Exclusive: CNN documetary on Arkan

Arkan: Part 1 - WANTED

Version: Final

Date Submitted: 3/24/97

Correspondent: Christiane Amanpour

Senior Producer: John Fielding

Producer: Steve Daly

Editor: Cliff Hackel

Air Date:1 June 1997

Total runningtime : 12:10

Studio Introduction

BERNARD SHAW ON CAMERA

Welcome to IMPACT. It was never supposed to happen again.

2 million people forced from their homes. 300,000 more systematically slaughtered ... Nearly all of them unarmed civilians.

The world watched on TV as it all played out. Five years later, countless hands-on aggressors in the grisly carnage have yet to be arrested. Only 75 have been indicted. And only eight have stood trial.

Among those not even charged ... A one-time international hitman and bank robber with his own private army ... who reportedly looted millions from his victims

We do want to warn you that some of these pictures are graphic.

Here's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

AMANPOUR

This man is one of Interpol's twelve most wanted fugitives. His criminal record is on police files in one hundred seventy-seven countries.

The red stamp in the top right hand corner indicates he is armed and dangerous. There are arrest warrants out for him across Europe. He is a Yugoslav - a Serbian businessman, a warlord and a politician. His name is Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan.

ARKAN'S WHEREABOUTS ARE NO SECRET. IN 1993 HE FORMED HIS OWN NATIONALIST POLITICAL PARTY-THE SERBIAN UNITY PARTY-AND SERVED ONE TERM IN PARLIAMENT. HE IS A TIRELESS SELF PROMOTER, AND HAS FRIENDS AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT IN BELGRADE. HE IS ALSO PLANNING A RUN AT THE SERBIAN PRESIDENCY IN THE YEAR 2000.

TO WESTERN GOVERNMENTS, ARKAN IS A MURDEROUS THUG -THE MOST PROMINENT INSTRUMENT OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING" IN CROATIA AND BOSNIA THAT LEFT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DEAD, AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AS REFUGEES IN THE WARS OF 1991 TO 1995 THAT WRECKED YUGOSLAVIA.

He says that war crimes investigators from the Hague have found no reason to indict him, and anyway ....he says he "doesn't give a damn".

Richard Holbrooke

Bosnia Peace Negotiator

"THE MAN IS ALMOST CERTAINLY A HANDS-ON MURDERER. HIS PUBLIC DISPLAY OF FREEDOM SENDS A SIGNAL TO EVERYONE ELSE THAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS KIND OF THING. ARKAN MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE"

AMANPOUR

Among the Western powers, few disagree. They have what they need to call Arkan to account. But they do nothing.

It's not as if Arkan keeps a low profile.....In 1995, he took time off from the war in Bosnia to marry Yugoslavia's hottest pop star and the wedding turned into a media circus....

Arkan Home Video

....The whole performance played out on Belgrade's state-run television. Arkan even sold home videos of the event.

BASSIOUNI

"You do not kill innocent civilians. You do not kill people who are non-combatants. So that's a clear violation. That's a war crime in and of itself..."

Cherif Bassiouni, UN Commission of Experts

THEY HAVE ENOUGH TO INDICT HIM FOR A TON OF CRIMES. I DON'T THINK THEY NEED TO HAVE TEN TONS OF CRIMES."

AMANPOUR

The man with the baby face -- the founder and president of the Serbian Unity Party -- has been a criminal since he was 14. By age 20 he had already drawn three years in a Belgrade jail.

In 1992, the first United Nations group was set up to investigate atrocities in former Yugoslavia. The chairman was Professor Cherif Bassiouni. Arkan immediately caught his attention.

BASSIOUNI

"ARKAN IS REMARKABLE, BECAUSE THERE IS A MAN WHOM WE DISCOVERED HAS SEVEN ARREST WARRANTS BY INTERPOL.

