"When The War Is Over... ... We Will See Who's Dead And Who's Alive''

On Tuesday, January 18, the Belgrade daily ``Politika'' published the obituary notice for Goran Galjak, an elite trooper and captain of the Yugoslav Army, which said that ``he died of enemy fire on December 27, 1993.'' Officially, the Yugoslav Army never reported his death. Unofficially, there was a story that Captain Galjak had been killed in Bosnia (near Vogosca) and that he was not the only one. According to the sources close to the Yugoslav Army, two days before Yugoslav Army ChiefofStaff, General Momcilo Perisic, was to appear on the prime time evening news and never to mention the story, three more elite troopers were killed near Vogosca while another three were reported as missing. Other sources quoted different data as regards the number of casualties (ten members of the Yugoslav Army killed) but the point is the sameCaptain Goran Galjak and his fellow soldiers died in Bosnia.

There are two more points linked with the case of Srdjan Djeric and Captain Galjak. The first being that Miodrag Djeric, the father of Srdjan Djeric, has been consistently persuaded by some people from the Serb Republic in Bosnia that his son is alive, that he fought across the Drina River, was captured and subsequently exchanged, and would eventually return home. The second being much simpler. The Yugoslav Army had made a blunder in both cases although there was no need for it.

There is a simple and efficient legal justification for all Yugoslav Army soldiers and officers fighting in Bosnia. It is sufficient if they are registered in their units as being on holiday or on leave. The fact that they will spend those ten or fifteen days on the front as volunteers in the Army of the Serb Republic in Bosnia is of no interest to the Yugoslav Army. More importantly, it allows the Yugoslav Army to officially remain uninvolved in the events on the territory of BH.

Although in a nice disguise everything is being done so that these deployments remain covered up. A Yugoslav Army officer who was wounded in Bosnia has said that one goes to the front voluntarily, that the active officers corps is primarily engaged in such actions and that their deployment goes unreported even to closest family members. In the case of death, the files say it was ``a traffic accident.'' ``What hurts me most is the wording of obituary notices, those that say `died in a traffic accident.' And I know that they died as heroes,'' our interlocutor said.

What is the reason for such secrecy when the story is officially legal? The answer could lie in the fact that the Yugoslav Army is usually deployed when the situation becomes critical so there is probably no time for all necessary preparations. According to people who talked with VREME, this is the reason why men go to the front in Yugoslav Army uniforms, with all relevant insignia, even with a small metal box hanging on a chain which contains water resistant paper with the name of a soldier, his rank and specialist profile, and all other data.

The fact that the uniforms of its men are so clearly marked becomes a problem for the Yugoslav Army when somebody is captured. If he dies, his body is pulled out, and everything else follows the above mentioned scenario: a traffic accident, except in those cases when the family is aware what has really taken place so they mention enemy fire and defense of the Serb cause. One thing that cannot do credit to the army is the fact that even when everything is clear (and can yet remain ``covered'') the soldier's unit never issues an obituary notice for its member.

An even greater lack of professionalism, efficiency and concern was displayed by the Yugoslav Army in the case of Srdjan Djeric from the very beginning if one considers the official version of the event accurate. (A reporter of VREME who stayed in Subotica was told by the people of Djevdjelijska Street which adjacent to the training ground of the local garrison that they remembered smoke coming out of deep inside the ground and a military ambulance rushing to the site.)

According to the official version, soldier Srdjan Djeric and four of his comrades (none of them had been in the service longer that about forty days) had been in a combat armored vehicle together with two ``maljutka's'' (wire guided antitank missile), four LAW's, four hundred bullets for a 20mm cannon and 2,000 bullets for 7.62mm heavy machine gun. One of the soldiers (Sasa Boskovic who later succumbed to the injuries) took an LAW and caused the tragedy.

The army never gave an explanation either to Srdjan's father or anybody else what an armored vehicle with full combat equipment was doing there on the training ground nor how could five young soldiers happen to be in such a vehicle without a senior officer. The official documents say that the army was not on combat alert but was undergoing a tactical training called ``The work of mechanized unit as a preparation for the march and combat.'' Everybody who has done military service knows that such (and all other) exercises go without live ammunition. An information from the ``Investigation Report'' according to which Srdjan Djeric was showing his comrades how the control panel in the vehicle works and its interior at the moment when the accident happened sounds almost incredible. The holes in the official announcement could be filled if the army were to admit that the soldiers of the Serb Republic in BH and the Republic of Serb Krajina were being trained in the garrison in Subotica at the same time when everything took place.

