Blame it on Liquor

Staunch policemen searched everyone before allowing them in. Everything was under control, except Dusan Vuckovic (31) who addressed the crowd as he approached the bench with his hands cuffed and in the company of three police officers: "Brother Serbs, may God help us", he said in a traditional greeting. Instead of the expected response ("May God help you"), the crowd kept silent. But that didn't surprise Dusan or his elder brother Vojin, a commander of the "Zuta Osa" paramilitary group (named after a famous plum brandy), accused of impersonation and possession of illegal arms and explosives.

The Vuckovic brothers posed for the cameras for several minutes and did not hide their satisfaction.

Dusan doesn't face a death sentence because the Yugoslav criminal code does not proscribe that penalty for his crime. He admitted to being a member of the paramilitary and hacking an ear off of a Muslim prisoner, as well as killing seven or eight Muslim prisoners with an automatic rifle.

The prosecution claims that Dusan was drunk when he killed or wounded 16 to 20 people. That was confirmed by Aco Bajic, a police reservist who was on guard at the Celopek cultural center in Zvornik where the prisoners were housed.

In court, Dusan denied the confession he made to investigators and said he had been framed by the Serbian security service. "I had to sign the confession because I was afraid the state security people would kill my family," he told the court. He has two children from two marriages.

Svetislav Jekic, a Sabac psychiatrist, examined Dusan before the trial. His conclusion: "no signs of either temporary or permanent mental illness, nor any mental disability".

That means that Dusan Vuckovic can be held accountable for "murders in war and the rape of a Muslim woman". Dusan says he was drunk at the time. Jekic said Dusan is "a strongly psychotic person with signs of chronic alcoholism and there are indications that he could have committed the crimes while drunk". "I believe," Jekic said, "that Dusan Vuckovic's ability to govern his behavior was diminished at the time, as was his realization of what he had done."

Dusan also told the psychiatrist that he had suffered from meningitis as a child and that he had stabbed himself in the stomach 7-8 years ago. He said he had stabbed himself because "I felt like it". The army released him as a psychopath. Dusan said he never noticed that. "Perhaps they diagnosed me because I refused to obey orders," he said.

Dusan said he had been drinking since 1977, at least a liter of spirits a day, out of despair because he couldn't marry the girl he wanted.

At the end of a letter in which he described the brutality at Celopek, Tahic Hamo, one of the Muslim survivors who had been detained there, asks: "Is there any sense in punishing one drunkard like Vuckovic when the entire state and the majority of its population is still drunk?" It seems that Tahic is wrong. There is nothing left to take out of Bosnia (plunder) and the number of "volunteers" has drastically fallen. There is the impression that the state has sobered up, at least when Bosnia is in question.

Dusan fears more psychiatric examinations because the doctors could declare him unbalanced and confine him for life. He hopes the court will be lenient considering his patriotism and the help he gave to the Bosnian Serbs.

Interestingly, none of the press reported what Dusan said in his defence. Most of his introduction into the political situation and analysis of events in 1992 was made in a semi-audible voice as if he were a man of confidence closely linked to the Serbian police. The carefully-worded charges exclude any involvement of Serbia in the Bosnian war, although Dusan says "Zuta Osa" was armed with weapons from Serbia.

His brother Vojin is much more cautious and says that they only carried side-arms in Bosnia and the court didn't insist on a definition. In front of the judge, Vojin, "Zuta Osa" commander, said: "Many journalists are listening to all sorts of stories and writing all sorts of lies, but they don't have the guts to go the front lines." At Celopek, where the worst crimes against the Muslim population were made, and during the most difficult times, he managed to find a bride, get married, and bring her to his native village in Serbia. His statement was full of self-praise and, according to him, he defended Serbia from a Muslim invasion, although serious sources in Zvornik at the time said that there was no heavy fighting in the area. A high-ranking security officer said that the paramilitaries pushed their way into the front to undertake ethnic cleansing and deal with traitors. He added that volunteers profited from the war and that their superiors scored political points.

"I asked for permission to execute two of my soldiers who had stolen something, but the Colonel in charge of the area refused," Vojin recalls. He added that he had gotten his hands on plans for a Muslim uprising in Yugoslavia in 1983.

Just two or three reporters were in the courtroom on the second day. Everyone else realized that the Vuckovic brothers were small fry. The second "Zuta Osa" deputy commander, Miodrag Pavlovic, testified. He only said nice things about Vojin and added that he had a permit to carry an automatic rifle, pistol and four bombs anywhere in Yugoslavia. Other witnesses didn't come and the judge ordered the police to bring them in.