Milan LukićCONFESSION OF THE PRISONER

OF THE HAGUE

Milan Lukić

CONFESSIONOF THE PRISONER

OF THE HAGUE

Belgrade, 2011

Milan LukićCONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Publishing Editor Biljana Ivković

Printed at: Graffoprint – Gornji Milanovac

„I thank my miraculous and Gracious Lord, capapble of every miracle;I have no fears, standing in the freedom bestowed upon me by my Christ:

Free from fear, free from death, free from hell, free from the Devil. None of these scare me,

all of these are dead before my Lordfor Whom I live and to Whom I belong with all of my soul,

my heart and my being.”

Saint Justin of Chelije

Dedicated to my brother Novica,with whom I used to sleep on the same heart.

1.

The beginning of the bloody war of the people was rather comic. As if modelled by the very ‘Creator’ of the war and the peoples of my country. Horrors, misfortune, devastation – all of it bestowed upon millions of nameless victims.Bestowed upon me – unclassified individual, bestowed by the war, by the attempted

escape over two continents, chased by blood-thirsty head-hunters of Serbs, bestowed upon me by the prison and the sentence:

‘Milan Lukić, Serb from Bosnia… life imprisonment for the committed war crime…’ Oddly enough, I happened to watch the beginning of the war of my country and my

people on television screens of various Western TV stations. For days on end, I listened to the reserved Swiss, proverbially thorough Germans, ironic English… an on-going flow of breaking news, with special programmes in between, featuring visiting journalists, politi-cians, Balkan specialists, military experts and strategists. Under the ice-glazed politeness of unbiased observers, one could sense deeply-hidden cynicism. Deep inside themselves, they must have been bursting with laughter – although it is dubious whether they knew the mean-ing of sound human laughter after all, showing their serious faces while presenting selected videos of the speeches and public appearances of the ‘Great Leader’ of the people – the people who were now plunged in war.

I watched him too, as full of decorations as an Alpine hunter’s hat, moving about, rat-tling the military decorations on his embroidered Marshall uniform, with his icy gaze, wav-ing his fist with determination:

‘Our Army with its force, for heaven’ sake, it must the fourth strongest army in the world! The second one in Europe! But its internal power makes it the strongest in the world, because it has our brotherhood and unity of all our nations and peoples...’.

And the Leader’s face begins to float in the background of the screen, while the iron-side echelons of the invincible army keep marching ahead. Lines of marching soldiers, tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket launchers, accompanied by a swaying multitude of sym-bolic sickles and hammers, burning red sprockets, also called five-pointed stars, a multitude of flags featuring these symbols.

And the people? The people keep cheering in a well-trained manner, their shouts of praise overwhelmed by the roaring sound of the sky-splitting squadrons of jet fighters. An-other picture of success and loyalty, a scene that had taken months of rehearsal to prepare for one of the usual occasions – a military parade, the Leader’s birthday, a ‘slet’ or simply a welcome or farewell gathering for the Great Leader, his power and glory in heaven and on earth, his paths of the ‘global peace’, during his endless cruises over seas and oceans, his

7

endless journeys to some god-forsaken desolate places, from wild tribes to the Buckingham Palace…

And now, we could watch on TV how this enormously powerful army was allegedly attacked by a Slovenian guy: the world’s greatest military force, created by a former Austria-Hungary corporal, was now under attack by its or his own corporal or a sergeant or who knows what, a certain Janez Janša who, leading a group of rebellious Slovenians, was cut-ting off supplies of water and electricity to military barracks. No communal services for the Army… An imminent death inflicted by thirst and darkness.

The rebels were making their statements for the western televisions, dressed like hunt-ers, as if going hunting for the wild goat in the Alps. They were armed with automatic ma-chine guns. The western intellectuals though, in their comments for the common TV view-ers, called them a ‘civilian society’ and occasionally even – ‘humane intelligence’. In their war negotiations with the generals of the glorious Marshall, the rebels were truly humane, allowing the army to leave in peace, provided they leave behind the tanks, all of the equip-ment and other weapons, as well as stocks of army supplies.

Moulded in the shape of their ‘Great Leader’, the generals were overweight, fat, slow in their movements and hesitant. They were too slow in their thinking, too slow in their decisions.

They had never had to think or make decisions earlier. Since their beloved Great Leader had done everything instead of them, they could leave their brains aside, let them rust, un-used. And the suspense on the Western televisions… ‘Which army will prevail?’, the neutral countries of the West kept discussing in their unbiased manner.

I could see their admiration for the Great Leader, their apparent respect for the great deeds that he had done in the Balkans, on his way from an Austrian corporal to a Marshall.

Quite unpretentiously, the TV channels were showing his meetings with the Holy Fa-ther, his touching hospital treatment in Ljubljana. And then, the sadness: his funeral and the sadness of all the Western leaders over the Marshall. What touching scenes!

What I didn’t know then, they must have kept the other eye – the one that wasn’t busy shedding tears – wide open, measuring our land with its mountains, rivers, orchards and vineyards…

However, despite the apparent admiration, it was obvious that they were finding it very hard to hide their sympathy for the sergeant Janša from the opposite side. After all, he was an admirer of the Western values, as he definitely preferred a dead Austria-Hungary to a live Yugoslavia. While he was resurrecting Austria-Hungary, he was careful to give it new forms and names. ‘There is no war between the two of them and what is happening is a continuation of one and the same process, a mere reconstruction’, was the conclusion of the most cunning interpreters of the events in Yugoslavia. So Janša and his civilian company of hunters could hardly be blamed for their fury over the hesitant generals. Furious as they were, they captured a hundred and twenty armless soldiers and occupied the barracks which had been deserted by their commanding officers, chased away the border army units and customs officers of Yugoslavia, who had to flee to Austria, to save their lives in their own country.

Milan Lukić

8

It is true that Janša’s followers had killed more than a hundred armless soldiers from dif-ferent parts of Yugoslavia, but this was a trifle that had to be kept under control, not to cause unwanted emotions, so the Western televisions kept propagating the message that Janša and his ‘humane’ accomplices did not want any more shedding of blood. Their order ‘The Army must immediately leave Slovenia!’ was supported and widely publicised. The TV screen was showing an on-going series of faces accompanied by names and titles of highest pub-lic, mostly political figures from the West, all of whom welcomed this democratic way of the Army’s retreat and disarmament, because, as they put it, ‘It leads to peace!’. What they somehow failed to explain was where the Yugoslav Army would retreat when it retreated from Yugoslavia. Mesmerised by this charade, stupefied by the clowns on the scene, I had failed to see through the trick, and laughed childishly at the circus show going on under a marquee. What a comedy of war and peace.

But no sooner did it start, than a comedy revealed its dark face. A sudden announcement on all of the stations: ‘Croatia wants the Independent State of Croatia’! Again without Serbs.

At the same time, there was news from Belgrade about a secretly filmed video showing Martin Špegelj talking about his plan ‘to ransack the flats, dressed like postmen, telegraph couriers and as soon as they open the door, stab them with a knife in their stomach’… From Hungary, in a Santa-Claus manner, somebody had been sending in truckloads of weapons, so that they didn’t have to stab with knives over thresholds.

‘The Army must leave Croatia!’ This is what the wise heads of the West saw as a precon-dition of peace and the future democracy. The forces of this democracy were already invad-ing the military barracks, leisurely as if walking into supermarkets. The barracks were being invaded, weapons taken away, while armless soldiers were left to their mercy and good will. The units of some barracks were in retreat, the television showing them loading tanks onto railway carriages. A line of tormented soldiers slowly moves by, surrounded by daring, fully armed democratic civilians. I watched soldiers loaded on trucks, afraid to look out under the canvas. They were in fear for their lives, waiting to be allowed to retreat.

On the other side of Croatia, a civilian jumps on a tank, trying to strangle a soldier whose head is out of the tank, and the soldier dives to his rescue, down inside the turret… And the television was calling these things ‘the democratic movement’, ‘revolt of citizens’, ‘fight against communism’… Then, the circus shown on the TV screen had turned into a tragedy: ‘Serbs have started a war!’ They say, these are the rebel Serbs in Kninska Krajina and Slavonia. I kept changing the Western television channels, but there was no difference in the way they broadcast their reports: The Yugoslav Army was called the Serbian Army, and any actions taken by it in its efforts to protect itself during retreat were immediately labelled as ‘aggression’.

And of course, any ‘aggression’ was immediately unanimously condemned: for Heav-en’s sake, what the Serbs and their army are doing, this must be war! Germany as we knew it, had now unveiled its real face – no need to be tactful or mince words.

Whatever the German media would pour out against the Serbs in their evening update, was simply echoed by the media of other European countries the same night. And the fol-lowing day, while they fiercely defended their views stated the previous night, Germany

9

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

would be spitting out more nonsense. As if echoing the old threats of former Austria-Hun-gary: ‘We will occupy Serbia with our iron fist’, now I listened to Genscher threatening ‘Serbs are rebels! Serbia must be brought to its knees!’ At the same time, the new Croatian Television showed provoking images of Tajči, the pop singer, wearing a dress that opens high up to her thighs:

‘Danke Deutschland,Danke viel mall,Danke liebe Deutschland,Danke fur alles …’Thank you for everything, thank you forever. So vibrantly, so touchingly, she was sing-

ing a new ode to the old love. This must be the only song in the history of mankind ever dedicated to Germany. But alas, she sang it to the new Fuhrer, Chancellor Genscher, a song that would have made the old Fuhrer Adolf Hitler jealous. Tuđman, one of the former excel-lent generals of the old Marshall, kept repeating himself on Western televisions: ‘The people of Croatia want democracy’. The statement was endlessly repeated and re-broadcasted until we all go insane or become deaf.

Following in his wake, and the emotions aroused by the thrilling ode to Fuhrer and the Chancellor Goenscher, were the new drums of war announcing an iron bath for the Serbs and evoking the images of concentration camps, captives lined for execution in furnaces and then – making his contribution to this charade – there was the Cardinal Kuharić who, like a living saint, was blessing the ode, the Fuhrer and the weapons alike, shedding prayers all around. He was now begging the great powers to ‘bring peace to Croatia’ and he was beg-ging the Catholic countries to join in the prayer to summon the military power and finally, in the name of his ‘suffering heard’ of the loyal Croatian believers, he begged the ‘Holy Father’ to use his power, glory, missiles and God knows what else, to protect them from the Godless aggression of the wrong-believers… And bishops and cardinals from Catholic countries, as well as the ‘Holy Father’, were returning their prayers. It was Sunday, and he was praying at the Saint Mark’s Square… To make sure that the average Western TV viewer did not get mistaken about who the culprit was, the images of these prayers were broadcast in between the news about the aggression of the Army, together with the speculations about Serbian paramilitary units.

After so much rubbish poured over me from the television screen, I switched to the Bel-grade Television, already notoriously stigmatised by all of the Western televisions.

I saw barricades in the roads of Kninska Krajina… It is night, and fires are burning. Peasants gathered around them, keeping warm in their vigil. Protecting the sleeping villages with hunting rifles. In Slavonia, the pictures are the same. People are trying to explain that their villages used to belong to Serbia, but were given to Croatia by the Great Leader and his envoy Đilas. Around them, on the tarmac roads and fences, an invisible hand has writ-ten messages in large letters: ‘Serbs to be hanged!’, ‘We’ll slaughter you all!’, ‘Long live Ante Pavelić!’, ‘The Ustasha Batallion!’… At the same time, Tuđman’s militia was active at dawns, occupying one by one police stations where Serbs used to be in charge. They were taking control of Serbian villages as well…

Milan Lukić

10

The war spread like a fire. I watched as Kninska Krajina liberated their regions and pro-tected their borders. There were terrible fights for Vukovar. The Western television stations kept stigmatising the Serbs.

I remember watching it one evening on Belgrade Television – they were showing two Vukovar streets that had just been liberated from a crew headed by a commander who called his soldiers ‘Ustashas’ and himself a ‘Hawk’. As the camera slowly passed over piles of dead bodies, I could see mutilated corpses of old men, women and children.

On the remains of the walls there were still swastikas and the checkerboard coat of arms crowned by the letter ‘U’ – the old symbol of the Ustasha slaughterers. The television showed a footage about a Serbian village where the local people refused to accept arms from the Territorial Army. The Ustasha stormed this neutral village, inflicting revenge for the losses in Vukovar, slaughtering two families. Scenes of blood-stained walls and floors, a man slaughtered on his doorstep, corpses of slaughtered victims skewed across the yard… a terrible Ustasha feast. The old Ustasha forged blade was killing again.

From this night on, whenever I saw Genscher on television, he would have Hitler’s miniature moustache on his face.

I kept changing the European TV channels, but they seemed to be too absorbed in their neutral peace-keeping approach, to be interested in showing piles of slaughtered Serbs. I turned off the television. I had seen enough, and it was late enough. I couldn’t go to sleep. I walked up to the window. Outside it was snowing quite heavily, the snowdrops falling down and disappearing in the shadows of the dark stretches of the Zurich Lake. For the first time, the glorious lake looked like a bottomless pit.

The eyes instinctively surged up towards the lamps lined along the shore, where the white spots of snow kept swarming around the coloured decorations, hanging in the dark-ness as if crucified, remnants of the recent celebration of Christmas and the New Year. Underneath, the vacant pavements and the steep end of the street were disappearing in the dense curtain of the falling show.

A vague feeling of strange apprehension was growing inside me – a feeling I had never had before. Only to think how careless and happy I had been during the summer. Only twenty-two, and blessed with everything a young man could ever wish for in this world, even in one’s wildest dreams.

I was living in a house at the Lake of Zurich, in the most exclusive neighbourhood, with Gabriela, my fairy-like Swiss fiancée. She had a degree in catering and tourism and was run-ning a family business – a chain of restaurants and pizzerias in Switzerland. This is how we had met – I had been working in a classy pizzeria in Zurich and we had fallen in love. She had arranged a meeting with her parents. ‘I have found my Prince’, she’d said to her parents and they had given her consent to their single daughter.

We had moved into our villa. My duty during this time was to assist her. We were supervising her restaurants in Zu-

rich, Davos, St Moritz, Rapperswil, Geneva. She was disciplined, committed to work, hard-working, expert and dedicated, and she took the managing of her restaurants in her stride. The only thing I could possibly teach her was how to have a good time after work.

11

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Gabi was five years my senior, but the difference never tells when you are so young. She had the beauty of an angel, she was sweet, happily in love, enjoying every minute of her life and making my every day a bliss.

We had got engaged and fixed a date for our wedding party, which was to be in Bel-grade. I wanted to invite my family and relatives, and also my former fellow-students from the Student City in Belgrade. We had also thought about organising a wedding party in Rujište, the village near Višegrad where I was born. The more German I could speak, the more I told her about Belgrade, the Serbs, our history, the area near my birthplace with its National Park, which resembled the Alps, although it was somehow more gentle than the Swiss mountains. I told her lovingly about the Drina river, its ancient bridge and the story inspired by them that received the Nobel Prize for literature.

Gabi would say: ‘Oh, Milan, your Heimweh is so gentle’. I already knew that Heimwee was the German word for ‘nostalgia’. She listened to me with so much attention and so much Swiss-like tranquillity, while her glistening eyes were inviting me to tell more, as if they were saying: ‘Talk more… about life, your country, about your brave people and their stormy history’. We had been planning to buy a house in Belgrade, at Bežanijska kosa, to have a home of ours in Serbia. I had already paid a deposit of five thousand Swiss Francs, only to learn later that the contractor, the ‘Stankom’ company was going to the wall. I had given up, thinking that it would be better to lose the deposit than risk two hundred and fifty thousand Francs, which had been the value of the contract.

Instead, I bought a hundred-square-metre flat from ‘Energoprojekt’, located in the same place and fully furnished. It was ready for the groom to carry the bride over the doorstep. We were going to get married in an Orthodox church. Gabi saw some video tapes with re-cordings of wedding ceremonies of some of my friends – she wanted to compare the rather complex wedding ceremony with the simple ones that she was used to seeing in her culture. She saw the ancient prayers for the Holy Secret of Marriage, and was thrilled to show to her parents the crown worn by the bride, looking forward to the moment when she would wear one. The Serbian wedding was to be organised during Serbian New Year’s Holiday: A Swiss bride married in an Orthodox ceremony, with a crown on her head… But the war had planned a different wedding, and ours got postponed for an unspecified future occasion.

With my forehead leaned against the chilling window pane, I kept running these pictures in my head. The highbrow neighbourhood was now fast asleep. The working people and the early birds were also in bed. Only the snow kept falling – heavy, Alpine snow, slowly covering the vacant streets and pavements. Snow-covered and freezing cold, unfathomable emptiness had filled up my soul. I was tense, trying to hear what the silence had to tell me. In the semi darkness of the room behind me, I could hear Gabi’s soft breathing. She was fast sleep. Outside, through the falling snow, I could make out the noble white front of the insurance company building, with the blinking symbol of the Swiss security and the writing ‘Happy New 1992’, which was already some ten days old.

Milan Lukić

12

2.

All of the Western TV stations were broadcasting the news: ‘The Holy Father, in the name of the Vatican has recognised the renewed independent state of Croatia’. Essentially, this was a reprise of the same story that had been seen fifty years earlier. The recognition of Germany followed immediately after the Pope! It was Serbian New Year, the day I had planned for my wedding day. In the bulletins that accompanied the main news of the day, they claimed that Serbs were criminals. There was an expert who had gone even further than this. ‘What God, what religion? Even their saints are criminals,’ While showing the frescoes inside a monastery, the voice was explaining: ‘See, even the frescoes depict them as crimi-nals, with swords at their sides!’

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Gabriela’s reactions. ‘What must she be thinking now of those ancient prayers? My God, could it be that she believes all these disgusting lies? What did she learn about Hitler in school? Does she know anything about Jasenovac, the pits of death and the Ustashe? What do these Helvetians learn at all, apart from how to make watches and multiply their money,’ I kept asking myself in my silent frustration. Although her atitude towards me had not changed, she must have discussed it with her parents, with-out letting me know. I was tormented by a suspicion that she might have had doubts about me, unaware of the fact that I had already started suspecting her. Her dedcation to work and her diligence had made me change my comprehension of the term ‘ever’. I started looking forward to work and the daily problems that went with it. The more I persisted, the bigger the constant apprehension grew inside me – I was constantly worried about the destiny of my parents, family, friends and the country.

I told Gabriela that I wanted to take some things to the Belgrade flat. These were really trifles and she must have known it, but she agreed and I set off in the car on my journey to Belgrade. The first impression when I arrived was that the city hadn’t changed. I could see people sitting in restaurants like before. The front line was far from here, the cannons could not be heard, but the war could be seen on every face, in every eye.

I went to see my brothers, my sister and their families. I saw many of my friends, then I drove in my car that had Belgrade plates towards Višegrad. I wanted to see the old friends and my former school friends. I was going to celebrate our Patron Saint’s Day, Saint John, with my parents, like we used to do in the old days. During the whole of my journey, I was overwhelmed with joy brought to me by these pictures.

So here I was in Višegrad, driving slowly along the streets I knew so well, looking for some familiar faces. I thought I could feel a certain tension, but it was a fleeting feeling. Then I saw the grill restaurant with a large sign ‘Beno’s Place’ and I pulled in at its side. I

13

knew the grill master Benjamin, called Beno, a Muslim and a witty joker. He had made a reputation with his small and cosy restaurant. I also knew his brothers Lulo and Šano, who themselves were remarkable local figures and renowned for their daring jumps from the old Bridge of Višegrad, into the swift waters of the Drina river. I must have talked about them to Gabriela, in my stories with which I had wanted to depict the character of the local people, and the life in Višegrad as I knew it.

‘How are things, Beno my friend?’, I shouted as I was coming out of the car. ‘Well, here I am Lukić! Come over here – look what I’ve got here!’ said he, stepping out

on the porch and motioning proudly towards his small take-away. We hugged each other, and he shouted back to his assistant: ‘I’m going out for a chat with a friend, you take over.’

We sat down at the terrace of the hotel, some twenty paces away from his shop. I soon noticed that Beno was throwing nervous glances over his shoulder, towards his take-away.

‘Are you expecting someone?’‘Not at all, I don’t want some bastard to scratch your car – you’ve got Belgrade plates,

haven’t you? He caught the look of surprise on my face, and added briefly: ‘You don’t know it yet my friend, people here are out of their minds.’

‘Which people? I don’t know any people, only you and my friends’, I replied, raising my glass in a toast.

‘I know, I know, my dear Lukić, but the politics have done horrible things here. They are grabbing at the positions, the politicians are. The Democratic Action Party for us Muslims, and the Serbian Democratic Party for the Serbs.’ Beno sighed, looking in my eyes. ‘They are pushing the people towards war. There will be suffering – they have bred hate.’

Then he added, after a short pause: ‘But not for me, I’m not that crazy. Beno isn’t tak-ing any arms.’ He waved his arm, as if to accentuate his determination: ‘Let them screw themselves.’

‘Come on, Beno, let us not talk about it. I am on my way to my parents’, to celebrate the Saint’s Day, Saint John. Let us go together.’

‘My dear friend, you know that I would love to, and may your Slava be blessed, but you know I can’t go. And please, don’t go there by night.’

‘Why?’ I was taken by surprise.‘All of the lunatics here are now armed, someone may fire at your car because of the

plates, and… Remember, Lukić, there will be trouble… horrible things are in store for us all’, said Beno shaking his head.

‘Where are your brothers’, I ask, trying to change the topic and get his mind off his worries.

‘They must be in town, somewhere around here.’Then Beno spotted a group of youngsters, standing around my car. Before I could say

anything, he was on his feet, heading towards them. ‘You sit here, I’ll take care of this.’ I let Beno move ahead, then I stood up. As I slowly approached them, I could see that

they were arguing about something. One of them had snapped the antenna from my car and was now holding it in his hand.

Milan Lukić

14

‘Hey guys, is that from this car? It’s my car, who’s done it?’‘It is this car, I’ve broken it,’ said one of them. ‘Why did you do it? It’s not worth anything. You’ve only done some damage,’ I asked

slowly, keeping an eye on him and his group. ‘I thought that the car belonged to a Chetnik.’‘What do you mean, a Chetnik?’‘I mean a Vlach’. ‘What Vlach? The Vlachs are in the east of the country, near Petrovac and Požarevac.’

I asked. ‘Every Serb for me is a Chetnik and a Vlach.’‘Well, this is my car and I am a Serb, from Rujište in Župa? Do you mind it?’He started fidgeting, trying to say something, looking for some support from his group.

His friends started mumbling, but Beno stopped them: ‘Now, listen to me, you mother fuckers! Get away from here, and fuck both Murat and

Bane Savović who are poisoning these people. This is my friend and a good guy.’ Beno was now really furious.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the young lad, reaching out to give the broken antenna back to me. ‘You take it,’ said I. ‘But you should know that this is not a way to behave, you are

young.’We went back to our table, and I could see that Beno was shaking. He said: ‘If you’d

been by yourself, they would’ve attacked you. This is insane, my friend.’‘You can trust me on this,’ said I taking out my Smith&Weson colt and placing it on

the table, ‘whoever dares to attack me will have to fight with me to the last drop of my blood, I don’t care if they have a crown and a crescent moon on their head. But, tell me my friend, how can I find that blond girl Nermina, from Rodića Breg? I have a present for her.’

‘We’ll find her, all right,’ said he. ‘But don’t walk with her through town, the scumbags will attack you.’Beno went in to the hotel reception to call the girl. ‘Good evening, Beno speaking. Is Nermina there?’ After some time, when she picked up

the phone on the other end, he continued: ‘Listen young girl, there is a present for you here, left by a friend of yours. Come at once.’

And some then minutes later she was there, in front of the take-away. As she was ap-proaching, she hurriedly spoke: ‘Do not try to kiss me or anything, Lukić, the square is full of people and everybody stares at you and your Belgrade plates.’ She shook hands with Beno, then briefly with me, as if we were getting acquainted. ‘How come the two of you are together?’ she asked. ‘Well, he’s an old friend, the legendary Beno.’ I explained.

‘I know Beno, for sure … let us get out of town.’ We sat down in my car, all three of us and pulled out. At the exit from the town, near the

petrol station, Beno said: ‘Stop the car, I’m getting off here. You don’t need me any more.’‘No way,’ said I determinedly, ‘we are all going together, to have a good time.’‘If she had taken a friend with her, I would have joined in,’ replied Beno. ‘But like this

– I’d be only spoiling the fun.’’

15

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

We dropped him off, then we went in the direction of Dobrun and Serbia, taking the right turn at the crossroads, towards Belo Brdo. A little later, we reached the hamlet of Un-drolja, the place where the communists had captured General Draža Mihailović. Suddenly, Nermina was all over me, hugging and kissing me. Having almost lost control over the car, I shout at her ‘Wait, I can’t see anything, you’re going to get us killed.’ She simply wouldn’t listen, so I pulled in by the side of the road. ‘OK, tell me now where you want us to go. Do you want to go to Priboj?’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t go there now – my father will be looking for me. I’ll think of something and we can go to the Tara mountain tomorrow,’ she said.

We drove back to the town, taking our time. I spent that night in the hotel. In the mor-ning, according to our agreement, I picked her up on the road to Jagodina. We spent that whole day in a tourist resort in the Tara mountain.

‘I am going home to Rujište tomorrow, to celebrate my Saint’s Day. Do you want to come with me?’

‘Only if you’ll marry me,’ she said, ‘or my father will kill me.’‘How can you get married if your parents won’t let you?’‘If you’ll marry me, I won’t ask them. Just take me with you, anywhere.’‘Listen Nermina, you are beautiful and dear. But I could never marry you and be cursed

by your family. They won’t let you marry me because I am Serbian, am I right?’‘Yes, but I love you.’‘How could you live your whole life without your own family? I could never do this to

you.’I did not tell her about my fiancée in Switzerland. On the other hand, it would have

been wrong to leave the girl I had loved so tenderly while we were students, without seeing her, without talking to her once again. This was our good-bye and I was carefully choosing words to phrase my thoughts and feelings, trying not to hurt her.

On my third morning in town, the morning before Saint John’s Day, I left Višegrad and set off towards my parents’ house. On the outskirts of the town, I stopped in front of a shop that was on the ground floor of a family house. When I went in, I saw a beautiful girl stand-ing behind the counter.

‘Lovely day, lovely girl!’ I greeted her cheerfully. ‘Indeed it is, as you are a handsome boy,’ was her unexpected reply. ‘This must be a new shop, and it is well-stocked.’‘Yes, we’ve only been opened for a few months. Where are you from?’‘From the village of Rujište, in Župa. And you?’‘I am the owner’s daughter,’ she smiled. ‘It is nice to see an owner’s daughter working in the family business, like in Germany

or Switzerland.’‘And where do you live?’ She looked at me with her beautiful eyes. ‘In Switzerland. I am visiting my parents for the Saint’s Day, and would like to buy

something for the feast.’‘We have everything here, you just have to name it.’

Milan Lukić

16

‘So I can see, but – to be honest, of all the things I’ve seen in Višegrad, you must be the most beautiful.’

She said: ‘Thanks’, showing her perfect, snow-white teeth. ‘Well, I guess I have to be honest too, and admit that you are very nice.’

I insisted I should treat her to a chocolate bar of her choice, a large one. She refused with a smile, and then – not to offend me, accepted a small chocolate candy.

‘No, that candy’s not an option,’ I kept insisting. ‘It has to be something bigger.’‘It’s not the value that counts when you want to treat someone, it’s how dear the gift is,’

she said. ‘And is it dear in this case? Is it truly dear?‘Oh yes, very much so,’ she said, giving me a charming, seductive gaze. ‘I bought various provisions, for the around thirty or so guests we were expecting for

the feast. She helped me choose the drinks, spices, coffee and soup. When I was paying, she popped a packet of Marlboro into one of the carrier bags. ‘My turn to treat you,’ she said with a smile.

‘I’m not a smoker, though,’ I said, ‘I’m a soccer player.’‘And what is your family name?’ she asked. I told her and asked her about hers. She charmingly introduced herself, and I realized

that she was a Muslim. She helped me to carry the merchandise to the car. While she was passing the various stuff to me, I could sense the touch of her hair on mine, I could smell her perfume. I couldn’t help smiling silently. ‘I’m sniffing like a hound,’ I thought.

Once we packed everything, I bought a few cans of coke, and some other trifles. I paid and left a tip.

‘It was really nice meeting you,’ I said. ‘How about having a drink together one of these days?’

‘Sure,’ she said, ‘only not here in Višegrad. Here is my phone number.’‘And why not in Višegrad?’ I asked. ‘The politicians here have turned the Serbs and the Muslim against each other.’‘It’s bad, but it’s none of my business, I guess,’ said I, slipping the piece of paper with her

number on it into my pocket. Then I added: ‘Is it OK if I introduce myself when I phone you?’‘No way. You will recognise my voice, I am almost always here.’‘And what family do you come from?’ ‘Šabanović,’ she replied. ‘What is then Murat Šabanović to you?’ I asked. ‘He’s my uncle.’‘He’d kill both of us if he knew,’ I smiled. ‘He wouldn’t do anything, but my father would. He’s more dangerous, believe me.’‘And who is your father?’ ‘He’s name’s Avdija,’ she said. ‘Did he use to work as a waiter? I remember him when I was a student, he used to treat

me and my friend with a drink, from time to time.’ ‘And who is that friend of yours?’

17

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘Smail Cocalić.’‘It is true that my father is a good man, but now things are so different.’‘Listen, darling, I would get converted if it were for you,’ I said jokingly on my way out

of the store. She came out behind me. When she spoke, I could sense both pride and pain in her

voice: ‘I know you won’t call. You are afraid of my father.’ I replied: ‘It is only the God in heavens that I fear, you can take my word for that. I don’t

want trouble, but I will call you.’ I set in the car and drove off, tooting the horn for the final good-bye. I watched in the

rear-view mirror as she waved her arm, almost unobtrusively. I started thinking how to tease Gabriela with this little anecdote. I was thinking about

how she was going to react to it when I told her? More than probably, my wise Swiss girl was going to be calm as ever, as calm as the mountains and glaciers. ‘Guys like side tracks,’ would probably be her comment.

As for myself, I felt my true nature taking hold of me. I was careless and happy again. I felt as if this lovely, polite and dear girl, with her childlike sincerity, had opened the gate of the childhood once again, the first loves and the first secrets, my parent’s home and the school, all of the beautiful and dear things I always remembered and carried with me, wher-ever I went. I clanged onto this feeling, as if trying to suppress the dark thoughts that had tormented me b before I had set off on this journey and until this very moment. All I could wish for now, was to retain this feeling of gleeful joy.

I parked some three hundred meters above the house, at the point where the road ended. I called to my father and he came out to meet me. We packed all of the things that I had bought into sacks and carried them down to the house.

‘So, how are you two?’ I asked cheerfully. ‘So far, so good, my son. But there is going to be war, no doubt about it.’ Father replied. ‘What war? Of course there isn’t going to be war,’ I said, trying to sound as casual as I

could. ‘Yes, there is,’ said mother worryingly, arranging the merchandise on the kitchen table.

I changed the topic: ‘Are the guests coming?’‘I hope so,’ said father. As the evening wore on, we kept looking outside, trying to hear or see the guests com-

ing, but nobody arrived that night. Father hanged his head low, keeping his thoughts to himself, with a dark shadow over his face. I felt sorry for him.

‘The Godfather Savo Vasiljević will be here any time now’, I said, clapping my hands. ‘He always comes, doesn’t he?’

‘He may be sick, who knows,’ mumbled father. It’s the old age, my son, only the old live here now.’

Nobody came to our house on the evening of the Patron Saint. The house oozed the warmth of the open fire, filled with fragrance of basil and incense. The invisible, yet over-whelming spirit of the festive occasion was all around – yet, everything was somehow paler, changed, lonesome.

Milan Lukić

18

On the following day, we received some guests from the nearby village of Paočić and the village of Đurđević. We raised our glasses to a toast, and the guests returned the good wishes in the same way. We celebrated until late at night. Then the guest were leaving, and the house remained vacant and ghostly sad, as if it weren’t the night of holiness and celebra-tion.

On the second day of our family celebration, I said good-bye to my parents. I stopped over in Višegrad, and went to the Drina Bridge Hotel, where my former schoolmate Mirko Sekulić worked as a waiter.

‘Let’s have a drink and a chat about everything,’ I said. The great restaurant hall was vacant, apart from a dozen or so people sitting on the side

of the hall, around two tables that had been put together. They fell silent when we went in, but we’d already heard that an argument was going on among them.

Before I could ask who they were, Mirko understood the question from the look in my eyes.

‘They are Muslims, the local political power here, Avdija Šabanović, Fikret Cocalić and their pals.’

I briefly told Mirko how I had met Avdija’s daughter in the shop, adding that she was very beautiful and I had promised to take her out for a drink.

‘Are you crazy?’ He shouted, almost jumping to his feet. ‘You are going nowhere with her! They would kill both you and her.’

‘Wait a minute. How come? Why? In the modern world…’ I tried to argue, but he in-terrupted me: ‘What modern world? This, my brother, is a madhouse!’ Mirko’s eyes were wide open and he was stressing every word, leaning towards me, before he continued: ‘They attack Serbs in the middle of the day, in the middle of the town, even when they have no reason whatsoever for it. They, beat them, they’ve beaten some people almost to death!’

‘But, wait,’ I said. ‘Don’t those Serbs have hands to defend themselves?’ ‘I don’t know why they didn’t resist. But what can you do when a dozen of them attack

you, and they have the people in the authorities?’I went back to Zurich. It was as if returning from a journey to a wild planet, right into

paradise. I told Gabriela every detail of my stay in Višegrad. By giving her all the details, I wanted her to make a picture of how bad it was, by arranging the pieces for herself.

I didn’t tell her about the ‘side tracks’ though, but her inquisitive nature did ask about my parents.

‘I pray to God for them,’ I said. ‘It would have been better if you had moved them to Belgrade or here,’ she said.

‘They wouldn’t want to.’‘How come?’ She was shocked, her eyes wide open in disbelief. ‘They’ve spent all their life in Rujište, there is no other place for them.’‘Oh, Mein Got’ was her final comment. I knew this was something I could not explain

to her.

19

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

3.

Calm and sober on the outside, I kept burning inside myself for the next two months, attentively watching all the media bulletins and news from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I kept calling my brothers and my sister in Belgrade, night in, night out, to hear the news they had about our parents. Then, at the end of April, the television stations broadcast the news: War!

Belgrade confirmed it: War in Bosnia. In Višegrad, it was all hell broke loose. The power plant had been seized and now they were threatening to blast it with explosives. This would mean an untold and utter devastation of the whole region. I sighed: ‘I know Gabi, you were right, I must go and take my old folks out of there, take them to Belgrade.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I may have been right then, but now this is not the right thing to do.’

I was confused: ‘So, what should I do now?’‘Now we pray for them.’ I had never seen such a serious expression on her face before,

not even while I had been working for her. Yet another sleepless night. My thoughts kept running back through the night, follow-

ing the distant, steep and rough roads of Bosnia and Rujište, and then back to the Alps and Zurich.

In the villa on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, I was remembering the nights I had spent on the floor of a room in the student’s dormitory in Belgrade, as a stowaway. Having finished the high school in Višegrad, I had headed for Belgrade. The well-trodden path had become a family tradition, I was merely following in the footsteps of my elder brothers and sister. They had all helped each other make the first steps out of the marshland, and then it was my turn. I was the youngest one.

I had wanted to study economics, but the family funds were scarce, and I had to take a shorter course. I chose the College of Tourism. Then I had to use every free week before the beginning of my first semester, to earn some money for the forthcoming school year. I took on various part-time jobs, in the ‘Borba’ and ‘Bigz’ publishing houses, ‘The Official Ga-zette’, but also in the Port of Belgrade, doing the hardest manual jobs of unloading cargos.

When the lectures started, I did my best to be regular. It wasn’t always easy, as I did not have a room of my own. I kept changing places, sleeping over at my eldest brother’s place, then at my sister’s or my other brother Novica’s. Novica was a final-year student of the Faculty of Agriculture, but he also was a stowaway. At that time, we would share a ‘bed extension’, as students used to call it. It was not a rare situation to have ten or more students sharing a three-bed suite. Quite often, we would just lay the mattresses on the floor, and spend the night fast asleep.

20

It was virtually impossible to put aside some time for study, living like a homeless person. Sometimes though, you reached a solution even by making a step back at a proper moment. So when I got drafted for the mandatory military service, I took the opportunity. My parents organised a modest celebration in the home village, to see me off.

It was January, and the winter was a severe one. The recruits from Višegrad got allo-cated to Slovenia, to a place called Vipava. My VES, or military speciality, was ‘projectile shooter’, i.e. shooter of anti-armoured vehicles projectiles. After two months of the basic training, I got moved to Ajdovščina, only to be moved again after forty days to the border unit of Sežana.

Sežana was the place where the headquarters were, and I was allocated to a protruding border-line post. There was a thirty-strong crew there, and we functioned more-or-less like a household. We had five or six hogs that we fed with the remains of our own food, with the addition of corn supplements. We also had two trained dogs, Reks and Falk. I was in charge of Reks. Out of all the soldiers there, I had to be lucky enough to get a dog to take care of. I remembered that tasteless lie for school children, about the alleged dog-hero called Reks, who saved the life of comrade Tito. According to that story, comrade Tito was peacefully celebrating his birthday in Drvar, when thousands and tens of thousands of the enemy sol-diers stormed the place in a sudden attack. It was only owing to Reks the dog, who protected the Marshall with his own body, that Tito’s life was saved. And so the post-war school chil-dren had to read how ‘Reks sacrificed his heroic life to save the life of the beloved comrade Tito, setting the example for every Pioneer.’

Of course, I kept these thoughts for myself. They were still mourning for Tito. However, in my determination to protect my Reks from the false hero, I changed his name to Ordinary Reks. During the breaks in our patrols, I could see in his intelligent eyes that he had under-stood and would keep the secret of his new baptism. More than that, I was sure he was happy about it. He never tipped me off.

Opposite our border-line post was the Italian one. When the officers were not there, we would barter things. Usually, we gave them sandwiches, hamburgers or meat fingers in exchange for beer, tinned food, juices or coffee.

In January, I finished my military service. Having said good-by to Ordinary Reks, I went back to my studies and my life in the Students City. Block No. 2, Room 657. From January until the end of the school year I worked in ‘Lola Ribar’ and ‘The Official Gazette’. These were the jobs that I found through the Students’ Job Service.

In June, I happened to go the main bus station, with a friend of mine who worked as an ice-cream salesman there. A sudden idea came to me, like Newton’s apple: I thought I could try selling juices, ice-cream and chocolate bars on the bus platforms, while the passengers are waiting for their departure. After all, Rockefeller started by selling a single apple, or at least that was what I had been told. So I took my first small stock of chilled items and climbed onto a crowded bus.

‘Juices, cold juices…’ I keep shouting, as I move slowly through the aisle between the rows of seats. The heat is unbearable. People keep buying, they buy packs of juice. The busi-ness is flourishing, but I am ashamed to look people in the eyes. ‘Good Lord, if my parents

21

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

knew or the people in the village, or – worst of all, if the mates in Višegrad found out… What a shame for the once-promising student,’ I kept thinking.

Suddenly, as I got off a bus, I got surrounded by a couple of young men. They were agitated, leaning forward towards me threateningly.

‘Who are you? Who did you ask to get on our buses?’‘What is the problem, guys? I am a student, I’m trying to earn something to pay for my

school.’ I tried to explain. The more reasonable and polite I was trying to be, the more aggressive they were. ‘If we see you here once again going into our bus, we’ll break every bone in your body!’I hated bullies. I told them that I was coming the next day, to see how they would stop

me. I went to my friend and told him what happened. ‘They are Shqiptars,’ he explained. ‘Be careful, they stick together, they are merciless

and they are used to doing what they want.’ The following day, I left one packet of my merchandise to chill in his freezer, while I

took another to the platform. I saw the same group, there were now four of them. I went back to my friend, and placed the second packet in the ice-cream box, then walked back to the platform, without a word.

I saw that the group had split, to make rounds of the buses. There was only one of them left on the platform, the nosiest one. He was waiting until the bus got filled, before he went in. I approached him with the words ‘I’m afraid you can’t get on this bus. This bus is mine. So, how are we going to work this out?’ He just stood there looking at me, and I continued: ‘I’ll tell you what you are, you are scum and a coward, you only fight when there are ten of you together!’

He raised his arm in some kind of a defensive boxing guard, but it was too late. I slapped him right across the face, then placed my hand behind my back, as if grabbing for a hidden gun.

‘Please, don’t,’ he started to shake. ‘It was not me, it was those others, we had orders from Suljo…’

‘Tell him I’ll spill the brains out of the next one who dares to come near!’ I cut him short. I turned my back on him and walked away. The next day I went to my friend to put the

juices in the ice box to cool, and I told him what had happened. ‘It’s no good, my brother. They will not confront you, they will kill you from behind,

cowardly. Don’t go there, please.’In the afternoon, I came back with my eldest brother. He knew everybody at the bus sta-

tion. He knew Suljo very well. He saw him in the crowd and showed him to me. ‘That short, dark one over there, that’s Suljo.’ In a few moments, my brother was behind him, placing his hands over his eyes. ‘Guess who it is,’ he said.

‘It must be you, Bosnian guy,’ said Suljo, having recognised his voice. ‘Are you on your way to Bosnia, to help you father mow the fields?’

‘Not his time,’ said my brother. ‘This time I’ve come to see you about something. This here is my brother.’

‘I see,’ said Suljo. ‘You guys from Bosnia are all like mountains. What do you eat there to grow so big?’

Milan Lukić

22

We sat together and ordered drinks, and my brother told Suljo about the fight I had with his men.

‘We didn’t know he was your brother. He beats people, waves his gun… that’s what I’ve been told,’ said Suljo. I told Suljo the truth about what had happened.

‘Look at the platforms,’ said Suljo. ‘They are not there. They’ve got scared and fled. This month we were late with collecting the protection money that we have to pay to the guy who is in charge of chasing thieves around here. He is a policeman, but he doesn’t wear a uniform. If we don’t pay, we get beaten. You boy, go ahead and continue with your work. It pays better than digging ditches. But do not bring in anyone else.’

It was a real summer heat-wave. The asphalt was literally melting, but I kept on working. ‘Juices, try some of these flavours… tropical fruit, orange, lemon, peach… sold by a

student from the Student City,’ I shouted jokingly, and a priest once dropped fifty Deutsch Marks in my cardboard cash-box.

I kept working form early morning until late at night. I was selling eight packets a day, and sometimes earned between three and five hundred Marks a day. Pretty soon, I had been seen by everybody I knew, even by those who travelled from our area to Belgrade only once a year. My father kept complaining to my brother, suppressing his anger: ‘Son, people here keep talking about your little brother working at the station… is it true?’ My brother had a hard time explaining to him that I was studying and working only to support myself, because things were expensive in a big city, that he should not be embarrassed about it.

Then one day in August or September, I was getting out of a bus with a packet of mer-chandise in my hands, when somebody called my name. Turning around, I saw a boy I used to know in the elementary school. He was in the company of a beautiful and elegant woman. ‘This is my mother,’ he said, introducing us.

‘And what brings you here, my friend?’ I asked. ‘We have come to the station to check the timetable for the Višegrad buses, but it seems

that the first next bus won’t be leaving before evening.’I invited them to a restaurant, for a drink. I asked them if they wanted to eat anything,

but they declined politely, explaining that they had already had lunch. My friend Zoran told me that they were now living in Germany, near Weisbaden, on the river Rhine.

‘So, what do you do there?’ I asked. ‘A little bit of everything. I play football, I study and work.’‘And where is your father?’‘He’s here in Boleč, near Belgrade. My folks are divorced. I have a younger brother,

from my mother’s second marriage. We have two houses in Germany… everything’s fine.’‘Are there any nice girls over there?’‘Oh yes, there are. It takes about six months to learn the basics of the language, and then

you can meet as many girls as you like.’‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself? You will be our guest.’ Said his mother. ‘If I went there, that would be for good. But I could come to visit you, that would be nice.’ ‘Good. We’ll send you a ticket. You will come to Frankfurt, and we will wait for you

there. You will be our guest, and then we will see how to sort out the documents for you.’

23

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

I told my brother about this encounter, but he was suspicious. ‘And you trust these people? For all you know, they could sell you to someone there.’

‘Sure I know them. They are from Župa, the village of Trševine. It is my friend Zoran Naumović, and his mother’s name is Milenka Vilaret.’ I tried to explain, but to no avail.

After less than a month, I received a letter from Germany. It arrived to my brother’s ad-dress, which I had given to them as my contact address, and it contained a bus ticket and a telephone number with a short note to call them. I went to the post office and called them, thanking them for the ticket.

Two days later, I arrived in Frankfurt, where Zoran and his mother were waiting for me. We travelled some more time before we finally reached their house. When we went in, I saw a boy. ‘This is my little brother, Danilo. And this is my step-father Ljubomir,’ said Zoran, when we were joined by a man who entered the room. He had a long beard, like a priest. We had pork and lamb roast for lunch, as if we were at a feast in our native Župa.

‘And who is your father down there in Rujište?’ aked Ljubomir. ‘I do not think you know my father,’ said I, ‘his name is Milo.’‘Of course I know Milo. Didn’t he use to work here in Germany? I know both him and

his brothers – your uncles, quite well.’I saw that he knew all the villages in our area, so I asked: ‘And where are you from?’‘I am from Milanka’s village, of course,’ he said. ‘Have you been to Višegrad recently?’‘No, I haven’t been there for more than a decade now. Why should I? This is my country

now. What business do I have in poor old Bosnia… ?’ ‘So is this all yours?’‘All of it, indeed, my dear Lukić. As for you, if you get to like it here, we can sort out

your papers. Are you good at any sports? You can easily get a residence permit through a sports club here.’

‘I play football very well,’ said I.The following day, we all drove together to Zoran’s club. The coach liked my football

skill and he scheduled regular training sessions for me, starting from the following week. I was delighted with all of the benefits I was given. I truly wanted to stay there, and my hosts were really keen on helping me to sort out my residence permit. The easiest way was to get married to a German girl, but I didn’t agree with this proposal: ‘A marriage is, first of all, an expression of true love.’

Soon, there was a visitor who was to be an opportunity for me. She was open in showing that she liked me. She was my German teacher and we had a lot of fun together, we laughed like mad. One evening, Zoran took me some ten kilometres away, to a disco club in Gos-heim. Good Lord, that was definitely the most beautiful face of Germany. Girls with glacier eyes, hairs like ripe wheat, beautiful, nicely dressed, charming… I couldn’t decide which one was the loveliest. They freely came to our table to invite partners for a dance. I was introduced to quite a few of them. I would try to speak, but I would stammer and sweat… damned language! Zoran was the best dancer, everybody in the disco club would stop to watch him dance. Just before the closing, the owner came over to say hello. Everybody here

Milan Lukić

24

knew Zoran as a great young man. His mother Milena used to be a singer here, she had the voice of a nightingale.

The owner inquired about me, and Zoran explained that I was a student and their guest, delighted with the kindness of the German people and the beauty of the country.

‘Then, why doesn’t he stay here? The owner asked, enquiring what sort of a job I might be interested in.

Zoran explained that I would accept any kind of job, and that I was already a member of the football club.

‘He can work here at the disco club,’ said the owner suddenly. ‘At the beginning, it would be without a proper permit, but we will sort the documents somehow,’ he added.

My duty would be to clean the disco hall after the guests had left, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As for the other days, there wasn’t a fixed schedule, but he had quite frequent parties during the weekdays.

We got back at four in the morning. Milenka was awake, worried about us. ‘You must have met some German girl,’ she enquires.

‘We don’t know about the girl yet, but he has found a job, for sure.’ Said Zoran. In the morning, we were to go to meet the owner of the club, whom Milanka knew from

before. She explained that he was an honest man, who kept his word. She wanted to join us in the morning. I hardly slept that night, filled with excitement and expectations. Before we set off, I tried to look my best, so I sprayed some perfume and rubbed some gel in my hair.

We arrived before the opening time and waited for a short time before the owner came down from his flat. He lived upstairs, next to the rooms where guests stayed. We sat down to have a drink, and Milenka made an agreement with him about my duties and wages. I would be working depending on the current need, between three and six days a week. One of his staff was leaving the following month, so it was a chance for me to take his position, if it all worked out well. Ljubomir had already found a different job for me, to work for three weeks picking grapes, so Milenka agreed with the owner that I should start work in the club after these three weeks had passed.

The grape picking had started at the large plantation. The workers were a group of around thirty Poles and myself. I had never picked grapes before, so I volunteered to be a carrier. The farmer assigned the positions to the grape-pickers, and only two of us were the carriers. I got to carry a large rucksack-like tin container on my back. We carried the grapes from the pickers to the tractors with trailers. The pickers were paid seven Marks an hour, the carriers ten. In twenty days I earned two thousand marks.

I had been Milenka’s and Ljubomir’s guest for more than a month, and I wanted to pay my share for the food and other costs, but these kind and honest people did not want to hear about it.

‘You are now a member of the family’, they say smilingly. I took Milenka’s advice and had a week’s rest from the hard picking session, before starting to work in the club and, later, in the restaurant. I asked if there were any other people from our country living in the area, and Milenka said to me one day: ‘Come with me, we are paying a visit to Milena and Walter.’

25

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

It took us only five minutes or so to get to their house. Milena was from Oplenac, in Topola. Walter was German, more than twenty years her senior.

‘My son,’ said she, ‘I got married because of the documents. I keep him company, take care of him. There is nothing else between us.’

‘But he is German,’ said Milenka jokingly, ‘he must be trying from time to time to get into your bed at night.’

‘Not a chance,’ said Milena. ‘Just look at him – he’s had three by-pass operations, he’d die if he tried anything like that,’ said Milena, translating the conversation to Walter.

‘I’m sorry, but that’s water under the bridge for me now,’ said Walter, with a smile on his face.

‘Take my advice, my son. Don’t go back to Yugoslavia. It is paradise here. I wish my son would listen to me and move here,’ sighed Milena, then went on: ‘But no, he doesn’t like Germany. He’s a regular Šumadija guy, he says.’ That day was a birthday of her son, and we were treated to some roast and a cake.

‘You should come here any time, you can feel at home here. I’ ll take you around, show you the other cities here. I also have some lovely neighbours here, they’ll fall in love with you when they see how handsome you are. And, there you go – there will be love and the documents for you. I am telling you what is good for you, as if you were my own son.’

A few days later, while I was alone in the house, the telephone rang. I answered. It was Milena. ‘Come to my place, at once.’

‘Why, what’s going on?’ I asked. ‘It’s the German girl. She’s here, at my house.’‘I hurried to her house, dressed in my track suit, but also wearing a lot of perfume.

Happy and excited as I was, I thought I could hear my own heartbeat. The door was open when I arrived, and I went in. I heard Milena’s voice: ‘Do come in, she thinks you just hap-pened to come around.’

I walked up to the girl, shook hands with her and introduced myself briefly: ‘Milan.’‘She smiled beautifully and said something in German. Still holding her hand, I looked

to Milena, seeking help. Milena translated: ‘She says her name is Ilona and she is glad to have met you.’I smiled back at her and, trying to behave as gentlemanly as I could, I kissed her hand.

I could see that she was a little embarrassed, but Milena was already showing me to sit next to hear and asking in a whisper if I liked her.

‘Oh, she is very beautiful and definitely my type. But how come a German girl has blue eyes and dark hair? Could it be that she is of a Turkish origin?’ I kept staring at her lovely white face. She was wearing a white track suit, and it looked gorgeous on her.

‘Would you like some coffee? Asked Milena. I said: ‘I never drink coffee, but now I don’t mind drinking anything.’There we were, sitting together, while our matchmaking affair was progressing, with the

help of the interpreter. I kept asking silly questions, such as ‘How come you are so beauti-ful?’, I kept complementing her dark hair and her beautiful eyes. In reality, it must have been a strange mixture of phrases that I had learned in my village and Višegrad, as well as in the

Milan Lukić

26

Student City and on the platforms of the main bus station in Belgrade. I asked if she had a boyfriend, and went on to explain how my former girlfriend had left me just before I left the country and came here, so here I was, still suffering a little… I kept asking and answering my own questions, secretly hoping that Milena’s interpretation would sound much better to her, then my adolescent-like nonsense. Once or twice, when I said something really stupid, the German girl did not react, so I concluded that either it was corrected in Milena’s transla-tion, or Ilona was really very-well behaved and managed to control herself.

‘You must be doing some important job, being so beautiful. I assume you must be either an actress or a general manager?’ I fired another stupid question, which Milena must have translated well, because the girl started to laugh.

‘No, actually, I work in a bank,’ she said. She blushed, and I could see that she was a little embarrassed again.

‘You are young, you will become a manager one day,’ I tried to comfort her. Ilona didn’t speak much, she was very polite and dear. I kept telling her about myself – I

was playing football, I was studying and learning German, and was going to stay in Ger-many for as long as I liked. If I found a girlfriend, I would stay longer, otherwise not… All the time, I keep looking her straight in the eye, as if trying to mesmerise her.

Blessed be the telephone, and Michael Pupin who invented it. Saved by the bell! The phone rang, Milena answered it, then said briefly ‘Moment bite,’ before giving the hand-piece to Ilona. I tried very hard to hear her conversation on the phone, as if it concerned me, or as if I could understand what she was saying. My gaze was glued on Milena, asking quietly ‘Who’s calling, what are they talking about?’

‘It’s her sister,’ Milena answered in a whisper. ‘They know she’s here, so they called.’ Ilona finished her conversation and said something to Milena. Milena explained: ‘She said she would be here for thirty more minutes.’ ‘Oh, good,’ said I. ‘Don’t be so worried,’ added Milena. ‘When they like a guy, they go straight for him.

This is what German girls are like.’ ‘Does she like me?’ I asked. ‘A hundred percent. You can see it in her eyes. I told you you were handsome, so don’t

worry. Just do not be too assertive.’ ‘Go ahead, ask her now if she likes me, tell her you won’t be telling me. And tell her that

I think she is very well-mannered and polite, and very nice and that I would like to spend more time with her. Tell her this.’

She translated something, and the German girl smiled and said: ‘Danke schoen.’ It was time for her to go, she looked meaningfully at the clock, but I wasn’t willing to stop:

‘Why such a hurry? Don’t you like my company? ‘I do like your company,’ she said. ‘But I have to be in Gosenheim, I mustn’t be late.’ She stood up and I noticed her beautiful figure under the white track suit. My gaze must

have been quite rude, and I went on to ask: ‘My God, you have such a nice figure! Milena, please ask Ilona if she did athletics or

some other sport professionally.

27

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Poor Ilona patiently explained in a low voice that she wasn’t into any sports, apart from the jogging she practised with Milena which, of course, I knew all about. I asked to walk her out and when she held her hand out for a handshake, I looked at her as if trying to emphasise the importance of that moment, and almost theatrically kissed her hand, convinced that was the proper way to do it, like in the old films…

I went back into the house, begging Milena to call her the following day, or even better – later that same day, to ask her what she thought about me.

‘That wouldn’t be wise,’ explained Milena. ‘I’ll wait for her to call and ask about you.’Two days passed without any news. I called Milena to enquire. ‘Could it be that she got

angry? Did I behave properly?’ ‘If she likes you, she will call,’ Milena kept repeating patiently, as if to a child. I had been working for five days in the disco club. Apart from the club, I was helping

with the cleaning of the yard. That night I came back from work very tired, and went directly to bed. Zoran came soon, bringing me the telephone. I heard Milena saying: ‘The German girl wants to see you, now. So you’d better hurry over here, or we’ll be coming to get you.’

‘It took me only a few minutes to get there. Walter was in his room, giving some rest to his heart and his by-passes. The two of them were waiting for me. I started to kiss Ilona’s hand, and I could feel that she was trembling. Milena keeps talking, updating me on the recent events: ‘She called me and said that she wanted me to call you, she wanted to see you so much, she thought she was going crazy.

I looked at Ilona, with her eyes of a captured cuddly animal. ‘So what does she want from me now?’ I ask Milena, without taking my eyes off the girl. ‘She wants to take you to her flat.’‘Wait a minute… isn’t it… too early for that? Is she – forgive my words – a hooker or

something?’‘Come on, don’t be such a fool. She’s an honest girl, but that is the way they do it here,’

explained Milena, then went on, with a smile: ‘So, heartbreaker, I hope you didn’t get scared?’ ‘It’s not about being scared, it’s just… I don’t understand how come this has happened

so suddenly?’‘Well, if you’re asking me, that’s love. Love at first sight.’ Milena was laughing with all

of her heart. ‘Go ahead, ask her if she has an extra bed in her place.’‘She has six beds in her place,’ said Milena. ‘And can I sleep over at her place?’ ‘Of course you can. She has made a cake especially for you. Wants you to try it.’ And so the German girl took me with her. I followed like an obedient pet. We sat in her

car, and drove off in the night. I guess it must be my confusion because of the way the things were developing, so the pictures of that night were rather hazy.

I remember that the table was laid with a silk table-cloth. In the middle of the cake was a cream heart, coloured red. She had known right from the start she would be getting what she wanted, but at that moment I didn’t think of it. Ilona turned some switches and turned down the light. For some reason, it reminded me of an old oil lamp. Two candles that she had

Milan Lukić

28

lit before started to shed their light In the semi-darkness. I watched her shadow glide across the table, the ceiling and over me. I heard the blast of a champagne bottle, and the foamy jet poured out of its top, then calmed slowly, turning into a yellowish liquid in the crystal glasses set for two. She was feeding me with pieces of her cake and the cream heart, pouring champagne. Her cat’s eyes were glittering, as she went on uttering soft incomprehensible words, touching me with her leg more and more often.

My thoughts were tearing me apart, I felt as if I were eating pieces of earth and drinking salty water. All around me I thought I could see gaping doors leading to rooms resembling magic caves, with a hidden promise of the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ stories. We were sitting there for a long time. Ilona took me to the shower and gave me a tooth-brush and a bathrobe. These were brand new, unpacked. They can’t have belonged to anyone else before me. But at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about it at all. I thanked her in Serbian, because I felt I should say something. Dressed for the night, I went to my room and lay down on the silk bed-linen. It was not long before Ilona came quietly in the room, wearing an ankle-long night dress, resembling a fairy. Her long hair fell all over my face as kissed me several times on my cheeks and eyes. I could hear her whispering: ‘Gute Nacht’ and something more, probably something like ‘sleep well’, then she disappeared through the door.

I wasn’t sleepy any more. I kept asking myself if I had been dreaming. My heart was beating hard, my ears filled with its wild throbbing. Still, I would have been ashamed to go running after her. What could I tell her, without the words that I knew I did not know. I decided not to go to her room, whatever the consequences. Instead, I made myself think of a reserve plan which, in the circumstances, proved to be more than just difficult. I was lying in my bed, perplexed and shaking.

Then, the blessed exhaustion from the hard work I had done during the previous few days started to work… Blessed be the concrete that I laid in the boss’s yard and blessed be the German hard-working routine. They refreshed me with oblivion, thanks to which I man-aged to resist the temptation, to defy Ilona’s cunning strategy. When I woke in the morning, I found Ilona waiting for me. Breakfast was ready, tea was served, and she was smiling in her quiet, dear way.

For some time, we were sitting there like conspirators, tormented by the fact that we could not talk. Although the morning light had chased away the mystery and beauty of the previous night, the smile and the warmth of the eyes had persisted. Our ability to use our speech very often leads to exposing one’s bad temper, stupidity or ill habits. Perhaps a rela-tionship that is based on silence and mystery of desire would last longer?

We went to Milena’s house where, laughing for no reason at all, we made a confession about the events of the previous night. Milena translated Ilona’s invitation for me to move to her place for good. Although I had been dreaming of this for a whole week, I said shortly: ‘It’s too early for that, we must get to know each other better.’

Three months later, I moved to Ilona’s place, where we spent the following year living in love and harmony. I was still working in the disco club and the restaurant, as well as at the construction site. The honest work that I was doing was rewarding – it meant responsibility and respect of the people around me, while Ilona’s love was something I truly enjoyed.

29

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

However, I was starting to feel homesick, missing my brothers, sister and parents, my birthplace and Belgrade. Once after a football game, Zoran took me to a hill overlooking Rudesheim, a lovely picnic area with a restaurant. The visitors to the place could use a pan-orama telescope to see the beautiful villages and beauty spots miles around.

I became a regular visitor of this place, because it helped me revive the pictures of Župa and Rujište… I caught myself pointing the large eye of the telescope at distant places, trying to find a picture that was alive inside me. Once, while I was there, a group of students from Switzerland arrived. We started a conversation and I explained where I was from and how beautiful my birthplace was. It turned out that one of the students was a girl from Serbia, and we soon became friends. They quite liked it when I confessed to them that I was pointing the telescope in the direction of my birthplace.

We had a drink in the restaurant and I invited them to visit me in Belgrade and in my birthplace, one summer or winter, when I was there. They thanked me for the invitation, and we exchanged our telephone numbers. They returned the invitation and said I could be their guest if I was ever in Zurich.

But my thoughts and my desires were taking me in a different direction. I had saved a handsome amount and was soon on my way back home. Ilona was to come some ten days after me, to meet my family. I spent two days in Belgrade, then five more days in Rujište.

‘I am getting married. I have a girlfriend, she’s German.’ My father gave me his bless-ing. ‘If she is good for you, she will be even better for us,’ said my mother.

With my parents’ blessing, I returned to Belgrade, where I lived with my brother Novica, in the Student City, just like in the old days. We spent our days having a good time with our friends and playing football. One day, I injured my leg playing football. The injury turned out to be quite bad, and I had to have my leg fixed in plaster. My sister and my brother-in-law went to the seaside with their kids, so I moved to their house, near the Temple of Saint Sava. I was spending my evenings in the nearby cafes. One night, I stayed out longer than usual and told my friends that I was going to take a walk home. It was a nice summer night, and I walked slowly, dragging my foot. I was going from the Karađorđe Memorial towards the Temple yard, concentrated on the ground ahead of me, so as not to trip over something. Suddenly, somebody grabbed me from behind. I jumped and fell, letting out a scream that must have terrified the attacker, because he fell beside me and I was able to nail him down, holding my crutch across his chest.

‘You bastard, drop the knife, or I’ll kill you!’ I shouted at him, thinking it was a mugger trying to stab me and snatch my money.

‘Sorry, it’s a mistake’ he muttered, gasping for breath. ‘I am gay, I mistook you for someone else… I only wanted to hug you.’

‘Get away from here, you sick bastard! Attacking people in the middle of the night! Get out of this holy yard, and go looking for your sick bastards in your stinking joints!’

I somehow managed to get to the house, by which point the pain in my leg had become unbearable. I could see that my leg was swelling over the plaster, despite the ice that I tried to apply. I called for an ambulance, asking them to hurry as much as possible. They told me that there were no vehicles available at the moment and that I would have to wait. Belgrade,

Milan Lukić

30

so it seemed did not care for the tears of the crippled. I took a taxi to the hospital at Banjica, tormented by the pain. They examined me, took an X-ray and finally re-fixed my leg in a new plaster, which I would have to wear for three weeks.

