Witnesses and Victims

In the meantime, three of the eight tribunal investigators in Blewitt's team started interrogating Drazen Erdemovic (22) and Radoslav Kremenovic (28). Both men were arrested by the Serbian police in Becej on March 3. Erdemovic has been charged with war crimes against civilians in Srebrenica and Kremenovic has been charged with concealing a massacre in the village of Pilice near Bijeljina.

Tomislav Vojnovic, head of the investigations department at the Novi Sad district court said shortly: "Criminal proceedings have been launched against Erdemovic and Kremenovic and their detention has been set at 30 days. We can expect an official statement in a couple of days."

VREME learned that the two men were transferred to Belgrade under police escort on March 12. The transfer order and permission for the tribunal investigators to talk to them came from judge Vojnovic.

Serbia's state TV reported the arrests of the former Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) soldiers on March 8. A day earlier tribunal chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone said he asked Belgrade to cooperate and allow their extradition to The Hague. A similar demand came from the State Department, and the US ABC TV network and Paris daily Figaro published exclusive excerpts from Erdemovic's testimony and billed him as "a repentant war criminal".

The whole story started 20 days earlier. Erdemovic and Kremenovic first contacted ABC and Figaro reporters. In the meantime, and with a slight delay, The Hague tribunal was notified. Nasa Borba reported that Goldstone issued a "protective custody order" on March 2 ordering an embassy in Belgrade to keep the two men in the building and send them on to The Hague later. But the two men went to the Fantast Hotel and were arrested later in Kremenovic's home in Becej.

State security services obviously covered the whole thing.

However praiseworthy the arrest of any war criminal, the real motive for this arrest was removing dangerous witnesses of the Srebrenica operation. Information provided by the Fund for Humanitarian Law in Belgrade said the services showed no interest in the testimony of refugees from Srebrenica and Zepa who came to the FRY in July 1995. They were all registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross and housed in camps. But there are other examples. Ramo Dedic (1962) and Jasmin Kulovac (1977), refugees from Zepa, were taken off a Belgrade-Bar train at Strpci in August 1995 and have been missing ever since.

In all this time, many professional Serb patriots claimed no crimes were committed in Srebrenica. They said the only people killed there were soldiers who had to be buried in mass graves "for hygienic reasons". The authorities have said nothing so far.

Erdemovic gave Figaro three names: Lieutenant Milorad Pelemis - commander of his special forces unit, Colonel Petar Salapura - the units superior and private Brana Gojkovic. Gojkovic was Pelemis' trusted man and commanded a group of soldiers who were ordered to perform executions in Pilice on July 20, 1995. There's also an anonymous colonel who Erdemovic said knew about the killings. Informal sources said Pelemis used to be a Yugoslav National Army (JNA) anti-terrorist unit officer attached to the guards brigade in Belgrade. He saw combat in Vukovar in 1991 and joined the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) once the war broke out in Bosnia. Salapura is a much bigger player, the sources said. In the JNA he held the post of intelligence officer in the general staff and in the BSA he's head of the intelligence service. His immediate superior is General Zdravko Tolimir. The sources said the colonel transferred arms and equipment to the BSA from the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Russia and dabbled in oil deals. He's described as man with radical national feelings.

Sources from The Hague tribunal are saying that the testimonies of Erdemovic and Kremenovic are not so important to the indictments against Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic as much as they allow pressure on Belgrade for their extradition. Witnesses played the most important role in revealing the Srebrenica massacre, more important than satellites and spy planes.

Allegedly, John Shattuck, the US assistant state secretary for human rights, was told the exact location of a mass grave by a Serb witness. That man did not take part in the operation but his business contacts provided reliable information. He asked for money which he didn't get. He was advised to earn it by contacting TV networks.

At the moment this article is being written, Belgrade is deciding whether to hand the two men over. The pressure is huge; from Blewitt and Holbrooke's successor John Kornblum.

A sign of good will is the access granted to tribunal investigators after Milosevic promised to cooperate with the tribunal in a meeting with Kornblum.

Also, this is the first time that Zoran Stojanovic, head of the state committee to investigate war crimes, said there has to be cooperation "because the work of the tribunal is determined by the global policies of the Security Council". He used to claim that the Serbs were the victims in this war, not the criminals.

A trial in the FRY would not be enough to please the international community. Dusan Vuckovic, the only Serb being tried for war crimes in Yugoslavia, has been on trial for three years with no hope of a final ruling soon.

Day-Break Arrest

The confession of Drazen Erdemovic and his friend Radoslav Kremenovic to American television network ABC recorded on video tape and packed in a suitcase with the sticker "Destination London" was taken from the airport baggage conveyor belt. Instead of travelling to England, the luggage rolled directly to the airport police station, where it was met by state security officers who opened the luggage and repossessed the video tape. Not knowing what happened at the airport, Erdemovic and Kremenovic repeated the entire story about their witnessed crimes to the Paris newspaper Figaro.

The Figaro interview meeting place was chosen in high professional style: during the night of March 2 with blizzard conditions, in Hotel Fantast, formerly known as Dundjerski Castle, 10 km from Becej, where there were no guests at the time. The meeting was held in supreme confidence: thick walls without "bugs" in the rooms, no telephone lines (thieves already stole all of the wires) without curiosity seekers or informers. After the interview, Endemovic and his friend borrowed a car from the Figaro journalist to drive back to Kremenovic's house in Becej and to return it in the morning to Fantast. Instead of returning the car the next morning, they were arrested by the security service officers at day-break.