Volunteers by Force

The story took place in Mali Zvornik (Serbian territory) and according to witnesses (mostly the wives of the men taken away at night), there are at least nine such cases.

"Two men, wearing uniforms of the Serb Republic in B-H military police, knocked at our door around 1 a.m. They asked my husband to go with them to the police station in Mali Zvornik "to give some information." I ran out to the balcony and saw my husband getting into a bus parked outside the building," says Ljiljana Andric.

Ljiljana and her husband Radovan moved to Mali Zvornik in December 1991, but Radovan (37) kept his job at a factory in Zvornik (on the left bank of the Drina river), now held by the Bosnian Serb civilian and military authorities. After moving from Zvornik, the Andrics reported for residence to the Mali Zvornik authorities and Radovan transferred his military documents to the local military department -Mali Zvornik, Serbia.

Ljiljana says her husband went to work on the other bank of the river, in another state, every morning. This, she adds, does not allow the Bosnian Serbs to mobilize him. But on the night of March 10, "they caught them like rabbits, nine men from 42, Ribarska street."

Stevka, the wife of Milan Lukic, gives a similar testimony. "They did not resist. Those policemen wanted to see their documents, but our men knew they were clean and thought there would be no problems".

Early next day, they took in Luka Vidovic. His wife Borka was left alone with two children, aged nine and 14, both suffering from leukodystrophy. Borka told the children their "dad had gone to get his salary," but they were told at school that their father was arrested as a deserter. The Lukics' apartment is on the 9th floor, and with the elevator out of order, Borka is forced to carry the sick children upstairs on her back.

"I realized that there is no one I can contact," says Borka. "We went to the police but they say they know nothing about it."

Slavica Mladenovic says that a written confirmation that her husband is registered with the military department in Mali Zvornik was invalid on the other bank of the Drina River. The authorities there said they had "nothing to do with the case." A policeman, whom Slavica saw at the Headquarters in Zvornik and recognized him as one of the policemen who took in her husband, did not know anything either.

The authorities on both sides of the Drina River pretended they didn't know anything until one day the kidnapped men phoned home to say that they were in Derventa, detained on charges of dodging military service and were being treated as deserters. They said they would probably be sent to the front in Serbrenica. Two of them who refused to put on the uniform were beaten up, and one was released as physically unfit. Luka Vidovic, who was relieved of military service because of two seriously sick children, stayed on.

The wives, after visiting their husbands in a deserted school in the town of Derventa, returned home waiting anxiously for news. Information that their husbands would come back was soon followed by the news that an agreement had been reached between Serbia and the Serb Republic in B-H at ministerial level on the mobilization of citizens from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Speaking off the record, official sources confirmed the story on the forcible mobilization of men in Mali Zvornik.