THERE IS A MAN WHO USED TO WORK FOR THE TITO REGIME MINISTRY OF INTERIOR AS A KILLER OF OPPONENTS OF THE REGIME"

AMANPOUR

A Yugoslav government hitman. According to intelligence sources he got the job at the age of 21. And along with it came phony passports and plenty of new identities. Sometimes he'd be British. Then Italian. Or even French.

From Belgrade to Stockholm, Brussels to Milan, he built a criminal record of stickups, armed bank robberies, burglary, theft, breaking and entering, escape from jail, and violent assault -- all the while on the Yugoslav government payroll.

And that was just the beginning.

At the start of the 1990s, power struggles between its six member states are breaking up federal Yugoslavia and Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia, has expansionist plans.

Marshall Harris, Fmr. State Dept. Bosnia Officer

"IT WAS CLEAR THAT MILOSEVIC AND THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM WERE DETERMINED TO CARVE OUT A GREATER SERBIA AND TO EXPAND THEIR TERRITORY AT BOSNIA'S EXPENSE AND AT CROATIA'S EXPENSE, AND THAT THE WAY THEY WERE GOING TO DO THAT WAS TO PURGE THAT TERRITORY OF NON-SERBS."

AMANPOUR

Milosevic chooses Arkan for the job.

August 1990: Belgrade. General Marko Negovanovic of the Jugoslav National Army signs the authority allowing Arkan to form a special military force.

 

Amanpour from Zagreb

THE CROATIAN GOVERNMENT HERE IN ZAGREB HAD KNOWN ABOUT ARKAN FOR YEARS. THEY KNEW THAT HE'D JOINED THE SERBIAN SECRET POLICE IN BELGRADE IN 1973.

THEY ALSO KNEW THAT HE'D BEEN ASSIGNED TO CARRY OUT WHAT THEY CALLED "DIRTY JOBS" THROUGHOUT EUROPE....

AND THEN, IN THE DAWN HOURS OF NOVEMBER 29 1990, NEWS REACHED THEM FROM A BORDER TOWN ABOUT 100 MILES FROM HERE. A HIT TEAM CALLING THEMSELVES THE "SERBIAN VOLUNTEER GUARD" HAD BEEN ARRESTED.

THEY WERE ARMED TO THE TEETH WITH EXPLOSIVES AND WEAPONS OF ASSASSINATION. THEIR LEADER WAS ARKAN...

In an office after the arrest, the Croatian police taped Arkan and his men with their weapons...... Submachine guns with silencers, special revolvers, 40-shot machine pistols, hand grenades, CS gas canisters and 400 rounds of 9mm ammunition.

June 1991. Zagreb. After six months in custody, Arkan and his men are convicted of planning armed insurrection in the Krajina region of Croatia, where the population is predominantly Serb.

Arkan draws 20 months in jail, but for reasons still unclear, he is immediately returned to Serbia -- and walks into what is now an undeclared war.....

BERNIE SHAW

THE YUGOSLAV MILITARY IS ON ALERT AT THIS HOUR ...

AMANPOUR

Croatia had just seceded from Yugoslavia - giving Milosevic the excuse he needed to invade the newly independent nation, using the Yugoslav National Army. As a result, anti-war protesters had taken to the streets of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.

Aleksander Vasovic, Belgrade Journalist

"PEOPLE CONSTANTLY DEMANDED OK FINE, IF WE HAVE TO GO TO WAR, PLEASE THEN EXPLAIN US WHY ARE WE GOING THERE, WHAT ARE OUR WAR GOALS?

AMANPOUR

Few wanted to fight for Milosevic's Greater Serbia, and the Yugoslav Army -- by now purged of most non-Serbs- was plagued by deserters, poorly equipped, and demoralized.

VASOVIC

"BASIC QUESTION, WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING THERE?

November 11, 1991

AMANPOUR

The Serbian forces' first target was Vukovar, on Croatia's far eastern front, 100 miles from Belgrade. The campaign was a prolonged fiasco. By the time they captured it, they had reduced the city to rubble.

