THIRD REPORT OF THE FRY GOVERNMENT

ON WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN THE TERRITORY OF

THE FORMER SFR YUGOSLAVIA

I.

1. In accordance with the request contained in Security Council resolution 780 of October 5 1992, item 1, the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia hereby submits its Report on cases of violation of the international war and humanitarian law in the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia. The Report is the third consecutive one (the first was submitted in 1992 and the second in 1993), and has been prepared by the newly-established Committee Compiling Data on Crimes Against Humanity and International Law. The Committe has the task to establish all relevant facts concerning the armed conflict and acts of violence, especially those that constitute serious violations of international war and humanitarian law.

The report covers a three-year period, starting from the beginning of the war in the territory of the former Yugoslav Republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The data hereby presented are either new or supplementary to those given in the first two reports of the FRY Government. War crimes continue to be committed considering that the conflicts have not yet ended, especially in the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia- Herzegovina.

The data contained in this Report have been processed by experts of the Ministry of Justice of FR Yugoslavia and collected by state agencies, non-governmental organizations and associations, by investigations in the field and interrogation of witnesses. Included in the report are 186 cases of serious violations of international war and humanitarian law, which we have established, but which constitute only a small part of the war crimes known to the Committee. The Report covers only the data considered by the members of the Committee as experts to be sufficiently established for the stage of the preliminary court proceedings.

For each of the cases given the necessary documentation can readily be made available to the UN Commission of Experts. The names and places of residence of some witnesses have been left out for the sake of their protection and in order to avoid possible abuses. Numerous other cases which constitute or indicate violations of war and humanitarian law, which are not included in this report, shall be presented in forthcoming reports after the data have been verified, established and supplemented.

2. On this occasion again, we wish to point out the principled position of the Federal Government concerning future cooperation with the UN Commission of Experts and the International Tribunal for the prosecution of persons responsible for war crimes in the territory of the former SFRY in the Hague. The Federal Government emphasizes that the FRY Constitution, like the constitutions of the majority of democratic countries, forbids the extradition of her own citizens; that FRY is a party to all conventions in the field of international humanitarian law and is ready fully to comply with all her international obligations. The FRY has no dilemmas with regard to the prosecution and punishment of all persons who have committed crimes and other vilations of international humanitarian law. The Yugoslav authorities are ready to prosecute, in the FRY territory, each perpetrator of a crime against humanity and the international law, even more so because they are covered by the FRY legislation and the FRY judiciary authorities are therefore obliged to consider all relevant evidence on FRY citizens or persons found in the FRY territory, and in case their guilt is established, to prosecute and punish them. Such cases are under procedure with the FRY judiciary authorities and some of them are included in this report.

What makes the collection of data difficult is the fact that the war was has been waged and is still being waged in the territories of the former SFRY republics outside the competence of the FRY authorities. It is, therefore, very difficult to obtain relevant evidence on war crimes committed in those territories.

With regard to the responsibility for crimes committed in the civil war which still continues in the former SFRY territory, a distinction must be made between two kinds of responsibility: first, responsibility for crimes against peace that can be attributed to persons who encouraged and carried out the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which can be considered the cause of the civil war; and second, individual responsibility of persons who, during the conflicts or in connection with them, committed serious crimes against humanity and international law or directly instigated or ordered such crimes.

The anti-constitutional secession of the member- republics of the former SFRY, coupled with the activities of a number of international factors which contributed to the escalation of the war, were the root causes of the war, which does not in the least relieve the perpetrators of war crimes of individual responsibility, irrespective of which side they were on or who their victims were.

The FRY Government shall, through the mediation of the Yugoslav Committee Compiling Data on Crimes Against Humanity and International Law, continue to cooperate with the UN Commission of Experts and other UN agencies. In that connection, the Government shall act in the framework of the FRY constitutional regulations and legislation which embodies all the relevant international standards.

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II.

In the preparation of this report and systematized presentation of the collected material, several considerations were made: first, the sources of international war and humanitarian law; second, the classification of war criminals in accordance with the character of the armed conflict in the former Yugoslav territory, and third, the provisions of national criminal legislation of both the former SFRY and the FRY.

