The Phantom Helicopter

The cease fire signed in Sarajevo on January 3, 1992, marked the end of the war in Croatia. Four days later, on Orthodox Christmas, January 7, the telephone lines at the office of Air Force Commander, General Zvonko Jurjevic, became hot-red. Everything started at 3 p.m. and lasted till 5 p.m.. The Air Force Commander was being congratulated on having shot down a helicopter at 2.30 p.m. that day in the vicinity of Novi Marof. While they claimed that Croatian Generals Spegelj and Tus (the defectors from the Yugoslav People's Army--JNA) had been `knocked off', General Jurjevic kept repeating that he had no idea why they were praising him since he knew nothing about that. The telephones stopped ringing after it had been learnt that the helicopter belonged to the European Community monitoring mission. At 11.30 p.m. the Air Force Commander received a phone call and was suspended. The Federal Secretariat of National Defense (SSNO) responded immediately by issuing a statement that the flights had not been announced so that the airmen acted in line with domestic and international regulations. The Army and the Federal Executive Council formed commissions to investigate the circumstances. SSNO also proposed international arbitration, but, like the Croat side, did not insist on it. Time, and, specially the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, helped the affair sink into oblivion. Almost a year and a half later, out of the blue, the retired Colonel Zivadin Vasiljevic, who is the former head of the Air Force Operative Center, was put on trial. He was charged with endangering the safety of aircraft, i.e. failing to inform the Command about a take-off of two helicopters of the E.C. monitoring mission from Kaposvar, Hungary (to their destination Zagreb via Varazdin), which is why one of them was shot down. Five members of the crew were killed: four Italians and one Frenchman. The name of the pilot who flew the JNA plane has still not been released.

There were many questions at the beginning of January as to why the helicopter of the E.C. mission was shot down. Today, there is a question why is this case, which has already been properly hushed up, being brought out of oblivion. Nikola Barovic, the lawyer, claims that all facts which could possibly shed light on the affair have been inaccessible since half a year ago. He believes that this has to do with harassment and `pacification' of the Yugoslav Army personnel, who are dissatisfied with their status. ``The affair was kept in a drawer only to be pulled out when it could be of use. A special atmosphere ,which suits the political authorities, is being created in certain branches of the service. In other words, a group of people who might clash with the authorities for different reasons, are being shown what might befall them. On the other hand, the whole fuss is for nothing, as not one paramilitary group responsible for e.g. ethnic cleansing in Hrtkovci or the abduction of passengers from the Belgrade-Bar train in Strpci, has been caught or tried thus far.''

Like Nikola Barovic, those familiar with the current Yugoslav Army legislature are in agreement that this is yet another form of pressure on the Yugoslav Army. The proceedings against the members of the 'Opera' group and Generals Vasiljevic and Trifunovic led them conclude this. Moreover, the accused Zivadin Vasiljevic is defended by the lawyers (Jovan Buturevic and Branko Stanic) who defended the protagonists of the `Opera', while the same person, the deputy military prosecutor, Major Djordje Trifunovic, who compiled the charges against the `Opera' members, has also brought charges against Vasiljevic. However, just as the downing of the E.C. helicopter was connected with the resignation of the then Federal Secretary of National Defense, General Veljko Kadijevic, it is now speculated that the trial of Colonel Vasiljevic is actually a concession to the international community. Namely, according to this thesis, before completely agreeing to the Serb-Croat way of ending the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina the international community insists on punishing the culprits for at least some of the crimes and tragedies which marked the last two years of war. Western politicians are forced to find a way to satisfy their public--war crimes represents some of the major reasons which were presented to the public and forced the E.C. to make some diplomatic and other moves in order make recognition of the borders drawn by the force of arms more difficult. The authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have a serious interest in this story. Their readiness to put their own officers on trial for events which made a sensation among the west-european public (the case of the E.C. helicopter was one of them) might, in the context of the Geneva talks, have a beneficiary effect on a decision to ease economic sanctions.

