Guilty At Any Cost

General Vlado Trifunovic, Colonels Berislav Popov and Sreten Raduski left the Zabela prison on Thursday, January 18 after being pardoned by FRY President Zoran Lilic a day earlier. Since then the public debate on who got what from the decree has been ongoing.

Some say Lilic's decree is just an act of mercy and good will towards the three "traitors" whose health is failing which doesn't mean they're guiltless. Others, who seem to be the majority, feel that what happened to the General and his Varazdin corps staff officers is least of all an act of mercy.

Whatever the motives, mainly due to pressure from at home and abroad, the most important thing is that the three officers are finally free. They face the hard job of proving that they fell victim to a staged trial, ordered by certain military and political circles.

The first night out of jail, Sreten Raduski was the only one of the three who stayed at home. That night he met his daughter in law since his son married while he was in jail. Many of the 260 young men who were soldiers in the Varazdin garrison in 1991 also married after being saved from certain death by Trifunovic, raduski and Popov who were sent to prison for not ending up dead heroes as someone planned.

General Trifunovic, whose family has taken refuge abroad, went to the dank Bristol hotel where he stayed before he went to jail. Colonel Popov went back to his family who also live in temporary quarters for officers who lost everything in this war.

The second day after his release, the General visited VREME. He said he wanted to thank VREME staff for enabling the public to learn the truth about the Varazdin case and launching the protest to free the officers last December.

"After everything that happened to me, I am happy to be free again. Even like this, being pardoned and leaving jail without having the senseless charges of undermining the defence capabilities of the country denied. Freedom is the most precious thing a man can have. You value freedom especially if you've been denied it for a long time. I spent three winters in jail, three new years, three Christmases and I took it all very hard. I am tired after what I lived through. My health is failing and I spent a lot of time in the prison hospital. Just imagine, spending 4.5 years in courts, facing all those juries, reading all kinds of false articles by people who enjoy other peoples' misery. I was their victim among others.

I didn't ask for a pardon, nor do I need anyone's mercy. Mercy is for someone who did something wrong. I need justice, a regular trial and regular court ruling without pressure. The ruling that comes only from the conscience of a judge.

I am convinced that, although in my case the truth hasn't won yet and justice hasn't passed its final judgment, this will happen. If not in my lifetime, then after my death. But everyone will see that I did what I could do, that I didn't betray anyone. That I didn't betray my profession, the oath of a soldier, my people, officers' ethics, humanity. One day there will have to be rehabilitation. If I didn't believe in that I would have been crushed long ago.

The prison authorities treated us well. At first I felt the injustice of being with the worst criminals. I knew I didn't deserve that. I felt I deserved to be with people with similar backgrounds to ours.

I spent several months in the prison hospital, I couldn't go to the canteen, I often couldn't even get the little money I had. But there were prisoners who came to see me and bought me fruit or medicine and offered to help. I found friends among the people that society rejected.

But there are great differences between this jail and what I experienced in the military prison. The prison that belongs to the army I spent 42 years, seven months and 25 days in. I was there twice and went through humiliation, provocation and abuse. In a way, conditions were created for a man to take everything very hard psychologically. To me it seemed like an attempt, intentionally or accidentally, to get you to weaken completely.

I found out about the pardon in the prison hospital in Belgrade. I was in bed that afternoon, reading. A prisoner came up and said: "congratulations General you've been pardoned!". I thought he was joking. Just before the news at seven they begged me to come see for myself. That's how I found out about the pardon. No one told me officially, no one shoed me the papers. I expected something to happen, but least of all a pardon. I had faith in the federal court ruling. Waiting for their stand I also expected the FRY President to perhaps annul the sentence. I was convinced that the time had finally come, that leading figures who are well informed will realize that we did what we could in the situation we faced and that any other decision as commander would have been a catastrophe.

Raduski, Popov and I, when I wasn't in the hospital, spent a lot of time together. We often spoke of what happened to us and recalled the events in Varazdin. We worked together in the depot taking care of the ledgers. Sometimes, other prisoners who read something about the whole thing talked to us. And we always reached the same conclusion; even if we had been sentenced to 100 years in prison we would not have traded those years for the lives of our soldiers who we led out of hell. Let them live with their families, have children. We were obliged to take care of them.

I didn't surrender. And they said I was proud to have surrendered. I never said that because that's not what I did. I wasn't captured. None of my soldiers either. What I did was the act of a soldier not surrender. It was withdrawal from a battle that led to no solution or victory only to catastrophe and tragedy.

My superiors were informed about everything. I asked them for help because I knew we couldn't win. We were in a hopeless situation, facing odds of 30-50 to one.

We were promised help but they didn't keep a single promise. In Varazdin, we could all have died and been buried in a mass grave.

