[ Received from Mary Mostert ('Banner of Liberty', www.bannerofliberty.com).
Some (minor) corrections are made in the text translation from Croatian
(see below), and a few comments added in brackets and marked with my
initials, 'PT'. So: comments from the translator are in *parentheses*
'(...)', whereas my comments are in *brackets* '[...]'. The comments
before and after the translated 'Feral Tribune article itself are Mary
Mostert's.
Predrag Tosic ]
********************************************************************************
To my Serb Readers.
This was sent to me by Igor, one of you on this list, in Croatian with a
brief English note that asked me to have someone translate it into English.
So, I sent it to Alex, another reader, who translates many things for me
that are in the News in Belgrade so my American readers can learn what is
happening there. This is a very valuable service. The American people
know very little of the Serb side of the story - and I'm beginning to
think that perhaps part of the problem has been that very few Americans
read Serbian and not many Serbs translate what is going on into English.
I am of the WWII generation and this made me think of the first stories I
read, after WWII when the American soldiers reached and liberated Nazi
concentration camps. The incredible horror of those camps has stayed with
me my entire life. This is a horrible story but I think it is a story
that the Western World needs to learn about.
Mary Mostert
Testimony of Croatian War Crimes in 1990s Against Serbian Civilians
[The civilians referred to in the title are ethnic Serbs in the Krajina
region of today's Croatia. ]
http://www.bannerofliberty.com/Serbs,BosniaKosovo/11-2-2006.1.html
By Miro Bajramovic
The following text is a testimony of Croatian war crimes against Serbian
civilians during the 1990s. Please be advised of reader discretion.
How Serbs were murdered at the Pakrac Field (Pakračka Poljana)
Warning: The text is a testimony of an Ustashi (Croatian Nazi) and it is in
its original (beastly) form, and may be extremely unpleasant for sensitive
persons.
http://www.srpskapolitika.com/index.html (Serbian Politics)
Translated by: Alex, Belgrade
Note by Alex: The translation is complete, the only problem appeared with
the months. The months in Croatian are totally different than in Serbian, so
the only mistake could be with the names of the months. Everything else has
been translated fully and completely, with some additional information in
the parentheses).
Miro Bajramovic, former member of the so-called Merčep Unit, openly
testifies about the crimes that he and his war comrades had committed in
Pakrac, Gospic, Zagreb, Slani...
Feral Tribune Magazine - Croatia
Sept. 1, 1997
Serbian Civilians Murdered
Gospic, November 1991My name is Miro Bajramovic and I am personally responsible for the death of
86 people. This is the fact that I got to bed with every night, and that I
awake with every morning - that is, if I can sleep at all. I have, by my own
hands, murdered 72 people, including 9 women. We (the Croats) did not make a
difference, for us they (the Serbs) were all Chetniks and enemies. It was
really difficult to burn the first house and kill the first man. After that
it all followed a pattern.
I met Tomislav Merčep in 1991 in Dalj. Since then we were in war together.
We've been through a lot together. Our Unit was called "The Rains of
Autumn", officially known as The First Zagreb Special Unit Under
Jurisdiction of the (Croatian) Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Croatian
defenders and people know very well who "The Rains of Autumn" are.
MURDERS AT GOSPIC AND SLANO
Before we departed for the Pakrac Field (Pakračka Poljana), sometime in
(September?) 1991, we were at Gospic. At Gospic, it was enough for you to be
a Serb, and for you to cease to exist. Our group killed between 90 and 110
people down there, because we stayed there for a short time, not even a
month. For (the town of) Gospic, the order was: "ethnic cleansing"; we
killed the director of the Post Office, the Hospital, restaurant owners and
various other Serbs. Murders were done by a bullet to the forehead, because
we did not have time. I repeat, from the top, there came an order to
decrease the percentage of Serbs at Gospic.
We went to Slano 4 times and murdered 13 persons, all Serbs. Out of those
13, I killed 8. My group consisted of (the following people): Sinisa Rimac,
Miroslav Brisevac, Igor Mikula and the little Gordana, whose last name I
cannot recall.
THE PAKRAC FIELD - "PROCESSING" THE PRISONERS
We arrived at the Pakračka Poljana, (translated as the Pakrac Field)
sometime in 1991, after we returned from Gospic. We held the prisoners at
the basement of the Middle School, and, in case there were more of them, we
put them in the classrooms. For them, the worst nights were those when we
"processed" them in groups, meaning that we tried to find the best way
possible to inflict as much pain as possible upon them, so that they would
admit more. You know what's the best way? You burn the prisoner - with a
flame from a bottle of gas and then you spray some vinegar on them, mostly
on the genitals and the eyes. Then there is a small inductor, an outside
telephone, and you connect the Serb to that. It's a current flowing in one
direction, it can't kill a man, but it can make an unpleasant feeling in a
man. Then you ask the connected Serb where he is from, and he says - from
Dvor Na Uni [the town of Dvor on the Una river -- PT], and then you dial
Dvor Na Uni with the telephone.