I called Ilona in the morning: ‘I’ve got a broken leg,’ I tried to explain. Two days later, I saw a taxi pulling up in front of my yard. It was my German girl, and

I was very happy to see her. She took good care of me for a whole week, then had to go back to work in Germany. I was to stay in Belgrade until my leg recovered. And so I did, but I extended my stay for a few more months. I was drawn by the roaming spirit, and was making plans to go to Switzerland first, before eventually going back to Germany. I did not reveal these plans to Ilona, I wanted my arrival to be a surprise for her.

I travelled to Zurich by plane. When I arrived there, I stayed at the cheapest hotel I could find, and went out to take a walk through the city. I sat at a terrace of a classy inn on the main street, to refresh myself with a fruit juice. I bought a dozen phone cards. The famous Golden Strasse was lined with jewellery shops – a gold mine in their shop windows. Later, I use a phone box to call Iva, the student I had met in Germany, near Rudesheim. Nobody answered the phone, so I called a relative in Bellach. A voice on the other side answered my call, and I introduced myself.

‘My husband’s at the neighbour’s. If you hold on a minute, I’ll call him immediately.’ ‘That’s very kind of you, but there’s really no need. I just wanted to say hello. I am here

in Zurich on business for a few days, and I’d like to pay you a visit. I’ll call again.’ I called Iva in the evening, and she answered the phone this time. ‘Of course I remember you. My brother and I can come to pick you up, if you like?’ She

said happily, as soon as I said who was calling. ‘I am a bit tired now, so I’d prefer to go to the hotel, to get some rest, but we can meet

tomorrow.’ She was living in Meilen, a small place, some fifteen kilometres away from Zurich. The

next day, I refused once again their kind offer to fetch me in their car. ‘No, it’s the rush hour. Just give me the address,’ said I.

One of her parents was either Serbian or Croatian, I believe, but I didn’t bother to en-quire. Anyway, she spoke Serbian with some difficulty and it took her some time to explain to me where to go. I took a train and called her once again from the station. I felt a bit embar-rassed to go to her place, so I suggested we should meet in a restaurant, and asked her to sug-gest one that would be the most convenient. Although there were around thirty or so people at the station, the silence was prevailing, as if we were at a funeral. I almost felt embarrassed to have to break the silence, so I approached two girls who were passing by and asked them for the restaurant that Iva had suggested. They were going in the direction of the restaurant, so it turned out, and offered to take me there.

‘And where are you from?’ Asked one of the two girls. She was really beautiful.‘From Yugoslavia.’‘How nice, I am from Vrnjačka Banja,’ she said in Serbian, holding her hand out, ‘Vida Đurović,’ she said or, perhaps, her surname was Đuraković. ‘Such a lovely girl, you must have a boyfriend,’ I started talking sweetly to her.

31

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘This place is a village, and there are no boys to be found here. I am only eighteen, I have just finished school and started working in Zurich. I’ll find myself a proper boyfriend there.’

‘Here is a proper boyfriend for you,’ I said. ‘It must be the destiny that has brought us together.’

‘And have you got a girlfriend?’ ‘Impossible. I only just arrived yesterday.’ She did not accept my invitation to go to the restaurant with me, but she gave me her

phone number, asking me not to call after ten in the evening, so as not to upset her mom and dad.

My German acquaintance Iva and her brother Robert were already there, waiting for me. Robert could speak very little Serbian, and Iva had to translate for him. Although I tried to refuse, they insisted on taking me to their house. Iva introduced an elderly Swiss gentleman: ‘This is my father. My mother, unfortunately, is no longer with us,’ she sighed quietly. It was only then that I realised her special attentiveness, both in Germany and here, the sad politeness of her father, the vague sadness of her brother. To them, I must have been some kind of an uncle, a relative on their mother’s side, in the mourning they were sharing.

I stayed in their house until late that night, but I declined their offer to stay for the night. Iva and Robert lived a quiet life. They rarely went together and were sticking with the friends from the neighbourhood. The following evening was going to be an exception, we were going to take a boat trip on the Zurich Lake.

I called Vida the next morning, it must have been quite early, soon after ten. I suggested we should meet in Zurich or anywhere else.

‘I’d love to,’ she said, ‘but my parents do not allow me to go out with anyone they don’t know. It’s Sunday, why don’t you come to our place to meet them, I’ve been telling them about you?’

Twenty minutes later, I was in Meilen, at the place where we had said good-bye the day before. She took me to her house, where her mother, brother and sister waited for us. Father was on his way home from somewhere, he would be there any time now.

We sat down and her mother asked me a lot of questions. Having answered all of them, I took her by surprise: ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question, madam? Do I have your permis-sion to be Vida’s boyfriend?’

She wasn’t easily confused: ‘Vida is adult, she doesn’t need my permission,’I turned to her: ‘Will you be my queen, Vida?’ ‘I’d love to stay for dinner, but I have already promised to meet Iva and Robert. For me,

a promise is a promise.’ I said to Vida, who was trying for the second time to postpone my departure.

I was back in Zurich in time for the agreed meeting. We took a boat trip on the Lake of Zurich, through a fairy-tale scenery, while Vida was supplying information, like a real tour-ist guide. In the evening, they took me to a disco club. I told Iva about Vida. We stayed at the club until late at night, and agreed on our way back to meet again and go out in the evening during the forthcoming days. I gave Vida a call as soon as I got up. Her mother explained that she was working, but asked me not to call her at work, because the bosses could mind

Milan Lukić

32

it. I called again in the late afternoon, and this time Iva was at home. She told me that she had phoned my hotel, but I had been out. The day after that, we went for a walk at the Belvi Platz near the lake. She didn’t want us to have a drink together, she only wanted to walk.

‘Can I hold your hand?’ I asked while we were walking along the shore. ‘No,’ she replied shyly. ‘Just walk by my side.’‘So, you don’t want to be my girlfriend?’‘I didn’t say that. But you’ll be here for a day of two, and then you will leave.’ ‘If you want me to, I’ll stay here,’ I said, holding my arm towards her. ‘OK, but only the hand,’ she smiled, taking me by the hand. ‘And why not the heart?’ I stopped and looked in her eyes. ‘To be honest, I like you.’ ‘I like you too, and this is not just a phrase, but please try to understand me.’ ‘We bought something to eat at a take-away. I wanted to kiss her as we were saying good-bye. ‘Only on the cheek,’ she said. While we were kissing, I could feel she was trembling. We must have kissed a hundred

times a minute for the next half-hour, before we finally parted. The following evening, I visited her at home again. Her father was a wonderful person. I was burning with love, I felt like staying in Switzerland with Vida forever. I kept looking for a job all around the city. I went into a pizzeria and asked one of the

staff: ‘Any job vacancies here?’ He said: ‘If there were, I could bring a hundred workers from Kosovo.’ A Shqiptar, obvi-

ously. Then he added: ‘The lady of the house is down there, at the back. Ask that guy over there to show you in.

The guy he pointed to was a Serb from Novi Sad. He was working at the bar. I asked him to call the lady of the house.

‘Why do need to talk to her?’ He asked. ‘It’s none of your business,’ I said and walked past him. There was another girl there,

who had obviously heard our conversation. ‘I’m from Belgrade,’ she said in a friendly way. ‘I am from Belgrade as well. Could you please ask the lady to see me for a moment?’ She went in through a door at the back, then returned with the lady of the house. She asked me to join her at a table, and ordered some fruit juice for the two of us. All the

time, I was admiring her youth and beauty, unable to take my eyes off her. ‘So, please, how can I help you?’ She started the conversation. ‘I am a student of Tourism from Yugoslavia. I would like to work here, any kind of job.’She gave me an attentive look. ‘Do you take drugs or alcohol, do you smoke?’‘No, I do sports.’ I was taken on. For a start, I was to help Goran, the guy at the bar. Later, there will be

other duties. I was advised to have my long hair shortened. I wanted to pay for the drinks, but the lady of the house said: ‘These are on me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said I, ‘I can’t accept a drink from a girl, it ought to be the other way round.’ ‘It’s not from a girl, it’s from the employer.’ She said.

33

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘Have you got an accommodation?’ She asked.‘I have relatives here.’‘If you do not have where to live, I could arrange a small studio. It costs seven hundred

Swiss Francs a month, deducted from your salary. The sooner you obtain an official address of residence, the better for your visa and job application.’

On my way out, I kissed her hand courteously. I was very happy. I had been trying unsuccessfully to find any kind of job over the past few days, that I had almost lost hope of finding one. I was walking down a street with a lot of cafes. I entered one by one, asking if there were any staff from Yugoslavia working there. I wanted to pick up somebody’s brains about the work at the bar, so as not to embarrass myself in the eyes of my new boss.

‘Any Yugoslavs working here?’ I asked a nice-looking, middle-aged dark-haired wait-ress in one of the cafes.

‘How can I help you?’ She replied in Serbian. I introduced myself and sat down to order a piece of cake and a glass of lemonade. I

asked her if she would have something. ‘Thanks, but this is a busy period,’ she said. She suggested I should wait until she finished her shift. Half an hour later, she checked out

and we went to a buffet bar. We talked for a while and I explained that I had just arrived and found a job. I complained about my hotel accommodation, which cost me fifty Francs a night.

‘This is a nice country’, she said. ‘My parents worked here all their lives, and got retired here. But fifty Francs is a lot of money, it’s almost what I earn in one day.’

‘Do you have any children?’ I asked. ‘I have four. They are now on holiday, with my parents in Kragujevac.’‘Where is your husband?’‘I’m divorced,’ she said, waving her arm, as if trying to shake of bad thoughts. ‘But you

must be a lucky one – to find a job nowadays is almost a mission impossible.’‘Do you know where I could find some decent accommodation?’ ‘You are young enough to be my son. I can let you use one of our rooms, and you can

stay with us, until you find somewhere better.’ ‘How much will you charge me?’‘No charge. I pay the flat a mere five hundred Francs, as a single-providing mother.’ ‘Alright, then. I will be paying your rent in return.’‘Not a chance,’ she said. We went directly to her flat, it was only a five minutes’ ride on a tram, just off the Parade

Platz. The flat was tidy and well-furnished, very spacious. My room was large as well. I noted down the address and the telephone number. Soon I collected my stuff from the hotel and moved in. ‘It’s time for me to go now,’ she said. ‘Time to do my shift.’

‘And I will go to the shop, to buy some food and other things,’ I said. ‘No way. We do our shopping in a large supermarket, once a week. It’s much cheaper

like that.’ I took a long walk around the streets of Zurich, admiring the beauty and tidiness. In

comparison with Zurich, Germany looked neglected. I went back to the flat at around 11

Milan Lukić

34

o’clock that night. The flat was empty, and my new landlady returned around midnight. We talked that night until three in the morning, and she told me about herself. Her life wasn’t an easy one, she had grown up in a village near Kragujevac, with her grandparents, while her parents had been working in Switzerland.

I saw her again in the morning. She had some coffee, while I had tea. Then she went to work. I did not tell Ilona about the recent events, I only called Vida to tell her the news. With my hair cut short, smartly dressed, I went to see my lady boss, to hand in my residence reg-istration. I was ready for work. I met her at the bar, where she stood checking in the workers. She introduced me to a guy from Moroco, another one From Turkey and two Shqiptars – one from Macedonia, and the other one from Kosovo.

Goran arrived the latest, at five to nine, and she reprimanded him for not coming a little earlier, to show me the basic of my duties.

‘You will train Mr Lukić, to be a better worker than yourself,’ she said with a smile. He mumbled something, and I went behind the bar. ‘What do I have to do?’ I asked. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just keep polishing the bar.’ But then it got really busy at the restaurant. We kept polishing, pouring drinks, passing

on pizzas, then polishing again. My legs were numb and my back was hurting, but I did not stop for a minute, just to show that I was a keen worker.

‘How is it going?’ Asked the boss, when she came to see us at the end of our shift. ‘Good,’ I said. Two weeks later, Goran went on vacation. There I was, all sweat, trying to manage the

orders. The Shqiptars stepped in to help from time to time. We worked as a team. ‘This is your share of the tips so far,’ said the Shqiptar once, giving me two hundred Francs. ‘Not a word to anyone. I know how it was when I was starting.’

During the following week, I was given a thousand Francs, as my share of the tips. I did not know what share the others received. At that time, I did not know that he was actually serving unmarked pizzas, stealing from the house. The daily cash income for the pizzeria was between fifteen and twenty thousand Francs. Everybody had told me to be aware of Goran, because he was the boss’s snitch, but I did not care, because I wasn’t hiding anything. My first salary was three and a half thousand Francs. It was tax free, because I was a student. I took all of my colleagues out for a drink, and in the morning I thanked my boss, with some flowers and a perfume. She accepted the gift with a smile.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you must be the first worker who treats a boss to a nice gift.’ ‘Not a boss, but a girl,’ said I, and she laughed. After coming back from his vacation, Goran started pestering me and ordering me about,

telling me that things weren’t done properly. I reacted: ‘Listen, Goran, we are colleagues, and we work as team, like brothers. Please stop behaving as a nasty boss.’

I was waiting to meet my landlady from Kragujevac when she came back from work around midnight. I had prepared seven hundred Francs to pay the rent, but she refused to take the money. I was very tired and went to bed. Some time later, while I was falling asleep, she came into my room, wearing a night-gown.

35

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘I am so tired of being alone, Milan,’ she said, sneaking into bed beside me. ‘Let’s talk for a while.’

‘I’m dead tired, I can’t talk now,’ I apologised to her. She embraced me, and I jumped off the bed in my underwear, embarrassed. I put on my

trousers and the T-shirt. ‘What’s the matter with you? You are a man, aren’t you?’ She said. ‘I’m sorry, I really appreciate all that you have done to help me, and you are a nice and

beautiful woman. Believe me, I would do anything for your kindness, I am your friend and more than that, you are like a sister to me. Forgive me, I can’t be your lover, ever.’

‘I took you in because I wanted to have a man with me. I need a man.’ She said ‘I am sorry,’ leaving the room.

In the morning, she told me that a friend from Yugoslavia was coming and asked me to find another place to stay within the following two weeks.

‘Don’t worry. I will move out presently. Thanks for everything. You can call me any time, I would be happy to return the favour.’

I could not be a male prostitute, even if I had to sleep on the street. I had decided to stay in Switzerland, found a job and left behind the life I could have had in Germany, because I had fallen in love with Vida Đuraković. We talked every day, and I visited her every Sun-day. I moved to a youth hostel, twenty kilometres away from the city. They charged twenty Francs for a night, and we were fifty in a room. They gave me a key with a number, and there was a number on my bed. To put away my things, I was given a box with a number on it. I could use this facility and its benefits only ten days in a month. Then I moved to a three-star hotel, twenty kilometres away, thirty Francs a night. All my earnings were just about enough to cover my costs for meals and accommodation. The transportation was a problem, especially at night when there were no buses or trains. I had to walk, trying to hitch a ride, but without any success – who needed a hitchhiker in the middle of a night? I spent may nights in a bakery where a friend of mine worked. I would sit in a chair, take a nap until the following day, and then go back to work.

My lady boss found me leaning against the racks. She warned me that it was not a proper way to behave at work, that leaning against furniture was not allowed, not even when one was doing the polishing. She added that Goran had complained several times about me being lazy and careless. I was shocked. We had got to be very close, and while I had had my room in the city, we had been going out together. Why was this guy so rotten? Bad luck still pestered me, and things were much worse than they would normally be, because I was alone in a foreign country, without any support from any side. I had lost weight, I was troubled by exhaustion and fatigue, barely able to stand on my feet. But my Swiss boss cer-tainly had an eye for details. She noticed everything. One day, she called me to her office.

‘Have you been taking drugs?’‘I’d never do that in my life.’‘Roll up your sleeves!’ I did what she asked, and she started looking for any traces of the

needle. Then she said: ‘Alright, now take off your trousers!’I didn’t want to, I was embarrassed.

Milan Lukić

36

‘Come on, you do have underwear,’ she insisted. I felt so embarrassed, standing there in her office, barefoot and wearing underwear. She

was down at my legs, checking for any needle marks. Then she stood up and looked me straight in the eyes: ‘When did you last sleep properly?’

‘I can’t remember…’ ‘Are you spending the nights going out, drinking with your pals?’There was nothing else to do, I had to tell her everything. ‘Your ladies have only one thing on their mind, and that is how to take your money.’‘It wasn’t about money, I was offering to pay for the flat, she wanted my pride.’ She thought about something for a while. She looked at me with some mixture of strict-

ness and admiration. ‘Pride is very important. And sincerity always deserves to be awarded, that’s what my father says.’ She walked to a large closet, and pulled a handle on a wooden lid. Two wings of a false door opened, and a small bed swung into its horizontal position. She said: ‘I sometimes use it during the day, to get some rest. You can use it until you find a proper flat. But be careful – other staff mustn’t find out about it.’

Soon after that, there was a dancing party where I met two people – a brother and a sister from Belgrade. They were wonderful people. We soon got to be friends, and they found for me a small flat in their block of flats, for seven hundred Francs a month.

My girlfriend Vida was now a frequent visitor, in the morning or during a break that she was taking at work. I was truly in love with her. I told her about Ilona, with whom I had bro-ken up some time before. It had had to be over the telephone, but I had been open and sincere.

I was planning to marry Vida and we were making plans about our wedding party. Even in the worst weeks of my bad luck, I had paid my regular Sunday visits to her and her family. I could have cut short all of my mishaps, I could have simply packed my things an gone to Germany where I’d had a future anyone could hope for. But I’d had faith in love, and this faith had given me the strength to endure.

It was another Sunday – one of those I had been looking forward to, and I was on my way to Meilen. I was cheerfully greeted by Vida, her younger brother and sister – even her mother was now openly in favour of me. Her father wasn’t there – being the owner of a small construction company, he had some business to attend to that Sunday. After lunch, Vida’s mother took the children to Zurich, for a walk and a boat trip on the lake.

Vida and I went upstairs, we talked about our engagement, our wedding party, our mar-riage. We look at the photos from her Prom. Then the phone rang downstairs, and Vida ran to answer it. All I heard was a ‘Hello?’, then there was a silence, followed by the sound of her footsteps as she was running up the stairs. I was holding one of her photos, kissing it playfully. ‘You are the Queen here, my Queen.’ Then I saw her face, as if she had seen a fire downstairs. Her eyes were vacant, looking around restlessly.

‘What happened? Who was it? I asked. ‘It was a girl… a friend. And I… ‘ she stuttered absent-mindedly. An awkward silence

filled the room, and I suddenly became suspicious. ‘Which friend?’ I asked. She was upset, lost for words. ‘Which one, tell me?’ I repeated. ‘Jagoda.’ She said finally.

37

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

I ran downstairs, and Vida was clinging on me, trying to stop me. Taking the phone, I noticed that I was still holding the photo of my ‘Queen’, and I dropped it on the table, as if it were burning.

‘Hello, can I speak to Jagoda please?’ An elderly woman on the other side told me that Jagoda was sleeping.

Vida was on the door, blocking the exit for me. I could hear buzzing in my ears. ‘Wait, I can explain. It was… a friend of my cousin’s, he called to invite me to go out

with him… I said I wouldn’t. Wait, Milan,’ she cried, clinging on me. ‘What friend, where is he from?’ I asked, trying to release myself from her embrace.‘I don’t know which friend, I don’t know where from… can you please at least wait for

mother, to speak to her?’ I was standing there silent and motionless, completely numb, transfixed at the doorstep

with her hands on me. Her mother arrived, and the kids sneaked into the house. Sobbing, Vida told her what had happened.

‘I can’t stand lies. We are through,’ I said bitterly. ‘Milan, she loves you. She loves you so much,’ said her mother, shaking her head, then

a few tears rolled down her face. ‘Please do not tell me about love. It was because of her that I have stayed here all this

time, endured everything, slept in the bakery… ‘ The very thought of my sacrifice hardened my heart, and I rushed out through the gate. I was running towards the train station, with the sound of Vida’s wailing behind me. Ahead of me, the images of the beautiful Meilin houses were merging in collapsing curtain of wet haze, devouring our dreams of love and marriage.

The train was empty and it carried me silently away. Tormented by emotions, I was try-ing to sort out my feelings, but they keep rushing to my head.

‘A foolish, childish lie… so thoughtless. And we swore to be faithful, to be true. We lived with out heads in the clouds… but not any more… no more is she my Queen. She is now so ordinary, like all the others. What do I care for all of them?’

From that day, I was fully devoted to my work. I worked like mad, I was doing work for three men. I avoided Vida’s calls and persuasions, waiting for the wounds to heal. I had stopped keeping track of the day. Time was passing, and that was all that really mattered to me. I started enjoying my role of a rejected lover. I embraced loneliness, like in the old days. Spending time with friends, never too far away from my spleen. At that time I did not un-derstand Vida’s motives and reasons why she sought reconciliation. Later on, I understood that she was driven by a feeling of guilt and remorse, because deep in her heart she was an honest girl. This notion was very strong, stronger than her common sense, and she tried very hard to make amends. She would rise with the first bakers in Zurich, and would stay until the departure of the last late evening train to Meilen, leaving long letters stuck in my doorway. I did read these letters. They were repetitive and soon became tiring. They mostly made me feel worse. I could feel her presence everywhere, unable to focus and sort out my thoughts. There were moments when I thought of changing my mind, only to read a new letter in which she was threatening that she was going to find somebody new, a serious relationship. Confused by the proportions of her obvious despair, I took her threats as another proof that

Milan Lukić

38

the decision I had made was the right one. She wasn’t giving up. She started calling me at work, and checking secretively who I was going out with. Then she stopped hiding. She would stand in front of the restaurant entrance, keeping an eye on me. Once she came in and attacked me in front of the staff and the guests.

The next day, at the end of the morning shift, the lady of the house called me to her of-fice upstairs.

‘Do sit down, Lukić,’ she said. You seem to have gotten into trouble again.’ ‘I haven’t, really… I’m doing well at work,’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Yes, I know, your fiancée has called… a number of times.’ She stood up, crossed her

arms and took a good look of me, while she approached the table where I was sitting.‘You have fled from there, that place over there,’ she said, pointing her hand vaguely in

the direction of Meilen, as if it were a village in the wilderness, ‘you have fled from a wed-ding or whatever? It can be a private matter… for as long as you do not bring your private matters to the firm.’ I didn’t think I should say anything. She made a short pause, then she went on: ‘Do you owe these people anything, any money?’

Her slow, calm words were hitting me like a hammer on the head. Is it really true that these people always see money as the root and the consequence of everything that happens? Or was it just her ploy to get me off the balance?

‘No, no, it’s not about that, I shouted. ‘I must tell you the whole truth.’‘Well, this why we’ve come here for’, she encouraged me. I told her everything, including all details, because I didn’t want to be seen as a thief. ‘She was dishonest… she killed our love,’ I finished my story. I stood up, agitated. She was standing on the other side of the small table, a Swiss girl

on the battlefield of a slain love, resembling the traditional image of the Girl of Kosovo, who mercifully took care of the wounded heroes.

‘Milan,’ she said, addressing me by my first name for the first time ever, ‘I thought that this kind of men did not exist any more. You must be a surviving specimen.’

At first, I could not understand if this was said in earnest, as a praise, or jokingly, to make fun of me.

‘I admit, I have caused trouble, it’s been embarrassing… ‘ ‘This kind of embarrassment ought to be publicly posted on our entrance door, on all

the doors in Zurich!’I could feel her breath on my face, the gaze of her eyes was filling me with a warm feel-

ing… I must have lost myself for one brief moment, because the next thing I knew was that we were kissing each other.

She said: ‘ The first time I saw you, I said to myself: ‘My God, can it be that people like this still exist?’’

Strict and kind, generous and free-minded, Gabriela took me right from the ‘side track’ of her favourite saying, and set me on the safe, main road.

I couldn’t sleep that night at all, remembering all the roads from Rujište to Zurich. I finally fell asleep at dawn, only to awake once again tormented by fatigue and worries.

39

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

4.

‘Milan, do not go there, there’s war out there, it’s horrible’, she said to me, afraid of what may happen.

‘Gabi, my parents are over there. How could I live with it, if anything should happen to them? I want to take them to Belgrade somehow, that’s all, and I’ll be coming back shortly.’

‘I drove to Belgrade without stopping along the way. I slept for an hour or two, then called my brothers Gojko and Novica, and my sister Dragica. We met that evening, to make a plan of how to get the parents out of the war zone. The telephone lines were cut off, and we had no information of what was going on there. With the conflicts raging in Sarajevo, though, the situation in Višegrad could not be better at all. There was war everywhere in Bosnia.

‘I’ll cross the Drina secretly, and go to find the parents,’ said I. ‘No, I will go there,’ said Dragica. ‘I am a woman, they will not stop me.’ She couldn’t

be made to change her made. I called the bus station information service: ‘Are there any buses for Višegrad?’‘We have one that is leaving in a few hours, we don’t know if there will be any others.’We went to the station to see off our sister. It was a desperate attempt. We were clinging

onto the little ray of hope, the bus service that hadn’t been stopped yet. Dragica did not call for the three following days, and we were all fearing that the worst

may have happened. I was getting ready to embark on a journey to Bosnia in my car, come what may. Then, on the fourth day, she managed to call from Bajina Bašta. She was alive and safe, and the parents were on safe ground as well.

From the border with Serbia, on a short stretch of road from Vardište to Dobrun, she had seen dozens of roadblocks, some held by Serbs and some by Muslims, all of them armed. The passengers on the bus had been constantly searched and had had their docu-ments checked. They had also had to answer questions about who they were, where they were going, and where the rest of the family were. Then more roadblocks at the entrance to Višegrad, and some more in the city, on the way to the bus station.

Once at the bus station, she met a Serbian bus driver, who had been driving the bus to our village in the old days, when we used to go to school. She asked him if it was possible to get to Rujište. ‘What Rujište? What makes you go there now?’ he asked.

‘I have come to find my parents.’ ‘It would be better if you hadn’t. Don’t you see all of these people here, walking armed

to their teeth? They are all Muslims, and it’s now a matter of hour when they will start shoot-ing Serbs. They are only waiting for a sign from Alija Izetbegović.’

40

‘Are there any Serbs driving a taxi?’ ‘There is one, he’s an old guy from here. I’ll give him a call. If he accepts, may God be

with you.’ Ten minutes later she was in the taxi, not asking for the fare. Five more roadblocks on a

twenty-kilometre road. Muslims carrying arms, wearing green berets or strips of cloth tied around their heads, with Arabic inscriptions calling to Jihad. The Serbs are with their black fur hats decorated with cockades. Everything was ready. It was a miracle that the bloody conflict hadn’t started yet.

Finally they made it to the end of the road, above the house. Sister asked the driver to wait for a while, until she called the parents. The village looked ghostly deserted. Were the parents alive? Was there anybody in the village?

‘Mile! Hey, Mile,’ both sister and the taxi driver keep calling. ‘Are you there? Here is your daughter, come to meet her,’ shouted the taxi driver, adding

his name, knowing that my father must have known him. My father suddenly appeared in front of them, armed. He had walked the distance from

the house without answering their calls, because he’d wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a ploy. My sister paid the taxi driver what he asked, without a word. She later said that the fare was as high as if she had travelled from Belgrade, but she didn’t mind – she even added a tip for him.

‘Father, are you alright? What about Ma?’ My sister was enquiring while they walked down the field, towards the house.

‘You shouldn’t have come in the middle of this chaos, you could’ve got killed. What is the situation like in Višegrad? Asked my father.

‘Forget about it. I’ve come to take you out of here. We are going to Serbia, right now.’My sister noticed tears on my father’s cheek, and she started crying. Then my mother ca-

me out of the house, embraced Dragica, saying prayers and thanking God Dragica was alive. My sister was determined that they should leave for Serbia immediately. They decided

to go to Jagoštica, a village near Bajina Bašta, where a cousin on my mother’s side lived with her husband. But the questions was how to get there. All around were Muslim villages – Kamenica, Štitarevo, Klašnik, each with a hundred Muslim houses, all armed to their teeth. It was impossible to get through unnoticed.

Our house was located at the ‘frontline’, some three hundred paces away from the vil-lage. There was a village road leading past our house, some thirty paces away form it, where the Muslims had been peacefully passing on their way to their fields. My father and my mother had traditional views. Every passer-by who came to our house was our guest, never leaving the house without having some coffee and home-made brandy, often having lunch with the family.

But there had been one particular event that had cast a dark shadow on the relations with the local people.

It was a conflict that my father once had with Nesib Karahodžić, the forester. In the old days, during 1970s, Nesib used to be a member of the ‘Young Muslims’ movement, like Alija Izetbegović. He went to prison, did his time, but still hated everyone who wasn’t a de-

41

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

vout Muslim. He continually filed false reports that our cattle were damaging the forest, and our father had problems paying the fines posed by the Forestry Administration. Once when got fed up with this, my father went to the police adminsitration in Višegrad and reported Nesib Karahodžić. He told the police: ‘Nesib Karahodžić is persecuting me only because I am Serbian, everybody knows it. And you know who he is, as well.’

The head of the police station in Višegrad was Milutin Ćeho, Serbian himself. He said to my father: ‘You can’t do anything about it, and I can’t help you. You are living among the Muslims, and that’s it,’ Milutin shrugged his shoulders.

A few days later, my father was in the field where he had taken the cattle to graze. When Nesib saw him, he came running towards him, armed. He was swearing. ‘I’ll show you about reporting me to the police,’ he shouted at my father. My father knew that Nesib wanted to provoke his reaction and shoot him, so that he could say later that it was self-defence. Because of it, he turned his back on him. This enraged Nesib, and he ran forward and stood in front of my father, still shouting at him.

My father, a strong highlander, swung his arm, landing a powerful blow on Nesib’s face. He fell down to the ground, where he remained lying, unconscious. Father left him there, knowing that Nesib was going to shoot him when he came round. In the morning, a police car came and took father to Višegrad. He knew he was going to get punished for this and was fearing a prison sentence in the Sarajevo prison of Kula. While he was interrogated, he persistently denied having seen Nesib that day at all. Without proper evidence, the court decided on a probation sentence for my father, and a penalty of around five hundred Deutsch Marks, while the forester was retired. There were many Serbs who had suffered from the false reports filed by Nesid, but none of them had had the courage to confront him. They were thankful to my father, and many of them openly expressed their gratitude.

The Muslims, however, changed their attitude towards my father, and he had overnight become a ‘Serbian nationalist’. When Dr Radovan Karadžić started to make his appearances on television and public meetings, everybody noticed that father was resembled him – they had the same kind of thick hair and were similar in the posture and way of speech. Soon my father was nicknamed after him, and the Muslims started calling him Radovan Karadžić. Now that the Young Muslims were rattling their guns, my father was expecting to be at-tacked as revenge. The powerful local Muslims had his name on the black list for execution, and he knew it.

Many of the Serbian families had left Rujište in the autumn, while he had dug out a hid-den underground shelter in the wood, where he and mother had slept for six months every night during the autumn and the winter. He never parted from his automatic machine gun, and was prepared to die fighting, just to avoid being caught and tortured, or slain like an animal. Now they were somehow to go past these Muslim villages. They concluded that it would be safer if everybody from the village went together.

My mother went to call them, but she returned soon with the grim news. Apart from the three houses, all of the eighteen households had already been deserted. Mother found our uncle Đorđe Lukić in bed. He was ill and told her that he didn’t have anywhere to go, even if he were to be slain there by the Muslims. He told his wife Mitra to accompany them until

Milan Lukić

42

they had passed the village of Kamenica, because rumours were herd that around five hun-dred Muslims from Žepa had arrived in Kamenica. In the previous war, the Muslim Ustasha had killed a lot of Serbs in the region, burning down forty Serbian villages.

So the four of them – my father, mother, sister and Mitra hurried to make their journey before the dark, taking with them only one bag and one rucksack, with a few basic things. They took the a herd of around one hundred sheep and twenty cattle and moved along the road above Kamenica. It was as if the animals could feel bad things in the air, they were sadly bleating and mooing, while the forest echoed their mourning. After they had been walking in the wood for more than a kilometre, they saw the Forester’s House, popularly known as ’Šumarnica’. Two of the rangers in the National park, Salko and Nusret, were liv-ing there, and father wanted to offer them some money to escort them a part of the way. But instead Salko and Nusret, they saw people in uniforms and green berets, sitting in front of the house and by the side of the road, holding arms.

‘There must be more inside and at the back of the house,’ said my father as they appo-rached. The women got scared. ‘These must be Muslims from Žepa, we must turn around and go back, or they’ll kill us all.’

‘There is no going back, they would find us back there and kill us tonight anyway,’ said father and continued, walking slowly ahead of the small group. In 1941, during the Second War, the Ustasha had their headquarters in Šumarnica. They occupied Rujište and took my father’s father Novica away with them. He was young, handsome, built like an athlete. They tortured him in Šumarnica, the cut his flesh, burnt him alive and executed impalement on him. While he was dying, or perhaps after he had died, they brought him back to the house, to slay him on his doorstep. His wife Levija came out of the shelter where she had been hid-ing with their children and saw a sight that she was going to remember all her life – Novica lying slain across the threshold. She fainted, and when she regained consciousness, she saw their three children aged two, three and five, hugging their dead father, wanting to play with him.

Now, my father, the middle one of the orphans, was now walking towards the post of Šumarnica, with a Kalashnikov around his neck. When he approached the building, he rec-ognised a few of the Muslims from Klašnik and Kamenica. There were many young ones, who obviously were not local. They were all silent, waiting for the orders. Suddenly, Salko appeared on the porch. He walked towards my father, saying ‘Mile, what made you turn into a mercenary?’

My father stopped. ‘It’s war, Salko. My father was killed in the previous one, and I have to look after my own life. I wouldn’t want to shoot my neighbours, though,’ he said, hiding his fear as he spoke.

‘You are a good man, Mile, everybody knows that. No one would hurt you.’ Said Salko. ‘War knows no good or bad people, Salko,’ said my father. Then he reached to his

rucksack and took out a bottle that he had kept there. He took a sip, then passed the bottle to Salko, saying:

This is for you, people, to your health and my safe journey.’ The bottle was passed from hand to hand, and the brandy was soon gone.

43

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘Farewell,’ said my father, parting from them, ’may we meet again, with God’s help.’ My aunt Mitra said good-bye to my parents and my sister, then went back home. Letting my mother and my sister ahead of him, as if to protect them, my father walked on, showing no signs of fear. The newly composed army remained at the Šumarica, watching for any signs of the Serbian army that might appear from the direction my father’s departure, or perhaps waiting for the orders to storm the unprotected Serbian villages.

Moving ahead with the sheep and the cattle, the small group was now gathering pace. In a little more than two hours, they were at the place called Omar, which was a few hundred metres away from Predov Krst, a point that marked the border with Serbia. It was now only a few kilometres to the village of Jagoštica. As soon as they were past Omar, they saw a house in the wood. It was surrounded by a vast clearing, full of grazing cattle and sheep. There a lot of people there who had fled from Rujište. The owner of the house came out when he saw the new visitors. It was Čedo, a highlander with a huge moustache and a sharp gaze, resembling an outlaw from the traditional poems.

‘Welcome to my house, Mile,’ he said. ‘Do not even thinking of going further. I have been so lonely here for years, with only the forest animals keeping me company. Now, it’s time to see some people here. We’ll take the cattle in the stables, and there is plenty of room for you in my house, there is place for fifty more, if need be!’

In the morning, father took Dragica to Jagoštica, a remote village which only got elec-tricity and a macadam road back in 1980s. There they found Radiša, an old acquaintance of my father’s. Radiša used to have an affair with a Muslim girl, and had been a frequent visitor to our village and our house, pretending to come on business.

When he saw my father, he shouted: ‘Mile, my brother, I thank God for the day when you have come to my house!’

‘I need to get my daughter urgently to Bajina Bašta,’ said my father. ‘You can consider it done. My old ‘mule’ will take care of it. But let us first have a drink

and have something to eat.’After lunch, father went back, and Radiša took Dragica to Bajina Bašta in his old ‘Za-

stava 750’. From Bajina Bašta, she later took a bus to Belgrade. While I was expecting the arrival of my parents, I bought a complete set of furniture for

their new residence. The purchase of the things and the time spent assembling the furniture pieces with the service people of ‘Simpo’, the manufacturer, helped to make it through the three horrible days.

Finally, I was able to call Gabriela with the good news: ‘The parents will not be coming to Belgrade, but they have moved to a safe place.’ I was rid of my worries and was preparing to go back to Switzerland.

Milan Lukić

44

5.

Suddenly there was the alarming news on television: ‘Twelve Serbian police officers have been captured in Višegrad, by the notorious Murat Šabanović and his brother Avdija Šabanović, with their mujahideens. Nothing is known about the captured men.’ Then the announcer was naming the missing men, which was a faint attempt to protect these poor people. Suddenly, I heard the name of my cousin Sredoje Lukić. I immediately called his brother Slavko. When he came, tears were rolling down his face: ‘The Muslims hate him, they are going to kill him, they are going to kill them all.

I tried to comfort him: ‘Here, take this. It’s not much, but it’s help. You may need it. If there is anything else, I’m here, just call or come.’

Mitra, their mother had helped my parents and my sister to get out of the village, and his father Đorđe was lying ill in Rujište. I remembered his words: ‘Even if I got slain by the Muslims here… ‘Do they know about Sredoje? Are they alive?’ Dark thoughts again, and echoes of Slavko’s words: ‘I have enrolled as a volunteer, with other people I know from Obrenovac, we are leaving tomorrow.’ I thought how he had steered out of the circle of death for so long, and now he was going there. Was he going to be sucked in by this viscous circle, never to go out of it? How many families like this were there?

I went to see him off. We did not say many words. I had thought that I had felt all of the horror of the war, but I had been wrong. In all the cities around Serbia they started drafting the people whose birthplace was on the other side of the Drina.

There was more and more horrid news on television: ‘The memorial of Ivo Andrić, our Nobel-Prize winner, has been shattered… Murat Šabanović has set explosive to the dam and is threatening to blow up the power plant… the destiny of the captured Serbian police officers, as well as the destiny of all the Serbs who have not fled Višegrad, is unknown and uncertain…’

Then, when all hope seemed lost, there was another news that turned the tide: ‘The Užički Corps of the Army has entered Višegrad!’ All the glory of the Serbian uprisings from the old days, the brilliant victories of Cer, Kolubara, Kaymakchalan, has returned for a brief moment, filling the people with confidence in the Serbian Army. The faces of ordinary people in the streets were shining with pride. The connections with Višegrad re-established, the traf-fic brought back to normal. People were returning to their homes, the workers were returning to their work places. There was peace and safety again, not only for the Serbs, but also for the ordinary poor Muslims, who were pushed to war, the television broadcasts explained.

Our eldest brother Gojko, went to Bajina Bašta and Jagoštica, then to Omar to meet with the parents. My father gave some of his cattle to make a feast for the army. He sent

45

some meat to us, then he and other local people went back home. My brother came back to Belgrade, without crossing the Border with Bosnia again.

The Army had brought things to normal. Everybody was sure that there was going to be no more war in the region. But I had a feeling that it was far from being over. To hell with my black thoughts …

‘Hello, Gabi, I’m on my way to Zurich, I’ll enter the city like our Corps took over Višegrad’

‘Do hurry, please – I have already surrendered, my darling,’ she said joyfully. ‘I don’t want to become a grey old lady waiting for you, hurry up!’

But I was still tormented by something vague, something I could not put my finger on. I wasn’t there for my parents, when they needed me, when it was the matter of life or death. Why did I come here – to save them, or to please myself? I was tormented by my conscious-ness, I was feeling ashamed. What was it like down there, after all of the turmoil of the past months? I decided I had to visit them before going back to Switzerland. I left the key to my flat at my neighbour’s. I set in the car with a friend from the Student City, and we drove off for a one-day journey to Višegrad.

Milan Lukić

46

6.

At the border crossing, the police were diligently recording all of the entries. ‘What is it like there?’ I asked one of the officers. ‘I just came back from Višegrad an hour ago. Everything is normal, the army are collect-

ing the fire arms around the city.’ We were soon in Vardište, where we ran straight into a roadblock. There were some

people there, some of them in army uniforms, other in police uniforms. Five-pointed stars and cockades on their hats!

They were mostly rude primitives, self-proclaimed keepers of order. One of them approached our car: ‘Open the baggage compartment. Where are you go-

ing?’ ‘Young man, how about saying ‘good morning’ or ‘good bless you’ first?’ ‘If I were to greet everyone, I‘d soon lose my speech.’ He started to search our things.

Without looking up, he said: ‘And where are the drinks for the Serbian army, you have stocked quite a lot of it here.’

I said: ‘If you feel like drinking, go ahead, take what you want.’ He immediately took two bottles of whisky, three cartons of cigarettes and a box of biscuits.

‘Can we go through now?’‘Beat it.’ Only a few kilometres further, in Dobrun, we came across a new roadblock. The same

question, and a repeated demand to open the luggage compartment. I said to them: ‘It’s alright, but I have already given away what I had to give, just a few

kilometres up the road.’ ‘I am sorry, but we have strict orders to check everyone. We don’t need anything from

you, so don’t worry. There is a shop over there, we can buy whatever we need.’ I see the first traces of fights. Many of the houses have been burnt down, with only

charred chimneys jutting out of the rubble. The scene resembles a graveyard. The minaret at the mosque is damaged, broken in two by a mortar, with the upper section hanging on its reinforced-concrete wires.

‘It must have been tough here,’ I said to the soldier. ‘There was a machine-gun bunker in the minaret,’ he replied briefly. ‘You’ve been very polite. ‘Please, take this as our gift,’ I said to him, handing out a

bottle of whisky and a carton of cigarettes. He didn’t want to take the gift, but I placed it in his hand.

‘Good luck to you, and thank you, my Serbian brother,’ he said as we were leaving.

47

Then, another check point, only a few kilometres further up the road. All of them with fur hats and cockades. ‘May God help you,’ said the soldier on duty, touching his hat. ‘May I see your documents?’ He looked at my name and surname, then asked: ‘Lukić? Are you a relative of Sredoje Lukić, that poor guy who was caught by the Muslims?’

‘He is my cousin. And what is your name, my friend?’ ‘My name is Slađan Simić, and this is Željko Tasić,’ he said, pointing to a soldier who

was standing next to him. I took a good look of him, he was a truly valiant young man. Later on, I heard that Slađan Simić had been the commander of the defence of the Village of Jagodina. Although greatly outnumbered by the attacking Muslims, they had bravely defended their village. Since he left a very good impression on me, I said I wanted to give some cigarettes and whiskey to them, as a gift.

‘What is your family in Rujište?’ Asked an elderly man, wearing a uniform. When I told him, he said: ‘I know Milo. We used to work together in Germany. I am

Rade Simić, Slađan’s uncle, and this brave man here is Đorđe Gacić, a hero of the previous and this war,’ he said, indicating to an old man who was sitting next to him. Then he said: ‘My friend’s son must have a drink with me. That, over there, is my inn.’ We went there and had a drink, then I took Đorđe to town, to meet with his sister. At the entrance to Višegrad, there was another check point, and I dropped him off there. I drove through the town and I cannot see any traces of fights, apart from some broken shop windows. Another check near the ‘Tvrđava’ inn, this time by people dressed in identical uniforms and wearing red berets, marked with two-headed eagles. They behaved politely, strictly obeying the rules. I explained the reasons for my arrival. One of them called a commanding post, using his two-way radio.

‘We have Milan Lukić here with us, wants to go through to visit his parents in Rujište… Roger.’

Then he turned to me: ‘The place is inside the war zone. You have to report to the Public Safety Service, to get a special permission. Thanks for your cooperation. Have a nice day.’

I drove to the police station yard. In a group of police officers who were standing there, having a conversation and laughing, I recognised Mladen Andrić, a friend from the high-school days.

‘Hello there, Mlađo,’ said I, happy to see him. ‘What is new?’ ‘Hello, my school-mate,’ he replied. The Muslims have set out to obliterate us, so I have

been drafted to join the police. What about you – are you not supposed to be in Switzerland?’ ‘Well, as you can see – I’ve come here to help the fight,’ I said almost jokingly, while I

was shaking hands with everyone there. ‘Well done, that’s a real Serb,’ I herad them cheering. Then I heard when his cousin Vidoje Andrić asked him who I was and then, when he

heard that I was a cousin of Sredoje Lukić, he came to me and said: ‘So, how are you my brother? I used to come to Sredoje, to help mow the fields, I’ve

been to your house and I know your father. He is a real highlander, tall as a mountain.’ Of course I knew Vidoje, he was one of the strongest people in Višegrad, a karate mas-

ter. What I could not understand was why they were all wearing police uniforms. I asked about Sredoje.

Milan Lukić

48

‘Oh, he is here, alright. He’s having lunch in Banja, with a group of police officers. Our canteen has been moved down there,’ he explained.

I asked him how to get a permit to move freely, and he said: ‘Let’s go upstairs, to see our former teachers. They are in charge now.’‘What teachers?’ I asked, confused. ‘You know Toce,’ he explained. It was a nickname of Dragan Tomić, our teacher of

Defence and Protection. ‘And Risto Perišić,’ our Serbian teacher. We went upstairs and his knock on a door was answered by a familiar voice from the

inside: ‘Come in.’ When we entered the room, I saw my former teacher dressed in a police uniform, with stars on his epaulets.

‘Chief, I am bringing another student-volunteer,’ I heard Mladen’s cheerful report. The teacher jumped from his chair, with an unbelievable ease for someone who weighed a hun-dred and twenty kilos and was two meters tall.

‘Milan Lukić,’ he exclaimed. ‘What brings you here? Are you not in Switzerland?’ He asked, while we were shaking hands.

‘In fact, I am,’ I said. ‘I have come here to visit and to see if there is anything I can provide.’

‘Of course there is! We need you, in person. Nothing else. Mlađo, go and get him a uni-form and some weapons. He will be one of us, we need people like him.’

‘Just a minute,’ I said. ‘Can we have some coffee first, and talk about everything. I have a small present for you here, as well.’

‘Alright, let’s see what it is,’ he said. He was obviously in a very good mood. I went downstairs to my car and took out four bottles of whisky, as well as four cartons

of cigarettes, giving a bottle and a carton to the group of policemen in the yard. I heard their comments as I was entering the building: ‘It’s been a long time since we

last saw original whisky and Marlboro here in Višegrad.’ I went upstairs once again, leaving Željko in the car. I gave the whisky to the chief, and three cartons of cigarettes to Mladen – one for himself, and two for his brother Vidoje.

‘Alright,’ said the chief, ‘now you can change.’ He indicated towards the other desk in the room, where I saw a new uniform that Mladen had laid there.

‘You are getting your gun and the Kalashnikov when you have finished changing.’‘I just wanted to tell you …’ I tried to explain, but he wasn’t listening. ‘You know how to use weapons, you’ve done your military service, haven’t you. So

you’re getting the whole set!’‘Teacher… chief, listen to me. I wanted to go to see my parents in Rujište.’‘You can go where you like, but please do put these on first.’Then I got his attention, by looking him straight in the eyes: ‘Teacher, listen to me. I

have a job in Switzerland. I have a fiancé there. I risk losing everything I have in life. I am not a coward but I have to go back.’

‘What do you mean go back? There isn’t any going back!’ He leaned towards me and slowly said, emphasising every word: ‘Every person capable of military service is subject to general mobilisation. You are not allowed to leave this area.’

49

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘I have come here from Belgrade, for a one-day visit to my parents, then I’m going back to Zurich.’

‘You have done well to have come here straight,’ said he, as if he’d been expecting me to say something like that. ‘Even if you had been going in the direction of Hungary, you would have got caught at the border, and you would have ended up here. If you think this is not true, go and ask them!’ He made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm, then continued: ‘Whoever was born here, and wherever in Serbia they happened to be, they were all col-lected and brought here.’

‘Then I lose everything,’ I said. ‘What is everything? People here have lost their houses, their families, their lives!’‘It’s not my fault, I mean I didn’t…’ I tried to explain, but he interrupted me: ‘We know – it’s never the student, it’s always the teacher to be blamed, isn’t it?’ Then he changed his tone and said softly, like a parent to a child: ‘Lukić, come on. Stay

here for a week, we need you here to clear the woods of the Muslim terrorists, then I will personally take you across the border, to Mokra Gora.’

‘Alright,’ I managed to utter, while I was having a moment of enlightenment: It must have been God’s will that I came here by myself, instead of being deported from the Hun-gary border, as a deserter. ‘How are things down there in Rujište? Only to see my parents. You take good care of them… Here is some whisky and Marlboro, from the boastful guy… you just keep getting killed here, I have some important business to attend…’ Different thoughts were running through my head. Having become aware of my own embarrassment, I tried to see if the others noticed it or not, but then I heard the chief saying something else that caught my attention: ‘Go ahead, Lukić, take Mladen and Vidoje with you, and go to see your parents. Prepare a police car for them,’ he ordered.

‘Is it safe out there?’ I heard myself asking, just to say something. ‘It certainly is,’ said he. There is the Army, and there are our police patrols.’ He asked

me to come with him to the office next door. There we found Risto Perišić. With his long legs raised on the desk, he resembled a sheriff from the westerns.

‘Here, commander, is another one of our students. Do you recognise him?’ Asked the chief.

‘He certainly looks familiar to me, but I can’t remember exactly,’ said he, swinging his legs off the desk.

‘You used to be my teacher for some time, replacing my regular teacher, Divna. I am Milan Lukić.’

‘Now I remember,’ said he. ‘Lukić from Žepa. Rujište, am I right?’ ‘He is a relative of Sredoje’s,’ said the chief. ‘If you are keen on drinking like Sredoje, I don’t want to see you! But you are all keen

on drinking, aren’t you?’ ‘No, you couldn’t be more wrong there,’ said the chief. ‘He is into sports. He neither

drinks nor smokes. He will be part of my escort and, when it is necessary, he will be with you. I mean when he is not out on duty, in action,’ explained the chief. The commander nod-ded and offered us some coffee.

Milan Lukić

50

Soon we were on our way to Rujište. We stopped over at Banja, because I wanted to take Sredoje with me, so that he would see his parents, too.

In a cloud of cigarette smoke, one could smell the stale stench of uniforms that had been stored in various military and reserve formations warehouses, as well as the acid smell of brandy, beer and sweat. There were around fifty soldiers and policemen, making a hell lot of noise. The tables were cluttered with bottles and glasses. Almost all of the people there were young men from the villages in Žepa. There were a few older people, but they were familiar to me, I must have seen them while I was travelling to school on the local buses. I saw some of my relatives from the neighbouring villages, but also the friends from Obrenovac.

It was not difficult at all to find Sredoje amidst the crowd. He was sitting with a few other police officers – Veljko Planinčić, Niko Vujačić and Goran Nedić, all of them with shaved heads, covered in scabs from recent injuries. The table they were sitting at was full of drinks, and they were singing an old song of the Chetniks:

‘All the way from Topola, to Ravna Gora, there are patrols of General Draža.The Župa of Višegrad will give As many soldiers as you want, General…’ As I watched them for a brief moment, I thought to myself: ‘If the Ustasha executioner

Tito could arise and hear what the officers from his communist police were singing, he would have killed all the Serbian babies in their cradles, and his right hand, Kardelj, for betraying the revolution and not managing to kill everybody in time.’

I placed my hand on Sredoje’s shoulder, saying: ‘Where have you been, cousin?’ He looked at me in astonishment, as if he’d seen a ghost in a uniform.‘How come you are here? I thought you were in Switzerland?’‘I am, or – I was. But then I saw it on television that you were captured, and I hurried

to take you out. Thank God, you are alive.’ We embraced each other. While I was saying hello to other people there, I heard Sredoje shouting: ‘Here is my brother from Switzerland, he’s come to help the Serbian cause, you guys!’ He pulled me by the sleeve, and continued: ‘Look Milan, here are our friends, cousins, our godfathers… all of them mobilised in Serbia, and all of them brought here in a helicopter. And you know why? Because, if it had been a car or something, they would have fled along the way!’

Everybody laughed and then people started coming to our table. We shook hands and hug our relatives and godfathers.

‘Look here, my cousin,’ said Sredoje, hardly standing on his feet. He took off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. ‘Look here, what the Muslims have done to me!’ He was covered in black and violet swellings, every inch of his body. ‘They’ve beaten me, like an animal! Mother fuckers! My own flesh is rotting! I am rotting alive! They’ve run away, but I am go-ing to find them, to ask them why they have done this to me!’

They were surrounded by a wall of uniforms by now. Everybody had stopped talking, and the huge cloud of smoke was filled with silence.

‘And it was your fault, as well,’ shouted Sredoje, pointing his finger at Niko Vujačić. Then he turned towards the others, trying to explain: ‘The Muslims were beating us with

51

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

metal bars, and I was screaming, but this fool here wouldn’t make a sound. I cried, and he wanted to play hero. And they were beating twice as furiously because he pissed them off!

‘Stick it out! Take it all like a man! You were given extra food,’ said Niko. ‘For every slice of bread they gave us, they gave him two. For every two slices they gave us, they gave him four.’

‘You were lucky they gave you anything to eat,’ I said, trying to calm them down, but Sredoje’s eyes shot with wild fury: ‘He’s fucking about, he’s a bloody fool! They put shit in bread and made us eat. They would call it a sandwich for the giaour pigs, and beat us with iron bars until we ate everything… the Muslim shit… Sit down cousin, I hope you are not disgusted.’ I spoke to him slowly, trying to get every word across to him: ‘I am here with Mlađo and Vidoje, on my way to see our old folks.’

‘Vićko is a great guy… sit here, for a while, I’ll go with you.’ He touches my uniform. ‘I’ll tell you this: We have always been there to defend our country! Look around! All

of the guys here, all of them from Župa!’‘I’ll be back soon,’ said Niko to his friends, winking his eye at me to tell me that Sre-

doje was totally drunk. Sredoje was drowning his suffering in brandy and could not hear us even if we had been shouting. We went out, and Niko said: ‘I’m going with you, to see the godfather. Niko was from Foča, married to a family of my godfather’s, and he was used to calling us all in the family like that.

‘We’d better go now, before it gets dark,’ I said. We drove off with Vićko behind the wheel. Niko was sitting beside him , while Mladen

and I sat at the back. The forests were beautiful, starting to get covered in young leaves, but they somehow looked threatening, as if hiding mujahideens. There were no signs of fighting or burning in the villages that we passed on our way. We could see only the traces of caterpil-lar vehicles, as if somebody had marked the way for us. Around ten kilometres of the asphalt road, and then damaged macadam, a punishment of the communist regime for the area that used to be held by the Chetniks in the previous war. We drove on, with primed Kalashnikovs in our hands. Vićko had turned on the police lights and the horn, and pieces of stone kept flying around under the wheels of our speeding car. What we were trying to do was basically to simulate we were an advance guard for a military convoy, hoping this might scare away any Muslim ambush, or at least help us cope with our fear.

When we came to the end of the road, we parked the car and went out, to walk the final few hundred yards to the village. Niko started singing: ‘The mountain of Romanija and its red rocks, the birth place of Pera Kosanić…’, and then he went on, in a louder voice:‘…Rujište, high up in the hills, is where hawks have their home!’

His mighty voice echoed off the surrounding hills of Jarebica, Visočnik and Stolovača. I could almost visualise the sound penetrating the woods and vibrating above the twelve springs with their chilling waters. I couldn’t help wondering about the pristine names of these places, so fitting for them, given to them in times immemorial. As for my village, it was named after the rujan tree, which was used to make a special colour for Easter eggs.

We heard father’s voice coming from the house, then a short rapid-fire shot from his rifle. We answered in the same manner.

Milan Lukić

52

Father was coming up the path to meet us. He said: ‘What brings you here, may God be with you, my children.’

‘I received my call-up in Switzerland, to join the army, so here I am.’ I said. Soon we were all at our house. My mother’s eyes were full of tears. ‘What are you doing

in that uniform, my son?’ She asked. ‘I got called up and deported here.’ ‘Do they know you have a job in Switzerland? You are going to lose your job.’ ‘Tell me, my son, did the Muslims torture you?’ I heard my father ask Niko, while he

was taking the table out of the house, onto the porch. Torture by Muslims was his only fear, he was never afraid of being killed.

‘My dear godfather, ’ said Niko, ‘there is nothing that a man cannot endure, if he has determination and courage.’ My mother was pouring our ten-year old brandy, and he raised his glass to his mouth. We were now guests at my parents’ house. I could not get enough of the beauty of my birth place. We had a hard time persuading my father not to slaughter a ram, to make a roast for the guests.

‘Father, I want you and mother to move to Belgrade.’ I told him. ‘I can’t just leave my sheep and the cattle, you know that.’‘Yes, you can. I have furnished a flat for you, I have even bought slippers for you.’‘So that we can die in peace there, bored to death,’ said father, making everybody laugh. The village looked deserted. Under the hill of Visočnik, some seven hundred paces in

the direction of Žepa, there were two Muslim houses, belonging to the Karić family. They had a lot of children and I grew up together with my friends Adila, Fadil, Amir, Samir, Ćamil, who was also in the same class with me, Jasmina, Hađira and Munira. My mother and father had good relations with the neighbours’ wives, Behara and Harija.

‘Where are the Karić families?’ I asked my father. ‘They have fled to Žepa,’ said my father. ‘Your namesake Milan Lukić, the chief of the village, was begging them not to go, but

they said they had orders and had to. I myself wanted to go to Žepa to call them back, but Kata wouldn’t let me, she said the Muslims would kill me.’

‘I hope none of them got killed or something,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. I feel sorry for them, they passed by the other day, with dirt on their faces,

you could only see the white of their eyes. Before that, we heard some shooting and explo-sions, it sounded like a real fight. Both those houses were pulled down. Somebody told me it was because of your school mate, Ćamil Karić. They say he took part in destroying the memorial of Ivo Andrić in Višegrad. Who can ever know what people are saying…,’ said my father with a sigh. The sun went down and we stood up, ready to go back.

‘Before the Užički Corps arrived, there were shootings every night. Both Serbs and Muslims were shooting from their villages. I could here the sound of fire from as far away as Omar,’ said my father.

‘Now, it’s quiet, and we are not far. If you doubt anything, just give us a signal from the chief’s radio,’ said Niko, as we were preparing to leave.

My father shook his head: ‘My son, this will not end here, more blood will be shed.’

53

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

My mother took me away from the group. She said, with tears in her eyes: ‘My son, you must go back, at once!’

I tried to comfort her: ‘Ma, everything will be fine, this will have finished by May.’ I tried to dismiss the significance of her words, and walk on, but she held me by the sleeve:

‘There will be fights here, the earth will be on fire! The woods are full of Muslims. I’d rather get killed by them, then saw you dead. And do not harm anybody, I beseech you!’

‘For God’s sake mother,’ I said, hurrying to catch up with father. Then I told him to pre-pare what is needed to sell of his cattle and move to Belgrade as soon as possible. I spoke to him in a loud voice, so that my mother could hear my words and be comforted.

But father was saying that selling cattle now was not easy, that there was a lot of cattle left in the fields, deserted by the families who have fled the region. ‘Only yesterday, I gave away two rams to the army,’ he said.

When we reached the high point of Oskoruša, I turned to look back at the house. Mother was still standing in the same place where we parted, sadly watching our departure. I could see the fear in her eyes as we parted, the mother’s instinct of a hind who feels a danger lurk-ing at her fawn. She must have been saying her silent prayers, I thought.

Father was a few metres ahead of her. As a baby, he made his first steps on this earth in a war and in hidings, and he does not want to run away any more. He became an orphan three, after his father was slain, and is not afraid to die. Fed by his step-father’s hand during the years of hunger, he wasn’t afraid of starving either.

His life was as difficult as it gets, and he had lived through it working all the time, tire-lessly. As I watched him standing there like an oak, a highlander with a rifle in his arms, he resembled a father figure from the old sagas.

He became head of his family at sixteen, when he got married to Kata, who was two years his senior. Kata was one of the ten children from the respectful family of Ivanović from the village of Paočić, who had been brought to poverty, supported only by her mother. Her father had defended the village from the Ustashe during the war, but when the com-munist regime came, he was imprisoned for many years for being on the Chetniks’ side. The children were starving for years, and it was a miracle and God’s mercy that they managed to survive. When my mother’s father got out of jail, it wasn’t much easier. He was sick and stigmatised, and had to do the hardest manual jobs in Montenegro to provide food for the family.

The first house that my father and my mother had was a wooden shed. It was a barn, rather than a regular house. My father went to work abroad, spending three years in Ger-many, then two in France. Mother stayed at home, taking care of the cattle and raising the children. She raised the four of us, sent us to school. While the new, beautiful house was being built, they spent a winter in an improvised shelter, dug in the ground. They expanded the land they inherited from the forefathers, by buying acres of land. They had become one with the land they lived on, the essence of life and survival. While the images of my parents lingered on and the car travelled along the macadam road, I was filled with a tangible fear that the whole scenario might be repeated once again. I said a silent prayer.

‘Hold the rifle ready,’ Mladen suddenly said, focusing on his side of the road.

Milan Lukić

54

7.

They had arranged my accommodation for that night at a building that the locals called ‘the Tunnel’, where Sredoje was staying. It was located near the bus station, and as we en-tered the corridor, I heard a familiar song coming from one of the flats:

‘High waters of Drina,Carry soldiers away.General Draža … ‘When we went in, I met the hazy gaze of Sredoje’s eyes, half-hidden under his swol-

len eyelids. Then his friends started singing even louder, and I could hardly understand his words:

‘How are they doing? Our folks up there in the village? ‘They are doing fine. They said hello to you,’ I said. ‘Tell me, cousin, are you not afraid that Muslims could take them to Žepa alive?’‘No way. Nothing can harm them in Rujište,’ I said, trying to comfort him, although I

was afraid that this might happen. They went on drinking, singing and firing their guns through the window. Mladen,

Vićko and Niko were on their way out, after ten minutes or so. Turning to me at the door, Niko whispered: ‘You can sleep at my place, I am alone in the flat. But it’s better if you stay here, with Sredoje. When he goes to bed, put away the guns. He’s been having nightmares about Muslims attacking, he shouts in his sleep, and even shoots at random.’

It was very late when the rest of Sredoje’s company left the flat. He finally went to bed. I put away the guns, but I still wasn’t able to sleep on that first night in the war zone. He kept talking in his sleep, sentences like: ‘Beware, do not step on it… a land mine… it’s better to be killed than crippled!’, or ‘Don’t let me get into the Muslim’s hands alive… ‘

It was morning when I finally fell asleep. I slept for only two hours or so – then, before eight, there was the sound of a horn that woke me up. I went out to the balcony.

Mladen and Vićko were waiting for me, to take me to duty. I put on my shoes, and soon we were at the police station. Ten minutes later, we received an order to collect our chief from his house, which was located some ten minutes’ drive from the new bridge on the Drina. The chief came out wearing a uniform but without a hat, and we saluted him.

‘Did you sleep well, guys? You look nice in that uniform, Lukić. How are your folks? They are brave people, but now they can be even more re-assured, with their son here to protect them.’