I didn't go to my wife and children after Varazdin, I went to the supreme command. The people who knew the situation there accepted my report. I was given a new posting but later things changed there were new evaluations and someone wanted to justify the waging of war through me. A public lynching began, I was imprisoned and relieved of my duties, taken to jail, charged and sentenced. I've faced six different juries. I was acquitted twice and all my decision were declared right. Under pressure for certain powerful people both those court ruling were overturned. They replaced the judges and juries every time. It was clear that they wanted to sentence me at any cost.

Several days after I got back to Belgrade I realized that we had been expected to die and that someone needed our deaths. I was even told that. A member of the supreme command told me. I answered: "General, you say that because you don't know what happened in Varazdin." He explained that I don't know Serb history (we went to the same schools) because Serbia needs dead heroes to be proud of.

I read about that later in many newspapers; that we should all have died. That we had reason to die, that it was our duty, that there were goals worthy of death. Our deaths could only have been used for political marketing on both sides. Our sacrifice would probably not have brought anything to the Serb and Croat people but would have been used to fan hate. And you don't die for something like that. I didn't give an oath to lead my soldiers into death nor is it my right to give only the chance to die. It was my right to use the army at war reasonably, to take care that it wins and survives. And I didn't swear to fan hatred. The people who decided to sacrifice us for that so that they could draft people more easily for more war had a primitive and sly motive. I don't know what they planned. If you expect someone to sacrifice himself then you have to tell him. As well as the goal of the sacrifice. Whoever does not agree to sacrifice cannot be condemned. They decided to condemn me without my knowledge.

I found out about Jovic's book in the prison hospital and I read the parts that appeared in some newspapers. I knew everything. All that was heard in court. Only Jovic didn't appear in person. We wanted all the members of the state presidency and supreme command to appear in court but that was refused. As far as I know, Jovic participated in taking me to court. Kadijevic signed and demanded just that, allegedly at the proposal of the army justice department chief, Major General Tomislav Radovanovic. They decided to try me and have me prove I wasn't guilty in court. Later many other joined in. General Nedeljko Boskovic and his group, General Jevrem Cokic, even Momcilo Perisic. Kadijevic knew his guilt and by going after me he protected himself.

The witch hunt against me was spiced with lies. One of the most persistent is the one that I got a valuable painting for surrendering the Varazdin corps. Politika repeated that lie in December. That rumor comes from Koprivnica. When I came to take over Varazdin, Koprivnica didn't have a commander. I was told that I would get help soon, the best possible commander. Son Ivan Basarac, a Croat, came in from Montenegro. He was born in Koprivnica. At a key moment he left the garrison and organized the attack and blockade. The chief of staff was Zvonimir Mihajlovic, a Serb from Croatia, but he had serious health problems. I didn't bring Basarac to Koprivnica, the army personnel office did. He is one of Tudjman's generals today, commander of the Zagreb army district.

Koprivnica surrendered without a fight. Mihajlovic got a visit from his brother before he left and he was given a painting. Mihajlovic told me that when we met later in Belgrade. Someone on the Coat side video taped it and showed it on TV. Then the blame was placed on me by people who never saw me. Someone wrote later that I was honorary citizen of Varazdin because i spent 4-5 years there. I hear Mihajlovic is in Subotica as an officer but the painting still haunts me. What fool would turn the garrison over for a painting. I remember a doctor in prison asked me about the painting and my years in Varazdin. When I explained that I spent just three months there he was surprised because he thought he knew everything about it from the papers.

I talked to my wife in Munich. I know some things about my children and grandchildren, some things I don't. I have to start over. When I'll start and how doesn't depend on me but on the people hounding me. My first intention was to gather the family and continue living normally. When I got out of jail the first time I said the same and they did everything to stop me. A lot depends on my recovery, on how I'll solve my housing problem, who'll survive, who of may family will get what citizenship.

My family was also hounded jointly by Serbia and Croatia. It's hard to see them suffering. They live in poverty today.

My wife managed to gather the children together in August. She send a picture to my lawyer. When I compared that picture to one taken on February 12, 1991 I saw that my son looks like he just got out of Auschwitz. As an officer i resettled 17 times. The problem is that my children can't get refugee status. My son and daughter were born in Skoplje and Macedonia wasn't at war, the Germans won't take them as refugees. My wife was born in Bosnia and thanks to that she's a refugee. She was very excited when we spoke, crying a lot.

She heard on Radio Free Europe that I had been released. My son left Croatia illegally, got his family out and I hear there's a warrant for his arrest. I don't know where he is, or how he's doing. I have to grandsons. I saw the older on May 30, 1991 He could only say grandpa. He'll be seven soon. The younger one will be five soon. The wrote that he fantasizes about getting grandfather out of jail."