The grounds for the punishment of the perpetrators of war crimes in the former Yugoslav territory were found in the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of War (1949) and Additional Protocols I and II (1977) to these Conventions, as well as the provisions of the Convention Against Hostage Taking (1979), the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in Case of Armed Conflicts (1954). All these Conventions were ratified by the former SFRY, and are now valid positive legislation for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the principle of the international legal continuity of the Yugoslav state. The second basis were the provisions of criminal legislation of the former SFRY and the former SFRY republics, the present FRY and her member-republics. Chapter XVI of the FRY Criminal Law, on crimes against humanity and international law, was given particular consideration.

Based on these criteria, the crimes have been classified in the following categories (the same as in the two previous reports):

I. Willful killing of civilians

II. Willful killing of detainees and prisoners of war

III. Inhuman treatment of civilians

IV. Inhuman treatment of detainees and prisoners of war

V. Willful killing and inhuman treatment of wounded and sick persons

VI. Hostage taking and detention camps

VII. Wanton devastation and destruction of property

VIII. Devastation of places of worship, cemeteries, cultural and historical monuments

IX. Ethnic cleansing

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I. Willful killing of civilians is registered under No. 151 to No. 176 in the Report. In the case of each crime, the designation of the crime, the place and time, a brief description and indications concerning perpetrators are given. The crimes listed in this chapter constitute a frequent form of violation of international humanitarian law. They were committed individually and in groups.

II. Willful killing of detainees and prisoners of war is registered under No. 039 to No. 054 in the Report. Individual and group killings were also committed within this group of crimes. The victims were subjected to torture and humiliation. The description of the crime and the methods used show the extent to which the standards of international humanitarian law were violated and the degree of inhumanity in treatment of victims.

III. Inhuman treatment of civilians covers a wide range of crimes. These crimes are registered under No. 032 to No. 045 in the Report. But, this is only a small portion of the crimes committed. Inhuman treatment includes exposure of civilians to various kinds of physical and mental suffering in detention camps and prisons, as well as rapes of women, extortion of testimonies, etc. The fate of many of these victims is still uncertain.

IV. Inhuman treatment of detainees and prisoners of war is registered under No. 019 to No. 062 in the Report. The crimes presented show that prisoners of war and detainees were exposed to torture and their lives were endangered. They served for exchange, but many disappeared in detention camps and their fate is still uncertain. Departure from the standards of international law were a regular phenomenon.

V. Willful killing and inhuman treatment of wounded and sick persons. Wounded and sick persons were likewise victims of willful killing. Such crimes are registered under No. 011 to No. 033 in the Report.

VI. Hostage taking was also frequent. These crimes are registered under No. 027 to No. 028 in the Report. The actual number of this group of crimes is much bigger. Some were also included in the former reports. A more complete overview will be prepared once the data have been collected.

VII. - VIII. Wanton devastation and destruction of property and devastation of places of worship, cemeteries, cultural and historical monuments is a large group of crimes, registered in the Report under VII-025-034 and VIII-018-026. These crimes are characterized by the fact that they cannot be justified by any military purposes. They were committed by soldiers of all armies and para-military units, and were particularly widespread in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They were willful acts underlying which was ethnic cleansing.

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IX. Ethnic cleansing is registered under No. 030 to No. 071 in the Report. These crimes constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law. They include some serious cases of massive ethnic cleansing which are reasonably suspected to include elements of the crime of genocide.

Attached herewith as Annex I is the report on the hearing of a rape victim, where the data on identity have been left out for understandable reasons, and as Annex II, the report by a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church on ethnic cleansing of the Serbs in the church municipality of Duvno (now Tomislavgrad) where 558 Orthodox Serbs lived in 120 households until the war broke out, but who were all either physically liquidated or expelled from this region.

The Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia once again expresses its readiness to continue to provide the UN agencies with all relevant data in its possession concerning future violations of the standards of international humanitarian law.