We stuck up five-wired cables, inside the prisoners' anal holes, we would
leave them there for a few hours so that they could not sit down. We
opened their wounds and placed salt or vinegar on them. Basically, we did
not allow them to stop bleeding. Also, all of them had to learn the
Croatian National Anthem "Lijepa Nasa" (free translation: "Our Beautiful
Homeland") on the same date, and the commander of the prison, Mijo Jolic,
made them sing it. He, today, just like Suljic, owns restaurants across
Croatia.
As I recall all those tortures, I wonder how they (members of the Unit)
managed to think of all that. For example, the most painful thing to do was
to stick small metal nails underneath one's fingernails. Add to that
3-phased electricity and nothing is left of a man. Ashes! Under such
tortures, people confessed to everything they knew, and to everything that
was demanded of them. In the beginning, we acted as some sort of democratic
policemen, we would give the Serbs paper on which they would write down
everything they knew, and we asked them to list as many names and locations
as possible.
Tomislav Merčep commanded at the (Pakrac) Field, and I was second in
command. Merčep knew it all. He did not participate personally in the
executions, but he read everything we wrote in our reports, even though most
of the information was spoken verbally. He knew of every murder, because he
was the commander and because he was a harismatic person to us. A few times
he told us: "Tonight, clean all that shit". That meant that the prisoners
were to be murdered. If you disobeyed the order, then you were a traitor and
we at the Pakrac Field murdered equally Croats as well as Serbs. Even the
Croats at the Field were terrified of us. The village would listen to the
cries and screams coming out from the prison, the people could not sleep,
but they did not dare say anything to us. They knew that, if they asked
questions, they could end up in prison themselves.
I once said that all those whom I have killed, have died happy, because I
would write down on a tiny piece of paper that they could pass through our
guards, and they would venture home feeling happy. Then I would take them
down with a sniper. They died with a smile.
Murdered Serbs at Sisak, May 1995
We did not classify Serbs into military and civilian; if we found a gun
hidden anywhere, to us he was a Chetnik. Serbs could barely survive, because
people don't say for nothing - where we passed, the grass did not grow back.
As far as I know, more than 50 Serbs were brought to the (Pakrac) Field from
Zagreb, and those who were close to Merčep had brought them - Rimac, Suljic,
Mikula, Hodak, myself.
How long we kept the prisoners [alive -- PT] varied. It mostly depended on
how long would it take to wear them down. Mostly, before killing them, we
would keep them between 2 and 5 days. Even if they survived, they would
not be normal people any more. Serbs who were good and loyal, were used
to dig graves, but we told them that they were digging covers (holes) for
the machineguns. One of the prisoners once said that it must have been his
15th or 16th cover (hole). We killed him on the spot, because it was not
his duty to count, but to dig.
We were very greedy at the time. The 30 of us went 50 meters in front of the
first tank, we would cleanse and murder everyone we would see. Behind us
came some who were called "Merčep's people" who looted and burned homes.
People such as Mardjeralo and Rukavina. Merčep told us to take away
everything from the Serbs, and the money that we found must be given to
the headquarters for buying arms. But, Trusic, Merčep, Rukavina also known
as The Priest and Nedeljko Posavec split the money amongst themselves. How
do I know this? A day before the killing of Pavo Mlinarica, Posavec and
Rukavina shot each other, because they did not split the money into equal
parts. Posavec was removed from the Unit, but the money was not taken from
him, and I am talking about [at least] 100,000 German Marks, or [possibly]
much more.
I could not say that, at the Pakrac Field, mass executions took place. There
were groups of 7 to 10 people. Basically, it all depended on the number of
people currently imprisoned. Sometimes we murdered people in their homes,
and then the homes would be blown up. No bodies. There were lots of such
houses, most of them in the village of Bujavica.
In those days, the mindset was as follows: kill the Serb's child, because it
[would otherwise keep] grow[ing] even at a [temperature of] minus 20
degrees Centigrade.
Back in those days, I did not feel that the Serbs were humans like us, and
that they were someone's fathers, brothers, children... No, we did not
kill children, except for Suljic, he killed Alexandra Zec. According to my
estimates, at the (Pakrac) Field, altogether about 280 people were
murdered and that [number] would include about 10 women. Except for Marina
Nuic, I remember a woman named Nada from Kusonje who was infiltrated among
us. There was also an old woman in whose house a sniper had been found.
Except for that old woman, all the other women were raped and then killed.
That is the truth.
THE MURDER OF THE ZEC FAMILY
I don't understand one thing - how come the Zec family consisted of
harismatic people? It is known that Mihajlo Zec worked for the enemies,
the Serbs, although he was a member of HDZ (Franjo Tudjman's rulling
party, the Croatian Democratic Union) and tried to help the Croatian Army.
