General Perisic On Trial

The district court in Zadar scheduled the start of a trial against a group of former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) officers, including current Yugoslav Army (VJ) chief of staff General Momcilo Perisic, for the bombing of Zadar which killed some 30 civilians. Perisic is charged with war crimes and violations of international law for ordering the bombing of Zadar and the surrounding area early in October 1991. The court claimed several hundred buildings had been hit and at least 30 civilians killed. The court filed charges against 18 officers under his command in the Zadar are.

Izidor Papo Dies

Renowned Surgeon, general, Army medical academy chief and academician Izidor Papo died in Belgrade on October 14.

Papo was born in Ljubusko on December 13, 1913. He graduated from medical school in Zagreb in 1937 and worked as a doctor at the state hospital in Sarajevo up to 1941. He joined the national liberation movement in 1941 and the partisan army in 1942 as doctor of the Mostar battalion, head of the 3rd division and partisan army supreme command surgical staff. He became a member of the communist party in June 1943. Papo graduated from the military medical academy in Leningrad in 1947 and became chief army surgeon and head of the army medical academy surgical department in Belgrade. After the war, Papo turned to heart, lung and respiratory system surgery. His greatest achievements were in heart surgery. He performed some 2,000 open heart operations and gave some 400 of his patients artificial heart valves. In 1953 Papo was appointed part-time professor of the medical academy and went on to become a regular professor in 1956. He became a correspondent member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1961 and a regular member in 1968. He was also a correspondent member of the academy of Bosnia and Peru, a member of the French surgical academy and many international associations. He won the AVNOJ and Belgrade October awards. He also received a number of Yugoslav and foreign decorations.

Polio

The first round of vaccination against polio in Kosovo and 14 municipalities in Serbia covered 95% of the children there which is an outstanding result, Serbian health care institute director Pavle Todorovic said. In Kosovo, 224,287 of the planned 231,234 children were vaccinated (95%), while in Serbia, 37,718 of the planned 39,920 children were vaccinated, a statement said. The statement added that a polio epidemic has broken out in Prizren and Orahovac in Kosovo with 15 registered cases and one death. The epidemic affects only school children who haven’t been vaccinated or whose vaccination treatment wasn’t complete. The Serbian health ministry ordered the immediate vaccination of all children up to the age of 15 across Kosovo.

Talks Frozen

The negotiations between workers at the Zastava munitions factory and their managers were frozen on Tuesday, October 15 because a way to pay the workers for the time they spent on strike (August 18-October 3) couldn’t be found. The union demanded full payment for that time but the managers refused, saying over 100,000 work hours had to be made up.

Markovic In Belgrade, Knezevic in Zagreb

October 9 has come and gone along with the deadline Belgrade and Zagreb set to exchange ambassadors and we still don’t know who’s going to head the FRY diplomatic mission in Croatia and the Croatian mission in the FRY.

A lot of names have been mentioned in both Belgrade and Zagreb but it’s still only guesswork. The Croatian media have been saying lately that Zagreb will appoint Damir Zoric, head of the Croatian refugee bureau. Unofficial reports said Zoric’s name was proposed but didn’t get Belgrade’s approval. Those reports said Veljko Knezevic, the head of the Croatian bureau in Belgrade, will be Zagreb’s ambassador. The delay in the appointments seems to have been caused by the fact the FRY wasn’t prepared to name its choice which Zagreb would have to approve. Unofficial reports said that name is Veljko Knezevic, the head of the FRY bureau in Zagreb.