. Radojka Pandurevic left the silo three years later.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Section of the Association of Detainees of Republika Srpska has started an unofficial initiative to have Silos declared a monument to Serbian victims of the war. The campaign began in April 2008. However, the idea has still not been realized.
Aida Alic is a BIRN – Justice Report journalist. Aida@birn.eu.com. Justice Report is an online weekly publication of BIRN. www.bim.ba
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