When Arkan's volunteers - now calling themselves the Tigers - opened a training camp nearby, the contrast with the army was stark. They brought discipline, purpose, and privilege. Arkan sold videos of the Tigers to drive the point home .

BASSIOUNI

"THE SO-CALLED TIGERS WERE GIVEN BRAND NEW UNIFORMS BY THE ARMY. THEY WERE GIVEN BRAND NEW MILITARY EQUIPMENT BY THE ARMY....

AMANPOUR

They were also given the latest hi-tech gear from the Serbian secret police...

BASSIOUNI

.....SO ALL OF THESE THINGS TOGETHER CLEARLY INDICATE THAT THEY HAD A VERY SPECIAL STATUS."

AMANPOUR

That special status, and Arkan's apparently high-level political clout, infuriated many army officers.

VASOVIC

"THEY HAD TO LIVE WITH ARKAN, BUT THEY DIDN'T LIKE HIM. ARKAN WAS SIMPLY SOMEONE WHO WAS NOT PART OF THEIR IDEA OF WARFARE, THEIR IDEA OF HOW TO SOLVE NATIONAL ISSUES. I THINK THEY SIMPLY HATED HIS GUTS.

Arkan Home Video

AMANPOUR

Arkan reported only to Belgrade - and for good reason. His troops targeted civilians. The task was to murder and terrorize men, women and children. This was ethnic cleansing.

HARRIS

THIS WAS NOT WAR. THIS WAS NOT ON THE BATTLEFIELD. THIS WAS GOING AFTER USUALLY INNOCENT CIVILIANS. IT WAS GOING AFTER PEOPLE THAT HAD VERY LITTLE, IF ANY, CHANCE OF DEFENDING THEMSELVES.

BASSIOUNI

"THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY UNSCRUPULOUS. THEY WOULD KILL ANYTHING IN SIGHT. THE ONLY LIMITATION IS THAT THEY WOULD NOT KILL OTHER SERBS. BUT BEYOND THAT, THEY WOULD KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVED.

AMANPOUR

How many died at the hands of Arkan's men? There are no precise figures. And no indictment can quantify the terror that Arkan generated as an act of policy.

Ethnic cleansing also made Arkan very rich. Right here in the wrecked streets of Vukovar, Arkan and his men stole themselves a fortune.

Cherif Bassiouni

UN Commission of Experts

BASSIOUNI

"PEOPLE WENT FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE TO TAKE ANYTHING THAT CAME IN, THAT THEY COULD TAKE, THAT THEY COULD SELL, THAT THEY COULD LOOT. THEY EXTRACTED MONEY BY RANSOM. THEY DID ALL OF THE THINGS THAT ORGANIZED CRIME ACTIVITIES DO. FOR A PERIOD OF TIME FOR EXAMPLE, ARKAN RAN THE BIGGEST GASOLINE OPERATION IN YUGOSLAVIA, NEAR VUKOVAR.

HE HAD A BIG GAS STATION AND DEPOTS IN WHICH HE WAS DOING CONTRABAND AND SELLING OF GASOLINE."

AMANPOUR

This is where Arkan made his black market fortune -- and fast. A Croatian oil field south of Vukovar, seized by the Serbs in late 1991.

When a UN oil embargo on Serbia forced gasoline prices up to $16 a gallon, Arkan took a cut of every barrel from the seized oil field -- even though oil was a state monopoly.

......And all the while his men continued to murder and pillage.

But - here in the nearby Croatian city of Osijek, itself under Serbian attack- the local prosecutor was watching.

On January 7 1992, he began listening to witnesses describe how non-Serb males were taken away by Arkan's men....

How some had their throats cut. How Croatian women and children trapped between the lines had been forced to walk towards their own guns in search of safety. Through a minefield.

The prosecutor's work would take almost a year to complete....

In the meantime, there was much worse to come.......