I said something in approval, then we said that we did not notice any signs of the ex-tremists out there in the woods and that everything was quiet. He smiled and gently shook

55

his head, saying: ‘I pray to God that you are right, but when you see them, it is too late. They have mobilised everyone, and we must act quickly and be prepared for sudden attacks. You are getting a two-way radio today, Lukić. You will be available night an day, all the time.’

We escorted him to his office, and he told us that the following day we would be es-corting him to Rudo, where he had his weekend house and also some meetings. Then he dismissed us until noon.

We had some juice and ate some chocolate, then I was shown how to use the two-way radio, at the frequencies of Tomić, the chief, and Perišić, the commander. We were back at the station at noon, and the chief said: ‘Let us go, guys!’

We were making a round of the police check points. In Brodarevo, I met Obrad Poluga from the village of Trševina, a tall and robust man from the village of Đurđevići and Veljko Planinčić, who was a professional police officer in charge of non-commissioned police of-ficers. There were a lot of young men from the villages of Župa, whom I had known from before.

There were a lot of military staff and police in Ustiprača. We heard some rumours about a planned movement towards Goražde, where an attack was being prepared by the opposing side. The plan was for the two army Corps – the Romanijski and Užički – to meet there.

There were signs of conflicts around the place. Above Ustiprača, near the wood, I saw the remains of several burnt houses. This was a way to neutralise buildings that were used as bunkers.

The chief went into a restaurant to meet some of the commanding officers from the Užički Corps, while we kept our places outside.

Half an hour later, the chief came out. ‘We are not going to my weekend house. There have been some urgent changes,’ he

said. On our way back, he explained that the following day he was going to take a group of

thirty police officers, to search houses in Ustiprača. They had information that small groups of Muslim extremists were hiding there, with a mission to sabotage the regular functions, in order to create confusion before the general massive attack from Goražde.

We spent some time in the office, while the chief was typing a list of police officers for the mission.

‘I want everybody to be ready at five in the morning,’ he said to his orderly. ‘The same goes for you,’ he said to us, then asked us to take him home.

Milan Lukić

56

8.

In the morning, when we arrived at the station with the chief, there were thirty police officers lined for the assignment. He gave brief and clear instructions about where we were going, what the goals of the search were and what methods of search would be applied. ‘I demand your utmost attention! There must be four of you at each door, with strict imple-mentation of the procedure. We are not criminals, we are the law and the order of this state. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sir!’ We all said. ‘And just one more thing. We have about a dozen bullet-proof jackets. There aren’t

enough for everyone. If anyone wants one, feel free to take it.’ He added laconically. For the next few minutes, everyone was busy checking the guns and taking the supplies

of ammunition. As far as I could see, nobody took a bullet-proof jacket, including the chief. Soon we were boarded on our Pinzgauer transportation vehicles, and were on our way to Ustiprača. We stopped at the tunnel marking the entrance to the village. Having left out vehi-cles there, so as not to be noticed, we split into two groups, approaching the village from two different sides. The chief coordinated our movement and we came together again under the wood on the other side of the village. Then we searched the houses, one by one. There was only one rifle found in one of the houses, possessing a proper licence. As we had expected, the men from the village had been mobilised and taken to Goražde. Now, when we finished our search, there was no reason for extreme caution and went to the centre of the village.

The Užički Corps started getting the soldiers onto the trucks. The first group was sent off, arriving at their destination without any problems. The second group was on their way there, when they ran into an ambush set by the Muslims. The attackers were hidden in the forest by the side of the road, and they fired a machine gun at a truck full of soldiers.

It was a massacre! Six soldiers went down in a few seconds, and nobody ever saw the enemies. Other soldiers fled to their shelter, in the chaos of bloodshed and terror. The com-manding staff were shocked. They were focused on sending urgent reports and explanations. In reality, nothing was being done. The soldiers were young, inexperienced. They had de-parted at sunset, and now it was already dark out there. A group of volunteers gathered for a rescue operation, and I joined them.

We set out to salvage the bodies of the young soldiers who were treacherously killed in the ambush. It was our group against theirs, stalking on each other in the dark of the wood. It was essential to move unnoticed. The problem for us were the surviving soldiers who were now roaming the wood, hiding from the persecutors. Perhaps they had already been caught by the Muslims and taken to be executed in Goražde?

57

Powerful floodlights were switched on in Ustiprača headquarters, pointing upwards, to indicate the direction of their expected retreat. Every shadow, every tree could be the enemy, a bomb or a land-mine, a rapid-fire shot from a machine gun…

The army had failed to react in an organised way, as an army should, to conduct a planned action and do away with the extremists. They did not do it that day, and they did not do it for the following seven days. Instead, the Corps were pulled back to Višegrad. The Muslim terrorists were now encouraged beyond any description.

We were later told by some captured Muslims that on that night a group of fifteen terror-ists had stopped the Užički Corps from establishing peace and order in the region.

‘I must be going back to Switzerland. That’s what you promised to me,’ I said to the chief.

‘You could really leave these poor people here unprotected, a pray for the Muslim slaughterers?’ I heard the others telling me, and I went out of his office, without waiting for his reply.

Milan Lukić

58

9.

Two brothers, Mladen and Vidoje Andrić, and myself, were assigned as escorts to the chief Dragan Tomić, but we were frequently given other orders. I received an order on my two-way radio to patrol at the police check-point in Brodar, on the road to Goražde.

This order had come at a good moment for me. I could still feel bloody taste in my mouth, and the picture of the dead soldiers had followed me for days. I spent days in silence, my soul as hard as a stone. When I came to the check-point, there were around ten police officers there, among whom I again recognised some of my friends and relatives. Slowly, I started talking again, encouraged by their simple warm-heartedness. If you place a bee in an adverse environment, it will perish, and so will a lion. A fox caught in a trap will bite off its own leg. What about a man? A man will adjust. What is disgusting will cease to be so, what is repulsing will become acceptable, and what is bestial will become normal, especially when a man is part of a pack.

The shift on duty was finished, and we had agreed to meet and have a drink together in a local inn.

In the corridor of my block of flats, I met my class tutor, teacher from high school, Divna.

‘Hello teacher, how are you?’ I was happy to see her. ‘I’m fine, thank you, my former student. I live here,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders.

‘We have a baby in our flat. She keeps crying at night because of the shooting from that flat,’ she said, looking up in the direction of Sredoje’s flat. ‘Can you please do something, so that they at least stop shooting?’ I promised that I would, and went upstairs to the flat that was echoing with drunken singing.

She must have been desperate, I thought, and God knows how long she had been wait-ing for my arrival, to ask me for the favour.

Sredoje was completely drunk, as were the others. I was sick of it all. Day in, day out, it was always the same: drinking, singing and shooting out of the window, always the same company.

I looked at Niko Vujačić and signalled to him with my eyes to come outside. We stood in the hall.

‘Tell me, god-brother, how long have you been drinking and rampaging like this?’‘We do not drink, my god-brother, we never drink.’ He said. ‘So what do you call this?’‘We are washing down the dirt with the brandy.’‘That shit?’

59

‘No, not shit. Dirt.’ ‘But, for God’s sake, you are alive!’Suddenly, his watery, drunken eyes lit with a fire and he gave me a horrible look. ‘I wish they had killed us. They did to us what they had done in Afghanistan to the

captured Russians.’‘What did they do to you, for Christ’s sake? ‘They raped us, my god-brother. You know how big a police baton is? They would stick

one in each of us, from the ass, up to the throat. They fucked us!’ He was shouting so loudly, the whole block of flats must have heard him.

‘Mother-fuckers!’ He went on, while the corridor was echoing. ‘We drink to wash the shit from our mouths and the Muslim batons from our asses!’‘Please, god-brother…,’ I tried to soothe him, embracing him and helping him to sit

down with me on the stairs. ‘My god-brother,’ he went on,’ just before the war, when it started to get nasty here, I

went to Belgrade and asked to be moved there. But Đorđević didn’t allow it – first he prom-ised, then he lied. So may he never have happiness in his life,’ he said sorrowfully.

What he told me helped me to put together the whole story of the horrible event. The Muslims had taken control of the local political institutions in Višegrad, having brought to the police station their own men, armed and unruly gangs. The complete police staff had moved to the new, hidden headquarters, in the house of Stanko Pecikoza. They were actively working on taking the Serbs out of the endangered zones. The Crises Committee had been moved all the way to the border. The war was expected to start any day now, but nobody yet had been killed.

Then the Crisis Committee received some information that the Muslims were killing Serbs in the part of the town called Glavice.

‘Go and get those poor people out,’ was the order given to the twelve police officers. They went there, moving in secret, to help the Serbs who were in danger. Many police of-ficers had relatives and friends in this part of the town.

‘Nobody needed our help, my god-brother,’ said Niko. ‘The big shots had fled to Zlati-bor in Serbia, fuck them all! They were eating roast lamb, and sending us to a fake mission, because they needed victims for their cause. We went right into an ambush, surrounded by five hundred Muslims. We got into a house and defended ourselves while we had ammuni-tion, leaving a bullet each, for ourselves. ‘If you surrender, you have my word that you will stay alive,’ said Murat Šabanović. Sredoje said we should kill ourselves, but I said we should surrender. I used to know Murat before the war, we used to gamble together. He was going to keep his word, I said to everyone. And so we surrendered.

We were tied and transported to the ‘Žito’ company, then to a tunnel, thirty metres under the power station. After ten days and nights, we saw in the behaviour of the Muslims that something was going on. We heard cannons in the distance. The Muslim who was our guard said that the Užički Corps was about to enter the town, while the Rogatički Corps was ap-proaching from the other side. They took us out, and made us walk in front of them, in the direction of Međeđa and Goražde. We saw lines of Muslims fleeing the area. Murat was

Milan Lukić

60

trying to open the dams, and he did open one of the three sections. The water rushed out and wiped of five or six houses, including his own house. Fuck it, he’s a crazy man. But if he had opened all three sections, the water would have destroyed everything – the ‘Varda’ and ‘Terpentin’ factories, all of the bridges, and the whole town of Višegrad.

All of the poisonous chemicals from the factory would have spread everywhere around. The Drina would not be the Bloody River any longer, but a river of an utmost catastrophe.’

‘It’s strange that he didn’t do it,’ I said. ‘That’s because he didn’t have time. When Murat left the dam, a Turkish engineer closed

the section that had been opened, and we are lucky that he did.’ ‘If Murat kept his word, why did they torture you?’‘They did it when he was away. He visited us twice, and brought sandwiches. But we

were afraid to tell on them, fearing worse torture when he left us with them. They would have impaled us, for sure. But I have to say, and I will repeat it on my death bed: ‘If it hadn’t been for Murat Šabanović, the Muslims would have cut us to pieces alive.’

‘So how did you manage to go free in the end?’ ‘They took us to a point, about five kilometres away from Međeđa. There they locked

us inside a house next to a petrol station, and took the bandages off our eyes. All the time, the sound of the fighting was getting nearer, like a summer thunderstorm. Then Žućo, the Muslim owner of the petrol station said: ‘Come on people, I can’t just leave you there. Let me untie you, and get into a hiding somewhere behind the house.’ We did as he told us. When the Muslim gangs were all gone, we went down to the main road, where we waited for the army. They took us to the town, and suddenly there were television crews all around us. They cropped our hair and put some ointment on the cuts and bruises on our heads. People were crying when they saw how pitiful we were. I went to see my family in Obrenovac, then they called me back, and here I am.’

He rose to his feet, to go back to the others in the room. Then he spoke again:‘My dear god-brother, if you only knew… I haven’t stopped drinking since then. If I got

to be sober, I’d kill myself. I must go to Serbia for a treatment, as soon as possible.’‘How many of the terrorists did the Užički Corps capture and disarm?’ ‘None. They are all in the woods,’ he said, waving his arm, as if dismissing the question

as ridiculous. ‘They must have killed quite a few when they were taking the town?’‘The Užički Corps killed only one young lad, and that one was Serbian! Only him and

no one else. And he was a great young man, my god-brother. He was the only one who had the courage to stay with Rajko the priest and my godfather Dragiša Vasiljević – there were only three of them who had stayed to defend the orthodox church from the Muslims, who wanted to set it on fire. When he saw the army approaching, he was so exalted that he fired a rapid-fire shot through the open window. The army mistook this for an attack by the Mus-lims, and fired back, killing him instantly. My dear god-brother…’ I heard him saying as he was going back into the room.

When I went in a few minutes later, a new bottle of brandy was passed around, its rancid smell floating in the dense tobacco smoke. The room was filled with noisy chatter. I needed

61

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

air and went out again. While I was going past my teacher’s door on tiptoe, I couldn’t de-cide if I was trying not to wake the child, or it was just a meaningless gesture to soothe my embarrassment.

Outside, the town was buried in silence and darkness. The street lamps were sparse, shedding light in sorrowful patches. Not a sign of the cheerful noises and gay atmosphere of Višegrad that I used to know. I couldn’t feel the peculiar smell of a spring night and the Drina river. Only the silent, lowly town where I was a chance visitor.

I did not know how long I was sitting alone, waiting for the friends from the check-point to arrive. When they finally came, they brought with them a breath of lively atmosphere, accentuating the feeling of a mysterious and hidden threat, lurking in the darkness outside, like a ghost from the past. They asked me about Switzerland, they wanted to know what it was like to live there and why I came here.

‘No, you tell me about yourselves,’ said I, trying to look cheerful and encouraged them to talk: ‘How come you are here, while your wives and children are in Serbia?’

‘It’s really is a simple thing,’ they started to explain. ‘The police would come at night, saying that the duty was calling; the Serbs in Bosnia were being slaughtered, and it was one’s duty to defend one’s own birthplace.’ Then they would make them sign the call-up papers.

‘Whereupon you came straight to this place?’ They laugh at my question. ‘Whereupon we first went to Bubanj Potok, to get our uniforms, then to Ilok to refresh

our memories regarding how to shoot a projectile. After the training shooting, an helicopter took us to our respective places of birth, to join the reserve police forces.’

‘So here in the police all of you are Serbs?’‘All of us!’ They confirmed. Somebody from the other side of the room said: ‘Not all of us. There is a Muslim guy,

Rasim Dedić, who is married with a Serbian. His son, who is half-Serbian, is with us.’‘It is important not to waste a good seed,’ somebody said and everybody laughed at it. Then, there was a toast: ‘To your health… to your health…’ The atmosphere had warmed

and I could hear comments like: ‘Well, how else would we get together like this, in this very place… it must be the destiny. If we get killed, we will be in all the history books, we’ll be the history.’ Then they started singing, in a good mod:

‘Fur hats, tailored in the Chetniks styleIs what my family like to wear…’

Milan Lukić

62

10.

We where dismayed at the news that was broadcast that day, we felt as though the sky had exploded and the earth had disappeared under our feet: ‘The Užički Corps must retreat to the other side of the Drina, immediately!’

It was an order issued by the world’s bullies, the self-proclaimed consciousness of the world. I hurried to the police station, overwhelmed by a bad feeling that something horrible was going to happen. Those who issue orders will never be seen as defendants, prosecuted for the war crimes, for the blood that was shed. They will be judged by God. ‘Chained, they will forever be drinking the innocent blood that they wasted,’ I remembered the words that my father spoke to me when I was a child, during long winter evenings when stories of his-tory, bravery and sin were told. ‘They will burn in Hell, for sure.’

‘Did they not know the truth?’ This is the question that the naïve ones inevitably ask. And the answer is yes, they did, they had armies of their spies and snitches. But they

were afraid that the Muslim terrorists might run out of steam, get tired of everything. If that happened, the bloody war would be over almost before it really started and that would spoil all their plans.

So they issued orders to Yugoslavia to withdraw Yugoslav Army from Yugoslavia, just like they did in Slovenia and Croatia. Can you imagine anyone ordering France to withdraw its Armed Forces from Alsace, Lorraine, or any other part of France. England had sent their whole fleet to defend a few shepherds and fifty thousand sheep on the distant Falkland Islands. Though it may be true that Serbs have a short memory, this was a scenario that everyone remembered well. People still remembered how the Austria-Hungary ‘Punitive Expedition’ had expelled the Serbian Army from Serbia, together with the Government, refugees, hospitals and asylums, forcing them to a death march over the wilderness of Alba-nia. To add insult to injury, these criminals had proudly announced to the world: ‘Thrown to the ice-covered peaks of the Prokletije Mountains, the miserable remains of the Serbs have ceased to exist.’ They had crippled the whole nation.

The Užički Corps, with all its flaws, had confronted the terrorists. The Army had en-couraged the Muslim people, re-introducing the peace, order and law. To the Serbs, it had brought a feeling of safety and protection.

The Serbs had fled Višegrad when the Muslim terror had started, while the Muslims had fled the town when the army approached it. The Užićki Corps had entered an almost vacant town. The Army Staff had made a proposal that the Muslims and the Serbs should organise joint institutions of public authorities, in the peace that had been created, but the politicians on both sides had rejected this proposal.

63

The army had re-instituted peace, and the Muslims were able to go back to work, with-out being threatened or persecuted. It was only the Muslim leaders who prevented them from going back to work. They organised enforced mobilisation, taking the people away from Višegrad and many of the surrounding villages, leaving behind the chosen few who were to act as their informers and wait for the right moment for the renewed attack. In spite of this all, a lot of ordinary, poor Muslims had returned, craving for peace and order, like all ordinary people do.

There were occasional incidents, directed by those who had been left behind. There were terrorists cruising around a vast area, ready to run away as soon as they have com-mitted their crime. It was the duty of us, police officers, to bring them to the police station, acting on orders issues by our superiors. They were there interrogated by professionals, who would decide on either releasing some of them, with an obligation to report to the police on a daily basis, or on keeping some of them in the custody. The ground floor of the army administration building was converted into a prison, while one of the offices in the police station building was turned into a short-time detention room.

We had strict orders issued by the Army, so that arrests and interrogations were per-formed without any maltreatment or revenge. According to these orders, the Army had its representatives in every serious arrest mission, to make sure that the law was complied with.

The Army Staff checked and verified the correctness of each individual case. The war score of the Užički Corps: zero killed Muslims, six soldiers lost in a cowardly

attack! Seven days after the massacre of the army soldiers, on 19th May 1992, the Užički Corps

returned across the Drina, following the orders of the world’s bullies. ‘Welcome to the hell of Višegrad! The door is wide open!

Milan Lukić

64

11.

Hardly had the Užički Corps left the region, than the Muslim terrorists knew it had happened. They must have received this information from the ‘central office’ of the global murderers, butchers of countries and their territories…

Soon, there were hidden land mines on every dusty road, in woods, in the grass and pathways – anywhere you went, you could step on one. People or cattle, it was all the same… An ambush could be lurking at any bend in the road, behind any thicket, bush or tree. And everywhere around there were ordinary people in their homes, in the scattered Serbian villages. They did not even know that the Užički Corps had been chased away.

The Muslim terrorists were now multiplying their ‘hit and run’ guerrilla groups. Some of these had grown to more than three hundred people. There had been ambushes set in the direction of Ustiprača, Župa, Dobrun, Sjemić, everywhere. There had even been attacks on the parts of Višegrad. As for the distant Serbian villages, they had been left to God’s mercy.

When the Užički Corps had left, the Crisis Committee, headed by Branimir Savović, organised the Territorial Defence Army and appointed the head commanders of the Crisis committee. Ljupko Tasić was in charge of the villages around Višegrad, Momir Savić was in charge of the Drina region and the surrounding villages, while Krsto Papić and Drago Gavrilović commanded the defence in the villages of Prelovo, Žleb, Obrvanj, Mušići, Korit-nik, Gostilje, Greben and the other villages in the region of Župa.

The area of Sjemići with its twenty or so villages were assigned to Vlatko Tripković, while the town of Višegrad and its parts of Bikavac, Mahala, Medical Centre, Glavica, Pionirska, Dušče and the town centre were protected by our reserve police and army units.

However, the Muslims had managed to join their enclaves and thus multiply the threat they were posing. The so-called Corridor Goražde – Kočarin – Žepa had not been estab-lished as a result of the Muslim success in fighting, but primarily owing to the ultimatums of the global executioners of the Serbian nation. The Muslim terrorists had now become an army, wearing green berets with the sign of a lily on them. The fact that the lily used to be a symbol introduced and used by the Serbian medieval gentry did not seem to bother anyone.

These new lilies were now cruising the area, setting fire to houses and killing people. They had cut through the defence of Ustiprača, forcing their way to only about a kilometre from the power plant. In the area of Sjemić, they had killed a policeman, officer Sikimić, and had killed a group of civilians on a road. The road leading to Rogatica, as the only com-munication line between Višegrad and the whole region with Republika Srpska, was under a constant threat. From time to time, the Rogatički Corps went out into the filed, firing at their units located at Žepa and Goražde, and also the road to Srebrenica. This was the only thing that prevented them from embarking on a total war campaign.

65

12.

The arrests of the Muslims – mostly in Višegrad, and partly in the surrounding villages – had started as soon as it was known that the Užički Corps would have to leave the area.

As reserve police officers, we were in charge of arrests and search operations, based on the orders issued by our superiors. Depending on the complexity of a case, we operated in groups of three or five police officers. I suppose these people still remember me as one of the few or perhaps the only police officer who would always say: ‘Good day. My name is Milan Lukić and I have a search warrant and orders to search your house, or to take you to the police station for the routine interrogation procedure.’

Although the supervision by the Užički Corps no longer existed, my chief Dragan Tomić was a correct officer and I have his support in conducting these activities in accordance with the law and with a full respect of human rights.

Our chief Tomić once sent us to a flat in Bikavac. This time it was not a search-and-arrest operation – a woman had called seeking protection from some unknown people who behaved in a threatening way. When the three of us – Mile Veljović, Vidoje Andrić and myself – arrived there, we saw two women who were crying and two unknown soldiers who were obviously drunk and were now harassing these two. They wanted to take the women somewhere.

‘Good afternoon,’ said I. The women answered my greeting, but the soldiers remained silent. They looked angry and were holding their rifles, ready to use them. I walked towards them casually, and sat down facing them. The women were on the verge of bursting into tears, but asked if we wanted some coffee. ‘Coffee would be nice, thank you,’ said I, unob-trusively indicating to my men to take their positions, then I asked:

‘Where are you from, boys?’ They did not answer, nor did the look in their eyes change. Mile Veljović recognised one of the women, and started a conversation:‘Are you Damir’s daughter?’‘Yes, I am. I am Aida, Damir’s daughter.’ ‘He is a friend of mine. We have known each other for a long time,’ said Veljović.‘I’m glad you know my father, I truly am,’ said the woman, her eyes shining with a

gleam of relief. ‘I know your father as an honest man. I am here to help,’ said Veljović and turned to-

wards the soldiers: ‘Boys, be nice and have some coffee, then leave the flat in peace.’ They suddenly raised their rifles, pointing them at Mile. I could see that they could not

control themselves, and started to talk to them slowly, so as to calm them down: ‘Wait, for God’s sake, you wouldn’t want to shoot your brother.’

66

They softened a little bit, then put the rifles down. This was enough for Vidoje and me: having exchanged glances, we were up with our Kalashnikovs pointing at their heads, while the room echoed with Vićko’s command: ‘Drop the guns!’

In the dead silence, I could only hear the suppressed wailing of the women. We hand-cuffed the two soldiers and took them to the police station, then reported the event to our chief Tomić.

It turned out that the attackers were drunkards and criminals. We were given order to take them to the border at Mokra Gora and deport them there, forbidding them to come back.

When we returned to the flat to pick up Veljović, the women were thanking us for a long time, and were afraid that the attackers might return.

‘Mile, could you please stay here for the night? I am afraid to stay here alone,’ said Aida.Vidoje and I left the flat, while Veljović stayed. The next day when we met at the sta-

tion, he said that he would move to their flat, and after a few days he announced that he was going to marry Aida.

‘A bit of a surprise, isn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Well, she accepted my proposal. And she was the one who first said that she would

want me for a husband.’ This was Aida’s second marriage. Her husband was killed somewhere, at the beginning

of the war. They did not have any children. Veljović, on the other hand, had three children, and his wife had left him for a Muslim with whom she later had a daughter. When this had happened, he had felt ashamed and left the town with his children, going to Serbia. Then the war started, and the children kept asking to see their mother. He came back to Višegrad to find her, but he got called up for the defence army. Now he had a wife, who was a Muslim.

With his second wife, Mile had a fourth child, a daughter. Unfortunately, Veljović died immediately after the war. Aida lives in Sarajevo, and maintains the family relations with his parents.

Only a few days after they had started living together, Mile called me in panic, asking me to bring a few other people and come to their flat. He said that some scumbags were there, threatening to take Aida away. I called Vićko and we rushed to the place. We found two drunk soldiers there, with their feet on the table and with their rifles pointed at Mile and Aida. There were two girls there as well, perhaps thirteen and sixteen years old, who were Aida’s cousins. The bullies wanted to take with them Aida and the girls.

‘May God be with you, brothers and you children, and you, madam. What seems to be the problem?’ I asked the soldiers.

‘This guy here, this motherfucker is protecting a Muslim. And these here are the family of Murat Šabanović,’ said one of them.

‘That can’t be true,’ said I. ‘Put down the rifles, take it easy. Let’s have something to drink, you’re not going to shoot a Serbian guy.’ I tried to sound casual.

They relaxed a little, but while they were drinking their drinks, they ordered the girls to sit next to them. The girls started crying, terrified.

I tried to stay in control: ‘Who are your parents, children?’‘Behija Zukić is our father,’ they say, sobbing.

67

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘Where are your parents?’ I kept asking. ‘Our father and our brother have been arrested, and our mother committed suicide …

We have come to Aida, our cousin, we do not have anywhere else to go,’ said one of them. I was overwhelmed by pity. The bullies were impatient, and there was no time to be

cunning. I re-assured the children in one sentence: ‘Nobody will take you anywhere, as long as

I am alive’. The two drunkards were on their feet, shouting: ‘They are going with us, even if we

have to kill you!’ I saw that we would have to shoot them, but I continued as calmly as I could: ‘Come on guys, you are not pedophiliacs… the town is full of women, both Serbian and

Muslim.’They were pulling the girls towards the door, their rifles pointed at us. I moved ahead of

them, blocking the door. ‘You can go out, but the girls are staying here,’ I said determinedly, raising the two-way radio. ‘For the last time, I am warning you, leave the children alone, or you’ll have fifty policemen here in two minutes. There you go, take this money,’ I said tak-ing a hundred Deutsch-Mark note from my pocket, and giving it to one of them. ‘Take this and go to some inn, or I’ll call my colleagues.’

They grabbed the money and hurried out of the door, shouting threats that they would be back again. The girls were now encouraged, they asked if I could call the station, to check where their father and brother were. I called Mladen Andrić. ‘Are there a father and his son called Zukić? Do you know where they are?’

‘They were here, but they were taken away for the exchange. They were marked as extremists,’ he replied.

‘What extremists? That’s not true? Who brought them in?’‘Some guys who call themselves ‘Eagles’. They arrested them, and they took them

away.’I had heard about these White Eagles. They had been brought in by Risto Perišić and

Branimir Savović, as their dogs of war. Nobody knew their names, and they kept using nick-names in their communication. I always avoided these guys, and I still do not have a good opinion about them. To me, they looked more like devils than anything white.

I could not tell the girls my dark expectations. Those misfortunate people were far from being extremists, they were ordinary peasants and paupers. I told the two girls that Veljović would arrange for the two of them to leave and go to either Serbia or Sarajevo, on the first bus leaving the place. The town was full of lunatics. I know that they managed to stay alive, and one of them now lives in Sarajevo, while the other one is in Germany. They contacted me through their cousin Aida and were willing to come and testify for me in the Hague, but the Muslim intelligence threatened them. What is more, the prosecution of the Hague Court got quite scared, since their original intention was to accuse me of murdering the girls’ fa-ther, brother and mother. When they appeared willing to testify in my favour, the charges for the Zukić family were simply dropped, and nothing else was done. The Prosecution and the Muslim intelligence give it a try, just in case it works well for them.

Milan Lukić

68

13.

One day, we were ordered to make an arrest in the part of the town called Crnča. We surrounded the house and called them to come out. A young man appeared, with his arms raised above his head. While the patrols searched the house for weapons, I took a good look at him. ‘Ševal, is that you? Are you Ševal, son of Meho Ramić?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’ He replied. He was my former school friend. ‘And where is your Bego?’ ‘In the woods, near Štitarevo,’ said he, in a trembling voice. ‘And whose house is this?’ I asked. ‘It’s ours … I took out a bank loan … ‘, he muttered, hardly uttering the final words,

overwhelmed with uncontrollable fear. ‘Do not worry, my neighbour, I will not let anything bad happen to you.’ I tried to calm

him down. I knew his family well. My colleagues were now out of the house. No weapons were found, but they told him

that the had to go to the station with us. I called them to the side and explained to them that he was an old school friend, and a

neighbour from the nearby village of Štitarevo. He was an honest guy, a family man, and very poor. I had a hard time persuading them to report to our superiors in the station that we did not fing anyone in the house. I called my school mate inside the house.

‘Listen, Ševal, here is a little money for you,’ I said giving him some ten Deutsch Marks or so. ‘You must run before the morning, anywhere. And do not take arms in your hands, whatever happens.’

‘Thank you, brother,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget this.’A few days later, we received orders to arrest a person from Dušče. We were about to

enter this part of the town when I saw a group of soldiers taking out a television set and some other things from a house.

‘What is going on, guys?’ I asked them. ‘This is our booty,’ was the replied of the armed thieves, disguised in military uniforms.

In front of a nearby house - an unfinished structure, with only the ground floor – there was a family gathered together, while the drunken criminals were shouting insults, threatening a woman among them that she’d better get ready, because they were going to take her away for an interrogation.

The whole family were in tears, both the adults and the children, while the woman was shaking and wailing: ‘Don’t, please, I’m begging you, I have a child … what do you need me for?’

69

They were some twenty paces away from us and, although I could not see the faces in the crowd, I was sure I had heard the woman’s voice before. I told my colleagues that I wanted the criminals arrested right there.

‘Can’t you see that they are going to take the women away?’ I said angrily and moved forward, prepared to intervene alone if necessary. Only a moment later, my men were by my side.

‘It’s my neighbour,’ said the woman in tears, and I recognised Hadžira Karić, my neigh-bour from the village of Rujište. She ran to me, shaking and in tears:

‘I beg you like a brother, don’t let them hurt me!’‘Don’t worry,’ I said, trying to calm her down. I turned towards the unknown men in

uniforms: ‘What is your unit?’ They just stood there, grinning, then one of them said: ‘We are the White Eagles, we’re staying down there in the hotel.’

‘You are scum,’ I replied. ‘Now I want to you to get out of here, and if anything happens to these people, I’ll come looking for you. Now, get out of here, I’m calling the reinforce-ments in!’

They kept shouting and yelling and got into a car, then drove away. Hadžira had re-gained her self-composure, and offered us some coffee. We accepted and sat down with them, to make sure they were going to be alright. I went to the nearby shop, and bought some provisions for Hadžira and her child. I left her my number, so that she could call me if anyone came threatening them. That same evening, we were on a mission in Gornja Lijeska and Vidova gora, where we stayed for the next three days. On my way back, I went to visit Hadžira and see if my friend from the childhood was alright. I was relived when I heard that she had left the town with a departing convoy …

Milan Lukić

70

14.

That night I was on duty in front of the police station building. There were three of us – Mladen and Vidoje Andrić, and myself. It was a warm, quiet night at the beginning of June. Then, around ten o’clock, we heard some loud voices, mixed with cries of women and children, coming form a nearby street. Mladen stayed at the station, while Vidoje and I ran there to see what was happening. There were around ten soldiers who have gathered a group of civilians, trying to force them to go somewhere with them. There was a lot of shouting and crying, and I could see that the soldiers were moving to take more people out of their homes and made them join the group.

‘What is going on, guys?’ I asked. ‘These Muslim women are feeding Muslim terrorists… they come here from the wood

at night,’ said one of them, obviously the leader. ‘That’s nonsense,’ said Vidoje. ‘You should really leave these old men and women

alone. They are anyway leaving the town on tomorrow’s convoy,’ he added. ‘I’m telling you what information we have – they are hiding terrorists inside.’Vidoje was determined: ‘Leave these poor people alone. I am from here, we know all

these people.’There were only two of us, and the soldiers were arguing, they wanted to take away the

group with them. Then I said: ‘Alright, if you don’t believe these people, I’m going inside to check for terrorists.’ Saying this, I went into the house, pretending that I was doing a regular search procedure. Upstairs I found Šano Kabaklija, a guy who had made a reputation with his gracious and daring jumps from the Old Bridge into the Drina. He used to be a tourist attraction in himself. I said to him: ‘Brother, I know who you are. I am an old friend of your brother Beno. And you used to be in the army together with my brother, if I am right?’

‘Beno is my brother, alright. I can’t say I know you, but please protect us from those people,’ said Šano.

‘You don’t have to worry,’ said I and went out of the building. ‘No terrorists here, guys,’ I said to the soldiers, while I whispered to Vidoje that Šano Kablaklija was inside, with some thirty women.

The soldiers were still unwilling to give up, I heard their protests, so I said: ‘You guys should go to the woods up there, and catch some of the terrorists hiding there.’ I made sure my words were taken seriously, and Vidoje added: ‘If you do not leave this place immedi-ately, I am calling for reinforcement, and they will not go back without making arrests.’ He motioned to his two-way radio, and they went down the street, making noises like a pack of rambling dogs.

71

15.

We were sent to the part of town called Dušča, to a semi-detached house, not far from the house of Murat Šabanović. In one of the flats we found a group of people, but none of them was on our list. In the other wing, we found a young man and a girl, and soon discov-ered that he was on our list. I recognised the girl. Her name was Jasmina and she used to work as a waitress in a restaurant in Jondža. She was a cousin of my former girlfriend – a Muslim girl with whom I had been in a relationship before the war. She used to know about our relationship and approved of it, full of understanding for her cousin’s love. We had owed many of our secret love meetings to her, because she had readily supplied alibis for to my girlfriend’s parents, and helped us in every other way. During my visits from Belgrade and later, from abroad, she would often provide a ‘cover up’, while we would go to Tara for a day or two. And now she was there, needing help. She kept looking at me and crying, and I didn’t know what to say or do. My colleagues insisted that the young be arrested. Finally, I told them to come out of the room, because I wanted to tell them something.

I explained that it would be wrong to arrest the boy, because he had nothing to do with terrorists, and that he must have been framed. I also told them that I knew the girl, who was a relative of my former girlfriend, and that I could vouchsafe for her. I had a very hard time persuading them to file a false report at the station, telling the superiors that we found nobody at the address we were given. Then I went back inside and told them that they had been very lucky that time, asking them to go somewhere safe, immediately.

‘Milan, I beseech you like a brother, I will owe to you for as long as I live. Please take me and Emin somehow across the border, to Serbia,’ she said, while her eyes filled with tears.

I looked at them and thought about her words. The arrests had become frequent, regular. Most of the arrested people were not guilty for anything, that was for sure. Sometimes they got arrested for a reason, sometimes because somebody had framed them, and sometimes just for the sake of intimidation. Only rarely did we have a case of liaising with terrorists and the terrorists’ allies were caught with weapons, as a rule. This young couple obviously had nothing to do with terrorists.

‘I’ll think of something,’ I said, then added hastily. ‘You have to be ready. These days I will be sending my mother to Serbia, I do not have time to explain now … just be ready.’ Saying this, I hurried out to join my colleagues.

Three days later, I took out a permit from the station for a short leave. I was taking my mother to Belgrade, for some medical checks. On our way through the town, I drove through Dušča. I pulled in at their flat and tooted the horn once or twice. The young man came out

72

running. I handed him a dress, packed in a carrier bag. ‘Give this to Jasmina, I am not taking her to Serbia in those rags.’

Soon they were both outside, with bags in their hands. We drove towards Priboj, to the border crossing at the Uvac. I stopped the car at the small bridge across the river.

‘Serbia is on the other side. You must go across this bridge on foot, than carry on walk-ing along the road. We are crossing the border at the regular border crossing, and will catch up with you further down the road.’

Some time later, we were again together and I drove them straight to Belgrade. For the three days while my mother was examined by doctors, they stayed with us in our flat. They went out to see the city. In the end, I drove them to their relatives in Novi Pazar, before me and my mother returned to Višegrad. A civil war is more brutal and devastating than a war. It does not destry only people, it tears the delicate and intangible threads of former lives and relations.

73

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

16.

The headquarters kept receiving warnings from the Serbian village of Prelovo that there were shots fired at night, from the Muslim village of Menzilovići. We are issued brief and concise orders: ‘Surround and check, enter the village and neutralise enemy.’

Prelovo is a village located some ten kilometres from Višegrad, and a squad of around thirty police officers arrived there at dawn. The leader of the operation is Goran Nedić, a professional police officer, gives command to my god-brother Duško Vasiljević, who came up with the best strategy for the mission. Duško was a fine sportsman, born in the village of Đurđevići.

The plan that Duško had was for a bigger part of the squad to move in the direction of the village of Treševina. Moving along the outskirts of the forest, this group was going to approach the village of Menzilovići from the back side, then to break and spread out into a wider line. My group was to approach the village from the direction of our current position. The two groups were to coordinate the progress using the radio, and wait for the order to enter the village.

‘I do not want anyone to shoot a man only because he or she is a Muslim! We do not want any problems with this mission,’ said Vasiljević. ‘Choose your group, you only have one life to live.’

I asked: ‘I’d like to go straight to the village, by myself. If they are there, they will shoot as soon as they see me, then you try to spot their positions.’

He hesitated giving his approval, then he accepted my proposal. I asked the others if anyone would want to accompany me and a guy from Prelovo said he was going to go with me.

‘I think this should be enough, it is better for a group like this not to be large,’ I said, to put an end to the awkward silence.

There was only one road leading to Menzilovići, and we started to walk on it, in the direction of the village.

‘What is the truth, do they really shoot at night?’ I asked my companion. ‘Well, who knows? Somebody is shooting, that is for sure. Could be the Muslims from

Menzilovići, or the Serbs in Treševina, when they get drunk – who could know this? There are ruomurs that the Muslims from the village of Miloševići are sending their people here to Menzilovići.’ He explained.

‘How many of them can we expect here?’ ‘One or two hundred, maybe fewer.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We have to be careful,’ said I.

74

‘It is true,’ said he. ‘I’ve heard older people say: ‘You don’t know the Muslims from Menzilovići, they are capable of doing anything.’

We continued our approach to the village in silence. I could se the almost unobtrusive movements of our main group at the edge of the wood. They were re-grouping for the final stage of their manoeuvre. I remembered the traditional summer fair in Treševina which I guessed was on the twenty-third of July. Crowds of people would come from the twenty or thirty surrounding villages, and the forests would be echoing with music and dance.

‘Have you seen anything?’ I used my two-way radio, trying to be as quiet as possible. ‘Some movement in the village, but nothing clear,’ replied my god-brother Duško. Then we started our descent towards the village. We could now see how the road

straightened and went past the brook dirctly to the village centre. Keeping a small distance between each other, we walking through an absolute silence: not a bird, not an insect. Only the silence in which we heard the brook and our boots on the surface of he road.

Through the green of the trees, I started seeing fragments of the first houses. We passed by a field of wheat, than another one with corn and a small bed with onions. Then, in a split second, I suppressed my breathing, having suddenly seen a figure in the road ahead of us, holding an object across the shoulder. I immediately pulled my companion to the wheat by the side of the road, whispering something like: ‘A Muslim… with a gun.’

Then I peered out of the wheat, trying to see further down the road, saying: ‘There must be a trench somewhere here…’

My companion raised his Kalashnikov and said: ‘Let’s shoot, the others will cover us with fire.’

I stopped him. I could feel that he was trembling. The road was gradually rising towards the point where we were lying, and we were well hidden in our position. Soon, the approach-ing figure could be seen clearly, and I noticed that it was a woman with a garden hoe on her shoulder, obviously on her way to a field to do some digging or weeding.

When she was a couple of paces away, I raised and said: ‘Do not be afraid. We are police officers,’ motioning to her to keep silent.

The women started at the sight of me, then she collapsed with a weak cry. She had fainted in the middle of the road.

‘We must hurry, we can be exposed,’ I said to my companion, running off to the brook to fetch some water. I splashed water on her face and she came round.

‘Do not be afraid, madam,’ I was repeating slowly so as to make sure she can under-stand. ‘We are the police from Višegrad, do not be afraid.’

Finally, her hazy gaze cleared up, but she was still shaking. ‘I got… scared… my children, I am sorry,’ she was muttering. She was about sixty years

old. ‘Tell us how many Green Berets are there in the village?’ I asked. ‘None, my son,’ she said. ‘So help me God.’ She raised slowly, straightening her clothes, still confused. ‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘everywhere around are police and the army. If even one bullet

is fired from the village, they’ll burn it to the ground.’

75

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘There’s nobody there, my son,’ she repeated. ‘There are only us, the women. Come with me, I’ll show you.’

She walked ahead towards the village, and we accompanied her, walking by her side. Soon we were among the houses, with their typical Muslim fences and barns for the cattle. These could easily be turned into a fortress and it would take a battalion to take it. I remem-bered my former school friend, Muša Menzilović. We used to be like a brother and sister. What was I going to tell her if she appeared in the village. ‘Is Musha still living here?’ I asked the woman, trying to sound cheerful, to encourage her to speak, while all the while I kept a watchful eye on the surrounding houses.

She said: ‘Muša is my niece, my brother Arif’s daughter. She lives in Sarajevo, with her husband. Her sister is here, that over there is her house,’ she said, fully composed.

‘Tell everybody to come out of their houses. There is going to be a search, but I guar-antee you are all safe,’ I said. The next moment, she started calling to her neighbours and relatives: ‘Come on out, women, the police are here! Nothing to worry about!’

Soon there were around thirty women gathered in the centre of the village, and the scene reminded me of the traditional village fairs.

‘This one’s Muša’s sister,’ said the woman, pointing to a girl who was approaching us. ‘Hi Milan, do you remember me?’ She asked. ‘You and Muša were in year eight, and I

was in year five?’ ‘Of course I remember, there were five or six sisters in your family. Muša said she would

marry me when we grew up, but I hear she’s married to a guy in Sarajevo,’ I said and the women laughed at it.

‘But listen, somebody was sending reports that there were shootings here in the village at night.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘All the men have fled across the Drina, and here are only us women and children. We take care of the cattle and the households, that’s all.’

At that moment, I caught a scared look of one of the women. Looking in that direction, I saw a man sneaking out of a barn, through the opening for the disposal of waste and manure. He stumbled over the heap of waste, and started running across the field.

‘Wait?’ I shouted and he stopped. Turning around, he could see that I was armed, and he started walking in my direction, holding his hands above his head. He was an old man, he must have been around seventy years of age, unshaved and thin. All around him was a rancid smell of manure. He was shaking, as if in a fever.

‘Why were you running?’ I asked.‘I got… scared,’ he muttered, tilting his head. He hardly uttered the words, and his throat

moved in pain. ‘He helps us with the stables,’ said Muša’s sister, showing to me unobtrusively that he

wasn’t completely in his right mind. I told him calmly that he could go freely or stay there, whichever he chose. He went away, making funny jerky movements as he walked. I had already called our colleagues using the two-way radio, and they arrived in a few minutes, Dušan shook my hand, congratulating me on my courage. Then he said good day to every-body there.

Milan Lukić

76

‘We are sorry to have to disturb you, but we received reports that there were shootings here every night.’

‘You go on and search the place. In the meantime, we’ll make some coffee,’ the women said.

‘And where is your local preacher, the Hodja of Menzilović, a pilgirm to the holy coun-try? Asked one of the police officers, smiling. ‘We used to steal his cherries when we went to school here as kids, and he would report us to the teachers and the headmaster.

‘He has gone away with the others,’ they replied. ‘So there is nobody left here to tell us off,’ said the police officer. ‘It is our destiny to commit sin and do bad things, as well as good deeds,’ replied the

women in good humour. Soon they started to go back to their houses. I looked for Muša’s sister. ‘Do you need anything?’ I asked. ‘Only God’s help. That’s what we all need, you as well.’ She replied. The war was now showing its most repulsive side. The stench of death had started to

attract dogs of war. In their search of plunder and booty, they were spreading rumours of alleged danger, they invented trouble.

What they did was report names of some invented terrorists. The police would then search the place, arresting any men found there in the mission. Even if these poor people managed to prove their innocence, the reports would continue to be filed, until the village was emptied and everybody living there went on an exchange for the Serbs living in Central Bosnia. In the meantime, the vultures would collect their booty.

Only ten days later, I heard that the village of Menzilovići had been evacuated.

77

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

17.

Those days I was on duty in the centre of the town. The Muslim were coming, report-ing to the Red Cross and registering for the departure and other things. One day, I heard a young woman crying in the crowd. She was with a little girl, four or five years old, and an older woman. I thought something had happened to them, and I approached them asking: ‘Why are you crying miss?’

‘We do not have anywhere to go… we do not know where to go…’ she said. ‘Where are you from?’ I asked. ‘We are from Goražde. My husband was arrested four days ago, and taken here to

Višegrad. We had been going to Serbia, they took our car and arrested my husband. We have spent four days at our friends’ house. Now they are leaving on the next convoy and we have ended up here, in the street.’

I calmed the woman. I took the three of them to my aunt’s, asking her to put them up until the next convoy was composed. My aunt was a wonderful person. She lived alone, be-cause my uncle and his father were in Germany. I sat there with them for a while, then went to the shop and bought a lot of food and some sweets for the kid.

‘Why did you do that, my son?’ Asked the aunt angrily, when she saw me carrying the bags with provisions. ‘We have a lot of everything here.’

I went back to the police station and checked the data of her husband. He had already been sent out for the exchange. When I finished my shift, I went to my aunt’s and told the woman what I found out, telling her openly that he might have not survived.

I kept coming to visit them for the next few days, to see if they were alright and if they needed anything. The convoys were overcrowded, their stay at my aunt’s had been pro-longed, and I was beginning to get worried about the whole situation, because there was a danger that my aunt could have unwanted ‘visitors’ seeking to take revenge on the Muslim family she was protecting.

As it happened, my aunt had been given keys to several houses, left to her by the local people who had asked her to take care of their belongings during their absence. The woman suggested that the three of them moved to one of these places, and I agreed with this idea.

When they moved, I showed her where the shop was, arranged an open account for her with the shop owner, and was about to go back to work, when she stopped me, saying: ‘Please come over here to spend the night with us, we are afraid to be here alone.’

When I arrived that evening, they were all there. Seeing me, the young woman rose to her feet, walked over to me and said, embracing me firmly: ‘You are here, my saviour.’

‘I promised to come, don’t worry.’

78

She took me by the hand and led me to the other room, showing to me how nicely she had set the room and made the bed for me. The house was a big one and the room that she chose for herself, the child and her mother was at the other end.

I was very tired and didn’t feel like having dinner, but she kept insisting and in the end I joined them at the table. Soon my aunt was laving and I used the opportunity to excuse myself, saying that I was very tired and that I wanted to take a shower before going to sleep.

I was surprised when she came into the bathroom behind me. Noticing my embarrassment, she said with a smile: ‘Don’t be ashamed of me, I am not

ashamed of you. Do you need a towel or anything else?’ I was in bed, when the door opened and she walked in, dressed in a sleeping gown. The

next moment she was sitting on the bed next to me, holding my hand.‘Don’t get angry with me. There is something I have to tell you. I have fallen in love

with you.’ She ran her fingers through my hair. ‘Do you mind if I sleep here?’ She sneaked underneath the sheets without waiting for my reply. When I came from duty the following day, she joyfully jumped to her feet and ran to me,

embracing me firmly: ‘Mother, this is my new husband,’ she said. The old woman replied: ‘One thing is for certain, you won’t find yourself a more hand-

some one.’I felt embarrassed, but the old Muslim woman said that was God’s will and there was

nothing to be ashamed of. ‘What must this child be feeling?’ I thought to myself, feeling both resignation and guilt,

and bent forward to hug the girl. It was meant to be a parental gesture, but it made feel even sadder.

The days went on, and I could see nothing but complete servile loyalty in her eyes. She oozed love, forgetting everything around us. I could feel the emotions awakening in me as well, starting to take control. She behaved like a newly-wed wife, as if she had grown up in that house and would stay there forever, while I treacherously kept working on sending her out of the madhouse we were in, the sooner the better. Eventually, I could think of nothing else but how to get her, her child and mother out. I sat her at the table facing me and told her to look me straight in the eyes. I was explaining the situation to her, depicting the worst-case scenario, while she was looking at me as if I were reciting some love poetry to her. I sug-gested that she should go to my flat in Belgrade.

She responded happily: ‘Yes, why not? But only if you are going with me.’ ‘Can’t you see that this is madness breaking loose here?’ I tried to reason with her. ‘So be it. I am not going anywhere without you.’ I somehow managed to persuade her to leave on the convoy that was departing on 17th

June. I promised that we were going to live together when the war was over. I took her to the bus parked on the square, gave her some money and asked her to call once she got there.

The following day I went on a mission in the direction of Brodar and Međeđa, which lasted three days. My aunt came out to meet me. Then I suddenly saw my Muslim love standing at the door. She had come back, together with her mother and her child.

‘Are you really crazy?’ I asked.

79

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

After a couple of days, I went on another mission to Drinska, chasing a group of Mus-lim terrorists. Before going, I begged my aunt to take them to the first convoy to Serbia or Sarajevo, making sure that they got on the bus.

When I came back a few days later, I found my aunt in fear. A group of drunken soldiers had tried to take away my Muslim girl, together with her daughter and mother. My aunt somehow managed to prevent them from doing this, then squeezed the whole family into the first departing convoy. To this day, I have not been able to get any information about this young woman. I did not know her maiden name, only the first name and that she used to have a job in Goražde.

Milan Lukić

80

18.

Anyone in his right mind could have easily seen that not all of the Muslims we were arresting were terrorists, nor were all of them linked to terrorists. There were may honest police officers who rightly noticed that we were arresting common people who were entirely innocent. ‘War conditions’ would be a universal answer to all and any of the questions. Our duty was to make arrests, and we never went further than that.

One day, a group of eight of us received an order to arrest a dangerous terrorist some-where in the Mahala, the old part of Višegrad. The leader of the group had the name and the address. We were cautioned to blow the house with a projectile at a first sign of any danger. Soon we were there and surrounded the house. I saw that my colleagues were reluctant – nobody wanted to take the risk of knocking on the door, so I shortly said: ‘I’ll do it, and you take your positions.’

I jumped over the fence, and rang the door-bell. An old Muslim woman opened the door. I said: ‘I am sorry to disturb you, could you tell me who is here in the house with you?’ ‘Nobody, just my son and myself.’I turned around to call my colleagues, but they were not answering my call. I went in by

myself. In the sitting room, there was a man in his pyjamas, and I thought he looked familiar. When my eyes got used to the semi-darkness, I approached the small sofa, recognising my former secondary-school teacher, Suljo Karčić. He used to teach Russian and was a great man, a true Russian soul, as we students liked to say. He never made any difference between Muslims and Christians, and we students could tell this very well.

‘Hello, my teacher,’ I said in my quasi – Russian, happy to see him there. ‘Oh, come here, my student, please take a seat,’ said he, making room for me on the

sofa. ‘Would you like some coffee?’I sat down and told him briefly why I came to his house. I asked him to take the first bus

for Serbia, without wasting any more time. I went out and explained to my colleagues that it was all a very big mistake. Back in

the station, we told our superiors that there was nobody at the address we had been given. In the morning, while we were reporting for duty and waiting for the daily orders, I

was silently praying to God not to be sent to a mission somewhere before my teacher Suljo came to get his permission to leave the town. Fortunately, he came soon, together with his mother and an elderly lady, exactly as I told him to do. He gave me a meaningful look on his way into the building. A quarter of an hour later, they came out and went walking down the street. I waited a while before I ran after them, checking that there was nobody around to see us together.

81

‘I’ve got the permit, God bless you. We are leaving tomorrow,’ said my teacher Suljo. ‘Good,’ said I excitedly, ‘but you must get out of here today, or they can send someone

tonight to kill you.’ He promised he would take my advice and I ran to my colleagues, saying: ‘Come on

guys, I am buying a round of drinks for everybody!’ My former teacher Suljo Karčić now lives in Austria, I have been told.

Milan Lukić

82

19.

Our headquarters were informed that the Muslim army was moving from Žepa and Goražde across the hills of Hrnjevac, Kopito and Počivala. This was essentially a move to cut off the vital route towards Rogatica, the only link with Republika Srpska. Our chief Tomić had assigned a group of fifteen police officers to join the army units. I was in that group. It was early morning, 13th June, when a mixed company composed of around fifty soldiers and us police officers departed from the headquarters at Bikavac. We travelled in transportation vehicles, Pinzgauers, across Okolište and Gornja Leska, to reach Kopito, our destination. We knew that this was a dangerous mission, in spite of the words spoken by the Police Commander Perišić who tried to re-assure us: ‘The road is safe, it is secured by the territorial army in that zone.’

We did not see any signs of our army at the bends that we were passing, and we knew very well that each of these bends in the road was an ideal place for an ambush. We saw the first armed security when we reached the few houses at Kopito. These were a few elderly people and three young man. Soon we were accompanied by Ratko Đačić, a well-known forester of this area. The old men were armed with some weapons of dubious functionality, and they were half drunk. They offered us some of their brandy.

‘Go on, take some of this! It’s a good thing that we made enough of this stuff with our forester here, just before the war. We’d have none now, if we hadn’t,’ they were explaining.

‘And you people, do you drink it every day?’ I asked. ‘Of course,’ said the old man. ‘If we weren’t drunk every day, we wouldn’t be staying

here at all - not even during the day, let alone during the night. Because if the Muslim get us, they will perch us all on sticks.’

‘It is now a matter of days when these houses will be burnt to the ground,’ said the for-ester. ‘So far, the houses have been useful for them. With all the Serbs down in Višegrad, they come here to spend a night, then move on to set ambush attacks.’

‘Are there any other Serbs around?’ I asked. ‘Yes, there are. See down there, by the board of the relay station,’ said the forester,

showing me where to look. ‘Down there is Rade Tanasković with his sister and his mother. Then, further down is Novo Rajak with his mother and Vito Racković. He’s had a Browing installed on his truck, and it is saving our lives. If it weren’t for him, the Muslims from Vi-dova gora would kill us all here before any help from Višegrad arrived.’ The forester nodded his head.

The old man confirmed: ‘It is true, they attack us from Vidova Gora every day before sunset.’

83

The other old man added: ‘Our crew fires the odd grenade from the mountain above, but it does no harm to the Muslims. They have dug trenches and shelters. When the situation clears, they come out and attack, killing us here one by one.’

It was time to move on. We filled our ammunition reserves, taking enough rocket launch-ers and hand grenades, leaving behind our security guards, who continued to drown their fears in brandy. We all had only one life, while we had it. Our mission commander Vlatko Tripković took us further to our positions in a pine wood by the side of the road, then he took two escorts and went back to Višegrad to submit his report.

Only half an hour later, we saw a man in a uniform, walking up the road from Rogatica, towards the place where we were hiding. I could see him with my binoculars quite clearly: a man wearing a uniform, without any weapons, approaching us.

‘Don’t move!’‘I have stopped,’ he replied. ‘Who are you?’‘And who are you?’ he asked, without answering. ‘We are the suffering Serbian army,’ said I, while a colleague added: ‘Chetnicks.’He just stood there, without moving. Then I saw that he was holding a hand grenade in

each hand, and was in two minds whether to pull the rings and activate them.‘C’mon, man, who are you? Brother, leave those bombs alone,’ I said as reassuringly

as I could. He squinted towards me. ‘If you are the Serbian army and Chetniks, come out of the wood so that I can see you,’ he said. He could not see us from where he stood, and I motioned to a young guy with a beard and a fur hat to move forward.

Soon we were talking to him. ‘Do you have any documents with you?’ I asked. ‘Nothing,’ said he. I could see that he had a very dark skin, like a Gypsy, but he was using the dialect of

Central Serbia. Now I was standing right in front of him, without a hat, as I happened to be. My finger was unnoticeably resting on the trigger of my gun, and I stood a little sideways, so that he could see the inscription ‘Police’ on my sleeve. I said in a cheerful voice: ‘Hello brother, when is your Christmas, then?’

‘Seventh of January, new calendar,’ he said. ‘And what is your Patron Saint?’‘Saint John, the twentieth of January.’ I turned to my men hidden in the forest and said: ‘Didn’t get lucky this time guys, we’ve

caught one of our Chetniks, instead of a Muslim.’ I invited him to join us, and he cautiously came with me. I asked him: ‘So where is your gun? Where are you coming from?’ ‘My name is Branislav Marićić… I work with explosives. I was in Rogatica, receiving

orders from Rajko Kušić, the commander of defence. I was doing my job with explosives. But those peasants there, they don’t know a first thing about explosives… they wanted me to put mines at the back of every house there, so that they could go to sleep without having any worries. So we had a disagreement, and I decided to go back to Serbia, to Čačak. I think I will volunteer for the army in Višegrad, if they need me,’ he explained.

Milan Lukić

84

‘Have you been to war before?’ ‘Yes, I’ve been to Vukovar and all the war zones of Srpska Krajina,’ said he, waving his

head. ‘I think I can’t live without war any longer, my brother.’ I heard my colleagues’ comments in the background: ‘He’s not a big fellow, but cer-

tainly has the guts. Yes, tough, isn’t he? He never faltered, not for a second…’ ‘But, to go all the way there like this… you must be crazy. The Muslims can skewer

you alive!’ ‘No, the Muslims can never get me alive,’ said he, looking at the two hand-grenades

in his hands, playing with them as if to feel their weight. ‘This is the weapon of the mine experts. I gave them back their rifle because I didn’t’ want them to think that I’d gone there only because I had needed a rifle, and was now running to Serbia. I am not a Chetnik of that kind, I am a true one!’ Our sniper shooters had reserve machine guns, and we found a Kalashnikov for him. When I handed it to him, he took it ceremonially with both hands, kissing the gun and saying: ‘I don’t want to spare too many words guys, but I promise you this: I’ll fuck those Muslim bastards.’

We offered him some food and drink, but he didn’t take any. I asked him if he wanted to join us for the planned watch-out for the Muslims whom we were expecting to attack from the direction of Žepa and Goražde, and he immediately accepted. Then he said slowly, watching the people around him as he spoke: ‘There is something I have to tell you, broth-ers. Your layout here is not good, if the Muslims come, they’ll easily wipe you out.’

The forester said impatiently: ‘And what do you suggest?’None of us had had any experience of a warfare until a month before, and the only per-

son from Višegrad who had participated in the clashes at Vukovar was Marković, who was a romantic soul and wrote poetry. Everybody called him ‘Poet’. But he had been wounded the month before, and lost an eye. Disappointed, he had taken to drinking, and had stayed in the town with a girl, a volunteer from Vukovar. This beauty loved his poetic soul and wouldn’t leave him alone for a moment. Marković was a wonderful person, doing his best for everybody except perhaps for himself and his parents. He wasn’t with us, but now we had Branislav, another experienced fighter from Vukovar.

‘This is the layout that you want,’ said he, making a horse-shoe shape with his thumb and index finger. Perica Marković said to him jokingly: ‘Brother, you have a name that is a little bit awkward – can we change it to something else?’

‘As long as it is not a Muslim name, it is alright with me,’ he said. ‘So let it be Joja,’ said I, making an allusion to a character in t ‘Kozara’, one of the ap-

palling films that glorified communists. ‘A communist name is worse than a Muslim name!’ Everybody started shouting and

laughing. Soon the evening came, and then it became dark. We had our sleeping bags, and Perica

Marković sent two policemen to the houses below, get some blankets for Branislav. It was late at night, and the moon shed its spooky light on the tree tops. The mission

commander had told us that he would be back as soon as he had filed his report at the head-quarters, because he’d wanted to be with us during our vigil. He wasn’t coming and Perica

85

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Marković kept trying to make a connection, using an assistant radio. Around midnight, he took the radio station to the middle of the nearby clearing, helped by four other men, but he couldn’t get through. We kept waiting, peering in the darkness. Nobody slept that night. In the morning, four policemen went down to the houses below to take the bread that we had stored there. We had our juices and tins of food with us. Nobody said a word during break-fast. Then, around ten in the morning, Goran Đerić came running from Rogatica, to bring the terrible news. The headquarters in Višegrad had lost connection with us, and this brave young man risked his life coming to us, to bring us the news.

‘What is it, speak!’‘Vlatko is dead, together with his two escorts, Novica and Veljko… they were killed on

their way back here.’‘Where? How? The people wanted to know. ‘Down there, near the relay station sign, two kilometres from here.’ He said. ‘So, let us move forward and attack the Muslims,’ people were saying. Perica waved his arm rejecting this idea, although he didn’t know what to do next. ‘We have orders to stay here. The Muslim patrols are cruising the area, and will cer-

tainly find you,’ said Đerić. Our radio station and other equipment had been destroyed. The only choice we had was

to wait and be prepared. Branislav kept encouraging us:‘The Muslims are chicken shit! Brothers, listen to me – as long as we are well positioned

and nobody runs away, we will defeat them, even if there are five hundred of them.’‘No running away,’ I said. ‘I’ll shoot anyone who tries this.’Then we received orders to move on. We left our positions on the fifteenth, at nine

o’clock in the morning. We know that our comrades will gather reinforcements from differ-ent front lines, as Đerić informed us when he was passing the orders over to us. They were going to move from down below, and we were going to close in from our previous position, so that we could meet at Gornja Lijeska. It took us about two hours to come to the sign of the relay station. We saw the charred remains of our commander’s car, turned over and all torn apart. He had been taking the same route every day, and the Muslims had no doubt took a good notice of this. They had followed his movements and set an ambush.

Having joined the Višegrad units, we turned back and marched towards the town. The house of Slobodan Tripković, father of the deceased Vlatko stood at the entrance to the town. The funeral had taken place the day before, but there were still a lot of people at the house. As we came near, we could see the sadness on the people’s faces and hear the wail-ing of the women. Vlatko’s brother Miki was shattered with grief, his pregnant wife was holding their two-year old girl by the hand. The cemetery was not far away, and we went there. A wooden cross rising from the mound of freshly dug earth. There were many new crosses around… We spilled some drink on the ground. ‘Good have mercy on the souls of Vlatko Tripković, commander of the left bank of the Drina, and his escorts, Novica Savić and Veljko Mirković… Good bless you, our brave friends.’

We continued towards Višegrad. Since the previous day, many Muslim houses in Bika-vac had been burnt down, some of them still smoking as we passed.

Milan Lukić

86

20.

The villages kept burning one by one, like torches. The Muslim terrorists kept killing people, mostly ordinary people, attacking villages. They kept setting ambush attacks on the roads leading to Sjemić, Ustiprača, Župa, Dobrun… Just as in 1941, the Drina started bring-ing down corpses. Naked dead bodies, swollen and often with obvious marks of torture, were floating along the edges of the accumulation lake above the power plant. These poor people were killed in Goražde. Radoje Tajsić, editor in chief of the local television, called these images ‘a Muslim celebration after the departure of the Užički Corps’.

