The Person Who Concealed Mass Graves

Lieutenant colonel Dragan Obrenovic, the commander of the army barracks in Zvornik was arrested on Easter in the garden of his parent’s house in the village of Kozluk. When he left the party for a moment and went out of the house, Obrenovic was approached by three men and a woman, who, under threat of guns, forced him into one of the three cars which were waiting in the street. Family and friends, thinking it was an abduction, informed the police, but the cars – two Golfs and a Skoda, all with local license plates – rushed by the patrol on their way to Tuzla and only stopped at the checkpoint of the federal police outside of the territory of Republika Srpska, in the village of Memici, where they were held. The passengers, however, refused to hand over their IDs until a strong SFOR patrol arrived in Memice, after which it turned out that the “abductors” belong to a special NATO unit with authorization from the tribunal in The Hague. A few hours later, Obrenovic was already in a cell in the Scheveningen prison, from where he called his family that very same evening. The tribunal stated that Obrenovic was arrested on the basis of a secret indictment which has been raised against him on April 9 of this year, in connection to the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica in June 1995.

Even though Obrenovic wasn’t known to the wider public, his arrest couldn’t have surprised anyone who had followed the trial of his chief, general Radislav Krstic, commander of the Drina corps of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS). Namely, at the time of the Srebernica offensive, Obrenovic, then a mayor, held a far more significant post than one could suppose on the basis of his rank: he was the acting commander of the Zvornik garrison, whose zone of responsibility encompassed a large part of the Srebrenica front. What happened after general Ratko Mladic, who commanded the whole operation, entered into this Muslim enclave and handed out sweets to the children, is unfortunately well known: it is estimated that in Srebrenica and its vicinity five thousand men from sixteen years onwards were murdered; two thousand were found in mass graves, while a search is still ongoing for the bodies of the rest. In Serbia this massacre was presented for a long time as an invention of western propaganda, but today hardly anyone seriously questions that it truly did occur.

As could be discovered from general Krstic’s trial in November of last year, Obrenovic executed his part of the task decisively and with enthusiasm, for which he was promoted shortly after the war. Namely, during the trial, a tape was played with an intercepted conversation between Krstic and Obrenovic on which the following could be heard: “Are you working down there?” asks Krstic. “We’re working, we’re working Mr. General”, answers Obrenovic. “There are more of those who have run into wires and mines.” “Good”, says Krstic, “kill each and every one of them. Fuck those bastards.” “Everything’s going according to plan”, answers Obrenovic readily and repeats that one more time in the course of the conversation. During the trial, Krstic vainly claimed that the tape was edited, that the voice wasn’t his, that he didn’t even speak to Obrenovic during those days. However, court experts confirmed the authenticity of the tape via a graphic voiceprint, and they failed to find any evidence of editing. Such a thing wouldn’t be needed since the tribunal’s prosecutors, along with command responsibility, have more than enough evidence and testimonies for their charges.

Otherwise, Krstic’s trial is almost completed and has been temporarily suspended due to the decline of the indicted man’s medical condition. Obrenovic is also interesting because, as the indictment claims, in the months following the offensive, he was in charge of relocating and hiding the mass graves, meaning he could offer key information about the missing people, whose relatives have been waiting in vain for six years to find out where the bodies are. Beside that, the indictment also charges him for genocide, violations of the laws and customs of war, crimes against humanity and serious violations of the Geneva Convention, including murder, torture and racial and religious persecution. Obrenovic’s arrest has, as could be expected, incited protests amongst Bosnian Serbs, according to the already customary ritual which is played out whenever anyone important is arrested. On Monday, a day after the arrest, around two thousand people protested in Zvornik, while the government of Mirko Sarovic expressed its dissatisfaction due to the manner of the arrest. It didn’t even help, as is claimed, that thus far he had talked to the tribunal’s prosecutors twice in Banjaluka, nor that he expressed his readiness to voluntarily surrender in case he is indicted. The tribunal either didn’t believe him, or decided not to risk an eventual murder attempt by his accomplices, whatever the case, this Easter is probably the last he has celebrated in freedom.

Also free is the main author of the “plan” whom Obrenovic referred to on the tape, general Mladic, who is believed to be in hiding in the underground shelters of his former main headquarters in Sokoc. Only after his arrest will we have a full picture of all that had occurred in Srebrenica, although not totally. Namely, what remains to be cleared up is the role of the international community, which had tacitly approved the Srebrenica offensive with the goal of simplifying the map for a future peace agreement, along with the role of the Yugoslav Army general staff, which had unselfishly provided logistics and other assistance to Mladic during the operation. Only when those pieces of the puzzle fall into place, will the ghosts of Srebrenica’s victims be able to be laid to rest.