Who forgives a crime, becomes an accessary

Vladan Vasilijevic of the Belgrade Institute for Criminal and Sociological Research cited at the time, the principles of international law recognized by the Nuremberg Court statute, which under a United Nations decision in 1949 were recognized a the general principles of international law. War crimes include "violations of war laws and customs which encompass, but are not limited to killing, maltreatment, forced labor or the taking away of the civilian population for any other purpose, the killing or maltreatment of POWs or dying persons, the killing of hostages, the looting of public or private property, the wilful destruction of cities or villages, or acts of devastation not justified by military needs." Crimes against humanity are: "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or any other inhuman act against any civilian population, and political, racial or religious persecution if these acts or persecution are committed through a crime against peace, or war crime, or linked to war criminals." Further, "every person who commits a criminal act which represents a crime under international law is responsible and is liable to punishment;" "the fact that the person who has committed a crime punishable under international law while head of state or government, does not free him of responsibility with regard to international law"; "the fact that the person was carrying out orders issued by his government or superiors does not free him of responsibility under international law, if there was a possibility of making a moral choice." Zagreb lawyer Silvije Degen (who at that time lived in the same state as Belgrade) recalled that under international law, the rule still holds that he who forgives a crime, becomes an accessary to it. "One day, when accounts start being settled, a new Nuremberg trial will be unavoidable," said Degen. In October 1991, Konstantin Obradovic, senior researcher with the Belgrade Institute for Policy and Economy urged on VREME's pages that "we try to judge the culprits ourselves," rather than wait "for some new Nuremberg trial." Obradovic said that international law was impartial as to who were the perpetrators of the crime - "they" or "we." "In determining someone's guilt with regard to this type of transgression, it is of no consequence as to what are the goals of the fighting." He explained the need to bring war criminals to trial here by the fact that "no reasonable person can believe that we have gone so far, that either side, like the criminal organization from the well know Nuremberg trials, is following a policy of total war and ordering the committing of crimes as part of policy. The assumption is that persons full of hatred or of a revengeful mentality are taking the law into their hands. Adequate punishment would prevent further massacres..." The European Community (E.C.) foreign ministers' meeting in Utrecht on October 6, 1991 announced a "determination to confront the perpetrators of the infamous violence in Yugoslavia and growing number of victims, with the consequences of their actions in accordance with international law." This warning should not be taken lightly, because the E.C. countries have the means of following through their warning, concluded Obradovic.

In early 1992, VREME published a facsimile of a telegram sent by lieutenant-colonel Milan Eremija from the battlefield in Slavonija to the First military district command. In the telegram he says that 80 inhabitants of Croatian nationality in the village of Lovas, after being captured by the Lovas territorial defence and the Dusan Silni unit, were physically maltreated, and four were killed. After this, "captured villagers were used to clean mine-fields which resulted in the death of 17." In late July 1992, Dobrivoje Radovanovic expressed his dissatisfaction in VREME with the recently founded state commission for looking into war crimes, because at the start of its work, the commission had been given the task of looking only into "genocide committed against Serbs." Radovanovic said that without bringing "domestic" criminals to trial, there could be no talk of war coming to an end. If this task were not done honestly and properly, war in these spaces would never truly end, "even when the guns have stopped firing."