The few people who had managed to escape from Goražde told the stories of the Mus-lim terror, how they took away and killed Serbs, even old people and children, while Serbian women were raped and kept in their harems. Goražde had been turned into hell for Serbs.

Then the Muslim villages started burning too. There were dozens of fires rising up to the sky. Every village that had staged a terrorist attack or had been involved in one of the attacks in any way, was burned following the orders of the Crisis Committee of Višegrad.

The territorial army was taking the local Muslim people into the town. Trying to organ-ise a defence against the Muslims, the Serbs who had stayed in the villages had hired some dubious bums, who had retained the uniforms and the weapons of the reserve police officers. Now these were also arresting Muslim people and taking them to the town.

The sports halls and various other public buildings filled up with people. They started keeping people in cellars, houses, sheds. My unit was given orders to arrest Muslim people who were living in the town.

At one point, the number of the arrested people had reached five thousand. With women and children who had come looking for their husbands and fathers, and who had nowhere to sleep but in the town streets, Višegrad had become a madhouse. A war-stricken and impov-erished town had now become a doomsday landscape.

But the things were going from bad to worse. The black market of the war had opened, where everything was offered for sale, even lives. Rich Muslims started buying permits to leave the town and go to Serbia. The prices roared from one thousand to over fifty thousand Deutsch Marks, depending on the agreement with the local authorities.

Only the Muslim paupers remained, with all their belongings in a few plastic bags. Without any money, without anything to eat, these people were not needed by anyone…

The War Staff, the commander of the police and the commander of the Crisis Commit-tee, issued an order to collect these poor people in the main square. They were going to be exchanged for the Serbs from Central Bosnia. They started separating men from women. Suddenly, there was shouting all around – mothers were wailing and children were crying,

87

pulling at their fathers’ coats. Many of the Serbian men gathered around were watching in silence, their faces dark as the night. The Serbian women were crying at the grief and fear of the Muslims. Two buses full of Muslim men were getting ready to depart. There were reserve police officers in the buses, and they were escorted by two cars – one driving ahead of the buses, and one following them. There were five policemen in each of the cars. The commander in charge of the convoy was Božo Tešević, and his deputy was almost always Goran Nedić.

An hour or two later, women and children were also leaving on the buses, escorted by two cars, each manned with two policemen. There was only one police officer on each of the buses. I was not assigned to escort the convoy. The policemen soon started to spread rumours that the men on the buses never reached Kladanj and Olovo, and that they were all killed somewhere near Sjemići. Who could know, it was war.

That afternoon, it was the fifteenth of June, I had returned from Kopito to the police station. As I was watching the poor people gathered there, I could feel stings of pity and disbelief burning inside me. ‘Could it be that these people here are living corpses too?’ And then I would feel even stronger grief, remembering the dead Serbs washed out by the Drina. There was no relief for either of them.

These Muslims had been brought in by Ljupko Tajsić, a territorial army officer who was in charge of Jagodina and the surrounding villages. Around three hundred Muslims had gathered in Jagodina, because he had given them his word that they would be exchanged for Serbs. They had walked to Višegrad with him. When they started separating the men from the group, the people started wailing and crying – a horrible scene.

Then they started taking them onto the buses. Their faces were dark, distorted with fear: were they going to be exchanged, or were they going to be shot?

I went into the supermarket on the main square and bought ten cartons – around a hun-dred litres of milk. Then I bought other things, from food to diapers, until I spent all the money I had. The shop assistants helped me to get this on the trolley, and I pushed it to the women and children who were flocking around the bus.

‘Lukić, my school mate,’ I heard someone calling me from the bus full of men. I went inside and saw my former school friend, Esad Kustura.

‘How are you, my school friend, is there anything I can get you?’ I asked. ‘A packet of cigarettes, if you have one. I haven’t had a cigarette for four days now.’ I went back to the supermarket: ‘A carton of Marlboro, please.’ The shop assistants were hesitant. ‘You know,’ they said, ‘the manager said that we

would have to pay your bill if you don’t bring the money. We are sorry.’ ‘Send my regards to Milan Marković,’ said I. A communist does not know mercy. Just

give me the cigarettes and add it to the bill,’ I said in a hurry, looking out of the shop to see if the bus was still there.

I jumped onto the bus, faster than I used to do when I was a student, selling juices at the Belgrade bus station. I gave the cigarettes to Esad, trying to see if there were any other people there that I might know. I got down, but Esad called me back again:

‘Can I ask you something?’

Milan Lukić

88

I went over to him and he whispered: ‘Brother, can you save me? We have heard that we are going to be taken to the mountain, to Romanija, to be shot there.’

I stood there for a moment, thinking about what he had just said. ‘I’ll try. I am going to ask them to let me take you with me.’ I went to Ljupko Tajsić and said shortly: ‘I want to take my school friend from here. He

has heard that they are going to be shot.’ ‘It can’t be done! These are the orders of the head commander and the Crises Headquar-

ters. I am responsible for executing these orders. They are going to be exchanged for the Serbs from Central Bosnia, there can be no doubt about that!’

‘But what if they get killed instead? You know how the exchange went on the other day? I hear those people were shot.’

‘I know nothing about that. It is my duty to escort them to out of the town. When they are out of here, they are out of my responsibility, and if they shoot them, it’s none of my business. As for your friend, you ought to know that he had killed a warden and had been sentenced to nine years, then was released from the Central Prison in Sarajevo.’

‘I thought he’d killed a Muslim, because they’d argued about something,’ I said.‘I don’t know if they quarrelled or not, I am not a judge.’ ‘Well, he’s my school friend, and I don’t care If he’d killed half the town, Ljupko. He

has done his time.’ Saying this, I went into the bus to take Esad out. ‘Say good-bye to him, I am taking him to work as a policeman,’ I said aloud, and some

of them laughed. Ljupko Tajsić was blocking our way. I saw it was going to be tough. I wanted to take the

man out, but he wouldn’t give up and kept on repeating: ‘I guarantee, they have my word for it – they are going to be exchanged.’Finally, I said: ‘Sorry, my friend. These bastards won’t let me do it. You are going for

an exchange, don’t worry.’ We said good-bye to each other, and the bus went up towards Sjemić. But that very

evening, I saw that the officers who were escorting the bus had returned. ‘How come you are back so soon?’ I asked, weary what they might say to me. They said that the bus was taken over by a different escort group, continuing its journey. But one of the reserve police officers told me that all of them got shot, with only one

managing to escape, with his hands tied. I grabbed him by the hand, asking: ‘Was it the same one that I tried to get out of the bus?’ ‘I didn’t see it well. They said it was someone who used to work at a petrol station,’ he

replied. A few days later I ran into Ljupko Tajsić, and snapped at him immediately: ‘What kind of man are you? Why didn’t you let me save my friend? He was a good man,

and you shot him like a dog!’‘Fuck it,’ he said. There was nothing I could do about it. I told you what were my orders.

Go and talk to your commander, Risto Perišić.’ Which was exactly what I did. I stormed into the office of Dragan Tomić: ‘Who gave the order to kill those people? Esad Kustura was killed – you remember him,

teacher? Everybody at school knew him for the silly things he was doing in order to make

89

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

everybody laugh. Remember how he used to pull out the valves from car tyres, and every-body used to call him ‘the valve guy’?’

‘I didn’t know,’ he waved his arm, as if dismissing the thought of his responsibility. ‘it was those drunken fools from the Crisis committee,’ he said, obviously hinting at Branimir Savović.

‘Nobody ever tells me anything about the convoy people. Somebody will have to pay for this!’ He said angrily, pacing up and down his office.

‘I can’t understand Nedić and Tešević, they are professionals, they should have refused to fulfil the order! They should have called me!’ He kept shouting, red in his face.

‘They are both the same,’ said I, just to let off some steam. I told him that I had heard rumours about some Muslim girls, beautiful ones, who had been regular visitors to the two of them.

‘I’ve heard it too, and these are the main informers. They use their beauty as a permit to pass our check points, they take cigarettes to terrorists and reveal our positions to the enemy. When the commander of the police station Perišić was warning them about this, the police officers made fun of him. Then, later they spread rumours of them being harassed and even raped. The truth is that the only ones who got served by them in this way were their bosses and big local shots, with whom they had orgies at the power plant suits, just like Broz used to do with his female revolutionaries in their cave.’

Milan Lukić

90

21.

Four days had gone by in constant skirmishes at different places. On the fifth day fol-lowing this conversation, I was on duty with a group of policemen on stand-by, in case of an emergency.

Then there were the alarm signals! The Serbs from Šeganj, a part of the town, had been attacked by over a hundred and fifty Muslims. They were firing, setting Serbian houses on fire, forcing their way to the only Orthodox church in the town, in order to set it on fire. Their plan was to reach the Muslim village of Okruglo and join with the local Muslims there, tak-ing them back with them during their retreat.

We rushed through the town, the sirens of our cars screaming wildly. Using the loud-speaker, we were calling others to join the defence of Šeganj. Then we saw a car standing deserted in the middle of the road, and I immediately recognised the Niva of Niko Vujičić. ‘My God, what if he’s been captured again?’ I thought for a brief moment. Then we were out of the vehicles, spreading out to take a skirmish formation and starting to progress in an attack. When we came above Šeganj, we saw a group of Muslims who were retreating towards Okrugla. The next moment they started disappearing in the wood, and I saw Ljubiša Vasiljević, a police officer, placing the ‘Tromblon’ projectile onto his gun and taking aim. I got away from the group, running to the next corner of the building where we were hiding, raising the machine gun and taking aim at the place in the brook where I expected them to appear. I was waiting for Ljubiša’s shot, to neutralise the enemy. Then I heard a shot and a scream. The scream, however, came from the house. When I approached Ljubiša, I saw a gaping wound, with blood gushing out. His shin was cut in two, his foot strangely twisted backwards, hanging on a stretch of skin. ‘What the hell hit him?’ I thought.

Pulling out a few boards from the fence, I worked on the wounded leg, fixing it into the proper position and stuffing the hole in the flesh with a bundle of bandage, to stop the bleed-ing. Soon the ambulance was there, taking him to the health centre, and later to the hospital in Užice. His leg was eventually saved by a doctor in Užice, Aco Moljević, who was born in Višegrad himself. He was seen after the war, playing football.

91

22.

There was no time to rest. The Muslims had launched an offensive at Drinska, trying to capture the headquarters. We received an emergency call: ‘The Muslims are here! It’s all over! They have taken Drinska…’

A three-hundred strong Muslim Unit were attacking ferociously. Around fifty Serbs were desperately defending the position, and soon they were fighting using cold arms. Our intervention crew and a commando squad had arrived at the last minute, driving the enemy away. The fled the combat line, leaving many dead behind. After the combat, a group of around thirty of us stayed at the front line in Brodar. The group was composed of wonderful young men, the crew of the legendary Slađan Simić from Jagodina. The place itself, Brodar, is about fifteen kilometres away from Višegrad, at the point where the Lim river joins the Drina and the road forks towards Rudo, Ustiprača and, further on, towards Goražde.

Opposite Brodar is Međeđa, and the enemy line was only three hundred meters away. There was only a hill in between us and them, and if they managed to cross it, they would have a free access to taking over the power plant and the town of Višegrad. We kept our food supplies in a tunnel, and we were sleeping in our tents. There was a constant vigil, and we were always ready to fight back, with our arms primed for the fight. Many of our colleagues had avoided being allocated to this position or, better to say, everybody was afraid of coming here. So they had chosen the thirty of us, and we did our best.

There were skirmishes, but we put up firm resistance. The commander of the mission, Simić, kept fearing that the line that was held by the

people from Rudo might be weakened or abandoned. This was a line that was seven hundred metres long, and the guys from Rudo had had a reputation of being good smugglers and poor fighters.

Two weeks went by. Simić would release one half of the group for two days, to have a good bath and change clothes, then the other one.

That very night, I was asleep in my flat, when the alarm woke me up. The Muslims were attacking the factory of paints and polishes ‘Terpentin’. We came rushing to Crnča, where the factory was located, and the fight was soon raging. After some time, we pushed them back, then they started to flee and we chased them to Vidova Gora.

I went back to sleep, only to be awoken by another alarm early in the morning. This time it was my village of Rujište that was under attack. Again, we rushed to the village, with a group of police officers and soldiers. Arriving there, we saw signs of a heavy clash that had just taken place there. For two days we kept trying to get hold of those terrorists, and then the chase was abolished because of yet another alarm. This time, the Muslims had targeted

92

Zemljice, the poorest Serbian village in every respect. Their company was a hundred strong and their aim was to massacre the population and leave burnt-down houses behind. There were about twenty people in the village, only seven of whom were younger than fifty. But Slavko Vučić, who was the head of the village defence, was a fearless and clever guy, quick in movements and as strong as a bear. In a word, a brave-heart highlander.

Between Zemljice and Žepa, there was only the Drina, and the people in the village had been expecting a Muslim attack. They had planted mines to secure all of the possible lines of the terrorist attack. They were not spending the nights inside their houses, but in an underground shelter, keeping a constant vigil. Then one day, at daybreak, an explosion tore through the silence: a Muslim had pulled on a hidden string, activating a mine. The next moment, there was another explosion, followed by a cry of the wounded attacker. Somewhere in the semi-darkness, the commander of the attack was ordering his people to kill the wounded guy. A shot was heard, then silence again. The terrorists were now rushing forward, seeking revenge. They were swearing and shouting ‘Allahu akbar!’

Slavko Vučić was issuing orders: he was going to confront them at the main line of attack, with a machine gun, and he ordered two of the defenders to take their positions on the slope under the village, while other two were sent to the opposing slope, above the vil-lage. They were given instructions to shoot at will, so that the terrorists would think that the defence was stronger than it truly was. The remaining two were sent to wake up the old people, women and children and take them, together with the cattle, towards Jagoštica and the Serbian border. They put up a brave resistance until the main group were some distance from the village, then they retreated, leaving the old disabled man who could not walk. When they reached the main group, they escorted them across the rocks of Brusnica, a ridge famous for its wild goat.

When their families were safe, Slavko and Vučić and Nenad Despić cut their way through the woods and came to Višegrad. Slavko told us that he did not have any news of the village for seven days. When we went there, we found burnt-down houses and charred remains of the murdered old man. We buried him as a Christened soul.

While the fights in Župa were in full swing, we received another call for help: Slađan Simić and his group were surrounded in a tunnel, and were still resisting the enemy. Slađan’s fears had come true: the guys from Rudo had abandoned their line and went back to their homes. The Muslims had taken this opportunity and used inflatable dinghies to get to the other side of the Lim. They did this at night, near the village of Kaoštica. Coming across the area abandoned by the Rudo defence, a unit of more than two hundred terrorists had attacked the squad of Slađan Simić from the back.

Having nowhere to retreat, the squad had gone into a tunnel, where they had blocked both entrances using whatever they could find, including a truck with food and other provi-sions. There they put up a brave and desperate defence. Having heard the terrible news, I immediately joined the group of volunteers going to their rescue. We set down the road from Drinsko to Meremišlje, that was leading to Brodar. Having reached the approximate loca-tion, we tried to find our way down the mountain side, towards the tunnel. For some time we were looking for a best direction to follow, then we had to engage in fights.

93

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

The Muslims were resisting our offensive, and the fighting continued well into the night. Dragan Savić, the hero from the group at the start of the war was evacuated from the battle with twelve penetration wounds.

The Muslims had been trying to suffocate the trapped soldiers with the smoke from burning blankets soaked in oil, using the draught to take the smoke into the tunnel. Then the soldiers trapped in the tunnel had stopped answering the calls, and the commanding staff had abolished the attack, taking this as a sure sign that they were no longer alive.

But on the eleventh day, Slađan Simić and seven other soldiers came to Drinsko, having made their way through the enemy territory all by themselves. They had spent ten days and nights under constant attack, because the Muslims had been taking turns to break their en-durance. Having been left without food, they had been drinking water mixed with the cool-ant from the radiator of the truck. Slađan had seven wounds. I rushed to the hospital where they were placed for a treatment. My girlfriend Mirjana took me to their room. I saw them lying there in wounds, taking infusions, still stained with blood and badly burnt from the different burning objects the Muslims had been dropping down on them. The nurses were not hiding their tears at the sight of these signs of suffering.

Slađan sighed when he saw me: ‘Where were you, my brother Lukić? We needed you there.’

‘It is good to see that you are alive, my brother,’ I replied. ‘We were trying desperately to reach your position…’

Slađan said: ‘We heard a combat going on only on the first day, and after that we never knew where the shooting came from, we only kept hoping…’ Then I was told that three people had been killed and that their bodies were still in the tunnel. I used to know one of them, a football player from the Drina Football Club named Gavrilović. But what was even worse was that there was one wounded fighter left there, a volunteer from Serbia.

He had come with a friend with whom he had grown up in an orphanage. They had wanted to carry him with them when they had set out to make a break from the tunnel, but he had chosen to stay with his dead friend, whom he regarded as a brother.

‘If you manage to get through, come to our rescue. I am not giving myself in. The Muslims will not have me alive, to torture and impel me,’ he said to Slađan when they were leaving. We gathered a group of around twenty volunteers. I asked the headquarters to order artillery support, aiming at Brodar.

‘Who will be the guide?’ The people from the headquarters wanted to know. I had wanted to be in charge, but I did not know the terrain, nor where the mine were

planted. Then a guy volunteered to be the guide and the squad moved on, following in his footsteps. When we reached the wood, I noticed that we had difficulty finding the right way.

I approached the group guide: ‘Where do we go now?’ I asked. He hesitated. ‘Where are you from, my man?’ I asked him directly. ‘I am a volunteer from Smederevo,’ he replied. ‘So how come my brother that you know where to go in this region?’ I asked. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I was afraid that everybody might change their mind, and my brother

is over there, dead in that tunnel.’

Milan Lukić

94

‘My condolences. I will continue leading the group, and you go back to the end of the line. When we go across a mine field, only tread in the footsteps of the guy in front of you.’

Having said this, I appointed assistants to help me and started to guide the line of sol-diers. With two assistants, I kept moving about a hundred paces ahead of the line, while the remaining soldiers followed in out footsteps. Nobody was talking, and the communicaiton was maintained using signals. We kept moving forward like this for four full hours, before we finally reached a place naer the entrance to the tunnel. We stayed there for the next half an hour, listening to every sound, watching for any indicaiton of the enemy’s presence. Op-posite the tunnel was a bunker, but not a sound could be heard there, not a movement could be traced in the shadows of the small slots.

I entered the tunnel underneath a viaduct, through a manhole that served a purpose of draining excess water from the tunnel. I felt as if I had entered hell. Bullet shells were every-where I stepped, like layers of gravel. Outraged because they had let the main group escape, the Muslims had doused the dead bodies with petrol and set them on fire. Their half-charred bodies were strewn around.

I recognised the wounded soldier who had stayed behind, he had a penetration wound in his head. Forgive me Lord, because I do not know the names of the two great heroes from the orphanage. For me, they will always be as glorious as Obilić in their sacrifice. The origi-nal plan had been that once we had provided the space for manoeuvre, the headquarters was going to send a truck with bags to transport the dead bodies. I called the commander in the headquarters to ask for the truck. ‘Wait there at the destination,’ was his reply. After waiting there from one to five, we received a new order: ‘Transport the load in your hands.’

It was impossible of course, to carry five dead bodies down the ridges. I crossed myself over the dead bodies. ‘We have been sold, all of us – you that are dead and we, who are still walking this land. We have been sold… forgive us,’ I said and gave an order to go back.

The Muslims had sensed our presence. Our artillery had been silent for a long time now, and they had gathered their units. They fired at random from the other side of the road, and it was only thank to God that we managed to get out of there unscathed.

‘Why didn’t you send the truck?’ I asked the commander.‘Nobody can drive there from here. We have planted mines along that road,’ said

Pandurović, the commander, with a silly smile on his face. Then it dawned on me that he never intended to send a truck in the first place. The few

shells that the artillery fired was all that they were willing to spare, to justify the shame of the deserted lines and the ten days that the surrounded group had spent in the tunnel, before they rescued themselves all by themselves. They had been sacrificed.

Still the people felt somehow relieved – we had seen their dead, and they were some-how more comforted and reassured in their sacrifice. We knew we would get to our dead comrades and bury their remains some time in the future. The army had spread the news of the wounded volunteer who had shot himself and everybody in the town was showing great respect and pity for the dead hero, although death had become such a commonplace thing in the war.

You have seen this in the film ‘Pretty Village, Pretty Flame’.

95

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

23.

Then the Muslims, hiding in an ambush, killed a Serbian police officer Željko Tasić and a volunteer from Serbia whose name I do not recall. The road from Višegrad to Serbia had been cut off as well and we responded immediately by rushing to the place of the inci-dent, to retrieve the bodies of the killed soldiers and regain the road from the enemy.

But the terrorists returned and set another ambush. Near the village of Okruglo, only two kilometres away from Višegrad, they attacked a bus that was coming from Belgrade and was full of passengers.

We received an emergency call: ‘Come to rescue, wherever you are.’ We gathered at the police station and I found a seat in one of the cars, while the rest of the crew got on a truck that was protected by a makeshift armour, fitted with a three-barrel gun and a Browning.

I reached the bus before them. It was standing there, in the middle of the road, sur-rounded by piles of shattered glass, countless bullet-holes in the body of the bus.

I got out of the car, somehow relieved that it hadn’t been hit by a rocket. I noticed the passengers – they were lying in a ditch by the side of the road, and as I approached them, I could hear the soft wailing of the women. ‘They are alive,’ I thought.

Without further delay, we sent the passengers off to the town, while police officers kept arriving from different sides. Soon they were taking positions to secure the road all the way to Jagodina. A group of police officers hurried to Ban Polje, to protect the local people in the event of a sudden attack. The attack on the bus could have been a decoy, to divert every-body’s attention and free manoeuvre space for the main attack to take over the control over the town, progressing through Bikavac.

As soon as they had fired their rapid-fire shots on the bus, the terrorists had run into the village of Okrugla, where their trenches had been positioned for some time before that, just above the village. The Muslims from Okrugla had never been armed and had been quiet and loyal. Until then, they had been treated with due respect. But now the Muslim leaders had sent their terrorists to the abandoned houses in Okrugla, pushing the local people into the conflict.

After the road to Jagodina had been secured, commander Tomić gathered a group in which, apart from me, there were Vidoje and Mladen, Goran Nedić, Mladen Dragićević, Niko Vujačić, Dušan Baranac, Veljko Planinčić, Sredoje Lukić and many others, police officers and army soldiers alike. We circumnavigated the wood, closing the passage on the other side of the village, so that the Muslims could not move towards Višegrad, behind the lines of the Serbian police.

96

It was night and we were moving towards the village without making a sound. Soon we were across the clearing and entered one of the empty houses in Okrugla. The plan was to hold our position until the morning, and then to take control of the village and the trenches in the hill above.

A second group, headed by the famous Dragan Savić was going to move from Drinska towards the village of Žegre and, after clearing the zone, this group was supposed to join us on the hill.

We were hidden in the house, watching the village and the surrounding area. Sredoje had taken a bottle of brandy with him. He kept quiet while there was enough drink to keep him busy. But sitting there in the darkness and drinking from his bottle, he got drunk and suddenly walked out in front of the house.

‘Hoooo, Muslims, hey there!’ His voice echoed through the night. ‘It’s me, Sredoje, come to take me if you have the balls! Fuck you, Muslims!’

The commander of the mission told me: ‘Get him out of here, take him to the town! They now know where we are, they are going to kill us all here!’

I ran to Sredoje. ‘C’mon, brother, we’re going to take some rest,’ I whispered into his ear. Then I led him back, looking over my shoulder with the gun ready in my hand. Soon we were walking through the wood and I was listening hard to any sounds around us. All that I could hear was Sredoje’s occasional mumbling.

When we arrived, I helped him to get to bed and put his gun away, to the other room. He wasn’t sleeping properly, though. As soon as he would fall asleep, he would start

grinding his teeth and asking for mercy, then he would jump out of his bed. I couldn’t get to sleep until morning. When I tried to wake Sredoje at around eight, he was asleep and did not wake up until nine. It had been agreed previously that the two of us should come to the chief’s office at nine, ready for the planned mission.

Sredoje, however, spent some ten minutes under the shower, trying to get over his hang-over.

‘C’mon, brother, we’re going to be late,’ I tried to hurry him. ‘You are young, you don’t know anything. They are all crooked… they’d run away, let-

ting them catch me … Fuck their mother. I’d spent two months in Belgrade, in hospital, and as soon as I got back, they mobilised me for the service again. I must have a drink,’ he was mumbling, searching the flat for a bottle.

‘Now?’ I asked.‘Can’t you see my hands are shaking? I am a half-mad man!’‘You must go to see the doctor, brother,’ I said. ‘This is my doctor,’ said he, tapping a bottle before taking a drink from it. Soon we were in the car and I was speeding in the direction of Kostur Polje. We were

about half an hour late. When we drew near, I heard the sound of a siren, then we saw an ambulance car. I waved my arm and the driver slowed down.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked him.‘They’ve been killed,’ I could hear through the noise.‘Who, where?’ I shouted, and he shouted back, while the car was moving away from us.

97

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

His answer had sent chills up my spine: ‘Tomić and his crew,’ he had said. Now I was driving as fast as I could, only to find a horrible scene right there next to the

bridge. The engine of the shattered car, Lada Niva, was lying on the road. All around I could see blood-stained pieces of clothes hanging on the branches of the trees. There were many police officers with tears in their eyes.

‘The Muslims had left Okrugla during the night,’ one of the police officers was explain-ing what had happened. ‘They had planted mines in the road. The soldiers and the police were moving in a spread formation, combing the terrain, and the commander and his escorts went down on the road, in the Niva.’

‘So they came across a mine.’‘Directly… an anti-tank mine.’The houses in Okrugla were being searched, and I could hear voices. ‘Ready? Move in!’ Then I heard brief reports, phrased in the professional manner: ‘A whole storage of

weapons… full combat kit in the cellar.’I also heard soldiers swearing: ‘I don’t want to hear any more stories about loyal and

unbiased Muslims – if anyone tries to sell me that lie, he’ll have to deal with me!’ I heard echoes of the voices around me, as if coming from a vast void space, as if carried

by the waters of the Drina. Through a haze, I could see the face of the teacher… the school… then more smiling faces – the faces of Mladen and Vidoje… the two of them had defended Jagodina, together with Slađan Simić, when the place was attacked by the Muslims from two sides. Farewell my teachers, farewell my school friends… Serbian teachers and students die together… The war would never be the same again.

Milan Lukić

98

24.

The hatred grew after the Muslim villages that had supplied support to the extremists had been burnt down. Fear, revenge, religious hatred – these feelings did not know triumph or defeat. Only the total destruction, annihilation of the enemy or your own peril. The terror-ists kept attacking the Serbian villages, burning down the houses and killing wherever and whoever possible. The Serbs who were fleeing to the town often set their own houses on fire, so it was often impossible to tell whose was which rubble.

Many of the deserted Serbian villages were now frequented by Muslim terrorists, es-pecially during the night. They were using these houses as the camps for their scouting and surveillance missions, as well as for attacks, The police were constantly on the move, searching the area, always under a risk of being targeted from an unexpected direction.

At the beginning, I kept volunteering for surveillance patrols, then this practice became a regular rule.

We went to Serbian villages that were still defying the threat of the enemy, we tried to encourage the local people. We were constantly moving – either setting an ambush, or chasing the enemy. I had developed a habit of remembering the look of various pathways, shortcuts and passages. I could tell by a tiny detail, such as the position of a branch or the look of a patch of grass of somebody had been there. I even knew the differences in the song of the birds, depending whether the place was vacant or people were there.

From the base camp in Višegrad, a unit of more than three hundred people – soldiers and police officers – moved ahead spread in a skirmish line, searching every foot of Župa. At the same time, convenient places were chosen to dig our trenches, former lines were fortified. In the finished shelters, the mission commanders were leaving crews of the territo-rial army members, making sure that they comply with the strict rules of military conduct, especially in the duties of vigil and surveillance.

My own village of Rujište is on the first line of defence towards Žepa, expecting the attack of the Muslims any day or night. The line of defence had been fortified, the rotas for the constant vigil set. There were daily patrols from Rujište to Visočnik and Stolovaš, and also from Rujište to Štitarevo and Kamenica.

The defence staff was in the best house in the village, the house of Cmiljana Lukić, my aunt who lived in Austria. The food supplies were brought in from Prelovo, and there was another line of defence in the direction of Paočić, to prevent any sudden attacks of the Muslims coming from the back.

In addition to all these precautions, the artillery crew with a VBR gun would occasion-ally come to the village from its base, to fire a few shots at the Muslim lines in the direction

99

of Žepa, as well as the road to Srebrenica, trying to discourage any possible attacks from that side. In this way, the local population of Župa and all of us whose friends and relatives were there, could have a short break from the constant fear and tension. The surplus of the fighters that was created in this way could be used to defend Sjemić, the only line of communication that the Višegrad area had with Republika Srpska.

At Kopito, where we were holding our lines, I was on constant surveillance duty. The police chief at that time was Perica Marković, an educated man and a good person. He had trust in my reports. If I reported that my patrol went five kilometres deep into the Muslim territory, then it meant five kilometres or more, never less. That segment of the front line was soon stabilised.

Milan Lukić

100

25.

The Muslim terrorists from Barim and Milošević had crossed the Drina at night, near the village of Mušići that lay on the right bank of the river. Advancing through the forest, they reached the Serbian village of Jelašić. It was dawn and the villagers had risen early be-cause they were going to mown the fields. It must have been the day before the day of Saint Ilija, or on the very day of this religious holiday, although doing any work on this important day would have been against the church tradition. Their relatives and friends from Serbia had come to help do the work, and the mowing started early while the grass was still wet with dew. Soon the fields were alive with the sounds of the scythes, merry conversation and the colours of women’s aprons.

At noon, they sat down to have lunch. Soon people were preparing their scythes for the continuation and were talking cheerfully. While the mowers went on mowing, the women were turning the heaped grass that was drying quickly and easily in the early August sun.

In the early evening, the hay was piled in haystacks. All the while, nobody knew that they were being watched from the wood. And none of the people there had any weapons.

The village of Jelašići is five kilometres away from Višegrad where the headquarters of the army and the police were located. In the evening, the people were sitting in their yards, taking a rest from the hard day’s work and waiting for the women to prepare dinner.

The Muslim fanatics were waiting for the night. A day attack is always more dangerous, the shots would alarm the defence and the help would be there in no time, while it would also be much more difficult for them to get away from the pursuers.

And so, Hamdija Vilić and his murderers went to mow that night. They chose a house that was at some distance from the village. A large family were sitting on the porch, when the murderers attacked suddenly, from all sides. They fired their deadly guns, threw the dead bodies in the house and set it on fire. Having heard the shots, the villagers called for help, and soon there was wailing and crying everywhere.

We rushed to Jelašice to help – there were Niko Vujačić, Veljko Planinčić, Tomo Đurić, Lazar Šimšić, who was born in the village, as well as Sredoje, Radojica and Doda Ristić, Gudović, Poluga, Despić and Baranac, with perhaps fifteen more soldiers and police of-ficers.

The scene was horrifying, and the people terrified. Women and children kept crying, while we watched the charred remains of men, women and children. Hamdija’s fanatics had run away, probably along the same route. This was another one of their typical and frequent attacks: It was a ‘hit-and-run’ tactic, and they never showed any mercy for the old or children.

101

We decided to stay there. We knew who did it and felt sure that they would be back. Then Hamdija Vilić sent his murderers to the village of Žleb. The attack was lead by

Bajić, one of his terrorists and fanatics. In Žleb, they killed the Šimšić family – a husband and a wife with a child. This village

was deep in the Serbian territory, and it was more difficult for them to get back. Or perhaps they were now feeling so self-assured that they had no intention of going back, but kept on cruising and looking for a new opportunity for a massacre. We managed to get the important information about them from a Muslim. Two days after their last crime, they had returned to the village of Žleb. This time we were hidden in the wood, watching them. They were sitting in front of a house and waiting for one of them to skin a slaughtered lamb, to prepare lunch.

We waited patiently for the right moment. Then, all of a sudden, a helicopter flew above and they grabbed their guns and started shooting, thinking the helicopter was there because of them. The next moment, the helicopter was gone and they ran to the road, hurrying to get as far from there, as quickly as they could. They were moving towards us. We waited until they were a few meters away, then we opened fire, all at the same time. In the thundering storm of the machine-gun fire, I could hear shouts ‘Allah al’akbar!’. All of the twelve fanat-ics remained lying dead on the road, not far from the place of their final ghastly massacre.

Milan Lukić

102

26.

Our defence was swaying and faltering under the attacks of the ‘green berets’, coming from all sides. The whole area was under a constant attack of Muslim commando crews.

Under these conditions, a decision was made to form the Intervention Squad for Quick Actions and Special Missions. The Squad was composed of volunteers and the commander was Slađan Simić. From the crime in the village of Jelašić, committed on the day of Saint Ilija, I was a member of the Intervention Squad.

The Muslims had positioned themselves at a high ridge called Butkova stijena, over-looking the town of Višegrad. From there, they were targeting the town with snipers.

It was morning and a nurse was going to work across the old bridge, in the group of other passengers. They were an easy target for the Muslims. They shot a man, as well as the nurse. She survived, thank God. But later that same day they killed a boy in the street, in front of the hotel ‘Na Drini ćuprija’.

The Višegrad brigade had more than one thousand fighters, and the Muslims were kill-ing us in the middle of the town. The commander of the brigade was the army captain Vinko Pandurović, who had just replaced the former commander Drago Gavrilović, who was an NCO. He ordered a company of more than a hundred and fifty fighters to summon at the elementary school in Pionirska. He wanted to give a speech. He started off in a wrong way, saying that he wanted everybody to wear the same uniform, and the same insignia on the hats. These were to be five-pointed stars, of course. The fighters responded immediately:

‘I am not going to die wearing the sign of the Devil!’ ‘You can tell that to your Ustasha Tito!’‘Go away, you communist scum!’ Then a soldier walked out of the line, motioning to the people to keep silent, then he said:‘I am not hiding in the crowd, as you can see. So look at me an hear what I have to say

to you. You are a communist crap and as far as I am concerned, you can go back to where you came from. You communists killed many Serbs and you have brought misfortune to the Serbian people. Fuck you and your bloody Ustasha Tito!’

His words were followed with an uproar of approval, but the soldier showed that he had more to say. And so he did: ‘We want the cross. We are Christians. We want the Serbian hat, the two-headed eagle and the crown of the Nemanjićs. We do not want to die under your star, it is a sign of the Devil and the non-believers. Fuck you and your five-pointed star! You can stick it on Tito’s grave! May you all be cursed. Even though I live like a dog, I want to die as a man!’ There were shouts of approval, people were tossing their hats in the air, shouting: ‘Praised Saint Sava! Praised the Nemanjićs!’ I could see that some of them had tears in their eyes. Others were cursing: ‘Fuck them communists… They would have killed all the Serbs

103

if they had had a chance… They wouldn’t have spared dead Serbs either…’ The captain did not react, he waited for the protest to calm down. Then he started talking about something completely different, completely unimportant. It was pure communist nonsense.

Then another soldier came out of the line, interrupting him. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘We de-mand,’ said he, emphasising every syllable. ‘We demand that we

immediately be sent to Butkova stijena! They are killing women and children, people are dying! What more is there to be said?’

‘We don’t have enough people for that,’ said the captain. ‘That place is a fortress, not even the Užički corps could take it!’

I raised my arm politely, and he said: ‘Go on soldier, what is that you want to say?’I spoke clearly so that everybody could hear: ‘Butkove stijene is not a fortress, although

I agree with you that the Užički Corps would probably not be able to take it. They know only how to kill a Serbian boy, like they did at Zvonara.’ Shouts of approval started to rise, but I asked everybody to give me a chance to speak. ‘Brothers, please wait,’ said I, turning to the captain.

‘I will take thirty volunteers with me. We will take Butkove stijene, or we’ll die.’ Said I. I asked for his permission and for some artillery support. The loud shouts of approval

clearly told me that I could have had three times more volunteers for the mission. Having no other alternative, the captain agreed:‘If you, soldier, think that you can take a place that is invincible, go on and try!’ I stepped in front of the line and said: ‘Brothers, those of you who do not know me,

should know that my name is Milan Lukić. Now, who wants to join me to Butkove stijene, to clear the place of the Muslims? They sit there at their will; they can drink coffee and kill us when they want to.’

The line moved forward. Everbody wanted to go. ‘Thank you, I see that you are all with me, but I can take only thirty,’ said I and chose

the people for my mission. When the other soldiers left, our group went into one of the classrooms, for a consultation with Vinko Pandurović, the captain.

At six o’clock in the morning, our artillery had opened fire. I gathered the group. ‘Brothers, if I see anyone running away from the combat, I’ll shoot

him. You can do the same if you see me running away. Now, with God’s help, let’s move on!’ Soon we were on our way from the police station, taking with us shoulder rocket-launch-

ers, as well as a long steel rope. At the foot of the hill, we could still hear the projectiles fired by our artillery. Our guys were doing a good job, the sky above us echoed with explosions and the ridges were quivering. Small pieces of stones were falling everywhere around.

‘Stop the fire. We are in the position, you have done well, brothers.’ I reported to the headquarters.

The first trench was some distance ahead of us. This must be the place where they fired their snipers from. I knew instantly it was deserted, and I jumped into it. I examined it for any mines that may have been planted there, then gave a sign to the others to join me. Plac-ing my finger across my mouth, I indicated that no words must be spoken from that moment on, then I spread the squad into a skirmish formation and we progressed slowly and silently,

Milan Lukić

104

covering the final two hundred meters or so, until we reached the highest point of the ridge. Luckily, the crest was covered with a pine wood, and we could find some shelter. I cautioned my people, giving them a sign with my hand to watch for small mines. Almost at the high-est point, there was another trench, surrounded by sand bags, and covered by a stretch of camouflage cloth. I thought I could hear a sound of hushed voices coming from the trench, and I motioned towards two of my men, showing them to join me. Five of them were next to me in no time at all.

We pulled the rings out of our hand grenades. I counted silently, nodding my head. One, two, three… Six grenades flew towards the trench at the same moment, followed by a loud explosion. We saw the body of one of the Muslims flying above the trench, and we heard cries from the inside. Then there was silence, and stacks of grey smoke rising in the air.

I jumped in the trench. There were three dead Muslims inside. I searched the place, but found nothing else.

‘We have cleared Butkove stijene,’ I reported to the captain and, as soon as the com-mander started congratulating us on the successfully accomplished mission, I could hear voices on the other side congratulating him. We stayed there following our orders, waiting for another group to come and take over the place.

‘Hold your positions until a replacement crew gets to you,’ ordered the captain. We kept our position for ten days. Nobody dared to bring food to us, and we kept send-

ing two people down every day, who would then come back with the provisions on the fol-lowing day. Cold wind kept blowing there during the night, and we kept freezing. From the hill opposite, the Muslims were firing random shots, exchanging signals among themselves.

One night there was clear moonlight, and the whole place was lit with a silvery light. I positioned three men in each of the two trenches, leaving six guards at the back. The rotas were set at four hours. I woke up just before the dawn. It was more a feeling that I had, rather than a noise that could be heard. A tiny piece of stone rolled into the trench. ‘It must be the Muslims’, I thought, ‘trying to see if we are asleep.’ I quietly woke three of my men who were beside me. ‘It’s the Muslims,’ I whispered to them. They passed it on, very quietly. The trench was on a bare piece of ground, only about twenty meters away from the wood. We clenched out hand grenades, pulling the safety rings out.

‘Now!’ I shouted, and the bombs flew in the air, falling somewhere behind the first pines. There were explosions, followed by a scream. Then they fired back. Our men who were detached from the main group were at their side, almost behind them, and now they fired at their positions. The enemy had a heavy machine gun, which threw showers of earth from the top of the trench over our heads. A hand grenade fell two metres away from us – fortunately it didn’t go off.

Then there was silence. They must have given up and retreated to their positions. The wood and the trenches were hidden in darkness, in a sharp contrast to the silvery moonlit clearing. The whole scene looked totally unreal.

‘They will attack again just before the dawn,’ said I and we started our preparations. We stretched a piece of camouflage canvas over the trench. We arranged an additional shel-ter made of sacks filled with sand, like an improvised bunker, but we did not stay inside.

105

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Instead, Two of the crew were from Serbia, who had come on the bus that was destroyed. There were also Miroljub Kojić, a graduate lawyer and a well-known karate master, who was born in Višegrad, then a volunteer from some unknown place, Srećko Gavrilović and Nedeljko Gogić from Višegrad, and our famous explosives expert Branislav Maričić who had been at the fights around Vukovar and all the other known war zones. I beg forgiveness of those whose names I do not remember any more, all of them noble and brave fighters.

Dawn came. I heard the snoring of a tired comrade. Turning around to alert him, I saw a Muslim some two metres from the decoy trench. With his gun in his arms and ready to shoot, he was slowly approaching the improvised bunker, listening to hear the sound of the sleep-ing crew inside. I always kept my gun primed for rapid fire at night, and I instantly pulled the trigger. I saw the Muslim go down, and the next moment there was a torrent of fire from both sides. The Muslim whom I wounded was lying only a couple of meters away, but I couldn’t’ reach him and pull him in. We were in a shallow shelter, and their fire was hitting the slope above our position. Their machine gun was cutting pine branches that kept falling all over us. I listened for a few moments to determine its position, then I threw a hand granade at it. The fire had stopped instantly, but it did not stop the Muslim attacks. They were all over the place, trying to get us encircled from all sides. We noticed their manoeuvre in time and managed to retreat ton the first reserve trench, and their attempt failed. We recharged our guns and kept waiting. Later in the morning, we went back to the first-line positions. We saw blood-stained spots on the ground around the trench and on the clearing. They had towed away their dead and wounded.

We stayed for fifteen more days. Then I called the headquarters. ‘Send in a replacement crew, or we are leaving tomorrow. The people cannot endure

any longer.’ ‘I will try to find a group to replace you. But it would be best if you came back now, the

rest can stay there.’ Said the commander. ‘Sir, captain,’ I shouted, ‘I am not a scumbag.’ ‘My people were around me, listening to my words. I had the impression that the

communist-type officer on the other end of the line had lost interest in arguing with me. I turned to my people: ‘Guys,’ I told them, ‘If they do not send in a replacement right

away, we are going back tomorrow.’ Like we had done on all the previous days, that night the guys would shout from time to

time: ‘Hey there, Muslims! Here are the Chetniks, come and get us!’ Whatever the situation was in objective terms of judgement, we were in a war, and our self-confidence was a factor that made them insecure. We proved to be daring and therefore stronger than them.

In the morning, I reported to the commander: ‘We will be in our position for two more hours.’ He told me that he had gathered a group for our replacement, asking for one from our group to stay for another day, to pass on the instructions regarding the position we were holding. The following evening, the Muslims attacked the crew that was sent as our replace-ment, and they fled, leaving only Avramović – the only member of our crew who had stayed there. When they fled, our artillery fired at the position and killed Avramović, father of two little children.

Milan Lukić

106

27.

Our people kept getting killed, we had heavy losses. From the fifteenth to the twen-tieth of October was our bloody week. Many Serbs got killed, wounded and – what was worse – captured. Serbian units kept holding the lines, taking turns every two weeks: one month the main force was sent to defend the line to Goražde, then the next month to Žepa, and then to Sjemić and so on. There were not enough people to cover the huge length of the front line. As for the army canteen, there were always thirty or so idlers who were hanging there – these were the privileged pets of the Crises Headquarters and the commanding staff, hypocrites with a special talent of passing unnoticed, people without a feeling of honour, al-ways fearful of being called to join the fighters with guns in their hands. Their main concern was to stay unharmed at any cost, although some of them were strong and tall people, they desperately tried not to attract attention. Like worms sneaking under the bark of a tree, they were invisible even in the naked reality of the war.

Instead of a few cripples and a couple of dozen of women, the canteen was actually full of strong men, looking very potent and soldierly. Instead of being what they ought to be – fighters, there they were, cooking soup and doing the dishes. If they were to join a parade somewhere, they could all be Chetniks, elite soldiers… but being in the canteen as they were, one couldn’t help wondering how on earth they managed to find all the fur hats and cockades. It was all a charade – those guys did not even know what they were wearing on their heads, and it was little wonder they could not show any respect for those who had been dying for those symbols.

At the same time, the units from Župa were constantly in the woods, without a break or replacement. For them, the war was a matter of life and death, the front line was their destiny. The whole segregation line towards Goražde and Međeđa was kept by these fighters alone. Nobody dared to replace them, because these lines were true killing fields, and a lot of people had been killed there. Then one day a messenger came to our commander, with an order for our squad to replace crew on the western front. They chose twelve of us for this mission, also guys from Žepa. Having held the position at Butkove stjene, preventing the Muslims from taking this high point from which they could terrorise the town of Višegrad, the new mission and the new position at Meremišlje was almost a welcome break. But our commanders were obviously not satisfied, they wanted more. Their obvious strategy was to split a courageous and successful unit into squads and smaller groups, sending us every-where around. The point was that a few weren’t enough and we constantly needed more of good fighters everywhere. We realised this and asked the commanders to do something about the idlers who were skiving off fight.

‘We ask that the dishwashing experts be sent to the front line immediately!’

107

They found a group of twenty-five people, appointing Pero Kovačević as their com-mander. He was a professional soldier from Višegrad, and had a reputation of a man who had successfully defended military barracks from the Muslim attack, thus preventing a huge amount of weapons – more than ten thousand guns and other weapons – from getting into their hands. I did not know his rank in the army, but I knew that he was a brave man, honest and reliable. So Kovaćević took his new squad to their position. He was accompanied by Mićo Obradović, teacher, and Brane Šimšić, a former manager of a waste-processing facil-ity, both of whom had become experienced fighters. Days went by, and the inexperienced squad had become too relaxed. They were relying on the guys from Rudo, who were keep-ing the line some seven hundred meters behind them. They were spending too much time in their tents, barbecuing and playing cards. All the while, they were being watched by Muslim surveillance crews who kept coming form the direction of the Rudo line.

They were sneaking close to them, listening to their conversations; they saw that the squad was lulled into false security, expecting a replacement crew. Then one day, the fighters from Rudo had abandoned their line and went home to Rudo. Around a hundred Muslims took this opportunity and got through unnoticed. They came to the squad, pretending to be their replacement. Around fifty or so of them, wearing fur hats with cockades, surrounded the tent with our soldiers who were packing their things, preparing to leave.

‘May god help you brothers,’ said their commander. ‘We have come to replace you.’ Pero Kovačević, however, recognised one of the Muslims, despite the fact that he was

wearing a beard. He shouted ‘Muslims’, trying to dive to a shelter, but he was immediately hit by a salvo from several Muslim guns. A young guy who had escaped from Goražde fell beside him, with eight penetration wounds. Muslims dressed in Chetnik uniforms kept shooting at the marquee. Any wounded soldier who managed to crawl out of the marquee was immediately beaten to death with the guns. Packs of Muslims were stabbing each of the dying soldiers. Around fifteen who accidentally survived the massacre were taken to Međeđa, a place that used to be a small forgotten town, filled with the monotonous chanting of the muezzin and the smell of sheep’s fat.

Međeđa now was a completely different scene: It was an army camp of fanatics, poi-soned with hatred, ordered by insane rules which the local Muslims had never known before.

There were quotations from the Koran, written in black ink on green strips, worn around the heads of those who didn’t know a first thing about the Arabic language, who were obvi-ously lost in their own confusion, not knowing who they were and where they came from. They kept shouting ‘Allahu akbar’, believing they were the favourites of Allah, the holy warriors of the Jihad, children of the Prophet Mohhamad. Once unleashed, they were rush-ing to their ‘holy war’ against the Serbs with running chainsaws in their hands.

‘Bring those infidel pigs over here!’ They grabbed at tied prisioners and chopped them alive with a chain-saw. When they finished their bloody ritual, they stood up over a prison-er’s dead body, lifting his cut-off head in the air, before sticking it on a pole, while the blood from it was still dripping… Mićo Obradović, the teacher and the former general manager of a waste-processing facility, and Brane Šimšić, stayed imprisoned in Međeđa for a whole year. They witnessed the appalling scenes of torture, and the truth survived with them. It is also true that they would not have survived had it not been for the protection of Murat

Milan Lukić

108

and Avdija Šabanović. On the second day after the massacre, they contacted their families through an amateur radio station. Having heard the news of the horrible event at Meremišlje, we rushed there cutting our way through the wood. The only survivor we found there was the soldier with eight wounds, whom they had left, thinking he was dead. Miraculously, he managed to stay alive to tell us the true account of what had happened. Although they re-treated immediately, we managed to catch up with some of the retreating crews and engaged in ferocious clashes. They lost some of their men, and we took some prisoners as well.

Bakir Kabaklija, the commander of one of the squads, escaped by jumping off one of the cliffs. One had to give him credit for his courage, there was not doubt about it. His brothers Šano, Luno and Beno Kabaklija never took weapons in their arms, just like Beno had told me during my visit to Višegrad that had taken palce before the war, on Saint John’s Day.

While I was on duty as a police officer in Višegrad, I once came across a group of our dogs of war, who had captured a group of innocent Musims among whom was Šano Kabak-lija. I intervened and they released them. They said than what they still claim today, that I saved their lives on that occasion.

I could never watch cruelty over innocent and helpless men. It just isn’t correct, it is not in the Spirit of Serbian understanding of honour. Later, Šano offered to appear as a witness in my defence in the Hague but, unfortunately, the war had affected his faculties. The Mus-lim commander Sejdić started negotiations with Branimir Savović, the head of the Crises Headquarters, asking twenty Muslim fighters in exchange for the captured fifteen Serbain soldiers. The families of the captured men kept coming to the army headquarters, the police station and the council building.

‘We want our sons… You sent them to the front line, although you knew they were inex-perienced!’ Our army, however, did not have that many Muslim prisoners. Sejdić had agreed to accept flour, commodieites, money, but he also insisted on men.

The exchange was arranged for the twenty-second of October. Being forced to do some-thing, our commanders had found a solution in capturing the Musilms from Sjeverin, a village that was lying between Rudo and Uvac. The group that was formed in this way was headed by two commanders – Milan Josipović and Veselin Vucelja, who was an army se-curity officer. They stopped the bus on the road from Sjeverin to Uvac, taking the captured Muslims to Višegrad. They also took a Muslim woman, whom they wanted to exchange for a Serbian woman, a doctor from Serbia whom Muslims were keeping in Međeđa and Goražde.

The commander went into the station, then came running out, furiosly shouting his or-ders: ‘Take those Muslims to the field by the cultural centre in Kalate! Their commanders do not want any exchange any longer! They are saying they have killed all of our people!’

Having heard this, I ran to the field, but the people were already there, relatives and friends of the murdered Serbs were attacking the twenty Muslims, hitting them with sticks, throwing stones at them. The police brought three more Muslims to the group. These three had been captured earlier and had been kept in the prison of the Uzamnica military barracks. Then I saw Milan Kosorić coming out of the yard, taking out a gun and shooting these three men. He was beside himself, and he almost shot two of the Serbs and girl. This was his re-venge, because these three had arrested him at the beginning of the war, and when they had found that he had had a gun, they had tortured him and taken his gun away.

109

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘There you are, Cipa,’ I heard him shouting. That was probably the nickname of one of the Muslims he had killed. I was in my car, rushing to fetch the journalist Milan Timotić, who was living at the Višegrad hotel. ‘I want you to record this, and take the pictures to Ser-bia! I want everybody there to see what these bastards are doing here,’ I said to him.

‘Don’t even think of doing this,’ the new commander Josipovič warned the journalist, then he gave some orders to his police officers, before departing hastily in his car.

A man with a tractor and a trailer came along, and I asked him to take the three dead men and the injured ones to the Vilina Vlas hotel. Milan Timotić gave him a ten-Mark note, and we moved to the side, joining the crowd that had gathered there. Milan Kosarić pro-tested against taking the corpses away, and I told him: ‘Come on, man, your house is here, and the last thing that you need here is stinking corpses. We are taking them away, it’s the commander Josipović’s order.’ It was a lie, of course, but it worked. Both Kosarić and those who were beating the helpless people were now helping to put them all on the trailer and they even jumped onto the trailer themselves. Then at the crossroad, when the tractor turned towards the hotel instead of the Drina, they all started to shout and jumped off the trailer. I saw them standing on the road, arguing about something.

We finally reached the hotel with a load of dead corpses and injured people, literally piled on the trailer. We took them to the hotel building, and the journalist was taking pic-tures. The soldiers who happened to see the scene were protesting. From the hotel, we called the Medical Centre and a nurse soon arrived to help the injured.

‘These are bloody photographs,’ said the journalist. ‘How can we save these people?’ I replied: ‘You see that they are barely alive. Send those photos to Serbia, as fast as you

can, and hope that the orders from there arrive in time, while these are still alive.’ The commander Josipović arrived at that moment, accompanied by four policemen, and

immediately after them the car with the bullies who had beaten the helpless people pulled in. ‘Are you crazy? You want these pictures to be seen by the world?’ The commander was

shouting, absolutely beside himself with fury. The poor people were loaded on the trailer again. I took the journalist to the Serbian border. Later, we heard that the misfortunate group were all killed somewhere at the Drina, and I was summoned before commander Josipović.

‘Why did you call the journalist to take pictures of those terrorists? You knew this was a secret mission. Do you want Mladić and Karadžić to shoot us all, if they ever find out?’ He was shouting again, unable to control himself. I was no longer a member of the reserve police, I was now a soldier, a scout of the Intervention Squad. He wasn’t my superior any longer, and it felt good to be in a position to give him the answer he deserved:

‘It was my aim exactly that you get fucked like you deserve to be.’ Two days later, there was an unprecedented investigation from Pale, Crna rijeka, Serbia… The head of the Crises Headquarters, the commander and the police commander were

shaking with fear, while the security officer Vucelja had fled to a hiding place, somewhere in the country. All of the participants who were involved in the incident, members of both the police and the army had gone into hiding. General Mladić was in Rudo, investigating the case. The head of the Crisis Committee, Branimir Savović called me to his office. With his face as dark as a cloud, he told me: ‘Please go there today, see if that crazy general will decide that we are to be blamed.’ He was totally agitated, and I was curious to see how the

Milan Lukić

110

investigation was progressing. I knew Milorad Prokok from Rudo, who used to be a lawyer before the war and who was now dealing in cigarettes and timber, being the god-brother of the major. On my way there, I stopped at the Duke’s Inn, at Belo brdo.

‘What’s the news, Duke? I hear that general Mladić is in Rudo?’ I greeted him. ‘Do keep quiet about it, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘They are all shitting their pants,

nobody knows where the Muslims from Sjeverin have disappeared, and he’s given them twenty-four hours to find them.’

‘What Muslims, my dear Duke?’ I pretended I didn’t know what it was all about. ‘My brother, somebody took some thirty Muslims from Sjeverin.’‘Who could have done that? Perhaps they just got mobilised by the Muslims in Goražde?’ ‘What Muslims? Fuck me if it hadn’t been Serbs, most probably Savović and Risto

Perišić. They even point their fingers at me, but people here saw a police car from Višegrad, waiting for two hours.’

‘Perhaps to exchange them for the Serbs who were captured by the Muslims at Mere-mišlje?’

‘Mladić and Karadžić will fuck them, whoever they are.’‘C’mon, Duke, let’s go to Rudo. Prokok will know,’ I said curtly.‘I’ll tell you this,’ he said. ‘Prokok has run to Serbia, too. They are all scared of Mladić.

But Lukić, you are my brother, and I want to tell you this – you’d better not ask too many questions.’ The Duke was leaning across the table, fixing me with his glare. ‘They’ll set you or me up, and there will be nothing we can do to prove that it is not true. They need the small ones to point their finger at.

‘Farewell, Duke,’ said I and hurried back to Višegrad, to report to Savović. He called me to the offices of the political party. When he saw me, he gave me a puzzled look: ‘Have you been there?’ I could see that he was surprised, looking at me as if he had seen a ghost.

‘I have just come back from there,’ said I. ‘So, how did you get through?’ He asked nervously. ‘Are there any soldiers and police

in Sjeverin?’ ‘There must be two hundred of them there. They were searching me for twenty minutes.’‘And what about Rudo? Did you speak to your friend there? What did Mladić say?’

Then, for a third time, he asked without thinking: ‘How did you get through?’ ‘Mladić has caused havoc in the municipality. Pavlović is pissing his pants with fear,’ I

said smiling. ‘What are you laughing for? He will be right here at my back tomorrow.’ ‘They do suspect you.’‘Well, fuck them,’ he said. ‘They won’t find me here tomorrow… as far as I am con-

cerned, he can go and ask his own subordinates.’‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ I said. ‘I know that Milan Josipović was responsible’. ‘Do shut up!’ Savović shouted at me. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’‘Let them burn in hell for all the things they’ve done,’ I thought in my petty content.

But a vague feeling of discontent and shapeless, strong trepidation was taking hold of me. A doubt had already risen in my mind: ‘Why did Savović choose me, of all the people, to send me there… ? Why did he ask so many times how I had got through?’

111

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

28.

Only one or two days later, the commander of the Intervention Squad Slađan Simić was in hospital, and the army headquarters in Višegrad sent an order to me, to take a group of scouts to the village of Setihovo near Rudo, some distance inside the Muslim territory. Our task was the surveillance of the zone, and analysis of the conditions for the final takeover of Međeđa.

We went on an army bus from Višegrad, over Dobrun, Bjelo brdo, Uvac, Sjeverin and Rudo, until we reached the destination, the village of Setihovo. It was around six in the morning when we got there.

From the village, we continued walking through the wood, through the Muslim territory. When we approached Međeđa, we stopped to analyse the situation and prepare a plan how to enter the town. Suddenly, there was an order coming form the headquarters: ‘Return to Višegrad immediately!’

We went back to the bus, and on our way back stopped in Rudo. The commander Vinko Pandurović ordered me to go to his office, while the rest of the group continued to Višegrad. In the commander’s office, I received new orders. My Intervention Squad was to start ar-resting the men from Rudo, for their breaches of rules. They had killed their commander Vučković, they had deserted their positions, causing death and capture of other men. They were smugglers and deserters, constantly avoiding their duty on the front line.

‘Commander, I am neither a police officer, nor a military police officer. As for Rudo, let them clear the mess in their own house,’ I said, offended, and walked out of the office. A soldier named Dragićević was waiting for me in the car, and we hurried to catch up with the bus where the rest of my group were.

When we came to Sjeverin, there were around fifty policemen at the check point. We were told that we would have to go to Užice, to make a statement. When my escorts brought me to Užice, I was immediately hand-cuffed and then taken to the police station.

I did not want to talk to the people I did not know, and I refused food and water. I spent that night on the floor, in the corner of an office. The following day I was taken to another office. ‘I request that I make my statement in the presence of someone from Višegrad – the commander, head of Crisis Committee, or head of police,’ was the only thing that I said.

They put me in a cell. On the ninth day, I was taken before a magistrate, and he abol-ished my detention.

During all these days, the press kept publishing articles blaming me for the arrest of the Muslims in Sjeverin. It was the heads of the authorities who had brought those people to the old cultural centre in the town, while at the same time they had spread rumours that those

112

people were terrorists captured in fight, so that the aggrieved relatives of the massacred and tortured Serbs came looking for revenge. I never took part in their arrest. What is more, I was openly opposing these practices and attracted the anger of those who were involved in them. I took the journalist Milan Tomić to the border, but when he wanted to publish those photographs in a Belgrade newspaper, he was arrested. The police in Užice were asking questions that could for sure be answered by their superiors in Belgrade – or, perhaps even the authorities in Belgrade had been deceived. I could have answered Brana Savović’s ques-tion how I had got through, but it did not cross my mind then that this was important. I went back to Višegrad.

113

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

29.

A lot of people were killed in a bloody fight with the Muslims at Počivala. There were casualties on both sides. Our group of scouts was attacked by a hundred Muslims, and I got wounded by a grenade. Branislav Maričić from Čačak, a hero and an explosive expert was killed by my side, only a metre of two away from me.

Many of the people who died there were my relatives, friends or former school friends. The death of each one of them has left a wound in my soul that has never stopped bleeding, but the death of Bransilav shook me the most. For as long as I live, I will never forget the picture of this fearless young man, walking along the road from Rogatica, carrying only two hand grenades in his hands.

Then a truck full of our fighters came across a land mine on the road near Počivalo. The blast had sent the people from the trailer into the air. The driver was killed, and my god-brother Niko Vujačić, who was also in the driver’s cabin, was saved by the bullet-proof jacket he was wearing. However, his leg was literally torn into pieces, twenty-eight of them. The surgeon Aco Moljević from Užice had literally patched up his leg, piece by piece. The leg was eventually saved, but the wounds have kept bleeding from time to time. Miroljub Kojić is in charge of the scouts from the Intervention Squad, and we kept penetrating the enemy’s territory covering ten to twenty kilometres into its depth, often through mine fields.

We were spending the nights hidden, sometimes only twenty metres away from the Muslim trenches. Sometimes, when it was necessary to regain a piece of territory or to con-nect the interrupted lines of our defence, we would attack the enemy trenches and shelters. There were days or nights when we would make up to five attacks. One of the tasks was to neutralise a group of ten Muslim terrorists. They chose us ten for this mission, all of us with a huge experience and skills that had turned into an almost animal instinct, gained during constant surveillance, secret patrolling and the time spent in the unpopulated areas.

The Muslim terrorists kept evading us with a lot of success. They would perform a sud-den attack in an unexpected location, then run away again.

After a number of unsuccessful pursuits, we decided to change our tactic. We went to their territory, made a hidden camp near their base and started waiting for their return. Then we saw them returning and entering the mosque. They went to sleep inside, peacefully, leav-ing the weapons outside, leaning against the wall, confident that the people from the village were watching over them outside, and that Allah was protecting them inside the mosque.

At dawn, we walked through the sleeping village and went into the mosque. Some of them managed to jump and seize their weapons, firing a few bullets. All thirty of them had stayed in the mosque, dead and ready for their priest to say the prayers and send them to their Islamic Paradise …

114

This story was retold over and over again, like many other events that gradually became legend and lore …

There were occasions when the skilful Muslim commandoes detected out presence, and tried to close all the passages where we could find our way back, attacking us directly, choosing a suitable direction to drive us towards an invisible ambush. We would evade this tactic by moving even deeper into their territory. Sometimes it took us up to two weeks to return to our territory and all the while we would be surviving on leaves and forest fruits. We would attack suddenly at a chosen point, then walk a large distance in a completely unpredictable direction.

After an unusually long period of thorough surveillance, we had all the necessary infor-mation and a feasible plan to capture the notorious commander Sejdić.

We had set an ambush above the village of Olijak, carefully choosing our positions. His car came along, moving slowly on the bad road. When it drew near, we saw that there were two women in the car with the commander Sejdić. Our plan had fallen through – instead of a brave deed, two women killed in the mission would destroy everything. I halted the attack, after a brief consultation with Inđić and Obrad Poluga. Sejdić passed unharmed, protected by one part of his harem.

