Sacrificing Someone Else's Sons

It took three attempts to sentence General Trifunovic and his close associates. Trifunovic didn't give up when he decided not to sacrifice his 220 soldiers in vain (the head of the court martial found out that there were 390 of them and probably because of that he sentenced Trifunovic to 11 years in jail, Colonel Raduski to seven and Colonel Popov to six).

After seven days of battle, General Trifunovic was approached by the president and another member of the crisis headquarters that was conducting the attack by 10,000 well armed and trained men asking him to surrender, the General took them hostage and held on to them all the way to Serbian border. He saved his soldiers from being captured and destroyed and disabled the equipment and weapons he had in his barracks (the first few of the total of 70 tanks he disabled took 30-40 days to repair before Croatian troops could use them).

Virtually none of the soldiers who were just a couple of hours from death nor their parents spoke up during the trial: more because they didn't dare than because they didn't want to. Just one of his soldiers, an invalid of the war in Varazdin, and his grateful mother spoke up. She had been told that her son was not on the lists of wounded or captured by men in comfortable armchairs, who had either escaped Croatia on time or had never left Belgrade. They expected the Varazdin corps to fight to the last bullet and then go on with knives and fists to the last of someone else's sons. That decisive defence was advocated at the trial by experts who told the previous trial: "A decisive defence is one where the captured area is not abandoned until the last man is dead as opposed to a persistent defence where everything is done and lives are preserved and it ends the moment the enemy forces take the initiative and the defenders can't achieve their goals".

Now the expert testimonies differed greatly. They advocated the use of artillery at close range which would also endanger the defenders, claiming that the Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) units in Varazdin had to accept a decisive defence because they had no other way out. They added that the number of victims defines the type of defence and advocated hand to hand fighting with bayonets.

The experts, teachers at the Military School Center were Colonels Tripko Cecovic, Desimir Garovic, Miloje Petrovic and Stevan Stojanovic.

The tribunal which relied on that testimony and handed down the sentences were: Colonel Radomir Gajovic (brought in from the military prosecutor's office to take over the case), Lt. Colonel Aleksandar Jankovic and jury members: Major General Vidoje Pantelic (whose superior Colonel General Jevrem Cokic was one of the fiercest prosecution witnesses) and Colonels Predrag Cokic and Prvoslav Gligorijevic.

The experts were rewarded with 2,000 dinars each and the defendants are obliged to pay the expenses of the trial. General Trifunovic bears the greatest burden (5,000 dinars) and he's left without anyone (in Yugoslavia) and anything anywhere.

After all this, will our military and legal experts, members of the humanitarian intelligentsia speak up or will we still witness a victory of the primitive fanaticism that the army at war only has the right to die senselessly with no goal in an impossible situation.

Here's something from the trial:

General Mico Delic: "We should ask the Serb mothers of soldiers sacrificed senselessly on territories that always were and will be Croatian".

The prosecutor, a fierce man from Bosnia asked Delic: "In the context of the events in Slovenia and Croatia, was it of importance to the safety of Serb sons that weaponry was handed over to the enemy?"

The courtroom fell silent and the prosecutor just said: "I withdraw the question."