One soldier whom the reporter of VREME happened to meet in Subotica has said that they (conscripts from western regions of Serbia) have not been in the town for at least three months (since November).

Other interlocutors of VREME who are active military officers explained that the training period of these soldiers is much shorter and that they often have to deal with live ammunition. In other words, there is a possibility that Srdjan Djeric was on the training ground at the same time as his fellow soldiers from Krajina. What could not have been allowed to happen is that he is trained in the same way (with live ammunition) and even less that they are not with him and his friends in a combat ready armored vehicle.

There is great likelihood that all of this did happen. On the other hand, it is more likely that the army wanted to cover up its mistakes than that Srdjan was taken to Bosnia from the army barracks or volunteered for a similar task. The soldier, who talked to our reporter in Subotica, rejected the latter possibility and even claimed that ``the Yugoslav Army would have never allowed them to go across the Drina River.''

Other details also point to a coverup. Firstly, the majority of those involved in the whole case no longer seem to be in the army barracks in Subotica. The soldiers at the gate of the First Army Barracks in Subotica have not seen Captain Milovan Kukolj, Djeric's senior officer, go through it for a long time. The second officer, Captain Vekic, is somewhere ``in the field.'' The third officer, Major Radoslav Petrovic is not able to answer the question where soldiers Zoran Jovanovic, Davor Dralic, and Radomir Ilic, who were in the vehicle at the time of the accident according to the official papers, are now, nor where Sergeant Zoran Matovic, who led the army to the training ground, is. (Unofficially, Kukolj and Matovic are under investigation.)

Besides, Major Petrovic says that Srdjan Djeric was one of the best soldiers, while unfortunate Sasa Boskovic who fired the LAW, ``displayed a lack of seriousness.'' It follows that he is the only one to blame and that how the case is closed. The only thing left is that one has yet to swallow the whole story.

Unfortunately, the army did not end with this wrong move. It made another one. In the coffin which arrived to the house of Miodrag Djeric was a body which did fit with the autopsy report compiled at the Military Academy Hospital. Miodrag dug out the grave, compared the photographs and the report with what he saw and flipped. In brief, according to the autopsy report the body of Srdjan Djeric was almost completely charred (Major Petrovic is also unsure about what he had seen ``with his own eyesthe body was burnt and not much could be made out''). The body which Miodrag Djeric dug out was not charred and had everything which was missing according to the autopsy reportthe ribs, spine, lungs, heart...

When he discovered this Miodrag Djeric wrote a request for exhumation but has not received an answer to this day. Such behavior of military organs is very strange if one assumes that they are convinced that what the assertions by Miodrag Djeric and five other witnesses who attended the exhumation and compared the photographs with the autopsy report are not correct. If everything was a mistake (in the case the body was replaced at the Military Academy Hospital), the whole case becomes more complicated because an extra body appears in the story. The whole new story would be open if one were to ask from what front or training ground it had been brought to the hospital. On the other hand, this is not the reason to avoid explaining it to Miodrag Djeric that another mistake had been made and to send him his son's body even before he was to come to the editorial offices of VREME with his story.

As if somebody had asked for complications so that Miodrag received two death certificates for this son. Then came the court orders summoning Srdjan Djeric to appear before court. On top of everything appeared mysterious Ruzica Milanovic (reporters of VREME tried to find her in Mladenovac, but had no success, she literally disappeared) with her story that Miodrag's son is alive, and when he asked that this be verified in the police he was told they could not do it as she was not ``an unimportant person.'' And, then, it was confirmed to Miodrag at the Yugoslav Army Headquarters that our soldiers are being sent to Bosnia.

The officials of the Yugoslav Army have promised to the journalists of VREME to arrange a meeting with the people who had worked on the case of Srdjan Djeric. Until then, a definition that seems most accurate with regard to everything that happened to Miodrag Djeric and his son was given by Vukosava Bogisic, a clerk at the local registrar's office in Subotica, where the reporter of VREME inquired about the process of issuing death certificates. When she heard about a double death certificate, she stopped talking about formalities, and said, ``When the war ends, we'll see who's dead and who's alive.''