‘Brothers, we do not shoot at women,’ I told my comrades. There were fifteen Cossacks, all of them intrepid and extremely capable fighters. With

them, I would have gone anywhere – to Međeđa, Goražde, even to Sarajevo’s Baš-čaršija. One night Nedeljko Gogić was taking eight of the Cossacks to a mission. They stopped

at my mother’s to have dinner there, then went off into the night, on their patrol. None of them ever came back. We were told that they were hit by an anti-armour projectile.

The scouts of the Intervention Squad were dying, individually and in groups. Most of my comrades from those days are not alive any more. I see their brave faces

in my mind’s eye, they are like constellations of bright starts seen through a cell window. It wasn’t possible for me then, and it isn’t still, to say who among them was the bravest. It would be a deadly sin to separate them in this way, and the only ones who could be com-pared to the brave Serbian martyrs would be the Cossacks of the old days and their modern progeny, as well as the Orthodox heroes, who were among the bravest heroes of all times.

The graves, Russian crosses in the yard of the Višegrad church, in the same graveyard where the communists used to bury the dead Chetnicks and Serbs, without any signs on their burial places, all of them now united by the destiny, shining brightly through the centuries, shedding their light for the new generations …

115

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

30.

The Muslims had now rendered their tactics to attacking poorly defended villages, set-ting ambushes, murdering the old and weak, women and children, then running back to the base camp.

The only exception to this rule was the region of Drinsko and the villages in this region, where our army had been destroyed – out of two hundred soldiers, one hundred were killed. Although the Muslims terrorists had undoubtedly been the executioners, the responsibility for their death was largely on Momir Savić, the man appointed by the Crisis Committee as the captain of the Drinsko company of soldiers.

When he was present there, the soldiers got killed through his bad decisions and incapa-ble commanding. When he was away with his highbrow escorts, busy with feasts at Zlatibor and in Priboj, the soldiers were killed due to the chronic lack of organisation, commanding and directing the units.

Drinsko had become an easy hunting ground for the Muslim terrorists, and Momir Savić had become the commander of the largest Serbian company of dead soldiers, threatening to sacrifice more soldiers than the defence of the Thermopylae.

Just before the war, Momir Savić had returned from Slovenia, where he was a good paint and decoration worker. When the war became imminent, he somehow participated in the provision of weapons for our fighters.

It will never be known if he actually ever wanted to become a commander, or if it was just another brilliant idea of Branimir Savović.

The company under his command had four immortal heroes: Leka, Dragan, Milovan and Mlađen, all bearing the surname of Savić, which happened to be also the surname of the paint worker from Slovenia.

The tragedy was triggered off by the sin of murder that took place in Rudo, on Saint Peter’s Day.

Leka was celebrating under a marquee set at a fair-ground. The occasion was the birth of his nephew, and he fired a few shots in the air. The communist hyenas sent Caka, a brave young man from the military police squad, with an order to arrest Leka. The two young soldiers had an argument and – drunken and armed as they were, the situation got out of control. Caka shot Leka and a relative of Leka fired back at Caka. A police officer, Stevo Borborez, cowardly shot this young man, named Mlađen Savić, shooting through the canvas of the marquee.

Three young heroes stayed lying dead on the scene of the tragic event, while their squads were doomed to be destroyed. Caka was from Uvac, and Leka had come to Drinsko

116

to replace Dragan Savić, a legendary young fighter who used to work in Belgrade before the war, where his employer was another great man, Milorad Majkić.

When the war broke out, he had left everything and came to his village Straževica, to fight in the Drinsko region. While they were holding the defence line around the village, Sejdić’s Muslims did not dare attack Drinsko.

117

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

31.

In November 1992, the Second Russian Volunteers Brigade was formed. The Serbian army in Višegrad did not have enough men to defend the town and the surrounding places. Its main force was the Intervention Company headed by Boban Indžić, but this company was also undermanned and was additionally manned by the fighters under Obrad Poluga and Slobodan Petrović, as well as volunteers from Serbia and Montenegro.

In the period from November 1992 to the end of May 1993, there were around two hun-dred of Russian volunteers who took part in the operations around Višegrad. More than just an increase in the overall number of fighters, these people provided extremely significant moral boost to our cause. The enemy propaganda was reporting about thousands of Rus-sian fighters. The Yugoslav National Army that liberated Višegrad on 15th April 1992, with its Užički Corps, continued its progress towards Goražde. Before taking this stronghold of the Muslim terrorists, the army had to retreat, following the orders of its head staff. After its retreat to Serbia during May and June that year, the army had left the local population at the mercy of the enemy, who greatly outnumbered the weak Serbian defence forces. The Serbian army was composed of the local population. Although it was generally better armed than the enemy, our army suffered from the lack of supplies and was not sufficiently morally supported, so that it suffered considerable losses. In August 1992, in the counter-attack of the Muslim forces, around two hundred Serbian fighters were killed, many were captured and a large quantity of weapons, mortars and armoured vehicles were seized by the enemy.

One of the first operations that included the Cossacks, was the counter-attack in the fights that were raging around the Serbian town of Rudo. A prelude for this operation that included the fighters of the Second Russian Volunteers Squad, was the attack performed by the Muslims on the positions of the Serbian Rudo brigade, when they almost succeeded in taking over the city, after they attacked suddenly, killing around a dozen Serbian fighters and capturing several dozen of them. Many of the captured Serbs were literally collected from the road and piled on trucks. The enemy also managed to seize several ‘Praga’ rocket launchers, penetrating some twenty to twenty-five kilometres deep into the Serbian territory. The town was plunged into total chaos.

The Serbian headquarters had sent the intervention squads from the Višegrad Brigade, consisting of ten or so Serbs, around thirty Cossacks and the volunteers from the Second Russian Volunteers Squad. The main impact force were the Cossacks commanded by Alek-sandar Zagrebov. They had split into two groups. One group was progressing along the road, eliminating the obstacles from the road and the tunnels, under the protection of ar-moured vehicles and a three-barrel light gun. The crews in the armoured vehicles and the

118

three-barrel gun were also the Cossacks. The second group was progressing along mountain paths, towards the meeting point that was set at the last village that was within the Serbian line of defence. The Russian volunteers and their commanders were split so that one group was following the Cossacks, while the other group was with the mortars, securing artillery support for the striking group, composed of the Serbian Intervention Squads. The operation was running smoothly, except for the occasional attacks by the Muslim snipers.

The joint operation of the Serbian intervention squads commanded by Dražen Prenedija and the Russian volunteers and the Cossacks was a success and the enemy forces retreated in the direction of Goražde.

The Cossacks were frequently engaged in night missions, surveillance and commando operations in the enemy territory. During one of these missions, on their way back to the base camp, they met with a group of Muslim fighters. The Cossacks were faster to react and fired their guns at the Muslims.

By March 1993, the Muslims forces had been significantly pushed away from Višegrad, towards the villages of Orahovac and Džankići.

In March 1993, the third group of volunteers arrived, composed of the Cossacks from the Don river and the volunteers from Moscow and Ukraine. They soon took their positions at the most protruding points, the hills of Zaglavak and Stolac. Their plan was to use these positions as a starting point for the attack on Goražde, but the general attack was constantly delayed by the commanding staff. In addition to this, the position at Zaglavak was ill-placed and the three bunkers we had there were under a constant artillery and fire-arms attacks. While waiting for the order to start the attack on Goražde, we had to resist two very power-ful enemy attacks. During the first of these attacks, our defence at Zaglavak got surrounded by the enemy and we had three wounded soldiers – Oleg and two Serbian fighters. The second attack came a month later, and we suffered seven lost soldiers – one Russian and six Serbian guys. The Muslims, however, suffered major losses, with around one hundred killed and wounded men.*

* Excerpt from a book written by a Russian volunteer, published in Russia under the title ‘White Wolves’

119

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

32.

Winter was drawing near, our first winter in war. There was a lack of everything; destruction was everywhere, mixed with grief and sorrow. It was very cold, and the terrain where the fights took place were the wild grounds where packs of wolves roamed in severe winter conditions.

The captured Serbs had had to disclose to the Muslims the important information about the numbers of the soldiers and the police, the level of armament, layout of our defence lines, and many other aspects of the front line.

Towards the end of January 1993, the Muslims were on their way to attack Rudo again. Wishing to avoid the mine fields, they had set off in their trucks, using the regular roads, relying on the successful disguise – wearing uniforms with Serbian insignia.

When they reached the first check point, they presented themselves as the ‘army from Višegrad’. While they were diverting the attention of the crew, the Muslim terrorists sneaked out from the trailers, capturing the few old men who were the crew of the check point. Soon they extorted from them the information about the next check point and its crew.

They managed to get through and set off to seize a whole battery of artillery guns that was located in the village of Setihovo. When they got their in their trucks, all of our crew were sitting inside a shed, drinking brandy and keeping warm around the fire, without even setting guards to keep an eye on the surrounding area.

The Muslims soon surrounded them and called them out to surrender, which they all immediately did, with the exception of a guy named Radovan, who tried to resist. I do not know his surname, but I remember that he was either a professional soldier or a volunteer from Serbia. He was wounded by the Muslims, who took the captured crew and the weapons to Međeđa.

There was an emergency call:‘Hurry to Rudo! The town is surrendering, and the defence of Rudo is fleeing towards

Priboj!’ Half an hour later, we were already on the Road to Dobrun, continuing towards Bijelo

brdo, Uvac, Sjeverin and Rudo. When we reached Setihovo, a few kilometres before the town itself, we turned directly towards the artillery, where the Muslim army was securing the loading and dispatch of ammunition and weapons.

We engaged in a fiery combat. The Muslims soon realised that this time they were not dealing with the cowards from Rudo, and started retreating. We managed to take back Setihovo, although too late to prevent them from dispatching a larger part of the artillery projectiles to Međeđa.

120

We had known all along that the men from Rudo were ninety-nine percent cowards and deserters. But had it really been necessary to entrust them with a major line of communi-cation, an important artillery battery and a storage of weapons and ammunition? Any old woman, let alone a diligent soldier, could have seen what was going on there, and how the Muslims just walked to the position where our artillery was, and all of this happening after the horrible experience at Meremišlje.

Why had communists chosen Rudo in the Second World War to found their first Prole-tarian Brigade there? They had killed more Serbs than the ‘Hanjar’ divisions. The damned communist and Ustasha curse, the army of the Satan will not rest until they see the extinc-tion of the complete Serbian nation. It is their lords who keep changing their names, but they remain the same all the time. Fear is something that is common and understandable in a war, but those scumbags had kept plotting their sneaky betrayal for the sheer hatred towards Serbs and everything that is Serbian, because they had spat on their faith and their nation a long time before. The destiny of the Muslims was their destiny too. If it was true that they were just cowards, how had they found the courage to kill their commander Vučković, in front of the whole line of soldiers? He had been telling them about the attitude and dignity, and they had shot him in the back. Had they been paid to kill their commander and to betray the artillery post? Had they received promises of villas on Dedinje in Belgrade and titles of national heroes, for their treacherous murder of a Serbian officer and betrayal of the Serbian army?

I couldn’t help thinking about their crimes. They had fled from their lines and gone back to their homes. When Vučković had brought them together to scorn them, they had killed him. He had never ordered them to move forward, only to follow him. And then, when the time had come to confront Sejdić and his Muslim army, these chickens had run across the border to Priboj, just like Koča Popović and his First Proletarian Brigade had fled from He-zegovina in the Second War.

And all of this was true of the scumbags from the town. The fighters from Bijelo brdo were brave and honourable, and there were some fighters from Uvac who were valiant and courageous. The Muslims had captured forty men from Rudo and taken them to Međeđa, as if they’d been children from a kindergarten.

121

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

33.

This is what I was told about the event by others. The trucks were waiting by the railroad. The train was full of soldiers and police officers, ready to follow orders. The com-mander Milan Josipović had an open line with the Crises Headquarters and the Head of Police. Vucelja from the military security service, a teacher before the war, was also there. The train that was travelling from Belgrade to Bar entered Štrpce, the only station where the railroad went through Bosnia. They started to check the passengers’ IDs. One by one, around twenty Muslims were taken aside and out of the train. The train continued its journey, while the Muslims were loaded on trucks.

The reasons, the story and the characters were all the same as in the previous event with the Muslims from Sjeverin in the intercepted bus.

During the previous days, three negotiators from Rudo had visited Međeđa, offering merchandise and money for the release of the captured Serbs. The weapons and the ammu-nition had already been seized by the Muslims anyway.

The Muslims were now setting the conditions. They played their game, accepting the wares and the money, but also insisting that they get captured Muslims in exchange. The Serbian side did not have any Muslims to exchange, of course, so they left Višegrad to capture Muslims from the train. Then put them on trucks and took them to the school in Prelovo, where they were to wait for the exchange. However, the news of the intercepted train had travelled fast and it had travelled far and wide. The Muslims had obviously had their informers on the Serbian territory. All the attempts to present the captured passengers as ‘mujahideens’ from Muslim countries who were on their way to the holy war, were in vain. Their attempts to dress these people in uniforms also fell through, and all the media were talking about ‘peaceful passengers’ kidnapped by the ‘evil Serbs’. The Muslims and their headquarters in Međeđa did not want to discuss an exchange like this.

The captured Muslims were taken in the trucks to the same place on the Drina, and this is all I know. I could only repeat the stories that were told among the fighters and common people that they were executed by a handful of volunteers, who later died in fights. Whatev-er happened then, one thing is absolutely true: this whole plan could have been realized only by the Crises Headquarters and the police commanders. It would have been impossible for an individual soldier or a police officer, to perform an act like this, in any war in the world.

This is the truth that I owe to God, the people and my consciousness. The leading people in the Serbian war-time authorities, the head of police and the Crises

Headquarters, as well as all the people who were part of their entourage, were seen by our poor army and the common people as vermin.

122

I, on the other side, had my own life that was well-ordered and I had my future ahead of me. I was nobody’s political puppet. I only care for the truth, for the sake of my own sac-rifice, and for the sake of all the comrades who died in the war, the suffering of the people – all of the things that I have been brought up to hate as evil. For this reason, I have got to loath their misdeeds that harmed their own people more than anyone else. On my first night in Višegrad caught in the flames of war, I had already heard rumours about these people. At first, I dismissed them as gossip, something did not deserve my attention. But soon the evil-doing had become obvious and it kept multiplying. I soon realised and understood that the tokens for all of these misdeeds were human heads that kept rolling. What had it been like at the beginning? The Muslim politicians had taken control of the town and their armed gangs had been patrolling the streets. The local opposition had reacted by moving out of the town to Zaovine, on the border with Serbia, where they had established the Crises Committee for the people, following the old communist tradition. The people, however, were nowhere to be found. The people had been sent to the Muslim abattoir. Disorder, chaos, murders and conspiracy – these are the real opportunity for communists. The worse the things got, the better the situation was for them. Then they sent twelve Serbian police officers straight to the beast’s cage, knowing that this was a one-way trip. Then the shocking news: ‘Police officers captured by terrorists … unknown fate of the Serbs in Višegrad… Terrorists demolished the memorial of Ivo Andrić, Nobel-Prize winner… Explosive set on the famous Bridge on the Drina, world heritage structure… Hydro power-plant turned into a water-bomb more potent than an A-bomb, threatening to destroy villages and cities, as well as factories with poison-ous chemicals… ‘ the terrifying news never stopped coming up.

The bomb and the fuse were in the hands of Murat Šabanović, a horrible man with a horrible name. In reality, Murat was a silly puppet in the hands of the political masterminds, hidden behind the veil of the global television network, the lords of war and death, Alija Izetbegović and the Serbian Crises Headquarters.

The Užički Corps had to intervene, and the cowards who had fled the scene returned with it to regain control. When they saw him again, the Serbs who had stayed behind had wanted to chase them out, far away from the people they had betrayed and left behind. But the cowards had a reply they had prepared beforehand: ‘Here is the army to liberate you, we have brought it here.’

In the Višegrad region, the Muslims were outnumbering the Serbs by seventy to thirty percent, and the proportion of the Serbs in the town itself was even lower. The Užički Corps which undoubtedly followed the instructions from Belgrade had insisted that the town be ordered, with peace and normal life be re-established together with the local political institu-tions, including both sides and based on peaceful solutions.

It was so easy for the Crisis Committee to persuade them that a shared political power was not possible, because the Muslim politicians were at the same time leaders of extremists hiding in the woods. So they started their rule, with which the robbery of the century begun! Each man has his biography, as a testimony his own self.

The head of the Crisis Committee, Branimir Savović, was the man in charge of Podrinje and the foundation of the communist movement. A true son of his own father, who used to

123

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

be a persecutor and the torturer of anyone and anything that resembled the Serbian and Or-thodox traditions. As a second generation of the people whose only skills were the political tricks and alliance with authorities, he instinctively sensed that communism had become nothing more than a corpse rotting in ditches all over the world, so he swiftly moved to the Serbian Democratic Party. Making his appearance in a political meeting, he once said only one sentence: ‘I want to be free and feel the smell of incense again!’

So it must be true then that Serbs are the people with the shortest memory and the great-est capacity of forgiveness. For it would have been impossible for Branimir to feel the smell of incense in a communist family.

Dragan Gavrilović, head of the municipality authorities, was known for his walking pilgrimage to Tito’s grave. However, instead or really walking all the way from Višegrad to Belgrade, he had arranged for a car to pick him up and give him a lift there, as soon as he was out of sight. A fake walk to a fake grave – but for these people a lie is a sacred thing, as much as the truth is for normal people.

Miloš Marković was a true-grit, sworn communist. When Tito died, he was seen for days cruising Višegrad, stopping people in the street, with an expression of pain on his face, always initiating the same conversation:

‘What’s wrong, Miloš? ‘I do not know what to do… I am in pain, I want to pay homage to President Tito, I want

to walk to his grave, but I can’t…’ ‘What is the problem? You are young and strong… ?’‘I have got flat feet, you see…’So desperate Miloš was, that he declared he hated his feet, endlessly repeating his oath

to the dead man, showing his loyalty publicly to everyone he happened to meet in the street. The town jokers had started making jokes about it, while he tirelessly kept walking up and down the streets of the town, with a dark shadow over his face, eternally ‘in pain and mourn-ing’, never missing a chance to shed the odd tear over his handicap. Tito received more mourning and prayers from Miloš than Allah did from all the Muslim priests from Višegrad taken together.

Times had changed though, and Miloš had changed with them too. Nobody would dare to mention his former grief caused by his flat feet now. To tell the truth, most people would not recognise him now, so much had he changed. He was carrying a five-pointed star in one of his pockets, while at the same time he had a cockade in his other pocket. The only thing now was that his flat feed had prevented him from joining the fighters on the front line, where people were dying.

Through a skilful manoeuvre, the Višegrad branch of the Serbian Democratic Party had appointed Slobodan Klipa for the chairman. He was a Serb from Srpska Krajina, had a university degree and was a good sportsman and an honourable person. His wife was from Višegrad and he was liked by the local people, which made him a perfect candidate for manipulation by the local politicians. When they ran away from Višegrad, they had left him behind, forgetting about him. But even if had got slaughtered by the Muslim terror-ists, they would have benefited from it. All of them were chosen and supported by Ojdanić,

Milan Lukić

124

commander of the Užički Corps, a communist army general. Birds of the same feather… although it must be admitted that he had prevented an environmental disaster of an unprec-edented scale.

They didn’t waste their time, and made sure that their people were appointed as manag-ers everywhere they could do it. They also made sure that all the money – Dinars and foreign currency alike – was safely taken over the border, where it was kept in secure places known only to them.

Slavko Knežević, who had returned from Sweden as a rich man and a patriot. Born in Kočarin, he honestly wanted to help his people, following the ideals of his father, who was a famous patriot and a Chetnik. Knežević bought a load of Kalashnikovs and Hecklers, which was transported by a helicopter and distributed to the Serbian army. Having sold out fifty trailer trucks of his transportation company in Sweden, he was giving money away without taking receipts. The Crises Headquarters used him to exchange Dinars for the hard foreign currency, and he used the Dinars to procure uniforms and bullet-proof jackets for the Serbian soldiers and police officers. In spite of his huge business experience, it took him too long to see through their tricks and understand that they were communists in disguise, robbing their own people.

Slavko Knežević was unexpectedly and for no obvious reason murdered in the Palace Hotel in Belgrade, and there were rumours that the murder was ordered by Savović. While the war was raging, their business was flourishing.

They bought some new equipment for the power plant, in the value of one million Deutsch Marks. Before they did it, they sent the old equipment to Serbia, to be serviced there. This equipment was never returned to Višegrad.

They had control of the large stocks of military supplies, thousands of tons of coffee, salt, sugar, flour and cigarettes, as well as the huge reserves of oil and petrol, hundreds of tons in the tanks hidden under the Vardište hill – all of it was sold during the sanctions at four Deutsch Marks per litre, through a network of street sellers in Republika Srpska.

But the factories and companies were the main target. The textile factory Varda, as well as other factories such as Terpentin, Žito, Partizan, Unis, not to mention the power plant – all of these had their offices, shops, warehouses, flats and bank accounts in Serbia, all of which had disappeared, into thin air.

The wood company Šumarstvo was even richer, with its thousands of cubic meters of annual forest yield, and its huge stocks of timber and processed timber.

In addition to this, there were the communal and public enterprises, two petrol stations in the towns, the hotels and the restaurants…

The men who were chosen to organise and supervise the sale of these assets were Brani-mir Smiljanić who was a member of the Crisis Committee and Momčilo Mirković, who was a member of the Executive Council. The bosses were Branimir Savović and Risto Perišić.

At one point of their fight against the Muslim terrorists, they seized all of their mer-chandise in the town and in the surrounding villages. Masses of starving and thirst-ridden Muslims from Miloševići came to attack the warehouse at Greben, where the police had the orders to defend it.

125

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Lines of trucks were passing across the border, each with various bills of lading of the army provisions that were officially verified, although the goods listed in these documents never existed and never reached their destinations. The cost of these non-existent goods was duly paid to certain suppliers who remained unknown.

On the other side, black market dealers in Serbia were receiving looted tractors, trucks, vehicles, home appliances – there were rumours that the black market even had customers for ammunition and weapons. All the while, people were dying, the paupers were starving and suffering. Only the graveyards kept growing, and orphans and widows kept multiply-ing…

With my eyes glued to the Muslim territory, I never realised how short-sighted I was. For a long time I kept dismissing the rumours and the stories that were spun around,

knowing that doubting your own comrades can be much more dangerous than the enemy’s weapons.

And when I had had enough, my first open protest was not directed at our Serbian side, it was provoked by what they had done to the Muslims, our enemies who were killed and beaten at Garča, or the exchange convoys.

This was God’s will, I suppose. People were protesting silently, but anyone who dared to say something against them

openly would soon be sent to a war mission. I liked to say to them: ‘General Mladić has been enquiring about you!’ For the warmongers, Mladić and Crna Reka were the worst nightmare. It had happened once that Mladić had decided to get a situation clear, and had not

stopped until some thieves who were illegally cutting and selling wood had been arrested. He had brought them personally to the headquarters. He ordered that these were punished by receiving fifty punches with a stick over their

buttocks, and made to pay all the money gained in previous thefts into the account of Re-publika Srpska.

I was never afraid of being sent to a dangerous mission. I had been through scout mis-sions and intervention attacks that were worse than any revenge-thirsty enemy could have imagined. At least this was what I had thought back then.

Milan Lukić

126

34.

When their plans to punish me had fallen through, they decided to award me with gen-erosity. It was the beginning of March when I was summoned by the head of police Perišić, who told me that they needed someone to go to Belgrade, to take over uniforms from the ’29 November’ police station.

‘We want you to do this for us, you know the city and you can also use a few days off, to get some rest.’ He wrote out a permit valid for five days.

I had decided that, if I were to survive, I would go back to my fiancée Gabriela in Swit-zerland. I asked my girlfriend Mira to accompany me on my trip to Belgrade, knowing that she needed a break from the horrible hospital scenes of blood and pain, the wounded and the dead. We both needed to breathe in some air without the smell of gunpowder, to look around us and see the sky and the people in a city that wasn’t full of fear like our town was.

We arrived in Belgrade in the evening. In the morning, while Mira was still sleeping, I took a walk from Bežanijska Kosa to the city centre. I wanted to exchange some money and pay the bills for electricity, water and telephone.

It was the Eighth of March, a public holiday. It was a funny holiday invented and cel-ebrated by the communist women. Being in a good mood, I remembered how used to make fun of them, saying that on that day some crazy women were given the right to ride a train engine, instead of celebrating the Mother’s Day, the true celebration of the bliss of mother-hood and giving birth. When I passed through the Zeleni Venac underpass, I was stopped by a traffic warden.

‘You documents, please,’ he said and I presented my licence and the permit to leave the war zone of Višegrad. The next moment I noticed a car coming from behind, and I instantly recognised it as the car that I had seen that morning when I was coming out of my flat.

The traffic warden returned the documents to me, when two intervention police jeeps came out of the tunnel with their sirens on, blocking my way. Policemen with guns jumped out and surrounded my car.

‘Keep your hands in the air,’ they ordered and I instantly obeyed.‘Lukuć, do you have weapons on you?’ They asked.‘I do, and a proper licence issued by Belgrade Police,’ I replied. One of them approached me, snatching my gun and handcuffing me.They took me to the ’29 November’ police station, where I was taken to a prison cell,

following a strict procedure, without my belt and shoe laces. The cell was in the cellar. It had a concrete floor and only one bench, which was covered

in blood stains. Then, around midnight, three agents came to my cell and took me to another

127

prison. They took off my handcuffs and left me alone. When I took the bag off my head, I saw that I was in a room with a clean bed. It even had a shower.

It was not until the following evening that a police officer came in, dressed in a civilian suit. He brought with him a large plate with food – meat, bread, milk and juice. He left it there and left, without saying a word. In the morning, another one came, wearing civilian clothes as well. This time, he sat down to talk to me.

‘We were in your flat,’ he said. ‘We saw your girlfriend there, she is very beautiful, but she is crying. We found a few bullets when we searched the place. We know everything about you Lukić. You are a sportsman, a good fighter and an honourable man. We know that in the war your hands have stayed clean, and that you are not driven by money. This is all very nice, but we need your help, Lukić. Will you help us?’ He said.

‘I will, if I can,’ I said. ‘That’s good. Tell me, then, who arrested the Muslims in Severin – was it the place –

Severin? And who did it at the train in Štrpci?’ ‘I have no idea. You are asking the wrong guy. You should ask the head people about

it, Risto Perišić, Branimir Savović and Vinko Pandurović. They set me up for this arrest.’ ‘Listen, Lukić, we know that you weren’t involved, but we need you to tell us who

organised everything!’‘Man, I am a fighter – I was first a reserve policeman, and now a soldier. I am only a

small fish. What do I know about these things… kidnappings are none of my business, I wasn’t even assigned to whatever happened there. I don’t know anything about it and I don’t want to spread gossip about things I do not know.’

‘You are making us use the force,’ he said. ‘Listen, sir,’ I said, ‘If I should get beaten with my hands tied and innocent, then please

make sure they kill me, because when I get out of your prison, no matter how long it might take, I swear I am going to kill them, whatever the consequences!’

Six days went by, then the inspector came round again.‘If you agree, we will use the lie detector, to see if you have been telling the truth.’ ‘Let’s do it,’ I said.After more than half an hour of being questioned tied to the lie detector, they took me

back to my cell. Two days later, the inspector came again and said: ‘Lukić, you are innocent. Let me buy you a drink,’ he said, embracing me. The whole

this affair has been some kind of a game, and you have been the victim of the sneaky politi-cians from Višegrad. Take my advice – if you manage to get out of here, do not go back to war. Run away from here, run to Switzerland.’

The following day, I was told that I was on my way out. They put the bag over my head once again, and once again they took me to that appalling room in the cellar of the ’29 No-vember’ police station. They sat me right there on that bloody bench, and during the same night I was taken to the central prison in Bačvanska.

A small single cell of seven square metres, a squatting toilet and a mattress with jotting wires from the broken springs. One blanket, one bowl and one spoon. The cell is all blood-stained, and the walls covered in dirt, with hundreds of inscriptions, mostly names. The

Milan Lukić

128

stench was unbearable. There was no door, only the rails which let a lot of draught inside. It was very cold. In the morning I got some breakfast. I used the tea to wash the bowl. I threw away the marmalade, keeping the bread.

I could see through my rails at night how they brought in criminals and drug addicts. The drug addicts kept wailing, crying to get some drugs. They were beating them, the sound of their police batons was mixed with the cries of these poor people. This was happening night in, night out.

Then one night I saw one of the police chiefs coming through the corridor. I could see that he was dead drunk. They called him Šumski.

‘Where are you, my poor fellows, my wretched army?’ He was shouting. He was sing-ing a folk song, twisting the words to give them a pejorative meaning. He came straight to my cell.

‘Are you Lukić?’ He asked.‘Yes, I am.’ I answered.‘You are a true man, a fighter and a hero. You have been brought here innocent. Would

you like some coffee? Brandy, perhaps?’‘My brother,’ said I, ‘if you have some poison, I’d like to die like a man.’‘Not in this world, my countryman. We are countrymen, you know. I am from Grahovo.

I know it’s tough, but you have to stick it out. Strong men stick it out, the weak ones kill themselves.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. He went to his office, then returned with some coffee a few minutes later.‘Here is coffee for you,’ he said. ‘I swear it is not poison.’ It was this man who came drunk, probably disgusted with his fate, life and job, that gave

me the strength that I badly needed. It was him, more than all the others who were sober, soulless and cunning. And the coffee he gave me through the rails of my cell was the sweet-est coffee I ever had in my whole life.

The following day I was called out of my cell, I had visitors. They seated me in front of a glass panel. I was totally confused, looking at the telephone in front of me, not knowing what purpose it served. Then I got an explanation that I would be talking on the phone. On the other side, my sister, my brother-in-law, my mother, father and my brother came in the room. My sister first came to the glass. ‘How are you?’ She asked.

‘Tell the old folks that you are alright, we don’t want them to be worried. We have hired a lawyer, he says that you will soon be released.’

My father was composed, but my mother had burst into tears. When she came to the glass, she fainted. They poured some water on her, a guard ran towards her to help. They carried the mother out, and the visit was finished.

All that night while I was listening to the same cries and shouts, I kept thinking if my mother was alive. I was pacing up and down the tiny cell, like a caged animal. I was thinking how to kill myself. The following day I was writing a request to the Commander Radoman: ‘I do not want to receive visits behind the glass pane.’

They took me to his office. ‘I am innocent… I am not a criminal’.

129

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘It is alright, your mother is alright, we will allow normal visits.’‘Please do not let my mother in. She may die,’ I said. Then, around noon, my sister and my brother-in-law came to see me, bringing some

food and clean clothes. A month later I was released from the prison and went to the flat. It was a Saturday, and

I had decided to go to Switzerland as soon as possible. My documents, however, were still at the ’29 November’ police station. I went there

with my brother Novica to collect my documents. We were asked to wait in the hall. There was a strange activity going on, and the police officers kept coming in and out of the offices. It was taking too long, and I said to Novica: ‘They are going to arrest me again. You wait here, and I am going out, just in case.’

Eventually, they told Novica that everything was alright and that I should come there the following day, to collect my documents. When I went there the next day, I was with my girlfriend. They arrested me again.

Back in the same cellar cell, and then once again the transfer to the Central Prison, to the same cell again. I was holding the cold metal bars with my both hands, trying to sort out my thoughts. The officer on duty appeared. I knew him, he was Osman Karač from Olovo, whose wife was a Serbian from Obrenovac. He was one of the worst torturers of the poor junkies. He came to the bars. ‘So here we go again,’ he said, laughing.

‘Fuck you,’ I said.‘C’mon, we’re countrymen, don’t take it to the heart – I was only joking.’‘I was only joking, too,’ said I. He offered to bring me some coffee and a newspaper, to make amends.I started reading the books and the newspapers. I wasn’t allowed to shave, and my beard

was giving me a terrible itch. Then I read in the newspaper: ‘Arrest of Vuk Drašković and his Wife Danica!’.

That night they brought Vuk in. There were ten policemen who were dragging him down the corridor. He was shouting, curved in pain. They had beaten him badly and his clothes were all torn. There were no buttons left on his shirt, and his face was covered with bruises and cuts. It resembled the scene of Draža Mihailović’s arrest, as I envisaged it.

They threw him in the cell next to mine, shouting angrily at him to lie there still. Then they banged the door and were left.

He called the commander on duty. Osman came to the cell.‘Why are you shouting?’ He shouted at him.Please give me a piece of bread. I haven’t eaten for three days, I am starving,’ he said. ‘The dinner is off,’ Osman said condescendingly. ‘Wait,’ said I. ‘I have some food, give it to him.’ I passed on a plastic bag with a sand-

wich and some cherries that have left after my last visit. ‘Thank you, young man,’ said Vuk. It was Šumski’s day on duty in the morning and I asked him to pass the newspaper to Vuk. ‘There, Vuk, take this, but please hide it somewhere. If they find it, I will lose my job,’

he said.

Milan Lukić

130

Then Šumski was out of sight and Vuk called me: ‘Please, find out what has happened with my wife Dana, did the communists beat her?’I shouted from the top of my lungs: ‘C’mon guys, come one brave ones, sing with me!’Then I started signing: ‘Hey you Chetnicks from Ravna Gora, tighten your lines,If you need more soldiers, Vuk will give you the chosen ones… ‘ Voices from some fifteen cells joined in, and the prison echoed with our song. ‘Who are you, young man, please tell me,’ said Vuk. ‘Vuk my brother, do not be afraid. I am Milan Lukić from Višegrad,’ I replied.‘My brother Lukić, May God’s help be with you. Thank you… the communists of Mira

Marković and Slobodan Milošević had beaten me badly. Can you find out anything about Dana?’

‘I will, don’t worry.’ In the evening, I asked the commander to assign me to distribute the dinner. I found

Dana in a single cell. ‘Sister, Vuk is asking about you. How are you? Did the communist trash beat you, those scumbags? Do you need anything?’

‘Thank you, say Vuk I am alright, tell him that he must endure.’ I pushed the trolley with the dinner to Vuk’s cell. ‘Vuk, my brother, Dana is opposite

your cell, she says she is alright and tells you to stick it out.’ ‘My brother Lukić, how can anyone be alright here?’ He said. ‘Vuk, just say what you need and you will get it. And do not be afraid, you will be out

of here very soon, I can assure you.’ ‘My brother Lukić, I have fears I will never get out of here.’I received the newspaper, with the reports that there were big protests, demanding that

Dana and Vuk be released. Micotakis, Sharon and many other politicians were demanding their release as well. I shouted through the bars:

‘Vuk, my brother, you are going home!’‘Nothing doing,’ said he. ‘I am telling you, consider it done! Half the world is with you.’‘My dear Lukić, I am sure that you will be out of here sooner than me. Do you want to

bet on it?’ ‘Alright, when we meet as free men, we can have a glass of whisky,’ I said.‘If they released me, I would get all the lawyers to take care of you.’‘Vuk, if you do as much as just mention my name when you get out, I am a dead man.

They’ll never let me go free from here.’ A few days later, Danica and Vuk were being transported to a hospital. He came to my

cell and we shook hands through the bars. Vuk was out, I was still inside! Then, one day fifteen months later, they came to take me.

‘You are going to a trial.’ ‘What trial?’ I asked. They took me to a judge for extradition.

131

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘We propose that you be extradited to Republika Srpska. Do you agree to this proposal?’‘The sooner, the better, even if I am to die as soon as I arrive there,’ I replied. A month later, the official decision arrived and I was transported in a police van, all the

way to the Rača border crossing, where I was taken over by the police of Republika Srpska. I spent that night in the Beljina prison, then was taken to the prison in the Serbian Sarajevo. I spent twenty more days in the room for detention, with a number of other prisoners, and then I was released.

I went to Višegrad, to my parents. Nobody knew I was back home. The journalists kept enquiring, without success. In the isolation regime in prison, I was not allowed to take walks, so I had put on some fifteen kilograms. I hadn’t been allowed to shave, so my overall look was in my own opinion too robust, and I decided to avoid public appearances. I spent one month recovering from the dark conspiracies, arrests, the nightmares of the prison. The Višegrad authorities kept spreading rumours that I was staying somewhere in a four-star hotel. The truth was different: in reality, I had sued the state of Serbia for illegal arrest and won the case, receiving the compensation!

Milan Lukić

132

35.

The situation on the front line hadn’t changed. The Muslim terrorists had attacked Rujište, targeting the commander of the village defence, my namesake and my uncle, Milan Lukić. The old fighter had put up a brave fight for more than two hours and managed to defend himself. However, he was hit in the leg and the artery was damaged. The help came when it was too late. He had bled to death.

Physically, I was back to my normal measures, but mentally I was far from my former self. A youth shattered by the war, wishes covered by the black clouds of the war, the evil and the prison. Dreams taken away by the dead waters of the Drina…

Only the earth was still there, with the graves of all my former comrades. Intact and quiet villages, submerged in the dream of eternity, encircled by crosses.

This was the land where my parents lived, this was the land that held my woods, fields and mountain springs, my Rujište, Višegrad and the Drina. Everything we had been dying for. I got married in the following year, 1995. My wife was a dentist, a pure soul from a respected family. Switzerland and Gabi remained intact, a beautiful dream cut short by the war. Love and engagement had remained flickering lights of youthful delight. The marriage had brought seriousness, a desire to build my own home, to have many children of my own. A repeated cycle of my father’s destiny, the destiny of the Serbs.

The local authorities had somehow shyly given me a flat to live in and a licence to run a café, a safety net for a quiet and reserved life.

From time to time, I would sit with my former comrades and we would revive our scout-ing missions, our skirmishes and attacks. We weren’t the only one who talked about these days and events – we would often hear other people mention them with respect, and even children would use these stories in their war games.

These happenings had taken on special colours by the passage of time, in the same way the woods in my village change under the hot summer sun. I heard these new stories, but did not want to comment on them. I would often think that I was probably isolated in my remembrance of all the details, the ugly ones as well. It seemed that I was the only one who really wanted to forget all of them.

My ordinary life and a long leave from duty were suddenly interrupted by the military police: on the twenty-fifth of July, I was summoned to the commanding staff. This time, we were about to move our forces towards Žepa. A lot of soldiers and police officers had gath-ered at the place called Bokšanica.

General Mladić came and made a short speech. Then he added, emphasising every word: ‘Now my brave soldiers, I want to make something clear: If any of their civilians or a soldier

133

who is captured, has surrendered or is wounded – if any one of them gets as much as touched by any one of you in an improper way, you will be shot for that. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, we do!’ There was a general uproar of approval. Our campaign was a serious one and we took control of Žepa, the terrible stronghold of

the Muslim fanatics. If this had been done by the Užički Corps three years before, many a mother would have saved her tears.

I spent seven days as part of security team, making sure that the Muslim civilians were evacuated safely. Men, women and children were placed on buses in the centre of Žepa and taken to Kladanj. I escorted each transport for one part of the route and then went back to the starting point.

I was present when the Muslim commanders Štitković and Palić were taken away. The head of police, Dragomir Andan, was in charge of a special escort crew. That was the first time I had seen this man, and I remembered his name, because General Mladić stood be-fore him, with his hands on his hips, saying to him: ‘Listen, Dragomir Andan, if these two are harmed in any way, I will hold you responsible and your own head is at stake. Do you understand?’

He was shaking when he said: ‘Yes, I do.’ He took Štitković to Sarajevo, and he was exchanged for our men. As for Palić, I got

reliable information later on that he was returned to Rogatica, his birth-place. After some time spent in his flat, he was returned to Žepa.

All of the local citizens were evacuated, and Žepa was completely empty. Palić had to show to Andan the places where they had buried the money owned by the Muslim Staff, received from various Muslim countries. Dragomir Andan took the money, and Palić soon disappeared in some ditch. When Andan later became the head of the police in Republika Srpska, he could not hide this ‘incident’, but he took good care to change the story, so that the new version had it that Palić was taken back to Žepa, where a certain guy called Pećanac killed him… He never bothered to explain how this Pećanac ever accessed the prisoner and why was he returned to Žepa in the first place. These gaps in his invented story were never filled.

Milan Lukić

134

36.

The lords of the war had ended their game with the Dayton Agreement, leaving every-body to carry their own crosses in the new life. Mothers were flocking like crows around the crosses on the young graves, the widows were suffering silently, with their eyes washed out with too many tears and too much sorrow, watching their war orphans, barefoot and ragged, thinking how to feed them… The crippled ones were getting used to working using one arm, using their crippled limbs. Life went on, and the daily worries were pressing hard. People had to find food somewhere, they had to find something to wear. The army kitchens were now a thing of the past, the cripples were limping around on their crutches, queuing up to apply for a prosthetic leg. People who were well-off in the pre-war days, were now getting used to poverty.

People felt defeated, the houses burnt down, the land neglected… All of the suffering and the pain of the common people were nothing in comparison with the fear of the war profiteers. The war authorities, the newly-made millionaires were dying with trepidation. One could feel the earth shaking under them, so big their fear was. All of the capital and the assets of the once-prosperous industry and economy of Višegrad had been grabbed, taken away, robbed by them. What were they to do not? How to hide and preserve all of the looted wealth in the new and naked poverty that was everywhere around? For them, the war was better. They felt safer then. And it did not take long to us, ordinary people, to understand that we were not living in freedom, but in the conditions of prolonged occupation, like our forefathers did in the former Austria-Hungary. We were persecuted, continually and system-atically, however funny it may appear, we were constantly on our knees. They were breaking the sharpness of our will, they were killing our pride, until it was worse than being killed by a bullet.

Soon they had set up the Hague Court for War Crimes, saying that it was necessary to make peace among the people. Every Serbian town or village had a war criminal to turn in, depending on the severity of the clashes in the region. The propaganda kept spreading ru-mours about certain secret lists of ‘war criminals’, and these lists kept being expanded and shortened all the time, without ever being seen by anyone. Soldiers of SFOR would storm through the town and its surrounding in their armoured vehicles, showing the dark barrels of their guns to the people. As in the movies about the defeated South in the American Civil War, the Serbian regions started receiving some strange visitors of various sorts, dubious investigators, agents, professional hitmen. They never reported to anyone, nor did they ever make contact with the locals. Nobody knew who they were and why they were. Scavengers preying on an easy opportunity.

135

Former fighters, disabled persons, widows, orphans and old people were cramped in sheds, rooms with unplastered walls, some of which were so small that they would have probably been better off sleeping in a Gypsy tent, under the trees outside. In order to survive, some of them had to rent their houses to the scumbags of the world, who came loaded and were paying up to two thousand Deutsch Marks for a house or a flat.

Renting space, however, soon turned out to be a dangerous trade. Explosive devices started to appear under these houses at night, hand grenades started to fall. The local police had not yet allied with the strangers, or perhaps they were busy establishing a monopoly on the rental business. Nobody could rent out a house before it was approved by Brano Savović and his men.

The former fighters had not lost their courage, but they seemed to be confused. During the war, it was shoot-and-fight, but now things were different. The enemy was extremely cunning, the weapons that they used was a complete mystery and they had the support of the foreign power, as well as our authorities who desperately tried to please them. I was invited to a meeting of warriors, to our newly-founded Organisation of Warriors, with me elected as its first president. It was past midnight when the wife of my god-brother Mitar Vasiljević called me, all in tears, Mitar had been drinking, and had beaten her, throwing her and their daughter and son out of the house.

Two days alter, Mitar came to my café, quite drunk again, all sweaty and red in the face. ‘A plum for me, god-brother,’ he shouted from the door.

‘My god-brother, as far as I am concerned, you can have a whole plum orchard! But for heaven’s sake, god-brother, you have sworn never to taste brandy again! You sworn in your children!’

‘I have problems,’ said he. ‘What problems, my god-brother?’ I asked, thinking that he had heard some bad news.‘These strangers,’ he said, ‘they want to hire my house. They are offering a lot of money,

they don’t ask for the price.’ He looked straight in my eyes. ‘It’s my daughter, my god-brother, she wants to go to university, and there is nowhere else I can find money for it, my god-brother,’ he said as if apologising.

‘So it’s good news, go and speak with your family at home,’ said I. ‘Really good news, my god-brother,’ he said sorrowfully, shaking his head. ‘It was you

who helped me to finish its construction. I haven’t slept in it yet, I haven’t brought in the priest to bless it, my god-brother, curse them… Give me some poison.’

I poured a glass and he drank it up. ‘But if you make a mess again, I am not speaking to you any more,’ said I. ‘I won’t don’t you worry about it, I just don’t want those police criminals of Savović to

plant explosives… ‘‘And who brought them to you,’ I asked about the strangers.It was that drunken Dragan and Sloba’s wife. She works at the border… you know, god-

brother, they are looking for a furnished place… ‘I called the Varda shop and asked if they had any furniture to be paid over a credit period

of three months.

Milan Lukić

136

‘Whatever you want,’ they said. ‘What do you need?’ ‘I’ll send my god-brother Mitar Vasiljević, he needs furniture,’ I explained.‘Don’t send him please – he’ll sell it to buy drinks.’ ‘I guarantee for him,’ I said, and the manager agreed. In three hours, Mitar’s house was

fully furnished with brand new furniture. When I met Mitar a few days later, he was gleaming with happiness.‘The strangers have moved in, my god-brother. I am now going to Europe, you see?’‘You’d better go to Russia, my god-brother. Your drinking habits are more Russian-

like,’ I said jokingly. Then two weeks after that, I met my god-sister, Mitar’s wife Ljubinka. She was in a very

good mood.‘How are you getting on with the visitors?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t be better, my god-brother,’ she replied. ‘I cook, make some pies and cakes,

they buy cheese and cream from us. The other day we brought a lamb from the village and made a roast, you should have seen how happy they were,’ she said.

‘Nice to hear that,’ said I looking down towards the ground. ‘It is nice, indeed,’ she went on. ‘To be honest with you we have become very close, as

if we were the same family. They even took me to my village Podzečići in their car, I had to take the four and some provisions to my father and mother. A neighbour up there was pestering my father about something, and told him to give it up, or I would report him to my friends. They make some parties, you know, girls are coming… they are paying them, tough, my god-brother.’ I turned around, not wishing to hear her descriptions of the parties that were going on there and how influential they were.

Miroslav Kojić from the state security police came to my café one day and told me: ‘Tell your god-brother, if his new friends do not stop what they have been doing, the whole damned whorehouse will be blasted!’

We had regular meetings with former fighters, and I supported their cause, although I had transferred the duties connected to the Organisation of Warriors to Dragan Perendija. He was an honourable fighter, and a lawyer by profession, so he was the right person for our cause of securing the benefits for the former warriors – the disability allowances, costs of medical treatments, prosthetic aids, allowances for the orphans.

‘If SFOR should try to arrest Savović, will you defend him with your arms?’ Asked a man of confidence, sent by Savović.

‘We will, as soon as they have returned to the people everything they had looted, and as soon as they have taken arms themselves; then we will join forces, to defend every Serb around,’ I replied.

Then there was a collision among the leading Serbian people, with Karadžić going to one side, and Biljana Plavšić and Dodik going to another side. An ideal opportunity for the cunning profiteers to spread rumours and divide the people. The time of warriors had ended, while the time of cunning thieves was at its peak.

The former fighters in the town decided to go to Biljana Plavšić, and we arranged a meeting with her, through the president of her party in Višegrad.

137

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘It is an occupation, President. They are after our people, and the warriors have been asking what we should do,’ I told her.

‘Be careful and avoid traps. If you sense anything suspicious, run to the forest. You know for sure how our Chetniks used to hide from the communists,’ she said. For half an hour she listened patiently about the situation in Višegrad. She was aggrieved and desper-ate. When I returned to Višegrad, my former comrades came to hear the news, If I had left them worried, they were now desperate. There were rumours in the town that the occupying forces will arrest everyone who took part in the war, taking them to the Hague.

The local politicians were eternally absent ‘on business’ they had to attend in Serbia. I could feel danger, owing to my sixth sense that I had acquired during the war. I could feel they were up to something. We had filled the reserves of ammunition, and went around car-rying hand grenades. We would spend up to three weeks in the wood, and I had moved my wife and my child to her parents, where I was visiting them secretively.

Although I was officially living on the main street, in a flat on the third floor, I was spending the nights in secret places, together with my comrades. We were five in a group, fully armed and with organised guards.

I had blocked the corridor and the balcony of my flat, as well as the entrance door and the doors to individual rooms. In my bedroom, there was a large machine gun complete with ammunition, with a basket full of hand grenades next to it. In addition to this, I had a Kalashnikov, a Heckler, a Colt and another revolver and a lot of ammunition.

I had received the information that I was going to be attacked by the Muslims from Aida and our local scumbags, and I wanted to welcome my guests in the good tradition of Serbian hospitality.

I kept changing my nightly location every week and was growing tired due to a chronic lack of sleep. I wasn’t sleeping during the night, and slept very little during the day.

I had reliable information that our traitors had a deal with professional hitmen. At that time, Branimir Savović had piled up millions of Deutsch Marks in cash, he had dozens of flats and houses in Serbia, hotels in the mountains and cities, petrol stations and villas. He is even richer today, with his construction company building blocks of flats around Serbia. He has dozens of flats in Čačak, and a company producing food products. He has made sue to create strong friendships and connections. One of his daughters is a student in the United States, and the other one is studying in Belgrade. She is there, close to her parents, to take care of the business. Born to a Serbian father and a Croat mother, he is a true representative of the renewed Communist International…

The head of police, Risto Perišić enjoys driving SUVs, Mercedeses and Audis. Brane Smiljanić called Žika, Momčilo Mirković, Slaviša Mišković and the others are all at the second level of wealth. These scumbags and rotten idlers had bribed the prosecution at the Hague, paying a million Deutsch Marks each, and they were declared innocent, as if they had been ordinary soldiers during the war, receiving orders from us, the commanders. But the quota of the ‘war criminals’ had to be fulfilled, and for the start they had marked Milan Lukić, Sredoje Lukić, even Mitar Vasiljević, whom they wanted to separate from his mighty woman, I suppose.

Milan Lukić

138

37.

I had spent months living like that, not going out for weeks. One night, when I was with five of my comrades in my flat, I could feel that something was wrong. My animal instincts told me that there was something in the air.

It was eleven o’clock that night, when the phone rang and I heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. It was the wife of my notorious enemy from the town.

‘What are you doing tonight? She asked. ‘Where is your wife?’ ‘I am alone,’ I said. ‘My wife’s at her parents’ house.’‘I am alone, too,’ she said. ‘Come to my place for a cup of coffee, but do hurry up. There

is something important I want you to know.’ ‘Where is your husband?’ I asked.‘He’s gone to Serbia, on business…, ‘ she said. It was strange, because never before had we exchanged any words. ‘A trap,’ I thought. I immediately sent out one of the guys to check her street for any surplus vehicles or any

signs of a set-up. He soon called back, saying that nothing suspicious could be seen. I went there, avoiding the main routes. I found the door slightly open, and she was waiting for me in the semi-darkness of her room, dressed in a night gown. I said hello and stood at some distance away from her.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘come inside.’ Her voice was soft. ‘I am alright,’ I said. ‘What was the important thing you wanted to tell me?’ ‘I am afraid, Milan, my husband will find out I told you about it,’ she said. ‘I am not that crazy to tell him I spoke to you. Go on, tell me.’‘You know, you are dear to me… it has been like that for some time now, but of curse

– how would you know? You have suffered for these people, it’s a shame, but you have to get out of here, quickly.’

I could feel worry, fear and love in her large eyes and soft voice. ‘Why should I get out of here?’ I asked. ‘They want to… kill you. I heard them talking about it last night.’ ‘Here?’ I asked. ‘Right here,’ she said, and I followed her inside. She turned towards me and started to claw her fingers over my jacket, as if removing an

invisible crust of dirt from it. ‘Who was it. Who wants to do it?’ ‘Our scum, and the Muslims from Aida. I am disgusted by these scumbags. That is why

they all took a leave, going to Serbia on business, to wash their bloody hands… I am telling you the truth, my boy.’

139

‘I know you are, how could you otherwise know about the Muslims from Aida?’ Saying this, I leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek, but she readily opened her lips. The fol-lowing day I spoke to my friend in Belgrade, asking him to find me a hiding place there. I trusted my comrades, they would all have died for me, but it was better for them not to know my real intentions. I told them that they had no further obligations regarding me, and that I was going to a new hideout near Rogatica and Sokoc. Having received a confirmation from Belgrade, I left Višegrad before midnight.

I was walking along narrow mountain paths through the night and the wilderness. I could here the sound of the dark waters of the Drina, as I was trying to use my scout skills and senses, to detect any potential danger that might be hidden in the darkness.

After surviving five cowardly and cunning attempts of assassination, after spending three years in hiding and three more years in the war, the scouting missions with the Serbs and the Cossacks, intrusions in the enemy territory and their positions at Župa, Drinsko, Počivala, Sjemić and Kopito, Žepa and Međeđa, after so many days and nights of constant struggle and after all the hard battles that I had fought and the aid missions at Treskavica, Olovo and Kladanj… I was now a fugitive from the land of my forefathers, land bought with the heads and blood of my predecessors, and I was running away, like a thief from a chicken run.

It was hard, much harder then when I had been walking over a mine field. There I was, crawling across the border of two Serbian states. From one Serbia to the other Serbia, from the Serbia where I was chased by my persecutors, to the other Serbia, where ambushes had been laid for me. Where was I to find a place under the sky, for my two mortal feet? Only the sky was limitless and peaceful. A star was born in the sky. Our people have a saying: ‘A captive has escaped!’

Milan Lukić

140

38.

A car was waiting for me when I passed Mokra Gora, and on our way to Belgrade we were stopped and searched three times. My documents did not bear my name any longer. Finally, I was in the rented apartment where I was to hide from the persecutors. I stayed inside for days, and I could feel I was going insane. At night, I would go out to the balcony, careful not to be seen. On moonlit nights, I was watching the white track of the Danube, Avala and the lights of the distant parts of the city. My freedom was the freedom the breathe the air under the sky, nothing more. I spent the days walking around the flat, like a beast in a cage, and I was becoming fearful of being captured, in the same way I feared being captured during the war. I was waiting for my day to come, feeling betrayed that I had lasted so long, such a long time after my comrades – my dear brothers – had found their peace in death. My friend informed me that back there in Višegrad, my enemies had raised the alarm, turning the whole place upside down, searching for me. They were fully aware by now that I had left the town, and their servile puppets were spreading rumours that I was in Serbia, spying for the Americans. The irony of it was that they were inventing these stories while they were sitting with their fellow-traitors, the visiting spies and assassins.

Of course they did not know for sure I was in Serbia, but they wanted desperately to distort my image of the real Serbian hero, a warrior that the people were proud of. Their strategy was to discredit the worthy ones, hoping that they might get some information from the ordinary people, to prepare a living corpse for assassination and locate the target for their death squad.

I had spent a year in hiding, saved by the divine mercy. My wife and my child were in an impossible position. The money was drying out, and I could not leave my hideout.

I went to see Milorad Majkić, who was a patriot with a stone-like faith. He certainly was not a man who would exploit the word ‘mercy’, especially in an era when this traditional Serbian value seems to have been lost, but he was sure to help – for life and for funerals alike. He had helped many homes that had lost their providers, he had fed and dressed many orphans. He always did it quietly, as if ashamed of helping the others, but God sees and remembers everything.

‘How are you coping?’ He asked me. ‘Anyway I have to,’ I replied. I would have rather starved to death, than I would have asked for help. It is better to give

up one’s life. Without pride, a man is not a man. We sat for a while talking about the war, the people who had died in it, and other things. Then I said I had to go. We shook hands, and he gave me an envelope.

141

‘Here is something for you, in case you need it,’ he said. I made a gesture with my arm, rejecting the envelope, but he took me by the arm and

determinedly slipped the envelope inside my pocket. When I came to my flat, I opened the envelope and found ten thousand Deutsch Marks

inside. Through the agency of one of my friends, I started dealing in flats. I was sitting in

my flat, reading the classified advertisements and finding opportunities to make favourable transactions. I went around different venues in disguise, mediating between the sellers and the buyers. I didn’t dare move around on my feet and sometimes these outings did not bring any income for me, but sometimes the income was quite handsome. Soon I had gained a lot of experience, and started making very good deals and a lot of money. I wanted to return the money I borrowed from Milorad Majkić, but he did not accept it. Instead, he suggested that I should invest all of that money and all of my savings into a business, some gambling machines. I had my doubts about it, I never liked gambling. I was a religious person, and in the difficult times my faith had grown stronger. I was hiding, but I was regularly visiting churches and monasteries.

There was a new war, this time on Kosovo and Metohija. The rebelling Shqiptars want-ed a state of their own. They were killing Serbs in the villages, and performing commando attacks in cities. They were setting ambushes, killing policemen and soldiers, and the global piece-keepers had already started accusing Serbia of using too much force. At the same time, the Shqiptar terrorists had formed a front line, complete with trenches. Vast quantities of weapons were brought in through Albania. This was the scenario I ahd seen before.

‘Serbian Army must leave Serbia!’ The world murderers who keep calling themselves the world community, did not even bother to invent a new trick. I recognise the ‘interna-tional humanitarian organisations’ at work, their tricks and lies, the disgusting deceits of their media.

Now, however, they have a new army here in Belgrade, an army we fortunately had not known in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This army are various non-governmental organisations for the protection of human rights, with their ‘cells’, ‘sections’, ‘centres’, ‘women in black’ whose head was a man…

Confusion in the heart and the mind of the Serbian people, unprecedented in our history until the arrival of the communist murderers. These too, they were saying, were raising a revolution. Looking at their biographies, I could easily see true communist profiles, thirsty for Serbian blood. But I had to run away from the authorities. I couldn’t be sure if it was for real or I was just too tired of too much fighting and hiding, but I had a strong feeling of being followed. I withdrew into a hiding, like I had done when I first arrived from Višegrad.

At that time, rumours were spread that I was somewhere with Ljubiša Savić, called Mauzer, in pursuit of Radovan Karadžić, whom we allegedly wanted to turn in to the court in the Hague. Perišić and Savović were also spreading lies about my intentions to kill Savović, while they were preparing my assassination.

The truth was that I met Savić through my god-brother Niko Vujačić, after the brother of Milenko Jevđević was accused of plotting the assassination of Ljubiša Savić, because

Milan Lukić

142

of Savić’s political ideas. Milenko Jevđević was an officer of the Republika Srpska army, and I knew him as an honourable man, so I guaranteed for his brother to be released from detention. I guaranteed with my own life, and Savić released the man who was suspected of planning to murder him. Later, it turned out that I was probably wrong to have done this, because the released man was not like his brother, who was a true and honourable officer. To the contrary, this man went on to appear as a witness in the Hague against all the Serbian fighters.

From my point of view, there was nothing bad I could say about Ljubiša Savić, having seen him only twice in my life. However, his political opponents had made sure that he was discredited as an American spy, before spreading a new rumour that he and I were chasing Radovan Karadžić, determined to arrest him. After the changes in the police top positions, Ljubiša Savić was assassinated.

The NATO bombing of Serbia had begun, we were under the wings of the ‘Angel of Mercy’ of the non-believers. Their missiles were targeting bridges, railroads, trains full of innocent people, power plants… Belgrade was trembling with explosions, like during the Second Word War. Instead of the Nazi ‘Stukas’, the sky is lit by their satelite, a beacon light for the deadly ‘tomahawks’ and the ‘invisible’ projecitles. When the alarm sirens were on, I wuld go out in the street. I was taking my walks amid the roaring sirens and falling bombs. The bombing of Blegrade was a period of freedom for me. For over two months, I was pray-ing to God that I be blown together with the city I loved the most.

143

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

39.

This time, it was the Kumanovo Agreement, rather than the Dayton Agreement. Before putting his signatures on these documents, Milošević was ‘the butcher of the Balkans’ each time, and each time after signing them, he instantly became ‘the man of peace and stabil-ity’. After the Kumanovo Agreement, he signed the collaboration with the Tribunal at the Hague. Soon he was signing everything they placed on the table before him. He was trying to prove himself collaborative, persecuting us, the people who had fought for the general cause. There was no end to the perverted loyalty and betrayal.

I was spending more time in my hiding than ever before. Once again, I was forced to start dealing in real estate. There was nothing else for me to do. One day, I rang at the door of a flat that was offered for sale. I had already obtained a buyer, and the transaction was a firm one. I was with a woman from the agency, who was a refugee from Srpska Krajina. I myself had a refugee ID card.

The door was opened by a woman who was the owner of the flat. The price was reason-able, and the flat was a nice one.

‘Do sit down, please. I’ll make some coffee,’ she said. ‘My husband will be here in a moment. I was restless, but had no other option except to sit and wait.

‘You look familiar to me,’ she said, looking at me. ‘I have come here from Croatia,’ I managed to say. ‘We are from Sarajevo, we have sold everything there, and bought this flat here. Now

we have sorted out our documents and are moving to Canada.’‘We all keep moving, all the time,’ I said, filling in a gap in the conversation.‘We all keep running away,’ she said bitterly. ‘We moved from Sarajevo to Pale, then to

Rogatica and Višegrad.’ She sighed, and I could feel the ground collapsing under my feet. There was no refugee

in Višegrad who wasn’t coming to my café. They all knew that my café was a place where they could get a free drink, and be helped in this way or another.

Then he husband was there. He greeted my colleague politely, then, turning towards me, he stopped for a moment, before his face tuned into a smile:

‘It’s you, my brother Lukić, how are you?’ Before I could say anything, we were shaking hands and greeting each other cordially.

My colleague was confused, and I knew that I would have to run once again. My colleague knew where I lived, so I had to be out of there as soon as possible. But the following morn-ing, I received a phone call from my colleague, asking that we meet in a café. When we met, she said: ‘I was looking at you last night, you look good in the uniform and the fur hat.’

144

‘What uniform?’ I pretended I did not understand. ‘Listen, I swear on my own life, if my daughter weren’t married, I would choose you for

my son-in-law,’ she said. ‘You are a hero. The Ustasha killed my whole family, and I had to run leaving everything behind.

‘It is all lies, what the scumbags say about me…’‘You don’t have to explain that to me, I know it all,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, you can

sleep in my place, it is well-hidden, a small house at the foot of Avala, and I also have a small room in the city centre. You just keep sending coupons, and I will be selling the flats. We’ll split the earnings, that’s all.’

And this was how we did it for the next few months. The woman was a true heroine. In the meantime, the B92 TV channel had my face on all the time, reading the APB for

the criminal actions: ‘Interception of a train… kidnapping of peaceful passengers… brutally murdered… the way they were reading it, was like hearing a verdict. Of course, in a number of programmes dealing with the in-depth analyses, their verdict automatically became an-other proof of the alleged Serbian crimes, leading to an overall conclusion that Serbs were naturally born criminals…

One morning I woke up with a strong pain in my kidneys. The pain was enormous, paralysing, and I had no choice but to go to hospital. On my way to the Voždovac hospital, I was stopped by the police at Autokomanda. They were checking and taking away vehicles with Bosnian plates. I was soon escorted by two police vehicles to the police station at Ljer-montova, where I had to wait for the chief to return from the break. I heard that the police officers were speaking in the Bosnian dialect, so I joined in the conversation. ‘I am taking the sample to the laboratory, it’s for my child,’ I said, showing them the baby bottle that had remained in the car by accident. I told them I had to hurry to take the sample, suggesting I should leave the car and the documents there.

