Gospić massacre
The Gospić massacre took place between October 16 and 18, 1991 in Gospić , a small town in the Lika in Croatia . Between 23 and 100 civilians (mostly Serbs ) were murdered by members of a Croatian army unit.
A Croatian court later stated that 50 people had been killed, almost half (24) were ethnic Serbs, although Miroslav Bajramović admitted that he was responsible for the deaths of 90 to 100 people, almost all of them Serbs. Serbian sources speak of 150 missing Serbs. The unit's commander, Mirko Norac , was convicted, along with four others, of his involvement in the massacre in 2003.
backgrounds
At the time of the massacre, the front line between the Croatian government forces and the forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina was right around Gospić. The front formed a protuberance just around Gospić, so that the city was enclosed on three sides. A unit of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was stationed in the city's barracks, and a siege by the Croatian National Guard ensued. The city was under heavy fire from the Serbs, who they wanted to take as a station on the way to the coast, only about 30 km away.
Gospić was a mainly Croatian town with a large Serb minority. Many Serbs fled during the war when the former Yugoslavia fell apart. The Croatian government tried to persuade "loyal" Serbs to return through radio and television programs.
Events in October 1991
On October 6, 1991, members of the local Croatian armed forces met at the invitation of Tihomir Orešković . The participants agreed to draw up a list of Serbs who had returned to Gospić, ostensibly to ensure that no one was hostile to the Croatian government. As was established in a subsequent war crimes trial, this list was primarily used to predict leading Serbian leaders for systematic mass murder. It has been suggested that the trigger for creating this list was in the killing of 30 Croatians by Serbs in a nearby parish, as well as the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church of Gospić.
The massacre was carried out by the First Zagreb Special Forces of the Croatian Ministry of Interior (called "Autumn Rain"). It was under the command of Mirko Norac , the commander of the Ministry of Interior forces in the area, and was ultimately accountable to Interior Minister Ivan Vekić . Between October 16 and 18, this unit rounded up mainly Serbs in Gospić, Karlobag , Pazarište and Lipova Glavica , took them out of the communal bunkers and loaded them onto military trucks. They were taken away and killed, the bodies later disposed of.
Miroslav Bajramović, a former member of that unit, testified:
"Our group executed between 90 and 100 people there in less than a month ... The order for Gospić was:" Ethnically cleanse ". Therefore we killed the directors of the post office and the hospital, restaurant owners and other Serbs. The killings were by shooting carried out from a short distance, as we did not have much time. I repeat, the orders from above were to reduce the percentage of Serbs in Gospić. "
It was later found by a Croatian court that Norac personally killed a woman during the execution of civilians and, together with Orešković, ordered the killing of at least ten civilians in Pazarište.
swell
- ^ Human Rights Development report on former Yugoslavia
- ^ CE Review article on Norac trial
- ^ A b Croatia Moves to Expose Its Ugly Secret , Washington Post , May 18, 2000
- ^ A b EastWest Institute, Annual Survey of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union 1997: The Challenge of Integration , p. 190. ME Sharpe, 1998
- ↑ a b "The Trial of Mirko Norac" , Balkan , June 2, 2004