TO: MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA

SUBJECT: FIRST INDICTMENT for WAR CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST SERBS

DATE: March 23, 1996

Indictments and Arrests

On March 21st the War Crimes Tribunal issued its first indictment against four men for war crimes against Serb civilians while in the service of the Bosnian Government. This was the direct result of a War Crimes Tribunal investigation (in process since mid-1995) into three notorious camps, Celebici, Musala in Konjic and a silo camp in Tarcin. They represent only one of many areas where Muslim and Croat forces participated in yet unreported mass expulsions, murder, rapes and atrocities committed against Serbian civilian populations. The indicted include a Croat camp commander, a Muslim deputy camp commander and a guard of the notorious Muslim-held camp Celebici in Bosnia, and a Muslim military commander of the same area.

Unreported Facts

The war in the territories of former Yugoslavia has brought us images of shocking brutality and frightening levels of man's inhumanity. As events unfold, new and suppressed old facts about the conflict defy a simple black and white view and it is increasingly clear that there has been good and evil on all sides and in proportions quite different to what we had believed. The American Serbian Woman's Caucus (ASWC) is a non-governmental organization which has assisted with the Tribunal's investigative effort in this matter since it was begun. In the process, we discovered that the extent of the unreported war crimes perpetrated against Serbs and the brutality of those crimes was beyond our worst expectations.

Enclosure

The indictments signal the unraveling of the untold side of the story of this war. We have enclosed data which might be of interest to you in your future reporting on this and other cases of war crimes against Serbs. Behind the vivid colors of this package are the grim facts of the civil war. The data cover the camps and areas of the Tribunal's first investigation into crimes perpetrated against Serbs as well as the overall scope of those crimes during this war including summary tables and maps.

1. Concentration camps for Serbs
   1. Indictment
   2. The most notorious camps in B & H
   3. Investigation -- Celebici, Konjic, and Tarcin camps; Bradina and Donje Selo villages
2. Brothels and other rape centers holding Serb female prisoners
3. Ethnic cleansing of Serb populations
   1. Annihilation of complete Serb towns and villages
   2. Complete expulsion of Serb civilian populations from towns and villages
4. Destruction of Serbian churches

Crimes Began Immediately

At the very beginning of the war, spring of 1992, Muslim and Croat forces were rounding up and murdering (in mass executions and torture in and out of camps) Serbian civilians and prisoners of war in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Mostar, Bihac, Srebrenica, Gorazde and other cities under their control. Serbs who were not killed or imprisoned were not allowed to leave the cities while the Bosnian Government told the world through press releases that the 40,000 Serbs remaining in Sarajevo and Serbs still in other Muslim-controlled areas were there because they supported a multi-ethnic Bosnia.

In October 1992, Croat, Muslim and Serb sides signed an agreement in Geneva to release all prisoners. Yet Croat and Muslim forces continued to hold Serb civilians until January 1996 in the thousands, many brutalized there since mid-1992. To this day the Bosnian Government refuses to release approximately 200 Serb prisoners in Tuzla and the Croats similarly in Croatia and Bosnia. It was in Tuzla that in 1992, the Bosnian forces placed 200 captured Serbian soldiers in vehicles and exploded those vehicles strewing body parts everywhere. Some of the prisoners still held witnessed these events and may testify if released. Others, Serb, Muslim and Croat witnessed this event. It was not extraordinary but quite the standard.

In Sarajevo alone, it is estimated that around 15,000 Serbian civilians perished in prisons, on the streets, or were simply rounded up at night by armed forces appearing at the doors of their homes and executed.

Corpses were buried in approximately 35 mass graves throughout the city of Sarajevo. Larger sites were covered with tires, then burned to destroy the corpses. When that failed in places where the pits were too deep, lime was procured from a nearby lime facility and poured over them in order to disintegrate the corpses. The key fact here is that these events were known by the Izetbegovich's government of Bosnia.

Ignoring Crimes Against Serbs

During its first two years of existence (1993 and 1994), the War Crimes Tribunal applied 100% of its resources to the investigation of crimes allegedly committed by Serbs, while the first attempt to look into war crimes perpetrated against Serbs was not made until 1995. Indictment after indictment was handed down against Serbs with no due consideration of the documentation received on crimes perpetrated against Serbs.

Various committees in US Congress held hearings throughout the '91-'96 period. Not once was any effort made to look into war crimes committed against Serbs -- not even after the State Department received information on Muslim and Croat-held camps in Bosnia and Croatia where Serbs were being murdered, starved, raped and brutalized, not even after Krajina -- the greatest ethnic cleansing in the war -- and continuing murder of Serb civilians in Croatia, and Western Bosnia in 1995 and 1996.

Information

This packet is limited to Bosnia & Hercegovina. More detailed information on the above and other forms of war crimes such as decapitation of Serbs as a policy of Muslim forces, killing of sick and wounded, and camps operated by mujahedeen and other foreign volunteer forces is also available. ASWC can provide additional information regarding this investigation, the arrested parties and the subject in general. There are also former victims/witnesses now in the United States and Canada who are prepared to tell their story. Furthermore, war crimes perpetrated against Serb populations by Croatian forces in both Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina are a separate issue that the Tribunal is beginning to investigate.

Let's Tell the Truth

The facts are compelling for those willing to consider them objectively. The issue of war crimes, on legal, historical and moral grounds is of the quintessential importance for the future of our world. Thus, it is our hope that corresponding attention and effort by the media will be made to bring out all the facts.