‘When did you come from Bosnia?’ Asked one of them.‘This morning,’ I replied. ‘No, that’s not true. That car has been up there longer than that,’ said he, pointing with

his hand. I kept explaining and begging, promising I would be back. In the end, they let me go. I

ran out of the station with the baby bottle in my hand, looking across my shoulder to see if they were following me. The kidney pain had gone.

I never saw the car again, and I moved again. This time, I went to the secluded house under Avala. I hardly ever left the house. One day, a man came to my gate.

‘Listen, neighbour, I am going to call the police. Your hedge hasn’t been done in ages, it keeps scratching my car on my way out.’

‘I am sorry sir, I wasn’t aware. I’ll do it right away,’ I was trying to soothe the nagging idiot. I ran to the junction to Avala, and found a worker to do the job. I paid for the service, he pruned the hedge, and I went back to Belgrade. I never returned to the house, fearing what the nagging bastard could do to spite me.

I soon rented a flat in Filmski grad. My wife went to Višegrad, and I was taking my little daughter Jelena for walks. I kept meeting the same young woman, who was taking walks

145

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

with her little girl. One day, she walked to me and said: ‘Good morning.’ Soon we were talk-ing and she explained that she was a refugee from Srpska Krajina, while her husband was born in Belgrade and was a professional soldier.

‘Where do you live? Perhaps I know your wife.’ She asked. ‘We live at number six,’ I explained. ‘My wife is away right now, she is taking some

exams,’ ‘So, we are neighbours. You could come over to our place, for a cup of coffee. What do

you say?’ She asked. ‘Well, I don’t know… your husband is not here, would he mind?’‘Not at all,’ said she, ‘you are a friend,’ she smiled. We were sitting together talking, when she suddenly said: ‘Did you know that our street

is full of war criminals?’ I was shocked. ‘How come?’ I muttered. She held me by the arm. ‘It is true, they have been hiding here. There are two of them

down the street, there is one in my block of flats, and two more further up the street.’I immediately took Jelena by the hand, saying good-bye to the woman. Jelena started to cry, she wanted to stay there. The woman said: ‘You can leave her here

with me, they have been playing together so nicely.’ ‘Thank you, but it’s her time for a nap,’ I lied. ‘So early in the day?’ The woman was surprised, but I was already at the door and across

the street, holding my child in my arms, to hide my face as much as I could. I had to run again. I called my sister and asked her to inform my wife to come back. For

the next two days I didn’t take the child out. While I was playing with her, I kept watching through the window for the arrest units to appear. It was a good thing I did not disclose the true number of my house.

Milan Lukić

146

40.

I got another daughter, and we gave her the name Mia. I was hiding in a rented flat near the Yugoslavia Hotel, without leaving my flat for a whole month. One night, I saw five police vehicles pulling in.

‘It’s over,’ I thought, ‘somebody must have tipped me off. I grabbed my jacket and ran towards the other side. They hadn’t closed the side pas-

sages, and I jumped off the balcony that was three and a half meters high, right down to the shrubs on the loan. I ran towards the hotel, then I saw a car approaching me with the head-lights on. ‘Only the police drive over pedestrian paths,’ I thought, turning into a side pas-sage. They ran after me but before they could see me, I turned around a corned and hid in the branches of a pine tree. The block of flats was stormed by the police, who were looking for a fugitive. I took off my jacket and walked over to the street. If anyone had my description, it was changed now. I kept walking despite the strong pain in my leg. Somehow I managed to catch a taxi and went to another hideaway, a small house at Crveni Krst. My leg was swollen and blue, and the pain was now unbearable.

I took a taxi again, this time to the hospital at Banjica. The doctor who examined me said: ‘See what happens when you drink too much,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a severely sprained angle.’ I noticed that the nurse was taking the telephone to call somebody.

I said: ‘Wait, what are you talking about. I don’t drink.’He looked at me: ‘You are not one of those guys from New Belgrade?’‘What group?’ I asked.‘The group that was brought here by the police patrol, after they had had a fight?’ ‘What fight, I was playing football,’ I said. The doctor hung up. So the whole fuss last night was over a mass fight, and I almost got caught there and here

again, if the doctor had only made that call. The taxi was waiting to take me back. I paid a generous tip. I was a limping runaway

on crutches.

147

41.

My leg was in plaster for three weeks, before I removed it myself, not wanting to take the risk of going to the hospital again. I tried to recover my ankle myself, applying massage and doing exercises.

Belgrade was struck with disorder once again. Milošević was losing the power. The disorder had become anarchy, and a caterpillar excavator was at the door of the National Parliament building, breaking into it. Police were nowhere to be seen, as if they didn’t exist. Slowly and limping, I walk the streets of Belgrade. Milošević, pressed from the outside, had to admit he had lost the elections. But the new authorities were not satisfied with this. Day and night, a drama was developing around his villa, while the police generals whom he had raised to power, had now turned their backs on him.

Finally, he was arrested and taken to the Central Prison. Then, on Vidovdan, the Day of Light, he was deported to the Tribunal in the Hague.

Then, an unprecedented men-hunt began. People who were at war were filling new lists, new charges kept being raised.

My APB was now not only the train interception, it was filled with crimes that made one’s mind spin, of which I had no knowledge.

I went deeper into the hiding then ever before. One day, a group of the special police appeared and were searching a block of flats in the neighbourhood. People had gathered, trying to resist the police. I sneaked out a back door, and called one of my contacts. ‘What is going on?’ I asked.

‘Nothing to be worried about – it is not about you,’ he said. ‘They are arresting Šlji-vančanin.’

I kept hoping that they wouldn’t be able to find him. Unfortunately, they did.I was thinking about killing myself. I didn’t want to get alive in the hands of my ene-

mies. ‘My God,’ I was thinking, ‘who would have thought that a day would come when Dušan

Mihailović would be arresting Šljivančanin? What was Serbia doing to our heroes? Selling them off like slaves? Feeding the dungeon in the Hague, never satisfying its hunger for Serbs?’

I was exhausted when I came to my flat, where my wife and my children were. The news from Višegrad was that the war profiteers were now spreading rumours that I was on my way to betray Radovan Karadžić.

He was our leader and our idol. In the war and now, as a runaway, I would always give my life for him.

148

I had nowhere to hide. My face was constantly on the B-92 TV channel, they kept pro-voking the minister of the police: ‘Why is this man still at large?’

‘We are following his trail, it is now a matter of days,’ he said. There is a reward of five million dollars for his arrest.

My parents suggested I should go into a hiding in the caves near the village, and my brothers thought that it would be better for me to hide in Belgrade. I felt that I was trapped anywhere, and that the only way out was to go somewhere out of the country.

A friend had suggested Russia, but I had no contacts there. It was January 2003, and I did not have enough money for my planned escape. I was unable to come anywhere near my relatives, and all the people I knew who could help had already done so in the past. On the other side, every day would bring more news about new arrests.

I had reoccurring nightmares: I was being arrested, while the police sirens kept roaring all around. I knew I was going to go down sooner or later, and I did not want to be alive when they finally get me. Apart from the police, there were professional hit-men sent by Savović who where trying to find me.

I used my contacts to reach the best forgery experts of the former Yugoslavia, who made two false passports for me, each with a different name. I spent days in their workshop.

‘Sit there and learn the trade,’ they said to me. I kept my eye on them, suspecting they might make a copy of the passport and hand it over to the police. My parents and brothers kept telling me that I should wait for the spring, but I could feel the hounds of the Hague right there at my back. I left the country and went to Macedonia, then to Bulgaria. A contact organised by one of my friends was waiting for me. We spent a few days in a Black Sea re-sort, making plans about my transfer to a next destination. They had suggested Brazil. ‘But I am not a criminal,’ I said. ‘How am I to make my living there? If I borrow money from you, I might get killed, then how am I going to repay?’ I kept asking.

However, they reassured me, saying that everything would be alright. So the plan was made, all the details taken care of, and after a month I was in Belgrade again, to start the preparations. How do you run across the world with a wife and two small children?

My parents were in Višegrad, and Novica was with them, with his wife and daughter. My deepest fear was that the scumbags of the world might decide to take their revenge on them.

Novica was being followed by undercover police agents. There was tension everywhere, there was pressure all around us. A police patrol had come to take away his car, because it was registered on me.

They said they were sent by Siniša Kosarić, the new police commander, a neighbour of my parents. I remembered how I had met him on the day of his departure to the police academy. He was only a boy then, and I gave him some pocket money, encouraging him to do well in school.

I couldn’t decide why he was now pestering my family, although I had had a disagree-ment with his father some years back, when he had come of the house and shot the three of the arrested Muslims. Was he also involved? Probably all of them were connected, and this was probably an attempt to eliminate a witness. The former head of police, Milan Josipović, had been killed in 2005, in front of his shop in Višegrad.

149

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

I called Milan Kosorić on the phone and told him who was calling. ‘God help you, my namesake,’ I said. ‘It is good to be talking to you. You know that I

have had a lot of problems with the war profiteers and the Fascists. If your own son has now turned against our house, then I do not know what to say. Why do Brane Savović and Risto Perišić send your son to bother my family, why don’t they come themselves, is it so difficult for them to leave Zlatibor?’ I asked.

‘It could be that they sent Siniša officially, on an assignment, I do not know,’ he said.‘If it is an official order that my parents and my brother should move house, then tell it

to me. They will obey.’ ‘No, it’s not like that, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Probably they put some pressure through

their official channels.’‘If he should receive official orders to go there with the police to kill them, you know

what it is all about,’ I said, as if sensing the future events. ‘I am begging you like a brother, tell him not to pester them any more. Why should we be turning against each other?’

I managed to meet Novica at New Belgrade, with a lot of difficult manoeuvres to avoid persecutors. I begged him to move to Belgrade, but he refused. ‘The parents won’t move, and neither will I,’ he said. On a good year, they produced twenty tons of plum. It was their life and their paradise on earth. My sister-in-law Ružica was a doctor in Foča, and their child was with the grandparents.

‘My brother, you don’t know them,’ I told him. ‘They will kill you.’ ‘Why?’ Asked he. ‘Everybody knows I wasn’t in the war!’ ‘Because they are bastards!’ ‘They can kill me here too, if they want to,’ he answered.Novica went back to Višegrad. I called my father from a protected number, begging

him to speak to Novica to change his mind. He said he would and that I shouldn’t worry. He didn’t understand, he thought I was getting paranoid.

Milan Lukić

150

42.

It was a Sunday, the eighteenth of April. The Small Easter. My bag was by the door, packed on the previous day. I was ready for my escape to South America. It was ten in the morning, my wife and I were drinking tea. The children were still in bed.

The phone rang and my wife picked up the receiver, saying shortly: ‘It’s me, father.’ Then her face changed and her eyes rolled, wide open.‘What’s happened,’ I shouted. She was now pressing the telephone against her chest,

unable to speak. ‘Dead,’ I thought, ‘It must be father or mother, somebody’s died!’‘Woun-ded… Novica has been wounded,’ she muttered. For a split second, I could hear

my own heartbeat. ‘No,’ said I. ‘They have killed him, I know it. Call them now, I want them to tell me the

truth! Has he been killed?’ She collapsed into the armchair, transfixed. ‘The police… from Banja Luka… in the house…’ Saying this, she burst into tears. The week before, Novica had come with his wife Ružica and their child to Obrenovac,

where he had baptised the child of his god-brother Ljubiša Vasiljević. Despite the enormous risk, I had been overwhelmed by black thoughts and had travelled

there to meet with him. ‘Brother, did you see how the fascists crippled the priest and his son at Pale?’ ‘I did, and the people in Republika Srpska are aggrieved, everyone keeps talking about

it, fuck those spies and invaders!’‘This is what I have been telling you, you must get out of there!’‘We are not leaving our houses in Višegrad and Rujište. I know that some agents have

been following me, and some scumbags have been in alliance with them, but what has this to do with me?’

‘Do not carry a gun, put it away.’‘I have done that, don’t worry.’ He said.‘Brother, I am begging you, do not go up there to Rujište, they will set an ambush, or

they will plant a mine in the road. You don’t know those Muslims, they are sick-minded.’ ‘I am not afraid of any Muslims, everyone knows I didn’t go to war!’ I knew this was all true, and I mentioned the Muslims just to make him more cautious

about the danger. ‘I’ll be going to South America these days,’ I said to him. ‘Don’t do it,’ he said. ‘You are naïve, you trust everyone.’

151

He left in his car on Thursday morning, reaching Višegrad in the afternoon. He took Ružica and the child home. Ružica was on duty that night, in the Foča hospital. On Friday evening, he met with a friend for a drink in a restaurant at the petrol station near the new bridge. They noticed that they were being watched by undercover agents.

Novica was drinking tea, he had stomach-ache. It could be that he had eaten something, or it could be that he had a premonition of the things to come. They left the place half an hour later, saying good-bye to each other.

On Saturday morning, he took mother and father to Rujište, where they wanted to make some brandy. He wasn’t feeling well and he went to Višegrad. In the late afternoon, Ružica returned from Foča, arriving on a bus that dropped her off not far from their house. She had left the child with her parents in Foča. They had coffee together and he told her about the police who were following him. They lived upstairs, and decided to go to bed early. They were in the living room, which had a heating. He couldn’t go to sleep and kept getting up. They woke up at seven. It was a Sunday, the Small Easter, and they stayed in the house, because they had nothing to do on that day.

Siniša Kosorić came with a black camouflage cap over his face, bringing two hundred policemen from Banja Luka. He ordered them to encircle the house, and ran back to the station.

They held their Brownings, Pragas and three-barrel guns, as if they were the Muslim police.

A crew of ten was in charge of breaking through the doors: five at the ground floor, and five upstairs.

The door broke with a splintering crash, driving Novica out of the bed and into the hall. He was wearing his pyjamas bottom, and a sleeveless vest. When he entered the hall, two executioners – Dražen Bojić and Vedran Purišić were already there, a few feet away from him. Without a word, Bojić shot at Novica. Hit in the crouch, Novica fell on his back. Bojić came over him and fired two more shots at the helpless man lying under his feet. Then Vedran was over him, firing three more shots from Heckler and Koch into Novica’s heart.

Ružica was out of the room, beside herself, throwing herself onto the dead body of her husband and crying for help, begging for help: ‘Please… help him…’

The murderers were taken by surprise, they did not expect a live witness. They had ex-pected she would be in Foča, and hadn’t noticed her arrival the day before, because she had left the bus before it had entered the station.

They dragged her off her dead husband, tying her hands behind her back. They took her some thirty metes down the hill, to the brook under the house. ‘Accomplished. There is another package. Wife.’ He was reporting to his bosses in the radio. The connection got bro-ken, then the executioner tried again: ‘Answer the call.’ Then he raised his Heckler, pointing it at Ružica’s head. Ružica was tied, in a bloody night gown, sobbing over her dead husband. Suddenly a neighbour, Jela Baranac, who was in mourning over a dead son, came out and started shouting: ‘What are you doing? Don’t shoot the doctor!’

People came gathering around the site of the crime, and the murderers didn’t know what to do. They were now dealing with a hundred of live witnesses, a hundred of ‘packages’.

Milan Lukić

152

Some had gone into the house and others were searching the place. They wrapped dead Novica in a blanket and took him to the Health Centre, leaving him at the mortuary.

The people that had gathered there untied Ružica’s hands and her colleagues from the Health Centre came to help. The people were getting out of control, they wanted to take revenge on the executioners. They were gathering at the police station.

Dragormir Andan, the commander of this operation, had removed the executioners, re-placing them with two hundred policemen from Pale who at the time of the murder were surrounding the house of Sredoje Lukić.

When the police officers saw what Dragomir Andan and head of police Radomir Njeguš had done, they started protesting openly.

‘Brothers, we are not like these bastards from Banja Luka,’ they tried to explain. The people were confused, they did not know how to tell the terrible news to the parents

in Rujište. Finally, Milosav Krsmanović and Kirilo Marković went there, finding our father busy with the making of brandy. As soon as he saw them, he shouted: ‘What’s happened, is Novica alright?’

‘Yes, he is… ‘ But their answer was interrupted by my mother’s cry. She had dreamt that night that the earth was swallowing our house in Višegrad, and had wanted to go to Višegrad on foot that morning.

‘Kata, stop crying… come on, get ready and come with us to Višegrad… they are look-ing for Mile,’ they tried to soothe them.

‘Is my Novica alive?’ My mother kept wailing. ‘Kirilo, tell us the truth, please. Is Novica alive?’ Asked my father.‘He is alive, but he has been wounded in the leg… by the Banja Luka police.’But my mother could only see her dream. She was sobbing. ‘My son, they have killed you, they have torn you from my heart.’ It wasn’t the earth that swallowed the house, it was the police and the people, masses of

them, everywhere around.Coming in front of the house, my father shouted: ‘Who killed my son?’ There was silence. What can you tell to a parent who has to bury a child? The silence was broken only by the wailing of my mother. The policemen were crying,

as well as the people… a stone would have shed a tear.

153

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

43.

The police from Pale asked that the murderers be arrested immediately.The investigation judge arrived within an hour. He saw Novica’s wounds inflicted at

close range, he saw that he wasn’t even dressed and that the house had been thoroughly searched. Having examined the bloody hall and the ditch where they had taken Ružica for execution, and having interrogated the witnesses, his conclusion was simple: ‘shot dead’. He ordered detention for the executioners, Dragan Bojić and Vedran Purišić.

They declared that they had orders to kill him immediately and kill everyone else in the house. The police had been removed from the crime scene, but they have blocked all the roads towards Serbia and Župa – a joint operation of the Muslim police and the Serbian traitors from Banja Luka. My dead brother was to serve as a revenge and a bait for me, to come to the funeral…

There are no big secrets in small places. Good and honourable people in the police and the army had told me all the details of the conspiracy and the crime. The authorities, the profiteers and the robbers of ordinary people, working in alliance with their new com-panions, spies and men-hunters, took great care to blame me for everything. And then they decided to kill me anyway. A dead man is no threat to their lies, a dead mouth cannot speak. The people knew the truth, but who cared about the people, they would have to listen to the officials anyway.

I kept staying out of their reach though, and they were getting more and more nervous. Three months before the murder, the profiteers had had a meeting with Dragomir An-

dan, Radomir Njeguš, the head of the police and Zoran Đerić, a criminal who was the min-ister of the police. The meeting was held in their headquarters at Zlatibor, and they made a new plan: they were going to kill my brother Novica and my father Mile.

Attached to the family as I was, they knew I could not stay aside. When I appeared, they were going to kill me. From the following day, a new media campaign was launched against me, portraying me as a monster without precedence in the Serbian history.

The new plan also had a budget of more than a million Euro. Savović and Perišič were not willing to lose the wealth they had looted without trying their best to protect it. The Muslims were to give their share in the financing, they had now become friends. They had told them that they had never used weapons in the war, it was Milan Lukić, who was a scout, making intrusions in the Muslim territory, acting as a deputy commander of the Intervention Squad… it is Milan Lukić who should suffer the revenge.

The new occupying forces, the hunters of Serbian heads from the Hague Tribunal had been given a million Euro from each of them. There will be Serbs to be deported to the

154

Hague, and the reform of the police will take care of everything else. They will make sure that, while they are in power, all the surviving truths are buried in graves! The war crimes of Radomir Njeguš that he committed in Foča will be well-concealed, and all of the crimes of Dragomir Andan as well. Now that all the details and all the key people had been taken care of, they could sit and wait for a favourable moment.

Just before the murdering mission in Višegrad, they had a repeated meeting in the Banja Luka police, in the presence of Zoran Đerić, minister of police, Radomir Njeguš, head of police, Dragomir Andan, head of the Centre, Dragan Lukač, head of special police, Siniša Kosorić, head of Višegrad police and the murderer, Dražen Bojić.

Njeguš had appointed Dragomir Andan to be the commander of the operation, while Kosorić was in charge of the operation details in Višegrad. His task was to put a commando cap over his face and lead the police to the house, then go away. He had already supplied a detailed plan of the house, informing them that father was using the ground floor, while Novica would be found upstairs. Radoje Tasić was ordered to place secret surveillance cam-eras around the house. Goran Nedić was in charge of monitoring Novica’s movement.

Branimir Savović had done his share, too: he had paid two million Euros on behalf of the profiteers and the Muslim avengers. Dragomir Andan, Radomir Njeguš and Zoran Đerić had been given five hundred Euro each, while the killer Dražen Bojić had received two hundred thousand to share it with his accomplice. Siniša Kosorić had received two hundred thousand, and Goran Nedić had been paid one hundred, to pay his assistants who were run-ning around, following my father and my brother.

Dražen Bojić and Vedran Purišić had spent nine months in America, at some special police training. They had returned a month before the murder, ready and trained to kill.

The execution plan was precise: they were going to kill my brother and my father, then to set the house on fire. Novica Lukić was killed on a holy day, the Little Easter. He was forty, he was a former sportsman, tall and handsome, an engineer by profession. His wife Ružica was a doctor, and they were blessed with their three-year-old daughter Marija.

The funeral took place in the village cemetery, in Kosovo polje, a kilometre away from our house. Fifteen thousand people came to the funeral. People came from Višegrad, Župa,

Republika Srpska, Serbia, and there were many Serbs who came from abroad. After forty days, the family had moved the grave, fearing that it might be vandalised.

Novica is lying in the yard of the church in Višegrad, in the company of the deceased Ser-bian knights. He has found his eternal peace among the young Cossacks who lie there dead.

155

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

44.

The Pale police kept demanding that the murderers be brought to justice, but the author-ities in Banja Luka were dismissing these requests. Dragomir Andan and Radomir Njeguš make public statements, claiming that it was ‘a case of self-defence, because we thought that he was armed’. At the same time, Dragan Lukač, head of special police, publicly declared that ‘the operation was conducted with an aim of killing an innocent man’.

Hitler had launched his attack on Belgrade on the Little Easter, and they had attacked Višegrad on this holy day.

Paddy Ashdown was delighted, the head of the occupation forces in Bosnia publicly congratulated on a successfully conducted mission.

The investigation judge, however, had no doubts: the blood-bath in the hall, the half-naked victim, the mafia signature in the shape of a close-range Heckler rapid fire. The ex-ecutioners had been put in detention, but Andan kept telling them that they were only to make a statement for the judge, and then be released. But they had stayed in prison, and the people had not stopped protesting. The dissatisfaction had spread from Višegrad to the whole of Republika Srpska. The compassion of so many people, the memories of so many people had been the only reason why I had been in the war, and the only reason for my sur-vival, my wilful survival.

Later I heard that they had stopped three times during their descent to Višegrad on that ominous day. They had been stopped three times because of a flat tyre, as if God and angels did not want them to fulfil the horrible dream of my mother.

For forty days I kept praying and crying over my dead brother. We had slept on the same heart, we had been fed by the same milk. My brother’s death was now in the hands of the eternal heavenly justice. The heavens will revenge it, and I was on my way to the other end of the world.

156

45.

From Macedonia, I travelled to a port in Bulgaria, from where I went to Greece. I boarded a tourist cruiser which took me to the Canary Islands, to Las Palmas, and then a friend helped me to board a cargo ship to Brazil. After twenty eight days, I reached the port of Rio de Janeiro and went to a hotel. I had fifteen thousand dollars, ten thousand of which was a gift from Branislav from Višegrad, who was a great young man. The rest was my own savings and the help from others. I sent the coded message to my contact there, and an hour or so later a man appeared. He was tall and handsome, and in his eyes I saw sincere satisfac-tion and support. It was my host in Brazil, and he greeted me with ‘my brother Lukić’. He must have noticed my scared look, and said reassuringly: ‘Come on, do not worry. You are in the right place and in the right hands,’ hugging me in a friendly way.

From his car, I was watching the panorama of the famous Rio. He must have guessed my thoughts again, because he said encouragingly: ‘This city, my brother, is the paradise on earth. You are watching the most beautiful women in the world.’

He took me to his flat and introduced me to his wife, who was a Brazilian. We were sit-ting, having dinner and talking until ten in the evening, then he took me to another flat, in a new four-storey block of flats.

‘This is your flat’, he said, ‘ and there is a swimming pool on the top of your building.’ The flat was a new one, fully furnished with a lot of good taste, and with lots of leather

furniture. He laid a briefcase on the table and, opening it, showed me that it was full of dol-lars and reals.

‘This is for you my brother, you can spend it at will. I have been here for a long time now, and I have my exchange offices, and my export business. I export to Europe – bananas, corn, soy beans, coffee, ceramics, then wheat to Africa and other things.’

I looked at him in disbelief, and he was smiling, as if enjoying my bewilderment. ‘Do not worry, my brother. When I came here, I was sleeping in a shed and eating a meal

every three days. Everybody had lied to me, I was left to my own devices, but then God sent a Greek guy who saved my life and helped me move up.’ He came towards me, as if to add meaning to his words: ‘You may think that I am wasting my money, but I am not. I am only repaying what I received from God, through the hands of that Greek guy. I have everything here, a beautiful Brazilian wife, my transactions and my companies.’

I said: ‘But there is no need for this, I have money, I have some fifteen thousand on me. I did spend something on my way here, but there is a lot left.’

‘You can send that to your wife and children, don’t worry about that. You will have here as much money as you need.’

157

‘There is no need for that either,’ I explained. ‘I left them enough for the time being.’ ‘I do not have anyone here to talk to, to be my friend. Now, you are my brother. You will

accompany me on my trips. We will be collecting some revenue and you will be in charge of carrying the money to pay the farmers, for the coffee and other things I buy from them.’

‘Whatever you say, my brother,’ I said. So we started spending time together, day in, day out. We went collecting money from

the exchange offices, but we would also have lunch or dinner together on a daily basis. His wife was a beauty. She was very religious and a very nice person. He was like my brother to me, and she was like a sister. They would often take me out to glossy Brazilian restaurants, with an array of waiters moving swiftly in between the tables, offering up to fifty types of meat to the guests. The day started to go by, and the beauty and the colourful life in Brazil were easily taking away the worries. But the nights were different. I would stay by myself in my flat and the beauty of the starry sky would simply disappear. The colourful lights of Rio would become distant and cold, as if meant for someone else, not for me. The music of the city, its merry crowds of people, and its gay atmosphere, all of it would become distant, all of it would belong to some other people.

On another continent, your senses and your blood keep telling you that you are a for-eigner and an alien, lost in an incomprehensible wilderness… especially at night. The nights had become truly difficult. During the day, I kept looking around me, for a sign of recogni-tion in the eyes of chance passengers. During the night, I was listening to the sounds around me. I was no longer waiting for the sound of a stopping car to be followed by the approach of the arrest squad, breaking of the door… I was thinking about my brother’s grave, my sister-in-law, the little Maria, my niece. I was thinking about my parents, two living dead souls. I sighed heavily, to release the pain of a runaway, chased by the whole world: ‘I wish my little Mia and Jelena were with me, with my wife… what are they doing now?’

The long took a hold of me, it fell over me like an avalanche. I was overwhelmed by sorrow. I could feel my heart beating wildly. ‘My God, why didn’t you let me die in the war? Did you let me live only to be despised, stigmatised, hunted, all by myself ? Where do I find my peace, where do I find a place to rest?’

My host kept comforting me, sad and silent as I was, absent-minded and oblivious to everything, even the charms of this beautiful country around me.

‘My brother, I do not want you to think that I had an easy time coming over here. I had been robbed and almost killed in Belgrade, although I was innocent. I had left back there my wife and two kids, my old and sick parents… Come on, cheer up. You are a war hero. When all of this has passed, we’ll go back to Serbia.’

I had found an Armenian Orthodox church, all plated in gold. I wanted to light a candle for my dead brother there, but I was told that they lit candles only on special days. Then I found a Russian church, and said a prayer for my dead brother’s soul and for my dead com-rades, the Cossacks.

‘My wife and I would like you to be our best man at the wedding,’ said my friend to me. ‘I am honoured,’ I said happily. ‘My Patron is Saint John, the patron of all godfathers

and godsons.’

Milan Lukić

158

I was their godfather at the wedding. The parents of my new godson came from Bel-grade to be present at the ceremony, together with his son from the first marriage, who was a lovely boy, charming like an angel.

I missed my children and my parents. The Brazilian wife accepted the boy with all her love and care, and she kept calling him ‘son’ in Portuguese.

My best man had hired two teachers, a mother and a daughter, to teach me and the boy Portuguese. The boy said jokingly: ‘This one is just right for me,’ pointing at the daughter.

His father would give him some pocket money, but he never wanted to take any money from me. He explained one day that I had just got there, while his father had made a lot of money, and he even offered to give me some. I told this anecdote to my best man. The boy’s unspoilt character had appealed to me, I found a lot of comfort spending time with him. I was taking him out shopping, or for walks around the city.

My best man’s father, however, had had a heart attack, probably due to the emotions of the whole experience. We took him to the nearest hospital, and went their every day to visit him. He eventually recovered, and their stay in Brazil had been extended to forty days, instead of the initially planned two weeks.

When they left, life was back to the old routine for me, and I was gripped by sadness once again. I spent almost all of the available time working, I was travelling three to five thousand kilometres in a week. Cash was the predominant method of payment, and I was entrusted with carrying considerable amounts of money. I did my job correctly and honestly. I often had with me up to three hundred thousand dollars, although people in South America easily got killed for a few thousand. My best man trusted me completely, and I also had an unlimited confidence in him.

‘I cannot live without my family any longer,’ I said to them, although they knew it anyway.

‘You have to be patient and sort out your position here,’ he said to me. ‘I have a sister-in-law, she is a beautiful young woman. If you marry a Brazilian and adopt a child, Brazil will never deport you.’

‘My brother,’ I said. ‘A Brazilian woman is out of the question. I am married, and my wife has suffered so much because of me.’

‘It is only a formality, it’s a piece of paper,’ he said. ‘My wife would not see it like that. God would punish me for lying to that poor soul.’ Then one day I went to Argentina on a business trip, thinking about Ustasha and Hitler

allies who had found their refuge there. I was probably expecting to see a dark den full of the Nazi there, but I was surprised to see aristocratic Buenos Aires, all filled with sunshine. I saw tourists dancing in its streets at night, leaving tips for the musicians. I saw the beautiful parks, and the whole place looked like a fairy-tale.

In Brazil, people liked foreigners, and they lived carelessly, no one was thinking about tomorrow. Unlike Rio, Buenos Aires was a city of the European culture. I stayed there for a month, renting cars and driving five hundred kilometres through the endless flatlands. Everywhere around were beautiful farms with their old, beautiful buildings. One could buy a good estate here for a mere seventy thousand dollars.

159

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

We were exporting soy beans and wine from Argentina, while leather and all types of leather products were also very cheap here. I was taking the documents to Buenos Aires, as well as to Mendosa and Rosario, where I was supervising the deliveries.

With every new day, I liked living in Argentina more and more. I was simply enchanted by Buenos Aires, and I had become dreaming of a ranch, filled with peace and quiet, where I could live with my family. I started making plans for my children to start their schooling in Argentina. I was speaking to my best man every day on the phone, and I was trying to persuade him to move his house and business to Argentina.

‘Only Brazil is the real heaven on earth,’ he would say. I travelled through Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile… Argentina remained my fa-

vourite country, and more than that, it was a country where I wanted to die.

Milan Lukić

160

46.

In Sarajevo, they had started the trial to the murderers of my brother. The killers had spent three months in prison, before they were released to defend themselves as free men. In the interrogation, they openly stated that they had been acting in accordance with their orders.

They said that Radomir Njeguš and Dragomir Andan had told them that whoever they killed in the house of the Lukićs, they would not be held responsible. While they were searching the house after the murder, they also stole fifteen thousand Euro. The trial was held in the Eastern Sarajevo, and the people were deeply resentful about the whole affair, there was a huge public interest in the whole country. My father and mother, as well as my brother and sister and Novica’s widow and the orphaned child attended every session. They were there to see that the justice was done!

A whole squad of police was guarding the killers to the court room. If they had thought my brother had been armed, why did they shot him at point blank, when he was lying help-lessly on the floor? Was Ružica armed? Why did they pull her off her dead husband and drag her with her hands tied, to execute her?

What would have happened if the neighbour and other people who had appeared there had not intervened? Everyone was just a ‘package’ for them, so would they have treated little Jelena as a ‘package’, if she had been in the house with her mother and father? There were no replies. The murderers had shown no repentance, only ridicule for the widowed woman.

The trial had lasted half a year, then it was interrupted, because the judge was ‘diag-nosed with cancer’, and the whole case was transferred to Banja Luka. Then the killers were free, and my brother was swallowed by the earth. I had only one chance in preserving my life and my sanity, and that was to have my wife and my children beside me.

By this time, I was back in Brazil, only to face the same old situation. One day, I said to my best man: ‘I am going to bring my family here.’

He tried to reason with me: ‘My brother, the Interpol is watching over your family, and any scumbag will sell your head for five million dollars, if only there is a chance for it… But it’s up to you,’ he said.

In Argentina, I had met one of our expatriates, who had a child in Serbia, and another wife in Argentina. He adored his Argentinean wife, and told me all the best about her. When I eventually met her, I was shocked at her appearance, because she was covered in tattoos, like Mike Tyson. I didn’t like it, and I said to my best man: ‘Who is this? He keeps drinking all the time, and she looks like a drug addict?’

161

‘He knows everyone in Buenos Aires, he will help you,’ he reassured me. ‘I believe that it is him who needs to be helped, with that devilish woman beside him,’

I replied. I kept thinking about my deceased brother, and my desire to see my family was con-

stantly growing. I had become totally absent-minded, losing orientation.My best man told me that he was coming to see me, and we met in a restaurant. He ex-

plained that he would be staying a couple of days, to take care of an export of leather. When we parted a few days later, he told me that he would be back in two weeks.

When came, we met again at the same restaurant, but this time he had invited the Ar-gentinean connection. I thought for a moment that somebody took a picture of us, but the restaurant was crowded with tourists, and it was impossible to be sure. When his friend ar-rived, he apologised for being held by some friends. We had lamb roast for lunch, and then his friend had to go. My best man was also in a hurry to return to Brazil, and I went with him to the hotel. I thought I noticed that we were being followed, and I told him my doubts.

We sat in a taxi, and I went with him one part of the way. When I got out, I came across his friend once again, and he asked me to go with him to his place. ‘There are some guys who owe me thirty thousand,’ he said. ‘I would appreciate if your were there with me, just in case.’

I agreed and we went to his flat. Some time later, a man and a woman came. They were talking about something I could not understand. An hour later, I excused myself and left.

In the morning, it took me unusually long to reach my best man on the phone. I asked him about his journey back home, and he said that he had had problems at the airport, where they had kept him for half an hour, for a thorough check.

I knew that somebody must have reported something, and my best man said that he sus-pected the Argentinean drunkard and his drug-addict lady to have tipped him off.

I told him how I had spent some time in their flat after we had parted. I called the Argentinean, asking him if he knew anything about the whole thing. I asked

him if his girlfriend knew he was coming to Argentina. ‘He’s lying,’ he said flatly. ‘He owes me money and needs an excuse not to come to

Argentina in the future.’ I told my best man about this conversation, and he was now sure that it was them who

had set him up. Two weeks later, the Argentinean called me. He wanted to see me and I agreed, curious

to see what would happen. He was drunk, as usual. At one moment, he pointed at my purse, saying: ‘So, you are carrying a gun.’

‘Of course I am not,’ I replied. ‘Why do you want to know?’ He waved his head. ‘If I cost that much, I would be carrying a gun.’ I kept ordering double drinks for him, and he told me that he knew I was Milan Lukić,

whose head was worth five million dollars. He beseeched me not to tell anyone that he got this information from my best man.

I laughed, and it probably turned out to be a spontaneous laughter.‘He was pulling your leg,’ I said. ‘If it were true, I would be there in the morning myself,

to collect the reward.’ I must have been quite convincing, because I saw that he believed me.

Milan Lukić

162

But inside, I was restless, finding it hard to believe anyone. I called another friend who was at the Canary Islands, and he told me to go there, to get rid of my worries.

‘I can’t just go walking around the world,’ I said. ‘Half the planet are after me.’ I was receiving news from Serbia that Dragomir Andan was offering a lot of money for

any kind of information about me. I was warned to be very careful. In my frustration, I was even thinking of flying to Belgrade right away, to meet the bastard face to face. But I knew that would be arrested at the airport. Then I decided I had to see my wife and my children, and then move to a different place.

I had rented two flats, and two low-profile friends had come to help me with the prepa-rations for the arrival of my family. They had spent three months getting to know the city, before one of them went back to Serbia, leaving the other to wait for my family. Then, a day before my family were to come, I noticed I was being followed. We were sitting in a café, when police officers in uniforms approached us, asking for our passports. I knew they were drawing near, and thought of leaving Argentina immediately, but I knew my wife and my daughter were already on their way here, starting from Zagreb, and I decided I had to see them before I ran on.

Once again, I was being tortured by the old terrible feeling in the stomach. My friend was on his way to the airport to meet them when they arrive. I saw police cars

parked a few meters ahead of us, I slowly changed direction and walked away, walking into a toy shop in the same building, some thirty meters away. Then I saw my wife and my child coming out of the taxi, stopping at the traffic light to cross the street. I knew they were being followed, but I couldn’t resist the urge to embrace and kiss my child. I had to kiss her, even if they shot me right there! I came out of the shop with some teddy bears I had bought there, I walked over and hugged my family. We called for a taxi and got inside, to drive to the flat. After only fifteen meters, there was the police, armed with guns. They took the driver and myself out, and my wife and my child got out by themselves.

‘Do not worry,’ I said, trying to calm them down. I knew that my arrest warrant con-tained a different description – it said that I had blue eyes, a tattoo, a large birthmark on my face, and I knew that I did not match the description they had. There were around thirty police officers around us, some of them undercover. I could see it on their faces that they did not like the whole situation, and were touched by the crying of the child and the sorrow of a mother. ‘Are you Milan Lukić?’ They asked.

‘No, I am Goran Đukanović. What is the matter, gentlemen?’ I asked. They searched me, only to find the money that I had on me, five thousand Euro. I gave the key to my wife and told her to go to the flat. The police station was like hell. The concrete room was had a nasty smell. In the eve-

ning, I was taken to a dark room, where they undressed me and pointed spotlights at me. They were trying to find the tattoos.

The following day, I was moved to another detention room, then to the court house, where I was met by my public attorney, who told me that I did not correspond to the descrip-tion from the arrest warrant. ‘If Serbia don’t send fingerprints in two hours from now, you are a free man. Pray to God!’ He said.

163

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

And so I did, but the prayer could not stop the children of Satan, they sent their reply immediately.

‘It’s all over,’ said my lawyer. I was put in detention. At the trial, they allowed my wife and my child to come in the

court room, so that I could see them. A young judge was presiding over the session, a true gentleman. I could notice that he, as well as the other officials who were there, thought that the Hague Court and their arrest warrants were a mockery.

All of the judges in the council, the jury and the secretaries were embracing my wife and my child, trying to soothe them. Many of them had tears in their eyes.

Even the police officers were showing an unbelievable sympathy. I could clearly see that they were sorry that the destiny chose them to be responsible for my arrest, based on the APB sent by the world’s hangmen.

Their prisons, though, were horrible. The cells were stinking and dirty. My heart was broken because I had put my family through more suffering. After so many years of separa-tion, they were welcomed by guns. I hadn’t eaten for five days. They had brought in my wife and my child to visit me. ‘I am alright…’ I was trying to comfort them.

They took me to another prison, where a policeman gave me a phone card so that I could call my family. He showed me how to use it.

There was a lady from Lika whose name was Mileva, and who came to my rescue. The Ustasha had killed thirty members of her family and she had run to Italy as a girl, then to Argentina. She was brought to me by the priest. So there they were, coming to visit me in the prison – the priest, his wife and the lady from Lika. The priest’s wife was an interpreter for Spanish and English and was a nice and educated woman. My wife was helped by our Bra-zilian god-sister. A few days later, my sister arrived from Belgrade, and I was receiving a lot of offers for help from my friends. My wonderful priest came regularly for the holy commu-nion, and brought books for me to read. Everybody was coming to visit me, bringing food.

A month later, the director and the manager of the prison came to my cell with the news: ‘Mr Lukić, get ready for a visit, your ambassador is here to see you.’

They took me to the lawyer’s chamber. The corridors were lined with special agents, wearing black uniforms and holding their guns at the ready. There were two more of them in front of the room, and two more inside. They took me inside and I took a seat. Two men wearing civilian clothes came in, and I recognised Dragomir Andan, one of the masterminds of the assassination of my brother Novica. He held out his hand towards me, a hand that still had my brother’s blood on it. I was trying very hard to stay calm, thinking if it would be possible for me to slaughter him with my teeth. I saw his fox-like face. Or was it only one of the thousand disguises that he had? Who was Dragomir Andan, after all?

He was one of the high officers in the Serbian police during the war, while the Serbs were shedding blood and dying everywhere around, hoping to realize the dream of a Serbian state on the banks of the Drina, to hear anew the old epic songs, to see the face of the free-dom, after so many centuries of slavery under the Turks and the bloody occupations of the Austrians, all of the persecutions, dungeons and chains, a dream for which they sacrificed their houses, their families, their lives. Dragomir Andan had established a firm relationship

Milan Lukić

164

with Fraser Brown, a captain of the British intelligence. Of course, he had become and had remained a miserable foreign agent. People in Serbia do not need explanations or clarifica-tions when it comes to the politics pursued by the British Crown, during the Empire and during Winston Churchill, which is the same politics that is pursued today… So when the war had ended and the Serbian Bosnia had emerged all full of fresh graves and crosses, this collaborator of the English intelligence had opened a recruitment centre in Sarajevo, where he received poor and ragged surviving soldiers of the Serbian army, whom he hired as dogs of war, living mine detectors for missions in Iraq, relying on their poverty and the hungry families they had to feed.

He was recruiting former Muslim soldiers as well, including those from the special ‘Lasta’ unit, special killers of the Serbs. But, for Dragomir Andan, money has no smell, no taste or nation, honour, dignity or faith and sense of mercy. These were only a few things that could be said about Dragomir Andan, just to make it known that there can be no secrets, although only God can know all of the disgusting things he had done in his life. I stood firm and shook hands with him, knowing that I would learn something about the murder of my brother, this way or that.

He said straight away: ‘I have nothing to do with the killing of your brother, I swear on the lives of my children,’ he said with a weird grin on his face, bending over slightly, in a well-practised servile gesture, placing a hand on his heart.

‘I know it wasn’t you,’ I said, to get him off his guard. ‘And did you meet with Branimir Savović before Novica was killed?’‘I was… at Zlatibor… ‘ I started telling him who was there, telling the things that he wanted to hear. I knew he

was recording the conversation secretly. I pretended I didn’t know it, I was trying him out. An hour later, he went out, and a man from the prosecutor’s office came in, accompa-

nied by an interpreter. ‘Sir, did you come here with that murderer, Dragomir Andan?’ I asked. ‘No, we just met here,’ said he, obviously confused. I knew he was lying. He had a card with the SFOR inscription on it. They had come from Bosnia together. He wanted me to be some kind of ‘protected collaborating witness’. I said to them: ‘Gentlemen, I am Milan Lukić and my genes are straight. There is no

reward, threat or punishment that can make me testify falsely against Karadžić, Šešelj or any other Serb!’

‘And do you know that you will be sentenced to forty years in prison? You will be handed over to the Muslims in Bosnia and will serve your sentence in Zenica?’ The Hague interrogator threatened.

‘You can kill me if you like, I am not going to lie. I am but a small man, and a great servant of my God.’

‘You’d better think about it, Lukić. I will see you tomorrow, and my advice to you is to testify against whoever you are told to by the prosecution.’

They went out, and the killer Andan returned. ‘If you agree, I would like to come again tomorrow?’

165

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘Why not? I agreed. Tomorrow morning, I saw these two scumbags waiting for me, while I was being es-

corted along the corridor full of special-forces agents. When I took my place in the room, the first one to come in was the Hague head-hunter. ‘Good morning Lukić,’ he said. ‘Did you sleep well last night?’‘No, I didn’t,’ I replied. ‘Why so?’ He asked with an artificial grin. ‘Because you have brought a monster here, who killed my innocent brother! But I de-

cided to see him, to see what that bastard wants from me. Now, I want to ask you, who killed Avdo Palić from Žepa? Who was shooting people? You want to make a criminal of me, and I am an innocent man! Send my regards to Carla del Ponte. I am a small fish, and all that you have on me has been invented. But I will never lie against anyone, even if you shoot me right here!’

Then Andan came in. ‘It’s me again, Lukić,’ he said.‘And I am here, with the heart of Karađorđe. What did you want? ‘I want to tell you in confidence who killed your brother,’ he said, looking at me as

if wanting to add importance to his words. He took a piece of paper and wrote ‘Momčilo Mandić’ on it. ‘I beg you, do not reveal it to anyone,’ he said.

‘Why would he do it?’ I asked. ‘I do not know him.’ ‘It wasn’t me, I swear on my children… you are a hero. I have a camera here, I’d like

to take a photo of us here. I would like to visit your parents, bring them some coffee and sugar… I…’

‘Coffee and sugar, after killing their son? Taking a picture with you? Remember this: you are going to pay, sooner or later, for killing my brother!’

He turned around, like a dog, following in his master’s footsteps. ‘This man is a mur-derer and a criminal,’ I said to the police in Spanish.

Milan Lukić

166

47.

Tomorrow, on the sixth of September, I was brought before the judge once again.‘Your highness, I was visited yesterday in the prison by the murderer of my brother,

Dragomir Andan, who came with the interrogator from the Hague. I have reason to believe that my life is in danger.’

‘Do not worry, we will perform a thorough check,’ said the judge. ‘I would also like to wish you a happy birthday.’ Everybody in the court room joined in, wishing me a happy birthday. Then the judge asked me to tell them my remarks. He checked and told me that the court had not issued a permit for the visit by Dragomir Andan, but the Hague interrogators did. I suggested that they might have deceived the manager of the prison, who had told me I had had a visit from the embassy.

‘Or they might have bribed him,’ said the judge. I explained that there was a police officer dressed in civilian clothes, whom I remem-

bered because he told me how he had been arrested and kept in custody in England, during the ninety-eighties.

‘I will immediately request your complete safety be maintained, and will order an inves-tigation immediately after you have filed a request related to the illegal entry of Dragomir Andan,’ said the judge.

‘I was also threatened to be delivered to the Muslims in Bosnia, if I fail to testify falsely.’‘They can’t do that,’ said the judge.A month later, I repeated my claims before the interrogation judge, who filed an official

appeal. In the prison, they had evacuated the whole block, some twenty cells or so, and I was not

allowed to take walks outside. The only place for walks in the open was a cage measuring four meters by four.

Every morning, they would open my single cell and search me thoroughly, in the pres-ence of armed guards. For some time, I had been receiving special treatment, as if I were an alien, as if I were a man-eater. Then they realised that I was a normal man, and the regime relaxed. I was allowed to walk in the corridor, sit freely in my cell. They were nice to me, but the prison conditions were simply horrible. The only luxury was the shower, and I used it as much as I could.

I wasn’t relying on the services of the public attorney only any more, I had hired a lawyer from a good office, asking for guarantees that I was not going to be handed over to the Muslims in Bosnia, by the Argentine police. An official request will be made that I be delivered to the Hague or Serbia, if the Hague showed no interest in me. A Jewish lawyer

167

from the United States had arrived. His name was David Sergi, and he wanted to be my de-fence attorney in the Hague. He had organised a deputy lawyer for me in Buenos Aires. The lady lawyer, Maria and her colleague Diego were coming, accompanied by the priest and his wife, who acted as the interpreter.

I was telling the lawyer the true version of the events. She held me by the hand, saying: ‘Lukić, don’t worry. We are on the way of obtaining the guarantees that the Argentinean court will not hand you over to the Muslims.’

She was visiting me every day. Then a murder happened in between the inmates, and the culprit was transferred to my

section of the prison. His cell was kept open every day for an hour, so that he could take a walk, while at the same time I was locked in my cell. He would stop at my cell, asking for some food. On some days, he would pass throwing a burning piece of a mattress in my cell, and sometimes he would be threatening to kill me.

I felt sorry for him, and kept throwing into his cell some food and chocolate bars, be-cause the food in the prison was appalling.

The wardens were correct, young men. Twice a week I received visits by my wife and my child, my sister. They kept bringing me food, and my friends even sent a TV set for me. I keep fasting every Sunday, and the priest was coming so that I could receive the holy com-munion. I kept reading the books he was bringing, and he and his sister kept encouraging me. I had plenty of phone cards and spent a lot of time talking with my family, comforting them.

I spent six months in the isolation, from the eighth of August two thousand five, to twenty-first February two thousand six.

In the morning of the nineteenth of February, I was visited by the lawyers. They had brought the court decision whereby I could only be taken before the court in the Hague, or before a court in Serbia. Bosnia was not an option. I parted from my lawyers, thanking them for their efforts.

Milan Lukić

168

48.

Police inspectors dressed in civilian clothes took me to the airport in Buenos Aires, handing me over to the airport security. A man in his fifties, a true gentleman, introduced himself cordially. He ordered the security to take off my handcuffs, and then he said to me: ‘I hope that you will not be giving me any trouble here at the airport or on the plane. I am responsible for you. I have children and I do this for a living.’

‘You have my word for that, sir,’ I replied. We were sitting in the restaurant, drinking fruit juices, talking like friends, as if I were

his guest. It was strange, I had to admit it. How come that the judges, the jurors, policemen and now this man here, all of them

knew that the charges brought against me were invented, and the whole affair a skilfully orchestrated deceit, a trick none of these people fell for even for a minute? They had to fulfil their duty because of the international obligations, but they certainly were not enjoying what they had to do. A mention of the court in the Hague was always received by them as some-thing disgusting, as if you were saying ‘a murderers’ den’. They immediately dismissed it, waiving their arm and saying: ‘Oh, those criminals… the global murderers!’ I soon realised that the experience with the Malvinas was still fresh in their memories, and that they knew everything about American and English tricks of war-mongerng and messing about other people’s countries. This was the opinion shared by all the countries of South America.

We were accompanied by two administrative workers, and another two policemen, one of whom was in charge of the accompanying documents. They were all wearing civilian clothes.

We flew to Madrid on the regular flight, and we had to wait for some twenty mintues or so while the Spanish customs officers checked the papers. After this initial check, nobody paid much attention to us. The Argentinean chief of police took us to a restaurant. They were smokers, and were going out every now and then to light a cigarette. My hands were not tied, but I was bound by the word given to these wonderful people.

Three hours later, we boarded another plane, which took us to Amsterdam. After the pa ssengers had left the plane, we came out and the police was waiting for me, accompanied by the representative of the prosecution in the Hague, who diligently informed me that I was under arrest, due to a suspicion that I had committed a war crime. The policemen put a bullet-proof vest on me, and locked my hands in handcuffs. The Argentineans were watching them with a disapproving, condescending look in their eyes. They hugged me and said good-bye, as if they were my family, showing their sadness over my arrest by these heartless mercenar-ies. They took me to Scheveningen, where I was searched and taken upstairs. ‘D-1, room 21’.

169

49.

Johan Tačulovski, the Macedonian guy, was the first one to approach me, offering food and drink, as well as telephone cards. He was a good and honest guy. He had ended up here serving a sentence of twelve years, owing to his former police minister, Ljube Boškovski, who had framed him. Although innocent, he never complained. He was doing his time with dignity, and everybody around loved and admired this brave young man. He was happy because he had a beautiful wife, Sonja, and their two children. His second child, a son, was born after he was taken to the Hague.

On the same floor, there are also Mile Martić, one of the two former presidents of the Serbian states, Ljubiša Beara, Dragan Nikolić whose nickname was Yankee, Brano the Croat, Momčilo Krajišnik, general Dragomir Milošević, Milorad Krnojelac, a teacher from Foča and Mitar Rašević, also from Foča, who was for many years a prison warden. Although a sworn communist before the war, Rašević had turned to God in prison. He was doing the cooking for himself, Krajišnik and Martić.

General Milošević was a fine cook as well. Johan was assisting him and he was cooking for the two of them. He offered me to eat with them, generously.

‘Thank you, I am fine. What we are getting here is quite enough for me. There is enough bread to survive. I was born in a village and taught to eat bread and onion, like a roast,’ I said.

General Milošević and Johan treated me to various specialities on many occasions, while Nikolić also offered to give me whatever I needed. Ljuba Beara does not cook, and rarely comes out to the canteen.

On the sixth day, I was summoned by the Secretariat, for an interview. The manager of the prison MacFadden, the intelligence agent from the Secretariat and a translator were there. They asked a few routine questions about the food and the accommodation, if there was anything I needed, and similar.

Some ten minutes later I was in the cell, and Rašević came to enquire about what hap-pened. I knew it was Krajišnik who sent him to enquire. I told him that I had just received an offer to testify against Krajišnik, asking him not to spread it around. Half an hour later, Krajišnik carefully invited me to the washing room, making a gesture with his arm. When I went in, he said: ‘Lukić, if you should need a telephone card to call your family, please feel free to ask me.’

‘Thank you, Mr Krajišnik, I will let you know when I need it,’ I said. Soon Rašević was again with me, enquiring about the interrogation, and I continued to

deceive him with more ‘confidential’ information.

170

‘They asked again that I should testify against Krajišnik, they have extended the charges to Sokolac and Pale.’ I explained.

‘Listen, we have a good lawyer for you,’ said he, hurrying to pass the information on to Krajišnik.

‘What charges did they raise against you?’ Krajišnik asked me a couple of days later. ‘They have extended the charges to include Sokolac and Pale,’ I replied. ‘Nobody was hurt at Pale,’ he said, ‘there was a feast when the Muslims were leaving,

they were eating roast lamb.’‘I guess they are charging me with not letting them finish their supper,’ I said. Then I

said loudly: ‘They are asking me to testify falsely against people, promising to let me go home. Well, I won’t do it, I’d rather go to prison!’

‘That’s the way to talk, my Serbian brother,’ he said, praising my patriotism. A month later, the prison manager called me, telling me that Sredoje Lukić wanted to

see me. He asked me about our relations.‘I haven’t seen him for five or six years,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing him.’At noon, the wardens escorted me to the third floor, where Sredoje’s cell was. Apart

from him, there was Naser Orić and two Shipqtars. Naser came into the room, asking me if I needed anything. ‘You are the right man, a true

man, and look what this propaganda has done to you!’ He said. I saw that he was secretly recording our conversation, but decided to play along. ‘Listen, my friend,’ said he, ‘you can tell me the truth – there were a few dead down

there in Višegrad, weren’ there?’ He asked, encouraging me to speak.‘I guess there were,’ I said. ‘There was war, many soldiers died on both sides,’‘Can I call you Chetnik, would you mind it?’ He went on. ‘Why would I mind it, my Bosnian Turk?’ I replied. ‘You should know, Lukić,’ said he, ‘that I had eaten more pork in Serbia, visiting my

friends at their patron saints feasts, then many of the Serbs did. It is only that I do not want to eat pork here in the prison. I know more dates when your patron saints are celebrated, than you do.’ He listed the dates of the patron saints and their celebrations, all of them as they come in a year.

‘Alright, alright, stop there,’ I said. ‘I admit that you know more saints than I do. Now you can admit that you are of Serbian origin and I will congratulate to you again!’

‘I know that… in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Turks converted people… they had ruled for five hundred years.’

‘So, you know your history,’ said I. ‘And why are you recording this conversation se-cretly?’ I asked.

‘I am not, you see…’ Then he started laughing. ‘My Muslim brother, what do you have there for me?’ I asked. ‘Do I have your word that no one will know I let you hear this?’ He asked.‘My word is as hard as stone,’ I said. I heard things that were hard to believe. Sredoje Lukić was lying about me, the flesh and

blood of the Lukić family.

171

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

One day, Sredoje invited me to have coffee together. I did not mention his lies, I had given my word to the Muslim.

‘Listen, cousin,’ he started. ‘It would be good for you to appear before the court. If you plead guilty on all counts, you will not get more than twenty years. They gave you twenty years in Serbia anyway, so it is all the same to you. And they will release me.’

‘I will my cousin,’ said I. ‘You only have to write down what it is that I have to admit. But let me ask you, is it not a sin to admit that you did something that you didn’t? I leaned over, looking him in the eyes.

‘Do you remember, my cousin, where I was between the thirteenth and fifteenth of June ninety nineteen-two? Don’t you remember that Vlatko Tripković was killed then at Gornja Lijeska, and I spent two days encircled by the enemy?’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Everybody told me about it. I was in Belgrade for the treatment at that time.’

‘So when you know I was there, how can I admit that I was in Višegrad on that four-teenth, setting fire to a house in Pionirska street, a house full of people who died there? How could have I been at Kopito and in Višegrad at the same time? I am not an alien. What about the other thing, in Bikavac?’

He was silent.‘Tell me if I have ever been in any kind of mission with Mitar Vasiljević, that notorious

drunkard? Or did I always stay clear of drunkards, fearing them more than the enemy?’He said: ‘What mission? He never took a gun in his hands, my cousin.’ ‘So you see, he has made a statement that two of us had killed some Muslims on the

Drina. It must be his wife who has negotiated a deal with the prosecutors, to spare him, and let the others go down as deep as possible, which he accepted, didn’t he? It’s a sin, on his soul! Our families have been baptising each other for three hundred years, and now he has stabbed me in the back, with an axe, like Vujica Vulićević did to Karađorđe in Radovanjski lug.’

I went on: ‘They say that it was me who took some Muslims from the Varda, and the witnesses said I was fair-haired, with blue eyes and a large birth-mark on my face, full of tattoos… tell me, my cousin, is it me?’

‘It can’t be you,’ he said. I was on my feet, beside myself with fury: ‘You say, it is all the same to me, I got sentenced in Belgrade. If only they could have

done that, they would have sentenced me to a thousand years. Tell me, did I have anything to do with the Muslims in Sjeverin or the train in Štrpci?’

‘No, you didn’t. Everybody knows it was Savović who did it.’ He said. I stopped him: ‘So you know how it was, then go there and testify the truth! What is it

that I have to admit, what?’ I shouted. ‘You would like to go home, and leave me here to rot in prison for the things I never did? You have come back from Russia with fifty thousand Bosnian marks, the reward for your soul, while they killed my brother and chased me across the world!’

I was looking straight in his eyes.

Milan Lukić

172

‘Now, you listen to me, so that you know, now and forever: I am not making deals with these executioners, I am not going to confess to them, to doing something I never did! I am never going to testify against any of the Serbs, even if they cut me alive, even if my bones should turn to dust here in their dungeons… ‘

‘At the first status conference, I got invited by Carla del Ponte, who thought I was a monster.

The Muslim propaganda had done their homework by then! She kept staring at me. While we were shaking hands, I could feel how soft the tips of her fingers were. I took her hand and kissed it, because I wanted her to know that I was a Serbian knight, not a murderer. For I week later, I could feel the smell of her perfume. Can you imagine what would have happened if I had kissed her all over her body, she would have released me at once!’

I went on: ‘My brother, my soul ached for you. The Muslims had fed you with shit, they had beaten you with bars, they had raped you… now the Muslims are paying this court to finish you off, and you are collaborating, you are taking your pants off, all by yourself! With what brandy do you hope to wash it away, my brother?’ I was shouting at him, then I rushed out, disgusted and aggrieved, unspeakably sad.

173

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

50.

The war had been a market-place in which lives were traded. The Hague Court was a market place where lives and souls were traded.

Momir Nikolić called me to his room one day. When I came, he said: ‘Listen, Lukić, I would have been better off if I had made a deal with the Devil, than with the Prosecution. The Serbs hate me, and you should know that Naser Orić and Sredoje had made a deal to record you and sell you… they work for the Prosecution, beware of that.’

‘Let them fuck themselves, both them and their bosses. I knew it as soon as they trans-ferred me to the third floor.’ I said.

Momir Nikolić kept informing me about the news from that strange alliance. I had stopped all communication with Sredoje. He asked to be transferred to a different

ward. It could be that he was sorry about what he did. I had stayed on the third floor. People from all around the world were sending me help,

to buy telephone cards and other things from the canteen. My cooking skills had never developed beyond frying an egg, so Momir Nikolić kept doing the cooking, while I was in charge of procuring the provisions.

I liked to share a good meal with everybody in our ward, and the people from other cells would occasionally do the same.

Šljivančanin and Radić were in a session one day, and came back hungry. I offered them to eat. Nikolić hated them, probably because of their openly shown contempt about his collaboration with the prosecution. However, he couldn’t do anything about it, he had to be a good host. I liked it when I could make amends between people. I saw through Naser’s tactic, who skilfully threw in a bone of contention, in order to have more control over them. I spoiled his plans more than once.

Miroslav Radić was quiet and reserved, always trying to avoid arguments. His favourite topic of conversation were his love affairs from the time when he was a free man. I had heard of his reputation of a brave and honourable fighter, but he never talked too much about it. He was spending a lot of time with Vera Petrović, who was a psychiatrist, and he would often say that he would have killed himself if it had not been for her expert help. He had preserved his status of a Casanova in prison as well, where he was visited by his Italian lover. He missed his sons very much, and often cried when he thought of them.

Radoslav Brđanin despised false witnesses, all of the collaborators of the Prosecution. He wasn’t very tall, but he was a man of enormous physical strength, capable of lifting weights of more than a hundred kilograms. Before the war, he used to be a judo champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was also a wise and intelligent man, and hated injustice.

174

He was sentenced to many years in prison, although he was innocent. He adored his wife and kept talking about her all the time, and he was very proud of his two daughters. One of them was an actress, while the other one was a lawyer. He hated communists, and admired Chetniks, and was afraid of nothing.

General Dragoljub Ojdanić honestly declared himself as a communist and praised Milošević as his personal idol. His attitude in the sessions deserved full respect, and I re-spected him the more because he had saved Višegrad and many other places in the region, as the commander of the Užički Corps.

If the power plant had been blown, all of these places would have been obliterated. He was ill and had a number of surgical operations. His wife and his beautiful daughter Mila were regular visitors, as well as his grandsons, making it easier for him to endure everything like an honest man.

I am giving here these brief sketches of my inmates, to show how difficult it is to pre-serve harmony among people so different in so many aspects of their personalities. It takes a lot of skill, wisdom and positive thinking.

One day, Popović asked me to talk to Momir Nikolić, because he didn’t want him to spread lies about him to the Prosecution and to act as a false witness.

I asked Nikolić not to testify against these people from Srebrenica, telling him that slan-dering innocent people was a bigger sin than murder, and he promised he wouldn’t.

‘I am not going to do it, I swear on my mother Milenija. I did not know that once you make a deal with the devil, you have to continue lying. But I am not doing it any more!’