The fact remains that we guarded the intersections in the Dobrovac village
near Lipik, and so we learned that Milorad Zec, Mihajlo's brother, comes
home to sleep every night from Subotska (Subotica? - a town in Serbia?).
And so one night we waited for him in his home in Dobrovac.
We could discuss the "operative processing" of a person, but there are no
secrets there - beatings, harrassments, forced confessions, in any way
possible. It was then that he told us about his brother Mihajlo - what he
was doing and for whom.
Upon my arrival to Zagreb, I gave the order for the detention of Mihajlo
Zec, and I received that order from Tomislav Merčep. Mihajlo Zec was more
valuable to us alive, than dead. But, the group that was to take Zec in for
questioning, was joined by Munib Suljic, on his own will and not on anyone's
order, who was high and drunk that night. I told Sinisa Rimac that only
in the case of resistance should he murder Mihajlo. He tried to escape,
Rimac let him (although I do not get it - how can a young man, 19 years old,
not catch up with a [much older -- PT] man and overpower him, but, okay,
maybe it all happened in a second), and then Mihajlo was shot.
Then, out of a blue van with no licence plates, because we detained people
in Zagreb in unmarked uniforms and vehicles, came Munib Suljic, who returned
to get little Alexandra and Mrs. Zec. He took them to the Panorama Hotel,
then to Sljeme, where he murdered them.
A few days ago, the Nacional published Suljic's denial. He claimed that he
had never committed that murder. The truth is that Suljic, upon being
arrested, had told the whole story, and the whole confession - he went with
the police investigators from Djordjiceva Street to Sljeme and he
finger-pointed at the graves. Then he admitted that he had done it. The
saddest thing is that he threatened Nebojsa-Hodak-Cena, Igor Mikula, Sinisa
Rimac and the little Snjezana Zivkovic from Gospic, and he made Mikula fire
20 bullets into little Alexandra and Mrs. Zec. Just to make sure. And then
he made those men bury the bodies. That was their role in the affair. Rimac
confessed during the investigation: "I killed Mihajlo Zec, and do not get me
involved with anything else". This is the truth. Today, Mihajlo Zec is being
made into some kind of hero, and people say that he died for no good
reason, and I often wonder, if I were making some newspaper, I would write
more about Marina Nuic, because she died for nothing and was innocent.
GIVING THE ORDERS
I would deny the words of Ivan Vekic in the latest edition of the Feral
Tribune. He is lying, he knew it all. I could tell him how many orders our
Unit had received from him. He would say: "I am demanding from you to make
this happen... and this... and this..." We would never return without
accomplishing the tasks, that being, most of the time, murders. His order
was to murder Milos Ivosevic, and because of him the only Serb who survived
the (Pakrac) Field was also to be murdered - Stefan Brajanovic. I repeat,
Ivan Vekic knew it all.
I have spent in prison from the 2nd (of January?) to the 30th (of April?)
1992. It was so sad for me when Croatia was recognized on the 15th of
(January?) and I was at the Remetinec prison. We were released when Sheks
became public prosecutor, but we were let go in 2 groups. Mikula, Hodak,
Snjezana Zivkovic, Suljic and Rimac stayed about 40 days longer in prison
because of [the murder of] the Zec family. The first month in prison was
cruel. No, nobody could touch us, because, had there been any physical
torture against us, the police building at Djordjiceva Street would not
exist. Merčep had big influence, he organized our defence, and also Ivan
Vekic, who today says a lot of nonsense. In those days, he was on our
side. Maybe I have mentioned this before, but I repeat that investigating
judges Jovanovic and Horvatinovic were okay and were not interested in
details.
I am a big [religious] believer. I hold on my hand the ring from
Medjugorje (the place of worship in Croatia where it is believed that the
Mother of God appears every once in a while). God forgives everything to a
point. I think I have thus far been punished enough for everything that I
have committed. My life's satisfaction would be for my children's
existence, because I know very well what will happen to me after this
story, so I would just like someone to look after my children. I really
have a wonderful marriage and a wonderful family, two wonderful little
children. My wife knows about everything that I had done, because this is
the only way we can (continue to) live together.
I do not feel better now that I have told you everything. I am afraid
[from the former members] of my Unit. These are all experienced
professionals, who do not miss often. And I know that I won't escape the
Hague Tribunal.
* ________________________________________
The testimony that you have just read is that of Miro Bajramovic, Tomislav
Merčep's deputy, and is about the crimes of Croatian policemen and
paramilitary units against the Serbian civilians. At the time the depicted
events took place, the secessionist Croatia was still part of the legal and
recognized entity of Yugoslavia.
Most Western media have, in some way of another, reported about this. But,
the Swedish media refused to make one word of this public. Swedish TV News,
"Aktuellt", had refused to even mention a single word of this planned murder
of innocent Serbian civilians in Croatia. The murder was planned by the top
of the tops of the Croatian authority system.
Website: http://www.bannerofliberty.com