Announcing the trial of the retired Colonel Zivadin Vasiljevic, the Belgrade daily ``Politika'' quoted well informed sources in the army who said that one more helicopter which belonged to the Croatian Ministry of Interior Affairs with the officers of the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) on board, flew along with the two helicopters of the E.C. mission. According to the paper, the Croatian helicopter was the target of the JNA `MIG-21', while the E.C. helicopter crashed due to the explosion of a ``precisely hit'' enemy. ``Politika'' also quoted the evidence presented by anonymous military experts: no traces of a direct hit could be spotted on a `relatively whole' wreckage on Croatian TV footage, the Croatian authorities did not allow access to the site and had the helicopter really been hit by a missile the explosion would have caused more extensive damage on the bodies of the members of the E.C. mission than those seen on TV. This, in a way, confirms the testimony of Colonel Bozidar Martinovic, the inspector of Fighter Aviation, during the first day of the trial. He stated that the pilot of the `MIG-21' aircraft was not able to identify the target, because of a high speed, and that he reported a strong explosion after the hit. Colonel Martinovic concluded that there must have been a large quantity of weapons in the hit aircraft, which caused a whirlwind and the crash of the E.C. helicopter.

However, these hypotheses contain several weak points, if not holes. The Croatian Ministry of Interior closed off the site, where the E.C. helicopter fell. However, with strong teleobjectives, photoreporters from foreign agencies, for example Reuters, managed to take pictures of the wreckage and the bodies from the near-by hills. Besides, local photographers managed to reach the site at the same time as police and a delegation of the E.C. monitoring mission turned up very soon. In other words, owing to the number of people there the information would have leaked out that two helicopters had been shot down. It would have been impossible to hide that fact. As soon as the bodies were removed, journalists were allowed access. While waiting, the journalists talked to the locals from the surrounding area, who witnessed the accident. All of them claimed that one helicopter had crashed, and the other landed. The third helicopter was not mentioned. They also said that the helicopter which was not hit was fired on from a machine-gun on the 'MIG' and offered to take the journalists to the location from where the wreck could be seen. The Croatian police could not have prepared them to say the official version. There was simply no time for that.

The journalist were finally allowed to see the wreckage. They noted that a lot of imagination was needed to realize that what they saw used to be a helicopter. Pieces of sheet metal and parts of instruments lay scattered in a diameter of about 200 meters. A relatively undamaged tail was at about the same distance. They could take as many pictures as they wanted, while security guards, in order to kill time, accompanied the journalists in their stroll through the woods and the meadow looking for `souvenirs'. They didn't give the impression of people ordered to prevent `inconvenient' snooping.

The question is what circumstances led to the shooting down of the helicopter of the E.C. monitoring mission. In seeking the answer, one should start with the fact that the Air Force Command had prepared an announcement and a press conference for January 8. It was planned that civilian experts confirm that in a situation where the flights were not announced, which is the violation of international regulations on fly-over and where the `MIG-21' was unable to establish a radio contact with them, there was nothing else to do but to shoot them down. Thus, they wanted to put an end to numerous `pirate' flights over the Yugoslav-Hungarian border which were primarily used for smuggling of arms. That was the issue discussed at the meeting of General Jurjevic and his Hungarian colleague, which took place in Subotica in November 1991. That is when they decided that a buffer zone be set up (ten kilometers from the border on each side), but nothing was actually done. Apart from that, the Air Force was under a lot of pressure due to the action of Croatian agricultural planes in Slavonia to finally 'knock them down.'

However, the announced press conference of the Air Force Command was suddenly called off, according to the orders from the Federal Secretariat of National Defense, and their representatives were prohibited to speak to the public. Although the JNA leadership had agreed to the version which the Air Force Command had prepared the case of the shot-down helicopter was used as an excuse for the first large-scale purge of this branch of armed force. Croatia and Hungary behaved very irresponsibly in this regard to put it mildly. One country needed international recognition and was ready for everything, the other was to eager to give a helping hand. Namely, the Hungarian Flight Control failed to inform Belgrade about the flight of the E.C. helicopter. As far as the monitors are concerned, they knew that the international recognition of Croatia was a matter of days, and they were also fed up with procedural tricks from Belgrade in the name of a practically non-existing country. It follows that all necessary preconditions for a tragedy were there so it happened.

The trial of the retired Colonel Zivadin Vasiljevic has little to do with the event he is tried for. The affair has to do with `washing dirty linen in public', both domestic and foreign. On one hand, they want to prove that the Yugoslav Army is by no means the same JNA which waged war on the territory of former Yugoslavia. On the other, they want to prove that there is the rule of law in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in spite of everything. That is why the helicopter `took off' again before it finally flies into oblivion.

On Friday afternoon the Military Court in Belgrade acquitted Colonel Zivadin Vasiljevic. The Court decided that Colonel Vasiljevic was not obligated to inform the authorities about the flight, since it was not granted permission to fly.