I was happy about it: ‘It’s a good decision, my brother!’ I went to Popović and told him about our conversation. Soon after that, Momir Nikolić

was taken away, and when he returned, his eyes were full of tears.‘What is the matter, my brother?’ I asked. ‘Is everything alright with your wife and

children?’ ‘It is, but they want to visit me and I do not have the money for their trip.’ He said. ‘I will help you,’ I said. His mother was living in Bratunac, and one day he was speaking to her on the phone.

She had problems with procuring the wood for the heating season, she couldn’t get a loan to pay for the wood. His eyes were filled with tears again.

‘Do you have anyone in Serbia?’ I asked. ‘I have a sister.’‘I’ll get a friend to take the money to your sister, and she can give it to your mother,’ I

said. Although it was three hundred Bosnian Marks that his mother needed, I asked my friend

to give them three hundred Euros. One day we both had visitors and I had brought two cakes, one for my family and the

other for his. I made a few steps towards them to give them the cake, but the warden told me to step back. I gave the cake to the warden, and he passed it on to Momir’s wife and children.

When I asked for an explanation, I was told that the collaborators of Carla Del Ponte enjoyed special protection.

175

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

There was another day when Šljivančanin and Radić had returned from a session with-out having eaten their lunch. I felt sorry and offered them something to eat, but Nikolić jumped up and threw all the food in the rubbish bin. I got very angry, and almost slapped him. Everybody despised him, and nobody was talking to him. From that day, I changed my behaviour towards him and started to avoid him. He was constantly taken away for some interviews.

People were saying that he was being instructed how to lie, he was being prepared for a false testimony. However, while I tried to help him, I thought he was repenting. He would even give me some false statements to read. I was particularly shocked by one of them. It was a statement made by Ljubiša Borovčanin, from 2002. In this statement he claimed that I, Milan Lukić, was in a meeting with General Ratko Mladić, President Radovan Karadžić and Kovač, to make plans for the attack on Srebrenica, where I was also involved. It didn’t make any sense to me at that point. What was this false statement doing in the hands of Momir Nikolić? It was a matter for the prosecutor, not for a witness. Then it dawned on me how the mechanism of the Prosecution in the Hague worked: they would take a Muslim lie, or a lie that they invented themselves, making sure that they find a collaborator who would confirm it as true and add details to it, expand it further on. They would then take this inflated lie and make it even bigger, using false statements of broken-down people, people who had sold their soul to them. In this way, all of them had become the prosecutors and the investigators. It was Momir’s task to add a few details to this alleged meeting of Mladić, Karadžić, Kovač and me, to make it more credible … They weren’t just liers and criminals, they were the Satan with his army.

When I met Ljubiša Borovčanin during one of the visits and asked him about this meet-ing where I was with him, Karadžić and Mladić. At first, he pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about and swore he had nothing to do with it, but when I offered to show him a copy of his statement, he changed his tone:

‘Listen, brother, I am sorry. I was trying to get them off my own back. I thought they were not going to catch you, so I mentioned your name there. I am sorry.’

Despite everything, I cannot say anything bad about Borovčanin. I hadn’t met him be-fore I came to the Hague and all I knew was that he was fighting in the war and was wounded somewhere near Bihać.

I had spent a year on that floor. One evening, just before the telephones were to be locked at eight thirty, Momir Nikolić passed me by and, turning around when he was half the way down the corridor, he started to shout: ‘Listen, Lukić, you’d better clean that cooker!’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘And why are you talking to me at all,’ I said.

Then he suddenly started screaming: ‘He’s going to kill me!’ The wardens asked what was going on, and I told them that I didn’t know, that he had

probably gone insane from too many lies. ‘Give him some pills to calm him down,’ I said. It was a trick agreed in advance with the manager, and the next day I was transferred to

another ward. While I was on the third floor, I met General Pavle Strugar, who was delivered by Montenegro and taken to the Hague. He was very old and ill, couldn’t walk without his

Milan Lukić

176

crutches. His room was opposite mine, and next to our rooms were Shqiptars Ljahi Ibra-himaj and Idriz Boljaj. Strugar was from Peć, in Metohija, and his former neighbours, with whom he had lived in ‘brotherhood and unity’, in the murderous alliance against the Serbs, now hated him openly. They kept provoking him, playing Shqiptar music as loudly as they could, so that he could not listen to his own music, the traditional Serbian epic songs. I was the true victim, sandwiched between the artificial love of the Kosovo communists and Al-banian extremists. This what they had always done to each other – being in and out of love with each other, while the Serbs were always paying the price of it.

I called Ljahi to ask him if he ever considered that loud music might be unpleasant to people. He apologised, explaining that they were doing it to spite Strugar.

I asked him to stop with it. Strugar was an old man, and if we couldn’t live like civilised people, that meant we would have to quarrel.

Form that day on, their music wasn’t loud, and I asked the nurse to supply Pavle with a hearing aid, so that he could function normally. I had respect for his old age and the unfair treatment he was receiving there. My father was younger than this man. I made him coffee, cappuccino, tea. We had a normal relationship for six months, then one day he went for a walk with Vinko Pandurović. The communists had sensed that something unusual had been going on. After that day, Strugar was not the same person. He had stopped listening to the traditional epic songs, and started ordering me about as if I were his orderly. I decided I was going to put up with it, and was more tolerant to him than I would have been towards my own father. Then one day he called me from the washing room. ‘Why is this machine not working?’ He shouted at me. ‘Have you switched it off?’ I patiently explained to him that the machine was warm, which meant that it was working. But he went on: ‘But you did turn it off, didn’t you?’

I swore I didn’t. I swore on the cross of Jesus Christ. As soon as I had done that, he started swearing, using horrible and offensive language. It was too much, and I couldn’t control myself. I said: ‘Fuck you,’ and walked out of

there. Five minutes later, he came into the dining room where I was. He was growling at me,

like a rabid hound, threatening to break my jaw. I was beside myself and told him not to come any nearer, or I would not be responsible

for my actions. This time he saw that I was in earnest, and went out of the room. I never spoke to him after that day. If there was some food to share, I would ask Radić

to give it to him, but he was an ungrateful communist bastard and was getting on Radić’s nerves as well, so that Radić started avoiding him himself very soon.

The most treacherous person of all in Scheveningen was general Hadžihasanović. His words were as sweet as honey, but he deeply hated everything that was Serbian. Before the war he was a communist officer, and after the war he became the biggest Muslim believer of all. He was an alcoholic, but so full of himself. His hands were shaking, but he thought of himself as of a favourite of his Prophet Mohammed.

177

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

51.

The inmates who had already received their first-level verdict were on the first floor: there was doctor Stakić, who had been sentenced to forty years, Drago Nikolić, pressed with charges for Srebrenica, Štela Martinović, a Croat from Mostar, Radoslav Brđanin, sentenced to thirty years and Rasim Delić.

Šešelj had been placed in hospital, due to his hunger strike. When I got there, they put me in a room with a terrible stench, then they moved me to another one. A few days later, Šešelj returned from hospital. He had defeated the mighty villains, and won his right to defend himself.

Although victorious, he had to be carried back, due to the weakness in his limbs. He was only a shadow of his former self, and I hardly recognised him. No wonder, in the twenty-eight days of his hunger strike, he had lost twenty-four kilos.

‘How are you, Duke?’ I asked happily, seeing him alive after so much time. ‘I am good, Lukić.’ He replied, as I was helping him to his seat. At the same floor I met Croat generals, Mladen Markač and Čermak. As for the Serbs, the whole general staff was there. This is my account of them, the way

I saw them as the youngest prisoner. Jovica Stanišić was in the first cell next to the wardens. He was an intelligent, educated

and cultivated person, very persistent in his attitude. His way of doing things was to act qui-etly. He was very-well informed, but would never express his opinion about anyone before hearing your own opinion on the same matter. Once he had your opinion, he would tell you whether you were right or wrong about it, from his point of view.

He reads a lot and smokes Cuban cigars, always with coffee. For a few moths now, he has been spending most of his time in his bed, leaving it only to go to the dining room for a light snack, or to the smoking room. He is very ill and has had several operations. He is taking a lot of medicines, and is giving injections to himself. His stomach is all black with syringe punctures.

He is under constant camera surveillance, and the wardens keep a log of his movements. The court wants to exhaust him, before they try to pass a sentence on him. They keep trying hard to take him out for a walk, but he is too weak to go out. When going to see his lawyer or the doctor, he uses a wheelchair. It is all a shame; they are torturing a helpless man. But he is a brave and strong character, and you will never hear him complain. He is a kind of man, so rare nowadays, who never complain or say a swear word. He is very self-possessed and calm, and I really like to sit next to him, to hear some of his wise comments. He keeps icons with portraits of saints around him, and sometimes, when he looks at the pictures of his

178

children, his eyes fill with tears. He openly adores his young wife. Lately, he has been given some expensive medicines, they have been keeping him alive artificially, just to get the ver-dict the way they want it, and do not want to let him go to Belgrade. They have promised he will be out soon, and I have no doubts that – given the treatment he has been here – he had taken good care of the safety of Serbia and Serbs.

After my verdict was passed, I was sitting in the phone booth, sharing my sorrow with my family, when I suddenly felt somebody was hugging me from the back. Turning around, I saw the familiar smile of Jovica Stanišić, with the usual shadow of pain across his face: ‘Be brave, all of this will pass one day. Even those who sentenced you know you are innocent,’ he said.

He had found strength in his pain-ridden mind, to comfort me. He would come to my cell and we would sit together while he smoked one of his cigars. He would do his best to encourage me, a man everyone would want for a friend. ‘If Milošević had only listened to me, they would have never snatched Kosovo from us,’ he said. Once he told me that he had always had respect for Draža Mihailović.

Sreten Lukić was moved from the third floor, a year ago, to a cell next to mine. Now, there was only a wall separating the two of us, while back there in Rujište, his family were our next-door neighbours. Although we share the same surname, we are only distant rela-tives, fifth or sixth generation. The media had promoted us into close relatives, saying that he was my uncle. He was fifteen years my senior, and had left the village early, going to the police academy to study. I hardly ever saw him, usually during the summer, when we would hardly ever speak. He had been there and he still was distant, overly serious, almost official. In the dining room, where we usually sit during the day, he would stick around only for as long as it was necessary to make a telephone call, or during some celebrations where everyone was invited. He was spending his time in his cell, writing something, learning English and watching television. Sometimes though, we would have coffee together and talked a little. He is not a man who would spread gossip, but he will always give you advice if you ask for it.

While I was in prison during the Milošević regime, in nineteen ninety-three and four, he never helped me, nor did I ever seek any help from him. When I was released by the court, all the newspapers were writing about my uncle providing protection for me. They were exploiting the common surname. The truth is that I never asked him for help later in nine-teen ninety-eight, while I was on the run. If I had been arrested then, he wouldn’t have done anything to help me, because he had an absolute respect for the law. On the other hand, I am sure that he wouldn’t have done anything to make things more difficult for me either. The newspaper articles where he was presented as my uncle had perhaps helped me to save my life in Serbia. One thing is for sure: if our roles had been reversed, I would have done every-thing to help him. When I heard that he was arrested, I felt really bad. The twenty-two years’ sentence he had been given does not seem to have bothered him, and he is still an optimist. He is a kind of person who passes unnoticed in a crowd, has a very strong character and is extremely courteous. He has enormous support in his wife, who is also a caring mother and takes good care of their children.

179

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Momčilo Perišić is a general and a gentleman. His cell is like a castle, all painted Byzan-tine blue. Everything there is in its proper place, and his attitude is as correct as it is honest and noble. He likes reading, and the books of Isidora Bjelica. He watches films, and likes to treat other people to food and drink and is always ready to help. What he absolutely loathes is when someone is deceitful and plays tricks with others. He is modest, well-mannered, and his favourite dishes are various salads. He does exercises with weights, plays football, vol-leyball and chess. He used to be fond of paragliding. The imprisonment must be very hard to a man who is a lover of heights and open space. He is brave and optimistic, though. It is difficult for me to figure out how this kind of man had turned communist. At least he has realised that Broz was a bastard and Ustasha.

He is a good judge of people. His attitude after a session tells me very clearly if he had a false witness at the hearing. Inside himself, he finds it very difficult to decide that this execu-tion site has been designed for Serbs only.

When playing sports, he is a great fighter, and after a football match he is often covered in cuts and bruises. Although he is sixty years old, no one in the Hague can compete with him in stamina. If he is in a bad mood, he pretends that his hearing is even worse than it really is.

General Lazarević is a quiet man, reserved but undoubtedly cunning. In many situations he is honest and correct. He plays football well, but has had five operations so far. He has been kept in hospital, and takes about fifteen different medicines every day. His legs are weak, and he has a number of other illnesses, all due to the depleted uranium. After an ill-performed operation on his gallbladder, he conceived a liver cirrhosis. He loves Serbia and is a good man. Although innocent, like most of the people here, he has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He is a true communist, a lover of Broz and cannot stand Chetniks.

Drago Nikolić, who was born in Bratunac, is an honest and quiet man, but easily loses his temper when he sees any form of injustice. He loves Serbia, protects his dignity and hates vulgarities. He is a keen smoker, loves the traditional epic songs and poetry, and is a good friend and a sportsman. He loves his wonderful family and spends a lot of time in his cell, lost in his thoughts. His conduct during the war was an honourable one.

Veselin Šljivančanin is a security colonel. He is a good and proud man, a lover of wom-en and restaurants. He is a true profile of a Serbian Army officer from the pre-communist era, who has somehow wondered into the communist army of Josip Broz. He was one of those who fervently accepted the new nation which was invented in 1942 by Ante Pavelić, and which was later on further developed by Broz and NATO, enjoying the blessing of the pope in the Vatican. He loves communism and Tito, which is a double-tragic flaw: he and his peers love their executioner, unable to see through the deceit and unable to see that their be-loved leader was a mere overture for the final act. Or perhaps he is too stubborn to denounce Tito now and admit that he has been grossly wrong all this time. This is the common trait for all these people: blind and oblivious for the truth and the face of our Lord.

He gets quite upset when Šešelj defies the Montenegrin nation, although he hasn’t yet mastered the new alphabet, with the new sounds and letters it contains. He doesn’t like the Chetniks and general Draža.

Milan Lukić

180

He has been sentenced to seventeen years, based on a second-level court verdict. Tor-mented by injustice, he has changed a lot over the past few months and his general condition has greatly deteriorated.

His wife Persa, his son and his two granddaughters are a magnificent family. They have opened so many doors trying to find justice and satisfaction for him, and he is fully aware that he has been blessed with something special in his life.

Frenki Simatović from the state security police does not speak about himself, although he is very keen on knowing the facts about others. He claims that during the war he was an intelligence journalist, and is only concerned with his own welfare. He is desperately trying to get out of the prison and go home. He smokes too much and loves the computer. He is an expert on electronic devices. The Serbs suspect that he may be Croatian, while the Croats are sure that he is a Chetnik. The truth is that no one knows what he is. He loves cooking and the only tell-tale sign of his nervousness is his habit of biting nails.

He is a true bohemian, always alert to hear the talk around him, always on guard, simply born for intelligence work. His presence is hardly ever noticed, he is almost invisible and never assertive. He keeps thinking about Serbia and the bohemian life, but he also loves women.

General Pavković is keen on sports, football most than other sports. He is very edgy, but likes company of others. He likes joking and is a good cook. He uses a lot of swear words, he is sometimes quite rude and easily picks up a quarrel. Quite often, other inmates have to intervene to prevent him from picking a fight with others.

He is the inmate with the most marriages and children behind him. He loves his family and spends all his time talking on the phone with his young wife.

He sometimes like to spread gossip, but has a number of qualities as well. He loves restaurants as well and is a brave man. He knows so many people in Serbia that any fortune teller would be jealous of him. He is a true hard communist, and hold a picture of Tito in his cell.

General Vlastimir Đorđević Rođa is a quite wonderful person. He adores being the cen-tre of attention. He loves good food, football, cards and chess. He is always there to help, but also enjoys throwing in a bone of contention among others from time to time. He keeps nagging about not receiving any income from the state. He has taken to the new situation like a duck to water, he is very skilful at setting up other people. He doesn’t know a first thing about faith and is still nostalgic about communism, because that was a golden age for the tricksters of various kinds.

I had known the Muslim General Rasim Delić during the war. He is not alive any longer, and used to be on the other side, a commander of the Muslim army. I would be a bad man if I wrote anything bad about him. He would give me advice as if I were his son, and everything he told me was absolutely correct and useful. Since I did not have my own investigators in the field, and had to contact my potential witnesses somehow, I had to call them on the phone from the Hague. Delić was the first to warn me that the prosecution will use the record of my phone calls and try to influence the witnesses, to persuade them not to appear in the court. He gave me a lot of other advice.

181

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

We spent a lot of time at the same floor, but I never heard him say anything vulgar. He had a nice singing voice, and loved to sing the traditional Bosnian songs. He loved reading as well and used to spend a lot of time riding the stationary bicycle in the gym. He paid at-tention to his diet and lived according a true soldierly regime.

He used to say that the Bosnia people are one people, set apart to be used and manipu-lated by others.

He knew that I was imprisoned innocent, but I never asked him for help. He criticised the court in the Hague and openly called it a political institution. He died unexpectedly, and I was really shaken by his death. Since he had given me his telephone number when he was leaving the prison, I called his family to express my condolence to his family and his won-derful wife Aida, whom I had met during her visits to her husband.

Mladen Markač was an outspoken and honest man. He had been to all the various places in the war, and his specialty was the sniper, but he also had an extensive knowledge of various types of arms. He was very open about his hatred for everything that was Serbian, always saying that his dream was a Croatia without Serbs. I had an impression that in the war he was quite merciless. In spite of this, he did leave an impression of a correct man, somebody whose word you could rely on. I had a very correct relationship with him, and we had reached a common understanding on a number of issues. He was never vulgar, never a lier. The only thing I could not understand was how he could have so much hate towards anyone, only because a person was of a different confession. I could never understand this.

Vinko Martinović was an extraordinary character: He was a good sportsman, a great friend, and he was also very keen on having a glass of drink, especially home-made brandy. He couldn’t do without brandy and, aware of the fact that he had been manipulated by the politicians, he was cursing them on a daily basis. Among his many curses, he would never curse God, and seemed to have been deeply religious. He liked a good joke, good company and would give everything to anyone who needs his help.

Ivan Čermad, a Croation general, insisted that he was Czech and Jewish by origin. He had come out of the war with an enormous amount of wealth, some said more than five hundred million Euro, and also with a number of acquaintances at the high level. He is in-telligent and extremely cunning. He knew the psychology of people, he was very generous and liked to treat everyone. When he was leaving the prison, he cordially said good-bye to everyone.

A Croat General claimed to me and Šljivančanin that the Mile Mrkšić had been given a lot of money to testify on behalf of Gotovina. Why had all those people died? Why had so many graves been dug in the graveyards? But people for them were just cannon fodder. The war had its black market for general commodities, but Scheveningen was the black market of sold souls.

General Zdravko Tolimir was an honest and hard-working man. He used to be an ortho-dox, hard-line communist. Now when he was in trouble, he had discovered God, and had become a true believer. I felt sorry for him, after the three strokes that he had had. A normal man would certainly find it impossible to believe that any court in the world could sentence a man in this condition.

Milan Lukić

182

Ljubiša Beara was a man about whom I had heard unbelievable things during the war. He also had a reputation of being a true professional. My overall impression of him is that he is a brave and daring man. In a word, he was an officer. He was honourable and with an impeccable reputation, and this was his attitude in the court. After he had been sentenced, he remained firm and brave. If he had to chose again today, he would again give everything for the Serbian cause and Republika Srpska.

Vinko Pandurović is a man who said all the bad things about everyone else. I do not want to talk about him, let the history be the judge of his actions.

Mićo Stanišić is a true Serbian knight from Romania. During the war, he had been the minister of the police.

He was quiet and calm, never entering any kind of disagreement. Naser Orić told me that once, in the old days, he had challenged Mićo to a duel, and that it took Mićo only five seconds or so to fell him down to the ground, with a single move. Even today, it was possible to see that he was a strong man, and a sportsman in his younger days. I also met his family – his two daughters and two sons, truly lovely children. His wife Nada is a wonderful woman and she told me once to endure the hardships and not to be afraid of the slender, because God always helps the innocent and the righteous.

I had heard different rumours about Momčilo Krajišnik. Here in the detention, he was always neat and tidy, and he behaved in the same way in the court sessions, always firm in his principles. When he was read the sentence, he remained reserved and self-composed. He is undoubtedly a wise man, very educated and polite in his relations towards others. He is a good father to two sons and two daughters.

Vujadin Popović had been given a life sentence for the alleged crime in Srebrenica. He is an honest man, very quiet and fully incapable of harming anyone, regardless of the things that the Hague prosecution and the various non-governmental organisations say abut him. He is regular participant of the sport activities here, he loves tennis and exercising with weights. He also plays the guitar, it helps him to cope with the prison blues. He is a believer, and prays very often. He is a good Serb, father and husband.

I meet Radovan Karadžić during the visits to the priest and during the recreational ac-tivities. He is in a good shape for a man of his age. He is very optimistic, and firmly believes that he will be released from the Hague prison. He is regular in his fasting and taking the holy communion. He respects Draža Mihailović and the Chteniks’ cause.

He is a man respected by the Croats in Herzegovina, because the saved many of the Croats from the Central Bosnia. He adores his children and grandchildren, and often talks about his wife Ljilja. He receives regular visits from his family.

Sredoje Lukić had fought for the Serbian people in Bosnia and he had suffered a lot in this war, without ever making any personal gain. He had spent a lot of time undergoing treatments because of his heavy traumas, caused by the torture during his capture. He was unjustly sentenced for something that happened in June 1992, at which time he was away in Belgrade, undergoing his treatment. I will not judge him, I’d rather let others do that.

Here is the ‘Duke’ Šešelj, who has recovered now. He knows everyone and everything in this world! He is a living encyclopaedia, and the fates of all of us here will depend on his

183

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

courageous duel with the dragon, which threatens to devour us al, with its hundred heads. I could write a book about his jokes and his humorous anecdotes. He has kept his optimistic spirit and helps everyone, giving advice and suggesting a strategy. The only thing that he never does is try to guess the actual outcome of a trial and the verdict that is passed, because these are beyond any sense, jurisdiction or justice. He does not want to know about the ones who have made a deal with the Devil.

It happened once that Mitar Vasiljević came in the common room. He was my god-brother and a successor of a three hundred years long sacred bond between our families. He was a false witness of the Prosecution, having made a deal with them to confess to commit-ting crimes allegedly done by him and myself. He was promised to walk away, leaving me to be buried alive. I asked him: ‘Hey my god-brother, is it going to turn out that you are Vujica Vulović and I am Karađorđe?’

Šešelj said: ‘You are not going to lie against your god-brother, are you? If you do that, you are a crooked bastard.’ Then he added, turning towards me: ‘He is not going to lie against you, is he?’ He said this loudly enough, so that everybody in the room could hear.

I said: ‘Yes, he will. He will gets his sentence reduced by a third.’ Vojo has three sons. All of them are bright and nice, as well as polite. His wife Jadranka

is a wonderful and intelligent woman, and example of a wife devoted to her husband and her children. She visits him every two weeks, and it is an honour for me to have met her.

Milan Lukić

184

52.

Our wardens are correct, polite and official. They know what the whole world except Serbia knows – that this court is a political court, where innocent people are executed. Among our wardens, there are several Czechs, and I think that they sympathise with us, be-ing held here without any guilt. On the other hand, it is quite understandable that they try to preserve a well-paid job. Among them, there are Tanja and Eve, two young Czech women who are very kind to us. The manager of the prison is from Australia. She is quite short, but very energetic and lady-like in her approach. She tries to help the inmates, and during her term in office, we have been supplied with a new walking ground, new kitchen, new televi-sion sets in our cells, all within the existing regulations.

But the real face of the Hague Court are the lawyers – both the official and the unofficial, hidden face of it. There is a special office that performs an initial check whether a prisoner can afford a lawyer. If a prisoner has no money, the Secretariat will give him a list of lawyers to choose from. The principal lawyer must be an English-speaking one.

I was visited by lawyers from the Hague list while I was sill in the Argentinean prison. All of them were sent by the Prosecution, who are their real bosses.

Each court case is worth between seven hundred thousand and one and a half million Euro. All of them will take their respective shares in this large cake, and the defendant is certain to be sentenced to many years in prison. All the defendants are sentenced in advance. The court sessions are just a formality, an excuse to justify the salaries and the money paid to the defence lawyers.

The more publicity they manage to create about a defendant, inflating the alleged war crimes, the more worthy the defendant becomes, a true goose with golden eggs.

Back there, in the Argentinean prison, I was visited by David Sergi, a Jew and a hun-dred percent he was the Prosecution’s man. He was sent there directly by them, with his big head and his hundred and fifty kilo of body mass. His story was clear enough for me, and I concluded that the essence of his ‘defence strategy’ was for me to accept to make false state-ments and testify against anyone they should choose. I have a good reason to believe that this would have been Šešelj or perhaps Krajišnik.

I refused a defence like that, then Ostojić and Karnevas arrived. The first on was in-volved in the case of Krajišnik, and the other was defending Prlić.

Their plan for me was to find a third lawyer, then to share the money gained in therir combinations. I was represented by Karnevas in the Hague for two months. For all that time he was making a lot of money. Then they saw that they could make some money using me and so they told Karnevas that he could not be in charge of two cases, meaning he would

185

have to give my case to someone else. Soon after that, he came with a complete fool, Alan Yatvin, a homosexual with whom he shared all the money. It took me three months to see through the whole scheme, and I asked that my lawyer be replaced with a new one. My request had initiated a total turmoil. The Secretariat refused my demand, ordering me to choose an assistant lawyer for Yatvin, a lawyer from Belgrade. I thought this could be ac-ceptable for me, assuming that in Belgrade there had to be some honest people, and for me it was important to have someone – it could be anyone – with whom I could agree on the basic strategy of the defence. I chose Jelena Lopičić from the list. It was really a random choice, because I did not know her at that time. She agreed to act as my co-counsel, and promised she would consider my suggestions. However, as soon as she was officially registered, she made an alliance with Yatvin.

He was a horrible lawyer, fully and wilfully disinterested in my case. He would spend one half of our half-an-hour meeting sleeping in his chair. He was eternally sleepy and tired.

At the beginning, I would be coughing to wake him up, and when this didn’t work, I had to pull him on his sleeve. I saw that my defence was non-existent, so I demanded a re-placement of my lawyer, but the Secretariat wouldn’t allow this. I had spent twelve months without having a contact with a lawyer. I had tried to get Jelena Lopičić for my lead counsel, just to get rid of Yatvin.

However, I soon discovered, to my utmost surprise, that Jelena was on the payroll of the Secretariat as well. Officially, I was told that she refused to be my lead counsel. She didn’t want to confront the system, she was happy to collect her pieced of the cake. When I asked her to come and visit me, she told me that the lead counsel didn’t allow this. However, I was willing to accept the lead counsel to visit me as well, she would then be willing to come, and was also willing to state in her recommendations that we had an exemplary collaboration in place.

Then, just before filing the appeal against the “Rule 11-bis” decision against me I can-celled my power of attorney, although – and because – my head was at stake.

I wrote a letter in which I stated that I did not authorise his appeal. As soon my decision became known, I received a telephone call from Jelena Lopičić.

She was begging me to accept Yatvin. However, I really did not trust this lying homosexual any longer, and I asked her to come to visit me, without him. Finally, and after a lot of per-suasion, she accepted my terms. Then, from the prison gate, she called me again, asking me to return the call.

When I did so, she told me that she was at the gate with the lead counsel, who wouldn’t let her visit me without him. This was all happening at the moment when we had only two days left to respond to the request filed by the Prosecution, by which I was to be delivered to the prison in Sarajevo. Then Maja from the head office came to tell me that Jelena could only visit me in the presence of the lead counsel, because it was his right to demand this. I decided to believe Maja that this was really the procedure prescribed by the regulations in place.

However, I tried to explain that for the previous twelve months I had not had any contact with the fat man I didn’t have any reason to like.

Milan Lukić

186

She explained that I didn’t have to talk to him at all, I could talk only to Jelena. There were no rules against this. Finally, I gave my consent. Back in the day room, I told the in-mates gathered there about my problem. It turned out that Martinović, the Croat from Mo-star, had had the same problem and he advised me what to do. Take a boiling kettle and pour the hot water on his legs, as if by accident. He’ll never pester you again.’

‘My God, I thought, I couldn’t do it even I were to be shot here. Did he know where we were? I thought.

I had decided to act in a civilised manner, so I explained to Yatvin that I could have died a thousand times in the war and that I had been trough situations that could drive anyone mad, so that, after all, what I expected from him was a little bit of understanding and humane treatment, least of all to be forcefully represented by him against my will.

‘It is like rape,’ I told him openly, ‘and if there is one thing that I hate, it is rapists. So please, sir,’ I warned him, ‘ do not make me do something that will turn you into an object of public ridicule. Be so kind and leave this case to others.’

I was thinking of pouring some cold water on him publicly, risking being punished, risk-ing whatever counter-measures he could resort to afterwards. I was sick of it all – himself, the injustice and the unfair treatment I had been given… Oddly enough, he walked out of the room, stopped in the hall thinking about something for a while, then left without a word.

He finished the statement of appeal, filed it, then immediately cancelled his services in my case. I reacted by demanding from the Secretariat that Jelena Lopičić be my lead coun-sel. However, she refused this, knowing that I had already been sentenced. She made some vague excuses about the Secretariat not allowing her to act as my lead counsel.

Having heard this, I asked her to step out completely. I called her husband and explained my point of view, and he agreed to talk to her about that. He added that in his opinion it was only natural that she should step back, since it was what I wanted. We agreed that I should call again the following day.

When I called again the following day, it was the same old story, he was repeating the words I had heard from her so many times: ‘The Secretariat is paying her services.’

I said: ‘Sir, why does the Secretariat keep on insisting on keeping her despite my explicit disagreement? What could be the real reason for this?’

‘Are you trying to say that my wife is a whore?’ He asked.‘I’m not. But your wife is for some reason kept in the position of my defence lawyer,

against my will. If you need money, I will pay, but please I want her to resign as my defence lawyer.’

I wrote a letter to the Belgrade Chamber of Lawyers, explaining that this lawyer was in-sisting on representing me, without my will, to serve the interests of the Prosecution. I wrote another letter to the Secretariat, demanding that Jelena Lopičić be replaced as my defence lawyer, on the grounds of the discipline procedure conducted against her in the Belgrade Chamber of Lawyers, initiated by my own appeal. They withdrew her.

It had been a very long struggle, and for the first time in my life I had started taking sleeping pills. The trial could start now… I soon appeared at the status conference, in rela-tion with the first decision to be sent to Sarajevo.

187

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

‘That decision neither legal, nor just. I can guarantee that I will not go there alive,’ I said determinedly.

Talin, the magistrate, said: ‘Lukić, do not worry, there is still hope.’ They took me back to the detention. The guards kept opening the small window every

half an hour, checking if I was trying to commit suicide. Twenty days later, I arrived the verdict from the higher level, ruling that I was to stay in the Hague. The special measures of supervision were immediately abolished.

The principal defence lawyer that I chose for myself was rejected by the Secretariat, and the deadline was now very short. My choice, Milomir Šalić, was not on the list of the lawyers approved by the Secretariat.

Then Šljivančanin suggested Jovan Simić from Belgrade, who was allegedly an advisor to Tadić. I called him and was happy to see that I was dealing with a man who was polite.

‘I cannot accept your case now, but I can recommend a young colleague, who is a good lawyer. His father is a university professor, and his mother works at the Supreme Court,’ he said.

‘So you can vouchsafe for him? Please think about it, because I have had quite bad experiences so far,’ I said.

He gave me the name and the number, and I called him immediately. The first impres-sion was very positive, he was more than a willing to cooperate.

Having made some enquiries about him, I found out that he was a drug addict. In our first meeting, I asked him if it was true.

He denied it, admitting to only taking marijuana when he was younger, saying that it was a normal thing for Holland.

I comforted myself with the thought that all of the lawyers registered for the Secretariat had to be weirdoes of some kind, otherwise they wouldn’t have got appointed in the first place.

So I issued my power of attorney. After only two or three meetings, I saw that he was an orthodox lier. I noticed that he kept blowing his nose into a handkerchief, and there were bloody stains on it. His nails were all bitten.

I asked him if he was inhaling heroine or something and he admitted he did, but only from time to time. ‘I swear on my mom, bro,’ he said. Now this was a fine lawyer, using very sophisticated language, I thought. I really did not know what to do. When I asked him to pre-pare some important documents, he would come with three or two unimportant pieces of pa-per. He never brought any statements made by witnesses or any other substantial documents. On the other side, the Prosecution kept withdrawing the documents from me, preventing me from composing any relevant defence. I could see clearly that I was in for a true problem. I hired some private detectives, with a task of following him, and I soon received very alarm-ing reports. My lawyer had tricked more than fifty people, robbing them of their money and possessions, he was regularly threatened, abducted and beaten by his creditors. He was a heavy junkie, and obviously heavily in debt, and I did not know how to get rid of him.

As for the Prosecution, they were at a big advantage always when they were dealing with poor lawyers. I could not believe the things that were happening to me. Did he have any humane qualities left in him any capability to show understanding or sympathy?

Milan Lukić

188

Then one day my family were preparing to visit me. I asked my lawyer if he could find and rent a flat in Scheveningen for them, trying to make him useful in any way. He promised to call me within a week.

For two months, he did not find any flat to rent, and I spent twenty telephone cards on useless conversations with him. Then, all of a sudden, he called one day, saying that he had found a four-room flat that he could rent for a period of twelve months. The rent was ten thousand Euro, but the money had to be paid in advance.

My plan was to split the cost among three of the families that needed occasional accom-modation, so I had arranged with a friend of mine to lend the money to my family. They gave the money to the lawyer, asking him to write out a receipt. Two days later, he was in Scheveningen, to pay the rent and take the keys to the flat.

When came to visit me, I asked him to give me a copy of the key to the flat, but he said that it would take five or six more days, to get the new furniture in.

Twenty days later, I asked him for the key again. This time he said he had forgotten to bring it.

But this time he had some information for me. He said: ‘My brother, I have to tell you that some guys from Voždovac want to pay a lot of money to me, just to let you go down for good.’

‘What do I have to do with these guys?’ I asked. ‘They are involved in the murder of your brother,’ he said. He told me everything about

these people – their names, their businesses. I could see that there was a real connection with Dragomir Andan, but I didn’t ask any questions. I asked about the flat and the money that he received it for it. I asked him to admit that he had given the money to his drug dealers.

He said: ‘It is true, I did. But this month’s salary is due in a few days, and I will have seven thousand Euro to pay. And I will give the rest to you next month.’

I thought that he deserved a real good kick in the ass, but – on the other hand, I knew that he was sick, and couldn’t bring myself to be violent to him. I did tell him a lot of nasty thi9ngs, though.

Finally, I told him that I wanted him to write and hand in his resignation on my case. ‘I do not want any of the money,’ I told him, ‘ I just do not want to see you again, that’s all,’ I said.

A week later, he came back with some vague story that the Secretariat was not letting him resign.

I was very sharp this time: ‘I don’t want to see you again, I told you that. Next time, I will break you into pieces. And I want you to pay back the money you owe, at once.’

He ran off, and I wrote a letter to the Secretariat, explaining that Šulejić was a drug addict and a fraudster. I supported my claim with arguments and demanded a replacement. They refused, with an explanation that was in the best interests of justice that he should remain my solicitor.

I threatened to go on a hunger strike, only to find out the following day that they had issued an official decision that Šulejić was going to remain in charge of my case for another one hundred and twenty days.

189

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

I started my hunger strike. When they moved me to the section for medical treatment, they tried to persuade me to stop the strike. Doctor Falke said: ‘Listen, Lukić, as soon as you start taking food, they will get the lawyer off your case.’

Vera Petrović, the psychologist from Belgrade, came to ask me to stop the hunger strike, guaranteeing that the lawyer was going to be replaced within the same day. I decided I could trust her and agreed. It was four o’clock, and at five I received the official decision that my lawyer had been withdrawn.

In the seven days of my hunger strike, I had lost nine kilograms. Despite the fact that I had been able to prove that Šulejić was a fraudster, and although he himself had admitted to the legal counsellor of the Secretariat, Ana Osure, that he was a drug addict, I still had had to go on a hunger strike. Obviously, this kind of defence lawyer was exactly what they needed when it came to defending the Serbs.

I decided to accept Alarid Jason as my defence lawyer. Although he did not really have the time to study my case, he made a very good start, and I began to think that I finally had by my side a real assistant to defend me before the court.

My defence team now had the lead counsel, Jason Alraid, his deputy Dragan Ivetić, the case manager and the translator-interpreter Jelena Rašić and the expert legal counsellor Mary who, although American, had a lot of understanding for me.

Jelena Rašić was a refuge from Srpska Krajina. She was a beautiful girl, and also very brave. On many occasions, she organised meetings and interviews with the witnesses, in a preparation of a visit by the principal lawyer, who was taking statements from those honest Muslims who were not afraid to tell the truth. Jelena Rašić came under a pressure by the Prosecution in the Hague, who wanted her to influence my witnesses, to give false state-ments against me. They thought they could win her favours by paying her or, when this did not work, by threatening her. They wanted her to make a statement that I had bribed my wit-nesses. She resisted, although she probably needed money quite badly. Then the Prosecution issued an order and she was arrested and placed in detention, as the only female prisoner here. I could see her only from the distance, when she was taking her walks in the prison yard. I wanted to help, to return the favour somehow, but the only thing I could do was to give her a sign to stick it out, through my window pane. When she finally appeared before the court, she repeated that I had never offered money or promised any favours to my wit-nesses. She was released after two months.

My defence lawyer Jason asked me right from the start to tell him the truth about my charges. When I told him that none of them were true, he was suspicious.

However, when he saw the documentation that I had from the army and the police, the photos of me wearing the police uniform, the court decisions and the verdict that had put me in prison during nineteen ninety-three and nineteen ninety-four, proving that I was in prison in Belgrade at the time when the crimes in Sjeverin and Štrbac actually happened, and also when he saw that I was mobilised when I was twenty-three, at the time when I actually lived in Switzerland, that I had a flat in Belgrade, he started to believe in my innocence.

I also showed him the arrest warrant with the well-known description of the fair-haired guy who wasn’t me.

Milan Lukić

190

Soon we were in the court, and the first witnesses of the Prosecution had started to appear. They were Muslims, prepared and paid to tell lies. After the first ten of these false witnesses had given their statements, my lawyer came to me and, giving me his handshake, said:

‘Now I am convinced that the charges are false.’ I am grateful to him for everything that has been done for my cause until now. Today,

with less than one month before the opening of the court proceedings related to my appeal, I am represented by two lawyers – Tomislav Višnjić and Dragan Ivetić.

Two months after raising the second indictment against me, on 12th June 2008, the Pros-ecution demanded that the charges be amended, although they had already been changed once up to that point. The additions to the existing charges were to be ‘rape, abduction and torture’.

So the whole process was organised like this: first, they arrested a Serb charged with committing about every crime in this world, and then they actually start looking for his crimes. After raising the first indictment, there is the first addition to it, then the second indictment, followed by a new addition to it, then an addition to the addition of the indict-ment, and so on.

The process involves an army of scouts and hunters, with practically the same witnesses who keep hanging around, like vultures praying on different counts. It is quite obvious who controls the mechanism and the participants, but this strange undercover force remains well hidden. The end is as piteous as it is certain.

What about the prisoner himself?The prisoner is overwhelmed by the meaningless array of searches, chases, false state-

ments, and the alleged expert findings. The higher the charges are stacked on top of each other, the more recommendations will be cunningly made regarding the choice of the law-yer, leading the prisoner to play a part in his own doom, quite unaware of the trickery in-volved. There are also the alleged scientific and expert assistants, with all their licences and diplomas gained at famous universities, all of whom – as a rule – from the big cities of the West. The scene is set for the big market of souls, where lies are used to barter about the heads and destinies of people.

I listened as they were reading my name: ‘Milan Lukić, Serbian, born to father Mile and mother Kata… in 1967, in Foča…’ The Prosecution had a list of forty-six approved witnesses, and the defence was allowed

the same number. Then, they allowed the Prosecution to bring fifteen more, but they did not allow any more witnesses to the defence.

‘The defendant is charged with nine counts of violating the law and rules of war… mur-der, cruelty… and twelve more counts for crimes against humanity… inhumane actions, murder, persecution… ‘ Finally, they added extinction!

My indictment was worse than Eichman’s; I had allegedly committed more individual crimes than half of Hitler’s general staff.

They were the SS leaders, and I was the leader of the White Eagles, the Avengers, the Obrenovac Brigades… these were, according to them para-military formations, composed

191

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

of the local Serbs from Višegrad, and the picture of Višegrad that was presented at the court was worse than Nuremberg, the cradle and a stronghold of Hitler’s fanatism.

Then the Prosecution announced a testimony that was to prove beyond any doubt that I was the commander of the White Eagles. During this testimony, however, the alleged witnesses could not agree about some basic facts, such as the hat and the uniform I was supposed to have been wearing. Some of them claimed that I was wearing a fur hat, some others insisted that I was wearing the Serbian hat, or maybe a blue beret, or even perhaps a black beret. As for the uniform, various colours and types were proposed, from a camouflage uniform, to a black uniform.

Then the witness marked as M 18 made a very decisive statement: ‘He was wearing a fur hat, which he and his companions had taken from their grandfathers, who were killing us during the First and the Second World War!’

Mirsada Kahriman made an even more remarkable statement:‘Every day, on my way back home from work, I was passing by Milan Lukić who was

slaughtering and killing Muslims!’ She also said that I was wearing a white strap around my sleeve, with a Cyrillic inscription ‘White Eagles’.

The judge was obviously amazed by this statement and asked her how it was possible that those killings were regularly taking place at the same time, when she was going home from work.

She explained: ‘I don’t know about that, they were slaughtering all the time.’ Then the Prosecution brought another witness, a former waiter in the period before the

war, and a notorious alcoholic, my god-brother Mitar Vasiljević. He had already been sen-tenced and had made a deal to make a false statement. The deal was that his own sentence would be reduced by third. He was ready to make a statement: ‘The White Eagles, some ten to fifteen of them, were members f the police forces in Višegrad. They had been collected from outside Višegrad.’

‘They were members of both the army and the police,’ stepped in a Muslim witness, to provide additional clarification.

The Prosecution showed a photograph of a van. On the two sides of the van were two mem bers of the White Eagles, one with a Serbian cap, and the other with a fur hat. They were hol ding a black flag with the skull and crossed bones, with the inscription ‘In God we trust’.

‘Are these the White Eagles?’ Asked the judge.‘These are Stevan Milosavljević and Josip Stevković, who were only in charge of trans-

porting food to the fighters,’ explained the lawyer. ‘If the army and the police were defending Yugoslavia and its constitution as an inter-

nationally recognised country, then all of their formations must the regular forces. Only separatists can have para-military units.’

The judges seemed to have overheard this truth. It was easier to drop the charges of me being the commander of the White Eagles and the other formations. They had firm evidence that proved beyond any doubt that I had been mobilised by the reserve police forces in Višegrad.

But nonetheless, they were determined to prove me guilty, even if I had been a monk.

Milan Lukić

192

53.

I was further charged with a crime I allegedly committed together with Mitar Vasiljević, Mijo Mitrašinović and Radomit Šimšić. According to them, on 7th June 1992, we took Meho Džafić, Ekrem Džafić, Hosan Mutapčić, Amir Kurtalić and Hasan Kustura to the Drina, where we shot them. There were actually seven of them according to this scenario, but we killed only five, while two of them managed to escape. These two were now appearing be-fore the court as protected witnesses, marked as VG 032 and VG 14.

They claimed further on that I and another soldier went around the houses of Bikavac that same afternoon, where we seized a total of thirteen Muslims, all of whom we had taken to a house, which they could not identify. Then we made them take off their shoes and robbed them of their possessions. Six of them were ordered by me to stay in that house, where they did not have a warden, and where they were kept only by their fear of going out. The remaining seven were driven by me to the Vilina Vlas hotel, in Višegradska banja.

They said that I was taking only Hasan Mutapčić with me in my car, while the remaining six of them drove there by themselves, in a Yugo that belonged to Meho Džafić. Some of the witnesses claimed that it was not a Yugo, but a small Fiat, a Polish version of the Fiat Panda.

Then the judge asked if it was possible to squeeze six adult people into a small Fiat Panda. The answer was that most probably this wouldn’t have been possible at all. Then the judge said: ‘It must have been a Yugo then.’

The story went on like this: When we arrived at the hotel, it was closed for visitors and I took the captives into the hotel lobby. Next, I was trying unsuccessfully to find the keys to the manager’s office, where I wanted to lock up the captives. Then Radomir Simić, who was a soldier told me that he had the keys to the office, but that he wouldn’t let me have them. He asked me for an explanation and why I wanted to lock up these people in the manager’s office. Furious at not being able to use the office as a prison, I ordered the captives to go back to Višegrad, in the same way as they arrived there.

This time I took with me Mitar Vasiljević, Radomir Šimšić and Mijo Mitrašinović. Then we changed our plan, and all of us turned towards the Drina, where we parked our cars and made the captives walk towards the river. We lined them facing the river, making them stand very close to each other. They also heard us comment among ourselves whether we would be shooting individual shots or rapid-fire shots.

We agreed on rapid fire, and we fired at them. Although we were using rapid-fire ma-chine guns and although there were four of us firing at seven of them, at the point-blank range, we only managed to kill five of them, while two of them were unscathed and man-aged to survive. These were the witnesses VG 032 and VG 014. They said that the corpses

193

had fallen into the river, and the two of them were somehow protected by a corpse that had fallen over each of them. So even though, while they were lying there pretending to be dead, they heard that the executioners were firing one or two shots into the dead or dying men to make sure nobody survived, nobody shot them. So when they heard that the car had left, they stood up and saw that everybody else was dead.

Witness VG 014 explained that he had looked at his watch and saw that it was a quarter to eight. They had to hurry, knowing that we went to fetch the remaining six captives and ex-pecting that we would be back soon. They walked down the river in the direction of Mušići for some two kilometres, and then they crossed the river on a floating log. They finally reached the house where VG 014 lived and stayed there for a few days. Then the Prosecu-tion brought a third witness of this case, to vouchsafe that the previous statements made by the two witnesses were true. This witness, marked VG 079, got confused and wasn’t sure about the date of the shooting – according to him it could have been the sixth, as well as the seventh of June 1992. As for the event itself, he was sure he had seen everything as it hap-pened, watching it with his unnamed son-in-law, from a point that was some five hundred meters down the river, near the village of Hadžići. However, the son-in-law, had brought a pair of binoculars, so that he could clearly see ‘one Yugo and one Fiat Panda’. The survivors stated that they were brought to the river in a line, walking one by one, but his witness was sure that the captives were walking two by two.

In his first statement, he claimed that the execution took place at eleven in the morning, whereas in the second he claimed that it happened at eight in the evening. He also saw that the executioners were wearing black kerchiefs with the skull and the bones, tied around their heads, while witness VG 014 stated that none of the executioners had a black kerchief. Through the binoculars, he was able to recognise Meho Džafić and Amir Kurtalić, while it was also easy for him to recognise me, because his son-in-law told him: ‘Do you see the tallest one, that’s Milan Lukić.’

The lawyer asked him: ‘Can you explain why were you watching the scene from the exact spot where a Muslim sniper was located? The same sniper that one or two days before this day had hit some people in Bosnia?’

The witness got very upset: ‘No, no… on that day, we were not armed.’ He didn’t have to be afraid. Some of the most notorious Muslim terrorists were now the

witnesses for the Prosecution, carefully selected and recommended by the Muslim intel-ligence, appearing with their well-learned stories. Sometimes they would get carried away and would say something about their vicious deeds, but the Prosecution would pretend that nothing was heard, wishing all of them a nice journey back home.

The third witness added that two days after the murder he went to the scene of the crime and saw that the dead bodies were still there. Witness VG 032 was able to recognise me because someone had told him earlier that it was me, Milan Lukić, and he also knew that I was born in Obrenovac, in Serbia.

Witness VG 014 had also known me from before, and had described me as a man with a birthmark on the upper lip, because he had seen me standing so close to me that he ‘could have touched me with his hand’.

Milan Lukić

194

But however unreliable the identification by the three Muslim witnesses, there was a Serbian witness, ready to testify. And not just some witness, but my own god-brother! Who knew me better than him, who knew me better than my own father? And sure enough, the godfather pointed his treacherous finger at his own godson. Once again, the axe of the traitor was taking its aim from the back. The godfather added that he was living in constant fear of revenge, he was also afraid for his family back home.

And it was exactly his family back home who, sick and tired of him, had put him in the largest sack they could find. He was drunk and had pissed in his pants when they packed him in a van that took him to Žepa, before he went to the Hague. Now, at the court, he wasn’t afraid of his family, he was only fearing his god-brother.

He was not able however, to remember the story as it was told by the Prosecution, which was certainly better than the version told by witnesses VG 032 and VG 014. But he confirmed that he was in the hotel that day, drunk and unarmed. The statement that he had signed was much better phrased. According to this statement, I was there searching for the keys, while Radomir Šimšić refused to give them to me, asking me angrily why I insisted on locking up those people. Then we took them to the Drina, to kill them all. He confessed to the alleged crime, with all the details.

Mija Mtrašinović and Radomir Šimšić were not in the hotel, of course. They couldn’t have been there, nor could have they committed any of the crimes listed there.

Radomir had left Višegrad and moved to Serbia back in 1959, and had visited it only once in 1991. He had never been there during the suggested period. When he asked Mitar Vasiljević why he insisted that Radomir was an accomplice, Mitar said: ‘I was told by the Prosecution that this was against Milan Lukić only, not against any of you.’

But all of these things hardly seem to matter when a Serb is being charged before the court in the Hague. There was a good reason, though, why Mitar Vasiljević had not been able to lern his lines properly. During interrogation, he had admitted that he had been drink-ing a litre of strong spirit a day, ever since the nineteen eighties.

In the court trial of Mitar Vasiljević, the expert consultant Vera Folgenović Šmalc had presented her findings about his alcohol addiction, based on a psychiatric examination of Mitar Vasiljević, conducted in December 2001.

‘When he came to the hospital in Užice, on 15th July 1992, Mitar Vasiljević had had a re-cord of pre-delirium condition, which soon deteriorated into a delirium. Over a long period of continual and heavy intake of alcohol, he had become a chronic alcoholic.

What about his capability to memorise events?Linda le Grange had examined parts of the testimony supplied by Mitar Vasiljević, re-

lated to his own case. ‘He started drinking early in the morning, and continued drinking during the day. He

was drinking constantly, and constantly getting heavily drunk. Sometimes he was drinking and having conversations with himself, imagining that he was talking to someone else. He would not know with whom he was, and he would not know who took him home. A large intake of alcohol produces serious impact on memory, and periods of compete amnesia are quite typical of many situations in which the intoxicated person participates. Even if we as-

195

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

sume that he was drinking 0.75 litres instead of a whole litre per day, the alcohol contents in his blood would range between 0.10 and 0.20 milligrams during the day. Owing to his many years of continual alcohol intake, Mitar Vasiljević could function even when with extremely high contents of alcohol in the blood, of up to 0.30 milligrams.

Even with alcohol contents in the range 0.10 to 0.20 milligrams, it is not probable that he was able to remember any events with any level of certainty. This condition is a cumula-tive consequence of the brain damage.’

So, was he drinking on 7th June? The answer must be yes, because he was always drink-ing.

La Grange disputed Mitar’s testimony of this event. According to the theory of ‘condi-tion-determined cognition’ the witness could possibly remember the facts of this event ‘only if he were subjected to a similar impact of alcohol intake’.

During the cross-questioning, Le Grange also expressed the opinion that ‘the ability of Mitar Vasiljević to remember the events in a multiple sequence, or a series of statements, indicates that he had been trying to memorise the details that he did not remember himself, rather than his own memory of the event’,

The Prosecution was adamant: ‘But Vasiljević claimed that he was not drunk on that day.’

‘I explicitly state that this does not change my expert opinion,’ replied La Grande. On that day, 7th June 1992, I was in Belgrade, where I had taken my mother for a medical

check. She had had problems with her kidneys. I supported my statement with the written permit to leave the war zone in the period from 6th to 10th June 1992. At the border crossing to Serbia, at Mokra Gora, all the crossings were diligently recorded, including all the data and the time of the crossing. I had a witness to confirm my claim. It was Emin, the Muslim whom I had taken out of Višegrad together with his girlfriend, taking them first to Belgrade, and then to their relatives in Novi Pazar.

The question that the Prosecution asked him was ‘when they got engaged, were they real fiancées, or only partners’. For them it was important to clarify this, although in the West some eighty percent of young people live in sin, without a proper matrimony. So the court council had their doubts whether Emin’s girlfriend was a true fiancée. And they were also wanted to know why I had bothered to take them all the way to Novi Pazar, which was so much out of the way, with my sick mother in the car.

The truth was that my sister had received a call from a Muslim friend. She and her husband were enquiring with my sister if she knew anything about her parents, who lived in Višegrad. My sister explained that she did not know anything about these people, but she also told them that I was in Belgrade and would be soon going back to Višegrad.

So we have arranged to meet in Novi Pazar, on my way back to Višegrad, where she and her husband gave me a parcel with some provisions, a carton of cigarettes and a hundred Deutsch Marks.

We talked for a while before I continued my journey to Višegrad. She testified about this, and the court had assigned her a protective code MLD 10, although she didn’t ask for it. In her statement, she said that she knew both me and my family very well, and that we

Milan Lukić

196

used to be neighbours. She added that she had talked with my mother Kata. Her statement was supported by the statements of a neighbour in Belgrade, as well as some other people whom I happened to meet during those few days spent in Belgrade.

The Prosecution had gone wild, and the prosecutor threatened that they were going to indict witnesses MLD 2 and MLD 10 with making false statement.

They suddenly brought another witness, Hamdija Vilić, whom the lawyers of Milan Lukić had allegedly tried to bribe. This man was very-well known for a tragic incident that he had caused after the war, when he had thrown a hand grenade in a café full of young people, killing three of them and crippling him as well. He also used to be a criminal during the war.

The overall accusations that I was making continual attempts to influence the witnesses, fully aware of my own guilt, made my lawyer very angry. The perversion of the facts was complete and he simply could not take any more of it. His response was decisive: ‘The Pros-ecution used absurd and appalling insinuations that every contact that has been made be-tween the defence and the witnesses was a proof of making false witness statements. How-ever, the Prosecution did not base their insinuations on any disputed facts arising from the testimony given by the witness MLD 10.’ The defence was undeterred: ‘The witnesses have provided valid and reliable evidence that represents an undisputable alibi for the defendant!’

The Trial Chamber rejected the demands of the Prosecution to raise charges against the witnesses because, apart from their venom, they were unable to provide any piece of evi-dence to dispute the statement made by any of these people.

The Prosecution, however, kept on raging, re-filing the request with a slightly different formulation. The defence protested with determination: ‘The trial has got out of control of the Trial Chamber, and the whole procedure had been marred, while the defendant, justice, and the integrity of the proceedings have been damaged beyond repair, the rights of the de-fendant have been grossly violated, and the very concepts of innocence and guilt have been perverted.’

The Prosecution responded by bringing in new witnesses, claiming to have met me in Višegrad at that time. One of the false witnesses went so far as to say that I had raped her ‘one of those days’. None of the counts had mentioned rape, and to make it all even more absurd, the rape in that particular situation did not matter to them. What mattered was to prove that I had been there at that time. Eventually, when it became important to them, they changed the date of the alleged rape, so that it turned out to have taken place on 4th June. But then, interestingly, the date itself became quite irrelevant, and the only thing that mattered was to constantly insist on how monstrous I was.

I had the alibi that between 7th and 10th June I was in Serbia. However, I was told that ‘an alibi is not a proof that the crime was not committed by the defendant. So if the defendant resorts to an alibi, then this means the defendant’s denial that he was in a position to com-mit the crime in question, not really any kind of a definite proof that he did not commit the crime.

By raising this question, the defendant simply places the Prosecution in a position to have to eliminate, to a sensible degree, the possibility that the alibi was over-stated.’

197

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

This was the official decision regarding the alibi provided for the case in Čelebić. This decision was then replicated and used in all the other cases. And what is the truth

regarding the indictment related to the crime that took place on 7th June 1992, in the village of Sase on the Drina?

According to the information supplied by the International Red Cross, four out of five victims had disappeared in various places.

Meho Džafić had gone missing in Višegrad, while his son Ekrem had disappeared so-mewhere near the place called Holijaci, twenty kilometres away from Višegrad. Hasan Mutapčić had been last seen in Bikavac, while the information revealed that Hasan and Amir Kurtalić were killed on 23rd June 1992, in Sase.

Later official evidence showed that the remains of Hasan Mutapčić were exumed on 14th November 2002, at the site of Kameničko Tocilo – Srebrenica, near the Slap excavation site. As for the remains of Hasan Kustura, they were exhumed on 4th October 2000 in Slap.

The voting lists from 1997 contained the name of Hasan Kustura. ‘It must be some other person,’ said Eva Tabeau, the Hague demography expert, and an expert in the use of calcula-tion tables. As for myself, I got sentenced for the alleged crimes!

When I returned from the trial, I told everything to my priest, asking him if I was guilty in the eyes of God and Saint John, my Patron Saint. I asked him I felt guilty that Mitar Vasiljević was no longer my godfather. ‘It wasn’t you who broke the sacred bond between your families,’ he replied.

Milan Lukić

198

54.

Nobody ever asked any questions about the remaining six Muslims that I had allegedly imprisoned in that house. What were six innocent people to the Tribunal in the Hague, the ‘justice of the world’? They were there to make up a story, who cared about anything else? They were forgotten, jut like so many other victims, probably one half of all the victims mentioned in relation to the crimes included in the charges.

The Prosecution, the council of the Hague, the army of witnesses – they were all too busy following the traces picked up by their scouts, agents, various anonymous and hidden individuals…

This invisible army was once again set in motion, spreading everywhere around the field of death that used to be my home town. This time, it was the furniture factory Varda, located in Dušča, a place that was lying south of Višegrad, on the banks of the Drina. The Prosecution indicted me with a crime that happened there. According to the charges, I came there with one or several armed men, seized seven to ten Muslim workers, robbed them, then took them to the Drina at around eleven or half past eleven that night, and shot them there.

‘It happened on 10th June 1992, approximately.’ The witness bearing number VG 042 had stated that ‘it happened during the Bajram holiday’, but she could not remember the date. Another witness, VG 024, remembered that this had happend just before Bajram, ‘when the factory did not work’. A third witness, VG 017, had stated that ‘Milan Lukić ar-rived in the factory some time before 18th June, 1992’, and that it had been same day when he himself ‘had left Višegrad’. In the cross-examination, he said that everything happened ‘in May or June 1992’.

He also said in his statement that there were two more armed persons, only to change his mind oncea again in the cross-examination, saying that ‘there were three of them’, some of whom were wearing grey-olive uniforms, while I was wearing common-type clothes.

In the statement made in 1998, witness VG 042 had said that I had been brought to the factory by a driver. According to her, this driver had been Sredoje Lukić. Then, in the repeated statement, witness VG 042 said that ‘Milan Lukić came alone, and there was one person who stayed at the entrance, waiting for him.’ In the cross-examination she said that ‘she had never seen an incident where Sredoje Lukić was involved’.

Witness VG 017 declared that he was hidden between two barrels, a hundred and fifty meters away from the factory gate, and that he could see from this position how Milan Lukić and two more men took out from the factory Nedžad Bekitaš, leaving him on the parking lot, while they went back and returned with six or seven more workers. He listed Ibrišim Memišević, Nusret Aljušević, Lutva Tabaković, Hamed Osmanagić and Sabahudin Velagić.

199

In the statement made in 1998, the same witness had listed Mušan Čančar, whom he had known well. But then again, in the statement made repeatedly in 2008, he had corrected himself: ‘At that moment, I recognised three of those people – Ibrašim Memišević, Nusret Aljušević and Nedžad Bektaš.

In the cross-examination, he confirmed that he saw ‘when they brought out Nedžad Bektaš and Ibrašim Memišević’. He added that, although he knew what Čančar looked like, ‘he did not recognise him that day’.

Witness VG 024 claimed that she had seen Milan Lukić taking with him Sabahudin Velagić and Lutva Tabaković. Then she took with him Osmanagić and Aljušević and, finally, at the exit from the factory yard, he also took with him Ibrašim Memišević, taking these five people in the direction of the sawmill.

Witness VG 042 had seen everything from the balcony of her house, some fifty meters away from the site. Her conclusion was that she had seen me take away Aljušević, Bektaš, Čančar, Memišević, Osmanagić, Tabbaković and Velagić, robbing them and killing them.

In her statement made to the police back in 1993, she stated that ten people were killed on that occasion, now she had changed it to seven. When the defence asked for a clarifica-tion regarding the difference in the number of people in the two statements made in 1993 and 1994 respectively, she said that ‘that information was provided by someone else’.

The court council admitted that the witness showed frequent ‘signs of considerable confusion’, and was generally ‘confused’. During the repeated cross-examination, she was shown the signatures on the statements from 1993 and 1994, and her comment was that ‘she did not put her signatures there’, so that eventually the Trial Chamber decided that her state-ments ‘could not be taken as having the value of any definite proof’.

This was the definite proof of the falsity of her statement. On the balcony with the wit-ness were Mujesira and Meliha, the wife and the daughter of Ibrašim Memišević. Witness VG 032 had stated that the dam was lifted on that day and that the water had carried some bodies further downstream. The bodies that were left there were buried by the families in gardens or in other places. She said she had helped the family to bury Ibrašim Memišević by the house, while she also claimed that she had ‘recognised the bodies of Čančar, Aljošević and Osmanagić’.

Witness VG 024 had made a statement in 1998 that she had heard from Mujesira Memišević that she had found the dead body of her husband several days after he had been killed, and had buried him at the place where she had found him. Witness VG 017 claimed that he had buried Memišević himself.

Witness VG 042 had stated that on the fifth dy, some time around ten thirty in the morn-ing, I came to Varda alone, taking her husband Ramiz Karaman somewhere, together with Ahmed Kasapović. She accused me that I must have killed Behija Zukić, toghether with her husband and son.

However, she could not explain why she hadn’t mentioned all these crimes in her previ-ous statement, given to the police back in 1993. But she didn’t know either that it was me who had saved the two daughters of the Zukić family, as I described earlier. They are now alive, living in Sarajevo and Germany.

Milan Lukić

200

The remains of the husband of witness VG 042 had been identified in Visoko… in her statement, she had said that she had known me from school and from the bus, while I was a boy. It turned out that she was older than my mother. Trying to answer when each of the events had occurred, she showed signs of total confusion.

Witness VG 024 had claimed in her statement made in April 2004 to the Association of Women – War Victims, that she ‘saw Milan Lukić in a Jeep, together with Sredoje Lukić, on the road near Omeragić’. In the cross-examination, she explained that she was in the back seat of their car, and that she ‘did not see Milan Lukić, but was told by her brothers that it was them’.

When she was asked to identify a photograph back in 1998, she wrongly claimed that the picture showed Milan Lukić. The witness admitted that Bakira Hosečić was present at the time when she was making the statement. Bakira is the character that is the foundation of the entire Prosecution and the entire Court in the Hague, the architect and the master-mind of the thousand years of imprisonment for the Serbs who have been brought here. Compared to her, Nataša Kandić and her likes are only unskilled apprentices in the art of devising torturous schemes for the Serbs, based on disgusting lies. Bakira is supported by the global Muslim league, the foreign services with their agents but, unlike Nataša Kandić and other members of the surviving ‘pioneers’ and ‘communist youth’, Bakira is command-ing an army of elite witnesses. There is no crime, real or imagined, that has not be seen in person by her witnesses. Bakira is for sure the new face of this war, and deserves at least several volumes of autobiographic and other works dedicated to her. I will try to add a few lines later on, my modest contribution to her portrait of an intrepid warrior, who leads a line of tireless fighters into new victories. She is a Tito of the modern age, she is a Homeini of the dark Bosnian wasteland.

What facts are there that make the charges related to Varda incredible? Clifford Jenkins, an expert consultant of the defence, and a world expert in the area of

investigation procedures from the United States, analysed the methods of conducting the in-vestigation in the case of Varda and the other cases in Višegrad. His findings were presented in the court: ‘I am very much worried about the manner in which these investigations were conducted. Concerning the statements that were made by the witnesses, it is clear that there is no adequate precise evidence what the witnesses actually said. Every interview with a wit-ness must be recorded and written down. So far, I have never had a case like this in my entire practice, either in New Mexico or the USA. There isn’t a standard procedure… ‘

In the domain of the ability to recognise and identify the participants in these events, the expert stated that the witness VG 042 was not watching the event from the distance of fifty meters, as was declared in the statement. The actual distance must have been one hundred metres, which was ‘a double length of a football ground’, while the man behind the barrels ‘was not a hundred and fifty meters away, but two hundred twenty-five meters away’. His conclusion was that ‘the procedure of supplying the evidence would have produced more reliable results if statements had been taken from the witnesses who were present in the fac-tory at the time of the event, instead of relying on the two side witnesses, who were at a con-siderable distance from the place of the event. The evidence that could have been provided

201

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

by the witnesses in the factory have obviously been neglected, in favour of the statement made by witness VG 017’. The expert commented on a statement obtained from a witness who actually saw the events in the factory and did not testify in the case.

‘Implications were made about the probability that the crime had been committed by other people, which can significantly help to explain what had actually happened there,’ was the expert’s opinion, who also disputed the method used to identify the victims from Varda. In the death certificate issued in 1997, it could be seen that Sabahudin Velagić died on 30th May 1992, while the name of Ibrišim Memišević, son of Hamed, appeared on the list of persons who applied to claim back the property located in Omeragići. It was subsequently determined that he was living abroad. The Trial Chamber admitted that the statements made by the witnesses contained contradictions. Some of these were immediately labelled as be-ing of a ‘low value as evidence’. None of the three witnesses could provide any proof that they knew me outside the event in question.

My alibi for the charges related to Varda and the event that took place there on 10th June was the same as for the charges that were connected to the events of 7th June. How could it be that all of those witnesses, Muslims and Serbs alike, were lying? Their testimonies were full of details, references to other people and situations. And the Prosecution were starting to get nervous. They kept repeating the same sentence endlessly, asking to be given a chance to speak… ‘Thank you, your Honour’, ‘Please your Honour’… ‘This man here, your Honour, is guilty… ‘ Then they decided to throw in their last reserve of lies, ‘Bakira’s brides’. Their testimonies had turned the court room into a blood-bath, resurrecting the dead, abundantly shedding the tears of faithful Muslim wives, sixteen years after they had been allegedly raped.

Witness VG 131 and her ‘friend and sister’ were taken away by Milan Lukić and Mitar Vasiljević. It was the evening of the ninth of June, and they were taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel. She was ‘raped by Lukić’, while ‘her friend and her sister were raped by other sol-diers’. While Lukić took her back home, she never saw her friend and her sister again. The second woman who appeared before the court was apparently nameless. The court council never asked her for her name, and a lie told in the court-room was well-protected, so that the defence could not unveil it. Bakira’s raped ‘brides’ were accompanied in the court-room by psychiatrists, obviously because they were quite prone to fits of emotions, caused by the horrors of their experience. ‘This is the one who raped me!’ Shouting this, the woman would faint in the court-room, and the psychiatrists would immediately come to her rescue… Now, who would dare to torture the poor woman who had lost consciousness, sixteen years after she had been raped?

Witnesses VG 133 and VG 141 testified of another crime that also took place on 10th June, some time between six and seven in the evening. This time, they watched as Milan Lukić brought with him four Muslims he had captured somewhere in the neighbourhood. These two watched the scene from a balcony, but they could not agree about the distance at which they were – while one of them claimed it was around one hundred meters, the second said it was three hundred meters away. Anyway, they agreed about seeing me shoot these people, who had neither names nor identities. In the cross-examination, one of the witnesses

Milan Lukić

202

suddenly ‘remembered’ that the event did not take place on 10th June, because on that day she was away, in the village and visiting her mother. Then she mentioned a record made in the Medical Centre in Višegrad, which she happened to see on 7th June, which was related to the medical treatment received by Safija Selak, who had suffered a severe shock after the death of her husband Alija and her son Nezir, two of the four persons who were allegedly killed by me. So it turned out that Safija had suffered a shock three days before the crime.

Witness VG 133 did not belong to the group of the raped women and she didn’t collapse before the court. She knew me, because she had seen me several times in different places around the town during those ten days or so. Witness VG 141 knew that it had been me, although she didn’t know to explain how. In the cross-examination, she admitted that in Vi-soko, where she had made her statement, she had been shown several pictures and explained that the person in those pictures was Milan Lukić. She explained that she had never men-tioned my name earlier, either in their statements to the investigators or those made for the Prosecution, by saying that she had thought ‘that was the proper way to do it’. It was only later, after she had run away from Višegrad, that she found out that a friend had reported the disappearance of Alija and Nezir Selak to the International Red Cross. When she found out about this, she went to make a statement in which she changed the date of their disappear-ance to 10th June 1992. When the defence asked her to explain how it was possible that Alija Selak was killed on 10th June, when he was arrested and taken to the police station on 14th June, she said: ‘Well, he never returned from the police station, and my aunt told me alter that the statements made in Sarajevo dated his disappearance as 10th June.’

The witnesses brought in by the Prosecution had a right to play deaf whenever they wanted to. Witness VG 141 explained that she had made the statement in order to become a member of Bakira’s association, and ‘not because the trial of Milan Lukić’. She also said that she had never thought of Milan Lukić as of a Chetnik, but she refused to confirm that it had been Bakira who persuaded her to insert my name in the story, at a later instance.

The court council and the Prosecution did not bother to establish the truth in the killing of the four people. I was not accused of rape either. So what was the purpose of this testi-mony? The Muslim women gathered under Bakira’s wing had a task to degrade my overall image. A show that they put on in the court-room had had to weaken the clarity of the alibis, and this was their sole aim. The Trial Chamber had shyly admitted that witness VG 026 did not recognise me in the photograph from 1998, where I looked more like my former self, than I did in the court session in 2008.

Other witnesses had failed to provide ‘reliable identification’ of me, and there were too many ambiguities, contradictions, illogical details. They admitted that witness VG 133 was highly confused, but the phrase ‘it was war’ provided a universal and ultimate explanation for any and all weak points in the testimonies.

As for the alibi I provided for Drina and Varda, they labelled it as a ‘cynical, orches-trated deceit’, although from the very first case they rejected the request of the Prosecution to raise charges against those ‘deceiving witnesses’. The overall result was that the Prosecu-tion had proved that on 10th June, or some time around this date, I killed seven people, or a number of people that was approximate to seven…

203

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

55.

To convict an individual Serb, it is enough to have a single victim, or a smaller group of victims. However, to convict Serbs collectively, one needed a mass crime, and this is how they soon started talking about ‘extinction’. The indictment for the crime that took place in the late evening of 14th June 1992 in the Pionirska street in Višegrad, was aimed at proving mass extinction!

‘Serbian crimes in Srebrenica are mass extinction! Serbian projectile at the green mar-ket of Markale, Sarajevo, was cruel! Crimes committed in Pionirska and at Bikavac were monstrous!

All of these had been devised and designed by the Prosecution of the Hague Court, the Muslim non-governmental organisation Osa, the Muslim SIP service and Bakira Hasičić, the new Frau Mengele, merchant of ‘raped slaves’ and dealer of dead souls that she brought to her market in the Hague, having collected them from every conceivable place, from the graveyards and the living, but also from Allah and the Prophet, the tables of death produced by Eva Tabeau, a leading expert in dead Muslims – all of whom had to be brought and de-livered to the Prosecution of the Hague Court.

So what happened, according to these charges? In the middle of the town, in the house of Adem Omeragić in the Pionirska street, ‘seventy Muslims were burnt alive – men, women, old men and children’. Myself, Mitar, Sredoje and Milan Šušnjar were accused of this crime. The village of Koritnik, that had a mixed Muslim and Serbian population, was flooded by refuges who had fled their Serbian villages. The next part of the story is a typical scene from the war zone those days: a group of Muslims – some twenty or so families from Koritnik – were waiting for a bus to take them to Kladanj in Central Bosnia. There was no need to perform any identity checks, and this fitted nicely in the base plot of the story that would be constructed on these few details. The bus did not appear, and they walked from Koritnik to Višegrad. In Sase, a place on the outskirts of the town, they were joined by six more people, and the whole group had reached the town at noon. They reported to the police station and were told to go to the building of the Red Cross, that was near the Drina.

The Court heard eight witnesses who survived the crime. One of them, witness VG 115 explained that she had ‘watched everything from some distance’. Another one, Huso Kurspahić, testified in the name of his late father, based on what he had heard form him while he was alive. Witnesses VG 018 and VG 084 testified that a young man came out of the Red Cross building and told them that the buses would be leaving on the following day, between eight and twelve in the morning, and that they could all spend the night in the house of Jusuf Memić in Pionirska street.

204

Witnesses VG 013, VG 038, VG 078 and VG 101 had identified this young man as Mi-tar Vasiljević. They were only five meters away from him at that time, and ‘he was wearing a black uniform and a black hat’.

It took them around fifteen minutes to reach the house in Pionirska, but witness VG 115 stated that she had been returning home from work at around five o’clock when she had seen Sredoje and Milan Lukić leading a group with around sixty civilians down the street. She had also seen Mitar Vasiljević ‘with a leg in plaster, riding on a white horse’. She had obvi-ously got confused about what Bakira had taught her, and four or five hours had somehow been lost in the time sequence of the story. In an earlier cross-examination session, related to the case of Mitar Vasiljević, this time difference was not expressed in hours, but rather in months. When she was asked to remember the date when she had first seen Mitar with his leg in plaster, she said that it was probably in the autumn. ‘It was sort of chilly weather, could be September or October’.

‘Was he riding a white horse?’ The defence asked another witness, VG 084. The witness was puzzled: ‘What white horse? There were no horses there.’

They said that, before going away, Mitar Vasiljević had passed a piece of paper to Mujo Halilović from Sase, telling him that the paper was a guarantee for them that nobody would harm them in any way.

According to the story, an hour later, Sredoje and myself appeared. A witness said we were wearing grey-and-olive army uniforms, while another one, witness VG 018 said that she ‘could not see the colour of the hair’. She added that we were accompanied by Mitar Vasiljević and Milan Šušnjar – Laco, who was of a medium height and had moustaches. In a previous trial, the court had accepted Mitar’s alibi that on that day, 14th June, he was in Užice, where he was admitted to the hospital, with a fractured leg. Then the witnesses spent some time describing how we robbed the group.

Witnesses VG 013, VG 078 and VG 101 testified that it was me who ordered that the people must hand in all the valuables they had on them. The first witness said that Sredoje was somewhere ‘around the house’, while witness VG 018 had claimed earlier, in the trial of Mitar Vasiljević, that it was Sredoje who took out a knife from his boot and threatened to slaughter anyone who attempted to hide anything. She also added that he was threatening, ‘turning the blunt side of the blade’. The same witness was now saying that it was me who took the knife out of the boot.

While she said in her statement from 1998 that Sredoje ‘hit a child who tried to hide something’, in a later statement related to the trial of Mitar Vasiljević, she claimed that it was me who had hit the child. Obviously, for these witnesses, there were too many different trials, too many Serbs to be convicted – who could memorise every detail. Whatever they said, on the other hand, was enough to play their role of the ‘victims’ for the Prosecution and the ‘reliable witnesses’ for the court.

To illusrate this, one of the witnesses was Meho Kurspahić, a Muslim who had killed teacher Mića Inđić, who was the first victim of the war in Višegrad. A lot of Muslim ter-rorists, many of whom known to have committed crimes, were now the witnesses for the Prosecution. They were pardoned, as long as they pointed their fingers at the Serbs.

205

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Witness VG 084 stated that Sredoje had ordered the group to hand in the valuables, but witness VG 038 reconciled the contradictions in their statements, claiming that ‘it was both Milan and Sredoje who did it’, adding that Milan Šušnjar threatened the people not to try to hide anything. Then, in the cross-examination, she consistently repeated a third version of the event, claiming that ‘while Šušnjar and Sredoje were robbing the people, Milan and Mitar were standing in front of the house, to prevent any attempts of escape through the window’.

Huso Kurspahić, testifying in the name of his late father, claimed that the robbing and threatening were done by Sredoje, Mitar and myself.

In a statement made in 1993, witness VG 018 claimed that it was Sredoje who ordered that the women must go inside, in groups of four, where they had to undress and undergo a check, ‘to see if they have hidden anything’. In the trial of Mitar Vasiljević, this order was not issued by Sredoje, but by an unknown soldier, while some other women had ‘told her that it was Laco’, whom she described as Sredoje’s brother, with a cropped beard.

She claimed that she and witness VG 084 had to undress in front of an unknown soldier, and then she changed her statement and said that it was Milan Lukić.

However, witnesses VG 013 and VG 038 claimed that it was Milan Šušnjar who was undressing and searching the women, while witness VG 101 claimed that it was ‘a Serbian with a moustache and a curly beard’.

There were four female witnesses and Huso Kurspahić, testifying in the name of the late Habib, who claimed that Milan Lukić had afterwards taken some of the women out of the house. Witness VG 018 first said that it was Sredoje who did this, and then she changed her mind once again and claimed that it was me.

One of the women exiting the house had allegedly told the women who had been gath-ered outside that she had been raped and that all of them were going to be raped as well. Witnesses VG 078 and VG 101 had decided to run away at this point. The first one was fourteen years old at that time and, because she had not wanted to undress, other women had undressed her. The other one said at the court: ‘I was not afraid of dying, I was afraid of being raped!’ Her courage amazed the judges and the Prosecution, as well as the court service staff.

In the next part of the story, all of us had left the house, leaving the group of people there. Then we returned at around half past ten or half past eleven at night, ordering the whole group to leave the house of Jusuf Memić and move to another one, the house of Adem Omeragić, some thirty meters away. The same kind of ambiguity and contradictions were present in the statements of the witnesses as to who had ordered the group to move. While some of them claimed it had been Sredoje, others claimed that it had been me. Witness VG 084 had first claimed that we had been wearing camouflage uniforms and that Sredoje had had a sniper, while I had had a machine gun. Now, she was claiming the opposite. ‘The man with a moustache was standing by the door, and Mitar was standing behind him,’ claimed witnesses VG 078 and VG 101. The two of them, according to their own story, had managed to escape while the group was moved form one house to the other, by crawling to a shed and then further on, to the brook.

Milan Lukić

206

All the others had been squeezed into the house, and Huso claimed that his father Hasim Kurspahić had been the last one, pushed inside by Milan Šušnjar, who had hit him with the butt of his rifle. Witness VG 013 claimed that the carpets inside the house had been soaked in some sticky substance.

‘Half an hour later, Milan Lukić and Mitar opened the door. It was dark inside, because the house had no electricity. Milan threw something inside – it looked like a bomb, with a burning fuse,’ said this witness. In a statement made in 1998, the same witness had claimed that it was Sredoje who stood in the door of the house. Witness VG 038 claimed that he had fallen asleep, but was woken up by some cries. He managed to get to the window, together with witness VG 013, and they managed to escape. Just before they ran away, he saw Sre-doje throwing a large canister inside, probably full of petrol. Huso, son of Hasim Kurspahić, claimed that his father managed to run through the door. There were two more witnesses who had managed to escape during the transfer of the group, while four of the witnesses had run from the fire and certain death through the same window… running all the way to the brook. Running past me, witness VG 013 had clearly seen Mitar, while in her statement made in 1998, it was Sredoje. All of us were shooting at the windows and throwing grenades inside…

In the court hearing that was held in September 2009, another witness was called in – witness CW 1, who lives abroad. She had left Višegrad on 29th May 1992. She said that she had met me in the police station, when she was taking the permits to leave the war zone. According to her, I was cursing Allah and Alija, their president. When she mentioned that her husband was from the Kurspahić family, I replied that I was sorry to hear that, because we had orders to wipe out the whole family. She had got shocked then and was still suffering from the traumas inflicted back then…

Instead of relying on gossip and rumours, my defence produced the official document, certifying that in the period 13th to 15th June that year I was sent with a group of police officers to join the army units at Kopito. There were other documents that testified of the interrupted communication, the Muslim ambush in which commander Vlatko Tripković was assassinated, together with his two escorts, Novak Savić and Veljko Mirković. There were official reports that placed the killing at the site of Gornja Lijeska and a report of the field ambulance crew of the Medical Centre in Višegrad, signed by doctor Nebojša M. Molević, stating the death of the victims.

Witness Goran Đerić confirmed that he came to Kopito at around ten in the morning of the fourteenth of June, as the courier from Rogatica. He had known me from before, and he had spent some time talking to me, both during that morning and later, because he had stayed there until the following day, the fifteenth of June, when our units started their move-ments from Kopito, in coordination with the units arriving from Višegrad. It was Đerić who passed the order to us, because we had lost contact with the base, and out radio station had been destroyed in the car of our commander, during the ambush attack. The court did not dispute the statement made by Đerić, but they somehow did not like his testimony as such, nor did they like the decision taken by our commanding staff. If the only communication line with Rogatica had been in danger, why hadn’t the Rogatica brigade move in to ‘clear

207

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

away’ the area? In fact, they were turning a deaf ear at Đerić’s explanation that this was a sector that had belonged to Višegrad and that there had been no need to activate the Rogatica Corps. Even if there had, that would have been a matter of the commanding staff and their estimate. The court did not like the determined statements made by other witnesses that at that time I had been away, at Kopito.

But a firm alibi can never be disputed by tricks, by a pretended loss of memory, ignor-ing official documents issued by the police, army, doctors and other witnesses who know what really happened. The tower composed of lies made by the Prosecution had started to shake and crumble. By this time, it had frown into a Babylon tower of a monstrous crime, the crime of extinction! If it were to collapse, it would bring down with it the whole project of crime and guilt of a whole nation, not one man. It was about the Serbs, not about Milan Lukić! Once again, the reserve units of Bakira had to come to the rescue!

Ferid Spahić and witness VG 136 claimed that they had seen me on the fourteenth of June in Višegrad, escorting a departing convoy of refuges. They supported their account with the well-known story of Esad Kustura, whom I had tried to get off the bus. Of course, they did not mention that Esad was my former friend from school whom I had wanted to rescue. This was not important, the important thing was to prove that this had happened on the fourteenth, instead of the fifteenth of June, when I had come back from Kopito in the afternoon.

Ferid and the other witness had a little chat about me. Ferid had heard stories about my missions, while the witness did not know me personally, but had heard about my ‘horrible crimes’.

Witness VG 089 claimed that he had ‘seen’ me on the fourteenth of June, near the de-parting buses, and could remember how I had been greeted by Mukadesa Dervišević, sister of Amir and Samir Dervišević. The same witness claimed further on that two or three days earlier I had captured him, Amir and Samir and had taken them to the new bridge. Then, in the middle of the day, I had thrown Amir and Samir in the river, shooting them from my machine gun, before taking him to the prison where he had spent three days… I had also come to prison from time to time, making them sing Chetnik songs.

And then, strangely enough, as soon as he was released from prison on the fourteenth of June, he went to see off his mother, who was going to Macedonia. He saw me at the station, but it was no big deal, and he saw Mukadesa who greeted me using my proper name and surname, although I was the man who had killed her brothers only a few days earlier… Now, this was nothing short of a miracle!

Why didn’t they indict me? They had a witness who was implicating a murder of two young men, but the court council did not react. Of course, the only important thing was to have a statement that I had been seen in Višegrad on the fourteenth of June.

In the cross-examination, my defence asked the witness how he could be so sure that the day was the fourteenth of June, and he replied that there was the World Football Cup going on.

He was a fan of Germany, and Germany was playing that day. He had already planned to go back home as soon as his mother had departed, because he didn’t want to miss the match.

Milan Lukić

208

My defence filed a document showing that the German national team was playing on 12th, 15th, 18th and 21st June 1992. They did not play any matches on 14th June!

Mirsada Kahriman was supposed to compensate for all the nonsense and the lies told by the previous witnesses. According to her, she ‘saw Milan Lukić on the fourteenth of June at Bikavac’. When I called her by the name, she started to run away, and I shot at her. The next day, I saw her again and shot at her again, while she managed to run into a wood. Mirsada had also seen ‘Milan Lukić and a group of other Serbs, killing forty-nine people in twenty minutes’. This had happened on the eleventh of June, according to her statement. The truth is that Mirsada Kahriman had not had to run into a wood on the fifteenth of June, because it was proved beyond any doubt that she left Višegrad on that day, on a departing convoy of refuges. But what was really strange was that the court did not even think of starting an investigation into the death of the ‘forty-nine people killed in the middle of the day’, whose death she witnessed.

The already mentioned witness VG 013 had said at the trial of Mitar Vasiljević that it had been Brana Tesović who had waited for them in front of the Red Cross building, direct-ing them to Pionirska street. Then, in the cross-examination, she claimed that it had been Božo Tešović… Each statement was modified to suit the different cases, and it was natural that the witnesses got confused about the defendants and the trials.

But what was the truth with the pyre in which seventy people had found their death? The defence had called in the experts on fires and setting fire, Benjamin Dimas and Martin McCoy, as well as the explosives expert, Stephen O’Donell. The expert team had produced a thorough description of the Adem Omeragić’s house:

‘On the ground floor, there is only one room of twenty-two to thirty-six square metres. The entrance door faces south. There are two windows in the western wall, and there is a balcony and a porch stretching along one of the sides of the house. The walls and the ceiling are mostly concrete, the reamains of the floor are made of wood.’

McCoy’s conclusion was clear: ‘There is no evidence that would support the claim that the house has ever been the site of a high-intensity fire.’

Dimas was adamant: ‘The room in question has never been caught by a burning fire.’ The first expert explicitly claims that all of the surfaces inside the house would have

been charred, if there had been a fire inside. The second expert had established that the only changes to the room had been the ones caused by excessive moisture and dampness.

Clifford Jenkins said: ‘The site is in a rather bad condition, due to the dampness and mildew.

Stephen O’Donell stated that a long period of exposure to damp conditions may result in traces of explosive being destroyed but that no traces of a fire-related damage could have been found on any of the wooden surfaces in the house.

McCoy and Dimas had produced detailed conclusions that the doors, as well as the doorways and thresholds showed no signs of a fire-related damage. Their shared conclusion was: ‘There are no signs of a fire-related damage!’

In the cross-examination, the Prosecution came forward with a suspicion that the door that was examined by the experts was in fact not the original door that existed at the time of

209

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

the event. They supported their claim with an assertion that the ‘original door had the door-handle and the hinges on the same side’! The door that they described had of course never been conceived by any carpenter in the human history. McCoy and Dimas did not laugh at the idiocy of the Prosecution – instead, their calm reply was that ‘even if the door had been changed, traces of fire would have remained on the doorway and the walls around the doors and the windows’.

O’Donell gave a detailed description of the impact made by an explosion: ‘The doorway would stay in its place, while the door would have come out, breaking at the hinges. A hand grenade could not have ignited a fire,’ he explained.

Neither did the remains of the wooden floor, or the inner and outer wall surfaces, have any signs of a fire or flames. These would have to be present, especially taking into account the intensity of the fire, as described by the witnesses.

Dimas went further with his claims, estimating that ‘burning human bodies with their fat, skin, hair and clothes, had the described event really taken place, would have contrib-uted to any signs or marks of charred surfaces and presence of sooth in the room’.

One could ask a question ‘What happened to the people? Where did seventy poor people disappear, seventy burning torches?

If the Serbian projectile fired at the Markale marketplace caused a worldwide horror, how come that seventy human torches, set on fire in the middle of the day in Višegrad, did not cause a similar disturbance? For sure the Serbian crematorium in the house of Omeragićs in Višegrad must have been worse than the one Hitler had erected for the dead in the Aus-chwitz concentration camp, because this one was for the people who were alive! Višegrad is more horrible than Auschwitz, and Serbs were more horrible than Nazis! Those horrible Serbs – the Nuremberg trials to the Nazis were nothing in comparison with the Hague trials for the mass crimes committed by the Serbs!

But the Court in the Hague had Bakira, the new and more dangerous Frau Mengele. So where did the victims from the indictment go? How did they disappear? In the group of the seventy Muslims from the village of Koritnik, together with the six

of them from Sase, all of whom had been listed by their first and the family names, there are thirty of them who do not have their personal ID number. In the country where all the records of the old title deeds and the records dating back to the Turkish times are preserved and kept, it was now impossible to find the basic identification data for important victims. Surely the Drina is not the same as the Amazon, and these names do not have their ID num-bers because these people never existed!

But, there we go – here is Eva Tabeau, the ‘demography expert’ of the Prosecution and the Court in the Hague, with another one of her famous tables. Instead of the personal ID numbers, she had neatly filled the corresponding column in the table with the alleged date of death of the imaginary people.

Her scientific knowledge obviously goes no further than composing a table to display her alleged statistical data, the stuff that children master in the first lesson of statistics taught in year one in a school of accounting, or a typing course. The true problem is that her tables are false from the very start.

Milan Lukić

210

So, what about the remaining forty victims in the Omeragić house? Six of them have ap-parently escaped and were now appearing as witnesses. Sixteen more were found alive and kicking – they were found by my detectives, whom I also had to pay for this. Officially and effectively, these people are alive and kicking. I have no doubts that my detectives would have found even more of the alleged victims in a prefect shape, following their traces based on the regular and official documents and similar, but the Court had immediately stopped the investigation, based on a request submitted by the Prosecution. That is to say, I was forbidden to maintain contact with the parties outside the prison. I responded by submitting an appeal and he ban was lifted, but only after the precious time had been lost.

It didn’t matter, anyway! Where were the others from the list enclosed with the charges, and from the table composed by the scientist Eva Tabeau? Some of them are living abroad, like Latifa Kurspahić and her daughters, who live in Austria. Some of the people in the list had actually died up to ten years before the war, and a few of them were killed in different places during the war. In addition to this, some of the victims were entered twice, using al-ternatively their married or maiden names, as well as full or shortened names.

The truth is also that I was convicted for the crime stated in this indictment, commit-ted on the fourteenth of June, our Holy Trinity Day, envisaged by the modern-day Frau Mengele, Bakira Hasečić, and in full accordance with the table composed by Eva Tabeau, the scientific demographer of dead Muslims, wherever and whenever they happened to have died, for all the sixty-nine of them who died on that day, or for an approximate number of them who died on approximately that day…

211

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

56.

As for the second case of the alleged extinction, it was said to have taken place at Bi-kavac, a part of the town of Višegrad, some ten minutes’ walk away from the town centre. The local hotel had been turned into the headquarters of the Užički Corps, but when the army was ordered to go back, the staff of the territorial defence started using the building.

According to the charges, a number of armed Serbs had taken a group of around seventy Muslims, from the house of Zehra Turjačanin and the surrounding houses. This was hap-pening at around eight in the evening, and the armed Serbs had pushed the captured Mus-lims into the ground-floor house of Meho Aljić, where they threw bombs and fired at these people, before setting the whole house on fire. The Muslims who were killed there were both local Muslims from Višegrad and the visitors, who had come there from different villages.

Essentially, this was the same scenario as with the Pionirska street. The same number of people, the same methods and almost the same witnesses. The difference was that according to them we did this on the Vitus’s Day, while the previous crime had taken place at the Holy Trinity Day.

Witness VG 119 was sure that the event had happened on 27th June, because ‘this was when the Serbs celebrated the Vitus’s Day’. Witness VG 094, who is obviously a better ex-pert on dates, said that it was 28th June.

As for witnesses VG 058 and VG 115, they had watched the crime hidden in their re-spective locations. The latter originally stated that she was ‘on the main road’, while in the repeated statement she said that she was ‘in an orchard’. Anyway, she said she had seen myself, Mitar, my father and brother, as well as other Serbs who were escorting the people, pushing them into the house of Meho Aljić. One of the Serbs had a stocking pulled over his head, so as not to be recognised. Although the witness could not see the colour of his hair, she was able to recognise him as Sredoje, based on ‘his eyes’.

The first of the two witnesses had apparently been hidden only five meters away from the house of Meho Aljić. In the trial, she was unable to identify the house of Meho Aljić in an aerial photo. She testified that she had seen me, Sredoje, Jovica Planojević and a guy with a stocking pulled over his head. She was able to recognise Mitar Vasiljević as the man with the stocking. In her statement made in 2000, within the trial of Mitar Vasiljević, witness VG 115 said that she had ‘got scared when she saw that people were being pushed in the house, and she ran off in the direction of the town centre’. He could hear the sound of the shooting, while she was running away. In the direct cross-examination, however, she stated that she had gone into a plum orchard, some twenty paces away from the road, from where she could see the shooting and the fire, before she eventually went to the centre.

212

Zehra Turjačanin, the main character in this story, had heard the voice of Milan Lukić, whom she knew as a school-friend of her brother. Witness VG 035 was watching everything form her bathroom window, from her house that stood some two to five hundred meters away. Witness CW 2 had watched the scene from a different place in the same house. They described the fire and the crying of the people. Witness VG 119 had heard the rapid shots from fire arms and explosions of bombs, but she could not hear any cries, because of the loud and obscene music that was coming from ‘a Chetnik car’.

Pieces of a hand grenade had hit Zehra Turjačnain, wounding her in her left leg. Fire had caught her clothes and her hair, so she claimed. She had closed her eyes tightly, trying to save her eyes from the fire, before running through the small opening in the garage door.

The burning door had inflicted heavy burns on her hands. When she came out, she saw several of us lying on the grass, ‘as if drunken’. According to her account, we were in the same place where the witness from the orchard was, and we shouted at Zehra to stop where she was. However, she didn’t – instead, she ran away, throwing away the burning clothes off herself.

Witness VG 058 was in the orchard, apparently together with us, from where she ‘saw Zehra running away’, before she saw me taking two girls with me, and then Sredoje, Mitar and Jovica Planojević, who also departed from there. Her testimony was not clear as to we took the girls away before or after the alleged escape of Zehra Turjačanin who, according to the story, fled to the Serbian-populated Mejdan, where she was hiding for several hours in a ditch full of nettles. After this, she returned to Bikavac and warned other Muslims there to leave the place. She asked Ismeta Kasapović to release her brother and her cousin on the following day, from the hiding place where they were closed behind a brickwork partition, in the house of the Turjačanin family.

She visited witnesses VG 035 and CW 2, telling them about the group of people who had been burnt to death and urging them to run away from there.

These two witnesses were the two women who had been watching everything from the bathroom window and the house.

Witnesses VG 094 and VG 119 testified that around ten in the evening they were visited in their house by myself and the others, and that we were ‘dirty and sweaty’.

The very same house had two more visitors that night: Zehra and Emina Kasapović came there around two in the morning, to tell them that a group of people had been burnt. In her statement, witness VG 119 described Zehra like this: ‘from her waist upwards, the biggest part of her body was totally burnt’.

After she had visited three houses, Zehra went to see the commander of the territorial defence. In the headquarters, she met two soldiers, whom she told that she had burnt herself by accident, with a gas stove. One of the Serbian soldiers ‘hid her in a house opposite the headquarters’. She did not bother to explain why he was hiding her if she had burned herself using a gas stove. In the morning, the soldier sent in a doctor and a nurse. It turned out that the doctor was Radomir Vasiljević. They gave her an injection, put some bandages on her burns and gave her some medicines as well. It would later become known that the burns were grade three burns.

213

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Zehra had stayed there for eleven days and treated the burns with yoghurt, after the doctor told her that he wouldn’t be coming to see her, ‘because she was Muslim’. Then she went to another house, where she stayed for four more days.

Finally, she went to the village of Okrugla where, quite miraculously, she chanced to ‘see witness VG 094 again’. There in the village, she was visited by the doctor, who did not want to give her any treatment because, as he put it, ‘it would be of no use to her, because she was going to die anyway and it was better to save the medicines for the soldiers’.

And so the ‘dying’ Zehra stayed in Okrugla for four more days and then, as she said ‘joined a convoy to Međeđa’. Appearing in some footage later on, she said that the convoy had seven hundred and fifty people and the Muslim territorial defence from Okrugla. She explained that these brave men, armed only with hunting rifles, had come to Višegrad to rescue the local Muslim population. In this story, the journey to Međeđa lasted five days, as they went ‘through the woods, over the hills and obstacles’. Witness VG 119 supported this story with a claim that Zehra suffered acute pains.

From Međeđa, Zehra walked all the way to Zenica. In a statement made in 1992, witness VG 058 claimed that I had been her neighbour

in part of the town called Šeganj, where she ‘used to see me almost every day’. She added that ‘Sredoje too was her neighbour’ and that ‘he would always greet her’ when they met. In this statement from 1992, she never mentioned the alleged crime in Bikavac and in the cross-examination she avoided answering the question why she had never mentioned the name of Milan Lukić in her statement from 1992. Then, in her statement made in 2008, she referred to me as ‘the person with a stocking over his head’. She claimed to have recognised me because of my eyes, despite the fact that I was wearing a stocking over my head and the despite the fact that it was night and we were in the middle of shooting and total chaos!

In a repeated statement, she said that it was Mitar Vasiljević who had had a stocking over his face, but in May 2000 she had failed to identify Mitar in a photograph where he was without a stocking over his head. In the first statement that she made in 2000, she said that we were all wearing black uniforms. When the court asked her to identify each of the defendants according to the colours of their clothes, she could not do it, and the judge, Van den Wyngert said that ‘this wasn’t helping’.

Witnesses VG 094 and VG 119 testified that some time earlier, on 29th May, they were taken by Milan Lukić to the Vilina Vlas hotel, where he raped the first witness. As for the second witness, two days later she was ‘made to shake hands with him’. The raped wit-ness declared that I had a birthmark on my face, and she declared that she was also raped by Sredoje. During the cross-examination, she said: ‘It was the others who described him, and it occurred to me that it must be Sredoje. But, when I saw him, I realised that it wasn’t Sredoje.’

Working for the defence, the expert consultant Clifford Jenkins examined the crime scene. Having examined the garage door, he established that the height of the window in this door was 22.9 centimetres, which practically disputed the whole statement made by the only surviving witness. ‘How was it possible at all for Zehra Turjačanin to squeeze through that window, especially with her eyes closed?’

Milan Lukić

214

This time, the Prosecution did not replace the door with a new one, the way it had been done in the Pionirska street; this door, however, ‘was not fixed in its place, but only left there leaning against the exit opening; it was places sideways’. This would have meant that Zehra had had to jump over the door, with her eyes closed, before running away.

However, Jenkins thought that ‘the burns on Zehra’s hands and forehead were more likely to have been caused by an incident resembling the one she described to the soldiers and the doctors, especially knowing that Zehra Turjačanin was also an epileptic…

The wife of the late doctor Vasiljević testified that her husband told her after the visit to Zehra that her burns had been caused by her own mistake, because she had tried to light a cigarette on a gas stove. In the trial of Mitar Vasiljević, no one had asked him about the causes of Zehra’s injuries. The wife of the late doctor also said that her husband was a god-father of Milan Lukić’s family and was shocked when Zehra Turjačanin changed her story back in 1995.

In the cross-examination, the Defence asked Zehra to clarify the statement made by her brother Dževad Turjačanin, to the Hague Prosecution. In this statement, made in 2001, Dževad said: ‘My sister did not use to know Milan Lukić before the war. We left Višegrad on 26th June 1992.’ Zehra, on her side, was claiming that on 27th and 28th June he was still closed by a brickwork partition in his hiding place, in the house of the Turjačanin family, where she and Ismeta Kasapović brought him breakfast on the following day.

Dževad Turjačanin, on the other hand, started his statement made in 2008 saying: ‘I have been asked to clarify certain aspects of my statement, made to the investigators on 25th

January 2001.’ In the clarification that he was asked to provide, Dževad explained that he ‘left Višegrad

on the night when the fire took place’, after he had been released from his hiding chamber by Ismeta Kasapović, thus making a third version of his story with mixed dates and events.

Zehra Turjačanin was appearing as a witness before the court on 25th September, as well as on 4th and 5th November 2008. The cross-examination was frequently interrupted because of ‘Zehra’s health problems’. She was unable to identify both me and Sredoje in the court-room. She never gave an explanation why her testimony was interrupted so many times. Why would she have to explain anything to anyone, after all?

It was absolutely clear to everyone there that she had not known me from a previous period, so the Prosecution resorted to their usual tactic when it came to proving that I and the other Serbs were guilty as charged. They called for help, and witness VG 063 appeared to declare that I raped her on the Vitus’s Day, while she was incarcerated in a school building.

In her statement made in 1998, witness VG 035 described Milan Lukić, the man who raped her, as ‘having blue eyes and birthmarks on his body’.

During the cross-examination, the defence presented a photograph where I could be seen in swimming trunks, where it was obvious that I had no birthmarks or spots on my body. It also proved that my eyes were not blue. Her response to this was:

‘I phrased my statement like that for my own personal safety. And I was also frequently ill, I was visiting the doctors on a regular basis. I was waiting for this moment to see Milan and Sredoje arrested, to see them here.’

215

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Like other witnesses, she also refused to answer the questions asked by the Defence. They all provided very few answers, which were mostly highly unintelligent. Left without any options, the Trial Chamber admitted that the witnesses did not do a good job of their appearance.

The Trail Chamber accepted Sredoje’s alibi that he had spent the Vitus’s Day in Bel-grade, together with his family. They had been there to celebrate a recent birth of a child, and a lot of people had seen them during the family feast.

A number of Muslim and Serbian witnesses confirmed that I was in Rujište during the Vitus’s Day holiday, where we also were celebrating, roasting a calf on a spit. But witness VG 063 said that I raped her exactly on the Vitus’s Day, in the school building where she was held as a captive.

The story of the rape was additionally coloured by a gory story of another prisoner who was kept in the school and whose name she said was Ibro Šabanović. According to her story, myself and an unknown soldier first ordered Ibro to come out with us and then – later that evening – I reappeared with a third man, carrying the cut-off head of Ibro Šabanović, shout-ing ‘There you go, with your Kurban!’

In any court in the world, charges would be pressed either against me a suspect for this terrible crime, or against the witness for telling morbid lies. However, nothing happened here, as if it was a sparrow, rather than a human being that was decapitated.

Once again, it was important to find a witness to testify that I had been seen in Višegrad at the Vitus’s Day.

The Defence produced undeniable evidence provided by experts, proving beyond any doubt that a fire of this kind had taken place in Bikavac.

The confusion of the witnesses was also apparent in their claims that Mitar was one of the executioners of the crime, while he had already been released of these charges, since it had been proved that at that time he had been in the Užice hospital, with a fractured leg. The witnesses kept putting the notorious stocking on my head, then on Sredoje’s or Mitar’s head, claiming that they had recognised us although we were disguised, and despite the fact that it was dark and we were some twenty or so metres away. They had recognised our eyes or our voices, they claimed.

But what happened to the people who allegedly got killed that night?Out of seventy of them, fifty-four had neither names nor surnames – there were empty

fields in the tables of Eva Tabeau, where the names should have been, filled only with num-bers. Among the remaining sixteen, there were five who did not have either the first or the second name, while none of these had a date of birth. There were also four of them who, as it was found out, were killed in other places. Among the six victims who had a name and a surname, four were proved to have been killed on 19th of June and not on 28th June, the Vitus’s Day.

Senada Turjačanin who was first claimed to have been ‘burnt’, was found to be alive. She lived in Zenica, had her surname changed, and now lives in Sarajevo, at 27 Hasan Brkić street. Her personal ID number is 2201962138643. Another ‘burnt’ victim, Selimir Turjačanin, was killed in Zenica much later , in 1998. My detectives managed to find Đulka

Milan Lukić

216

and Jakuf Turjačanin, mother and father of Zehra Turjačanin. I was talking to these ‘burnt’ people from the prison, and I also spoke to the allegedly murdered and burnt Mirzeta Vilić, a niece of the lier and criminal Vilić. However, the Prosecution immediatelly issued an order forbidding me to make any more telephone calls, on the grounds that I was ‘threatening the witnesses’.

I responded by going on a hunger strike and a week later it was established that I did not threaten or break any of the exisiting rules concerning the ‘permit to make telephone calls’.

On the other hand, my crown witness was stopped from appearing in the court, threat-ened by the Prosecution, Bakira and the Muslim SIP. This was only one of the cases in which Muslims were illegally prevented from testifying on my behalf. This, however, did not stop the Prosecution bringing in the notorious terrorists and criminal Vilić, who orchestrated the bloody crime in which unarmed and unsuspected victims were killed after the mowing, on Saint Ilija. Nor did they think twice before bringing in Kurspahić, known as the man who killed the first victim of the war, a Serb from Višegrad.

I feel it important to add a few words here regarding the nature of Bakira’s attachment to Višegrad. Although she was present in all the different parts of Bosnia, Višegrad was emotionally very important to her. Namely, Bakira was a lover of Avdija Šabnović, Murat’s brother. Until the arrival of the Užički Corps, Bakira Hasečić was cruising the town, wear-ing a uniform and armed to her teeth, arresting people and adminstering her justice around. She went so far that she was even interrogating the police officers who were arrested by the Muslims. When the Užički Corps came, Bakira fled to Sarajevo, where she started her big game, without limitations. While it had to be admitted that Murat and Avdija had acted in a noble manner, saving the lives of some Serbs on the few ocassions, Bakira was now taking a turn to the opposite side, earining her a reputation of Frau Mengele.

She was the one now who was putting together whole events, using the pieces of infor-mation and collecting the witnesses, especially female witnesses.

These are professional rape victims, with a stage show of collapsing before the court and the eyes of the whole world. Bakira is giving help and withdrawing help, depending on the situarion. Her hand is sometimes merciful like Allah’s hand, and sometimes cold and murderous, like an executioner’s. The ones who obey you can expect her praise and mercy, but those who do not, must fear imprisonment and death. Those who agree to testify and confirm a crime that she invented, can expect a pension, a disability allowance or bonuses for distinguished citizens. She is the one who controls everything and everyone.

The real victims of rape are far from Bakira and her association. These poor misfortu-nates who had fallen victims to the madness of the war are alone in their bitter remeberance. Ashamed of their own memories, they never talk about it – especially not in front of their children, or the peope and the public.

How did the story of Zehra Turjačanin continue? She started her story many months after the events she had been witnessing had tak-

en place, perhaps even two or three years after the alleged events had taken place. She told her story to foreign media, helped by the Muslim intelligence. By 1995, the events had grown both in the number of morbid details and the number of the alleged victims,

217

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

so that Zehra had become a hallmark heroine of Bakira and her association. The number of the victims in Bikavac in her story had eventually grown so much that the crime had started to be referred to a the ‘extincition’ commited by the notoriously criminal Serbs.

The cases of Bikavac and Pionirska were definitely more atrocious and resulted in more victims than the crime committed at the Sarajevio market of Markale. As such, they were a definite proof of the limitless cruelty of the Serbs. However, although it seemed highly improbable, these events never received such grandiose publicity of the western media, their public and politicians – a sphere that is typically referred to as ‘the whole world’. Perhaps the moment was a wrong one, and the global murderers had other plans and other tricks to play for the poor ordinary people who were meanwhile continu-ing to kill each other. However, these events were sufficiently exploited and used in the Hague Court, in the post-war process of portraying the enslaved Serbs as natural born collective criminals, as well as to justify the head-hunting propaganda and the ultimate bombing of Serbia…

Zehra Turjačanin had become a symbol of suffering and victimisation. She was adop ted by the French Government. They gave her accommodation and took care of her. They provided her with courses of French, so that she could speak with foreign journalists. It was a perfect example of propaganda used to justify the French political engagement in Bosnia. Very persuasive and very cheap at the same time: the only costs that were incurred were those of providing for Zehra.

Zehra Turjačanin made her statements before the court in French and when she was asking for the cross-examination to be stopped, she did it in French as well. The less of what had truly happened became known, the better it was for the whole story. A woman who was turned into a torch! Who could possibly insist on asking her any questions, es-pecially in the Hague, at the court that was the court of ‘humanity, consciousness, inter-national justice, democracy of the West, which was synonymous with the whole world?

For this crime I did not commit I was found guilty as charged, for killing sixty-nine victims or an approximate number of victims, all of whom I had executed on the Vitus’s day, or at an approximate date.

After these horrible crimes of ‘extinction’, the indictment went down to individual crimes, allegedly commited by me as an individual, as a Serb.

I was charged with murdering Hajra Korić, by shooting her from a gun. This had happened some time between 28th June and 5th July, as claimed by two old women who appeared as witnesses, describing me as being ‘fair-haired, and with a fair complexion’. At the same time, one of them claimed that it was me who had shot poor Hajra Korić, while the second one claimed that it had been ‘an unknown Chetnik’. There was a third group of witnesses who claimed that this woman had been taken out of a group composed by some fifteen women and that it had been some ‘people of Savić’s’ who had done it, and there was even one witness who claimed that the murderer ‘had come from Čačice’.

Once again, witnesses VG 035 and CW 2 testified how a group of women, who were on their way towards Bikavac, was stopped by Milan Lukić, who told them to go back to the house they had all come from. The witnesses ‘got scared and spent that night in a

Milan Lukić

218

different place’. The following morning, the mother-in-law of witness VG 035 saw the body of Hajra Korić.

The defence compared their earlier statements and told them openly that my name got introduced at a later instance, following the instructions received from Bakira Hasečić.

However, whatever you said, whatever you did or proved, was not enough. I was found guilty as charged for this crime as well.

The whole trial was not about the indictment, it was all about filling in an already completed verdict.

What was necessary, was a complete portrait of a villain, the youngest of all the indicted Serbs. A criminal nature, bestail cruelty and sadism could only have been inher-ited, absorbed with the mother’s milk. At the end of the list of counts, a final accusation: torture and maltreatment of the prisoners in the prison of Uzamnica. This prison was a temporary detention, a part of the complex of the fromer military barracks in Uzamnica near the Drina.

Never in my whole life have I attacked anyone weaker than me, let alone a cap-tive who was tied. In spite of this, there I was, arrested and falsely accused, watching a parade of respected witnesses, all of whom were criminals captured in the field. I was watching a parade featuring Adem Berberović and other criminals and I was listening to their endless stories of how I used to beat people. Most of the alleged beatings had taken place during the months I had spent in the isolation cell of the Central Prison in Belgrade. I knew that this collection pont had seen countless poor people who had spent some time there before going to Central Bosnia, either through one of the exchange schemes, or in some other way. The witnesses who came to make their statements here and to show themselves as victims were in fact those who had commited numerous crimes and – on a second thought – started the bloody war with their terrorist activities, ruining the region and the people who lived there…

I had never been in that camp and I chose a Muslim who had spent there almost two years, to be my witness. Instead of being issued a passport for the journey to the Hague, he received a threat not to leave the town.

219

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

57.

The first indictment and the charges raised in Belgrade for the abduction of the people on the train have been dropped. This one in the Hague is still standing. ‘Milan Lukić, Serb… for crimes against humanity… violation of the rules of war, murder and extinction… sentenced to life imprisonment.’ Although I am innocent…

Around me, there is more than a thousand years of imprisonment for the Serbs. The convicts measure the time left until they are free to go out. For me, the passage of time has stopped to exist. It only has one point and one moment in time. My death is my freedom.

In both World Wars, Serbs were held in concentration camps. This is a modern era, and the ‘hats’ and the wardens have changed, but the Serbs remain the captives.

Scheveningen is the only renewed Hitler’s concentration camp, full of Serbs. The poles erected around Scheveningen display eighteen dead Serbian heads, belonging to those who have not made it all the way to here.

In the evening, when they make us leave the common room and go to our solitary-confinement cells, my freedom is in my thoughts.

I am holding my daughters Jelena and Mia… I think about my sister-in-law Ružica, and most than anyone, my little niece Marija… I visit the grave of my brother Novica, where I recognise the crosses with a double horizontal bar, the graves of my brothers Cossacks… the graves of all my brothers who died in the war, in all of the graveyards and the quiet villages… In this confession made from the tomb of the living souls, I feel sorry most of all for those who had given their lives and whose names have escaped my weak memory.

This confession is not meant to be an excuse for anything or anyone. In the madness of the whirl of war, my youth had been cut with all of the promises

that it had for me. With this I wanted to tell the truth to my children, my family and relatives, to all the

good people who have the patience to read and understand it.

Over the endless open space, I follow the path of the Moon, and my thoughts take me to my childhood places… there, at the clear springs of Rujište, I drink the cool water and I see my youth, the fields and the woods.

I see my old father and mother slowly walking the land of our forefathers, following the cycle of the Serbian destiny…

220

My little niece Maria was two years old and did not remember her father Novica, who got killed on the threshold of his house. My father Mile was three years old and did not remember his father Novica, who was killed on the threshold of his house.

He gave his father’s name Novica to his son… In the name of the Father and Son…

221

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Milan Lukić

222

Soldiers of the Višegrad Brigade – listed in the chronological order,according to the date of death.

(The underlined names represent the soldiers with whom I participated in combat)

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.

Name and surname Date of death

Inđić MićoRadovanović SašaTrifković ĐorđeSikirić ŽeljkoMasal MiljkoŠimšić DragomirMasal RadojeBatinić IlijaGluhović VojinNinković LjubomirLindo NedeljkoMarković NenadĐerić RadojeNešković JosipTrifković VlatkoSavić NovicaMirković VeljkoPecikoza StankoZečević GoranMarković RistoMiličević NenadSimić VitomirĐuričić NovakVuković VasilijeSavić ObradinLazarević ĐuroTomić DraganAndrić VidojeAndrić MladenTasić ŽeljkoSamardžić RankoSavić MileJoksimović TimotijeŠimšić MilanLugonja MilisavKnežević MilanKusmuk MilošKusmuk MiloradKusmuk DragoKojić ZoranMarković MilošGrujić Stevo

12. 04. 1992.19. 04. 1992.01. 06. 1992.01. 06. 1992.01. 06. 1992.01. 06. 1992.01. 06. 1992.07. 06. 1992.08. 06. 1992.08. 06. 1992.10. 06. 1992.12. 06. 1992.12. 06. 1992.12. 06. 1992.13. 06. 1992.13. 06. 1992.13. 06. 1992.20. 06. 1992.27. 06. 1992.27. 06. 1992.28. 06. 1992.06. 07. 1992.07. 07. 1992.12. 07. 1992.14. 07. 1992.14. 07. 1992.19. 07. 1992.19. 07. 1992.19. 07. 1992.21. 07. 1992.24. 07. 1992.01. 08. 1992.05. 08. 1992.06. 08. 1992.07. 08. 1992.08. 08. 1992.08. 08. 1992.08. 08. 1992.08. 08. 1992.08. 08. 1992.28. 08. 1992.28. 08. 1992.

223

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.58.59.60.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.68.69.70.71.72.73.74.75.76.77.78.79.80.81.82.83.84.85.86.87.88.89.

Sikirić GvozdenPejović VeselinVucelja MiodragKrsmanović SvetozarAndrić IlijaPlečić MilijaSavić LjubomirGavrilović VladanArsić NovakMilošević ŽarkoKrsmanović MilanTrifković SlavkoLakić ŽeljkoPecikoza MlađenFilipović DraganAndrić DuškoSavić MlađenRosić NenadŠimšić SvetoVuković MilisavNikitović RadivojeRosić MirkoŠijaković MilutinĆorić ZoranRađen GoranKnežević BorislavStanojević MilivojeTešević MilanMarković MirjanKovačević PeroTanasković SlobodanJefić MlađenĆosović MilenkoŠijaković MiraDavidović LjubinkoSekulić IgorAvramović MilinkoNikitović RadomirBožić MilomirSamardžić JovoTanasković RadeKojić GoranNimenko AndrejMitrašinović RadomirKnežević SlavišaDroca MilosavMilisavljević Stevan

05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.05. 09. 1992.09. 09. 1992.09. 09. 1992.09. 09. 1992.14. 09. 1992.04. 10. 1992.04. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.10. 04. 1993.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.16. 10. 1992.23. 10. 1992.23. 10. 1992.25. 10. 1992.25. 10. 1992.29. 10. 1992.29. 10. 1992.29. 10. 1992.03. 12. 1992.08. 12. 1992.08. 12. 1992.09. 12. 1992.17. 12. 1992.

Milan Lukić

224

90.91.92.93.94.95.96.97.98.99.

100.101.102.103.104.105.106.107.108.109.110.111.112.113.114.115.116.117.118.119.120.121.122.123.124.125.126.127.128.129.130.131.132.133.

Stevanović JosifMarković PericaKojić MiroljubBaranac DušanGogić NedeljkoGanijevskij VasilijŠimšić RadojeRistić MilivojeBatalin SergejLugonja GoranKonstantin BogoslovskijVladimir SadonovDmitrij PopovLukić MilanKrsmanović LjubomirGenadij KotovTošić SavoGavrilović DraganGavrilović VladanRakanović SašaRadojević MilomirRacković ZoranĐokić MiroŠušnjar BudimirBojat GoranAntunović VukoVidaković BožidarVidović CvjetkoŠimšić ŽarkoSimić SlađanDelić MileVojnović SlavkoVeljović MileDrašković StevoLončar BlažoMilisavljević DragoljubSavić DraganDikić SlavkoPajević TomislavMarić DraganStanimirović RadislavNovaković ZoranGrujić RadojePecikoza M. Mlađen

17. 12. 1992.30. 12. 1992.30. 12. 1992.30. 12. 1992.12. 01. 1993.12. 01. 1993.19. 03. 1993.16. 04. 1993. 1993.12. 04. 1993.12. 04. 1993. 1993. 1993.19. 05. 1993.16. 07. 1993.09. 08. 1993.31. 10. 1993.16. 02. 1993.16. 02. 1993.25. 12. 1993.29. 12. 1993.22. 08. 1992.10. 09. 1992.15. 09. 1992.22. 09. 1992.29. 04. 1993.24. 01. 1994.29. 03. 1994.29. 03. 1994.09. 04. 1994.19. 04. 1994.21. 04. 1994.25. 04. 1994.27. 07. 1994.03. 08. 1994.01. 10. 1994.05. 11. 1994.21. 03. 1995.11. 04. 1995.16. 06. 1995.16. 06. 1995.18. 06. 1995.09. 09. 1995.16. 11. 1995.

225

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Soldiers of the Intervention Squadwho gave their lives for the defence of Republika Srpska

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.

Name and surname Place of residence

Baranac DušanSimić SlađanKovačević PeroAndrić VidojeNovaković ZoranSavić DraganSavić LekaŠimšić SvetoKojić MiroljubTripković VlatkoMarković PericaRusi, Kozaci (spisak ispod)Maričić BranislavPetrović ZoranDikić SlavkoKovačević PeroGogić NedeljkoVojnović SlavkoZečević GoranVeljović MileKnežević MilanSikirić ŽeljkoTasić ŽeljkoAndrić MladenĐuričić NovoSavić NovicaGavrilović VladanTomić DraganDrašković StevoJoksimović TimotijeBožić ŽeljkoKnežević SlavišaTanasković Rade

Višegrad Selo Jagodina

Višegrad Podzečiće Drinsko Drinsko Višegrad Višegrad Višegrad Kočarin

Čačak Loznica Višegrad Višegrad Blace Blace Kočarin Rogatica Rijeka Prelovska

Jagodina Višegrad – Šeganje

Višegrad Višegrad Višegrad Višegrad Blace Blace

Milan Lukić

226

Soldiers of the Intervention Squad who have survived the war,participants of numerous battles in various parts of Republika Srpska

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.

32.

33.34.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.

Name and surname +Russian Cossacks: Vladimir, Sergei, Sasha and others Pavlović SlobodanPerendija DraženPoluga ObradPoluga NovakRistić RadojicaRistić DodaVasiljević LjubišaVasiljević ZoranVasiljević DuškoVuković MileVojnović ZoranLukić RadenkoLipovac JovanPerić MileLipovac DobrisavŠimšić LazarĐurić TomislavMitrašinović MijoMitrašinović ZoranVučić SlavkoInđić PetkoInđić BobanDespić NenadPuhavac GoranKrsmanović OliverBožić DuškoSavić MilovanLipovac MiroslavĐokić LjubišaGavrilović Srećko

Vujičić Niko

Božić MarijaMarković JovanPapić ZoranPapić KrstoJoksimović ZoranIlić Milan – MikanSekulić DraganKrsmanović BranePlaninčić Veljko

Communications operator Police officer, fought together with Intervention Squad

wounded in battle

Member of the police and Intervention Squad, 100% physical disability

227

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.

Kokošar MilenkoVasiljević Radomir DoctorMarković Boban DoctorMilovan VilaretŠekarić DraganGudović BožidarKrsmanović Miro 60% disability Arsen Vuković 100% disabilityMilićević Nikola 100% disabilitySekulić Sreto 80% disabilityBožić Oliver 80% disabilityTanasković Nenad Imprisoned in SarajevoŠimšić Boban Imprisoned in SarajevoRajko Novo Imprisoned in SarajevoŽeljko Lelek Imprisoned in SarajevoSavić Momir Sentenced to 18 years, hiding from the law

Milan Lukić

228

Serbs of Višegrad to be credited for preparing the local people for defence, preventing the mass slaughter of the scale that took place in 1941.

32.

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.

33.34.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.

Name and surnameAndrić VidojeBaranac DušanBožić DuškoBožić ŽeljkoVasiljević ZoranVasiljević DragišaVojnović SlavkoVucelja VeselinGavrilović DragomirGacić ĐorđeDikić SlavkoDespić Nenad

Đuričić PetarĐurić Tomo

Đuričić NovoĐuričić MilomirIlić Milan – MikanInđić MilošInđić BobanInđić MišoInđić MilojeIvanović MijatIvanović SavoJoksimović MilojeKojić MiroslavKovačević ZoranKovačević PeroKrsmanović MilanKrsmanović MiroLakić MirkoLipovac MiloradLukić RadeMarković KiriloMarković MarkoMarković RistoMarković ŽivoradMarković JovanNedić GoranNovaković ZoranPapić KrstoPapić StojanPecikoza Stanko

229

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.58.59.60.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.

Pecikoza MlađoRistić MilivojeRistić DodaRistić RadojicaSavić MomirSavić AleksandarSavić ŽivoradSekulić DraganSikirić DobrivojeSikirić ŽeljkoSimić SlađanSimić RadeTasić LjupkoTasić SlađanTasić ŽeljkoTomić DraganTripković MikiTripković VlatkoTripković SlobodanFilipovac SlavkoFilipovas StanimirŠimšić AndrijaŠimšić LazarŠimšić RadojeŠušnjar Milan

Milan Lukić

230

Brave doctors and staff of the Višegrad Medical Centreduring the war 1992-1995

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.

Name and surnameDoktorka BukvićBukvić DraganVasiljević RadomirVidaković JasnaKrsmanović MirjanaLončarević SlavicaDoktor LončarevićMarković BobanMoljević Aco – Hospital in UžiceAll the nurses from Višegrad

231

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Russian volunteers and Cossackswho fought in Bosnia shoulder to shoulderwith their Orthodox brothers from Serbia.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

11.

10.

12.

Short war biography Name and surname

Andrej Nimenko from Moscow

Konstantin Bogoslovskij from Moscow

Dmitrij Popov from Sankt Petersburg

Vladimir Pahonov from Sankt Petersburg

Petar Mališev, Cossack from Moscow

Viktor Desjatov from Ekaterinburg

Valerij Bikov from Sankt Petersburg

Valerij Gavrilin from Sankt Petersburg

Dmitrij Čekalin from Moscow

Genadij Kotov, Cossack from Višegrad

Vasili Ganijevski, Cossack from Seratovo

Sergey Batalin, Cossack from Moscow

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade, died in November 1992 near Višegrad, buried at the Military Graveyard in Višegrad.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade, died in April 1993 at Zaglavak near Višegrad, buried at the Military Graveyard in Višegrad.

Fighter of the Goražde Brigade, died in April 1993 at Zaglavak near Višegrad, buried at the Military Graveyard in Višegrad.

Fighter of the Goražde Brigade, died in April 1993 at Zaglavak near Višegrad, buried at the Military Graveyard in Višegrad.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade from November 1992 to March 1993 and the Reconnaissance and Commando Squad ‘White Wolves’ (of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps). Buried at the East Sarajevo.

Fighter of the Goražde Brigade in the period March-May 1993, died at Jewish Cemetery in Sarajevo, in January 1994, as a mem-ber of the New Sarajevo Chetnik Squad. Buried at East Sarajevo.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade in the period December 1992 to February 1993, and fighter of First Sarajevo Brigade. Died in August 1995, buried at East Sarajevo.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade in the period December 1992 to February 1993. Died at Grbavica, in March 1995, as a member of the New Sarajevo Chetnik Squad. Buried at East Sarajevo.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade December 1992. – February 1993.Died at Majevica as a member of the East-bosnian korps.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade in the period December 1992 to February 1993. Died near Višegrad in February 1993.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade in the period December 1992 to February 1993. Died near Višegrad in 1993, buried at the Military Graveyard in Višegrad.

Fighter of the Višegrad Brigade in the period December 1992 to February 1993. Heavily wounded in the fights at Višegrad. Died in 1993, in the Višegrad Hospital.

Milan Lukić

232

Document issued by the Public Security Office in Višegrad on 13th June 1992, with the names of the fifteen police officers who were sent to the region of the village of Kopito on 13th June 1992.

233

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Milan Lukić

234

235

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Milan Lukić

236

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

237

Ratko Mladić, Commander of the Army of Republika Srpska andRadovan Karadžić, President of Republika Srpska

Milan Lukić

238

Second Cossacks Brigade

Mujahideen from Saudi Arabia with a trophy from Crni Vrh in Bosnia and Herzegovina,the head of Blagoje Blagojević, Serb from the village of Jasenovac

239

CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER OF THE HAGUE

Višegrad and the surrounding area

Goražde and the surrounding area

Milan Lukić

240