The Western media somehow never managed to find documentation of the Serbian suffering in the recent Balkan wars. Here presented is one of many public, United Nations' documents that Western media never mentioned.

The document has 212 pages in total. Anyone can obtain public U.N. documents simply by calling U.N. at (212) 963-4475 and providing them with document ID number. Id numbers for here presented document are A/48/299 and S/26261.

Submitted by: State commission for war crimes
and the crime of genocide
Samac, May 21, 1993

EXCERPTS... (From pages 1 - 23):

This memorandum presents data collected and checked to date about the war crimes and crimes of genocide against the Serbian people in the area of the former commune of Odzak committed by members of Ustashi-fundamentalist paramilitary formations and members of the National Guard of the Republic of Croatia in the period from May 8 to July 15, 1992.

The commune of Odzak is situated in the central part of Bosanska Posavina. It covers an area of 205 sq.km. which accounts for 0.40% of the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

According to the 1991 census the commune of Odzak had 30,651 inhabitants or 149.5 inhabitants per sq.km. The population comprised 16,598 i.e. 54.15% Croats, 6,084 or 19.85% Serbs, 6,229 or 20.32% Moslems, 1,133 Yugoslavs or 3.7%, with rest accounting for 607 or 1.98%.

...

Preparations to do away with the Serbs and provocations designed to impose war on the Serbs in this part of Bosanska Posavina (Sava river valley) had started much earlier, especially in 1990, at the time of the establishment of the Croatian Democratic Union (CDU) as the national political party of the Croats, formed after the fashion of the Croatian Democratic Union in Croatia proper, the founder of which is Franjo Tudjman. The Croatian Democratic Union in B&H; and in Bosanska Posavina was in terms of programme and methods of practical day to day politics wholly subordinated to the central leadership of the CDU in Zagreb and to Franjo Tudjman in person. The basic plank of the programme and policy of that party is anti-Yugoslavism, anti-Serbianism, and the clerico-fascist tradition of the Ustashi movement of Ante Starcevic, Josip Frank and Ante Pavelic, the Ustashi head (Poglavnik) of the so-called Independent State of Croatia in WWII. Initially this platform of theirs was hidden behind their alleged struggle against Communism as an undemocratic system with, as a propaganda ploy, the Serbs being declared the greatest obstacle to that struggle...

...

Commune of Odzak, in WWII was the staunchest bastion of Ustashiism and fascism. It was precisely here, in the Odzak area, that the units of the Yugoslav army ended their liberating operations in WWII, where an 11,000-strong group of Ustashi and Homeguardsmen (Domobran) fanatics put up a resistance from April 14 to May 25, 1945, namely 16 days after the official termination of WWII.

Dyed-in-the-wool Ustashi, true to their ancestors, members of the CDU in the area of the commune of Odzak started publicly threatening and psychologically intimidating the local Serbs already in 1990. Provocations and harassment of Serbs in the villages in the commune of Odzak started immediately after the establishment of the national parties of the Croats and Moslems and their promotions at various events and rallies.

Djoko (Stevo) Goranic from Donja Dubica, 55 years of age, says the following in his statement referring to that time and those events:

"Fake wedding motorcades passed through the village many times. Protruding from the passing column of cars were aggressive fingers showing a V for victory, or hands indicating the motions of throat slitting so as to openly threaten the people, checkered (Ustashi) flags were waved, and all kinds of abuse and threats were shouted from them. Ustashi slogans and Ustashi symbols were drawn on the village road. Rallying cries and symbols with the same meaning and message were written and drawn on traffic signs and on fences around Serbian houses. This was done mainly at night in order to intimidate the Serbs. The initiatives of the Serbs from Donja Dubica with the communal assembly in Odzak aimed at peace, and requesting that the authorities deal with these practices had no result whatsoever".

...

...Provocations, intimidations and threats continued. Serb villagers were harassed by abusive phone calls, showered by curses and threats and Ustashi music in addition.

...

Parallel with these and similar pressures on the Serbs, which occurred every day, actions of another kind were undertaken. There is no doubt whatsoever that everything was organized in conjunction with the party leadership of the CDU and the state leadership of the Republic of Croatia. Violence in the night bars, at village crossroads and in Serbian villages in the Odzak commune region were designed to spark off and fan tension and psychosis of war with the chief task of the CDU fanatics, among whom pre-war hooligans and criminals were the ringleaders, being to ensure that the war from Croatia spill over to Bosnia as quickly as possible - for the Moslem potential, with which a political alliance had already been struck, to be mobilized on an anti-Serbian basis, for conditions to be created for portions of B&H; territory to be occupied by the National Guard of the Republic of Croatia, and for the Serbian people to be completely cut off from the mainstream...

...

The preparations for the aggressive war against the Serbian people, the establishment of Ustashi - fundamentalist paramilitary formations, their arming and in particular the associated collusion between the authorities in the commune of Odzak and the authorities in the Republic of Croatia are best attested to by the documents published on their activities by the communal committee of the CDU in Odzak headed by Mijo Matanovic and the chairman of the "crisis headquarters" of the commune of Odzak Stipe Ivanovic. The later was also mayor of Odzak.

OUR COMMENT:
The U.N. document is accompanied with many documents of correspondence between the two authorities. It also has many special permissions to local (Odzak, B&H;) CDU officials to visit Croatia in order to obtain arms and ammo. Also, there are documents that beg Croatian government to let military experts (that came from Croatia to train local Croats and Moslems) - to let them stay longer in the area, etc.
(End of our comment)

...

... Serb villagers did everything in their power to avoid the daily provocations of Ustashi-fundamentalist extremists, while their representatives talked to the communal authorities to try and preserve peace. However, they did not succeed. The provocations of Ustashi and fundamentalist extremists escalated at the end of March and the beginning of April 1992...

...

... the Serbian population was also worried because it knew that members of the National Guard of the Republic of Croatia were crossing the Sava river by boat from the Republic of Croatia. It became evident that the Serbs in the area of the commune of Odzak were definitely surrounded from all sides by Ustashi & fundamentalist paramilitary formations and regular troops of Croatia.

There were Ustashi barricades on almost all the roads....

...

The intention to save at least some of the Serbian innocents - women and children - succeeded inasmuch as some women and children from Trnjak and Donja Dubica were pulled out trough the Serbian hamlet of Struke on April 18, 1992.

The grenades which in the evening of April 18 showered Donja Dubica added to the mounting fear and tention among the Serbian civilians. On the following day, Rajko Djuric, called "Truman", a Serb parliementarian from Donja Dubica and organizer of the evacuation of the civilian population, went to Struke, a Serbian hamlet of the village of Prud. He wanted to see whether it would be possible to take the remaining women and children out of the Ustashi encirclement. He arrived at Struke by car with Boro Rakic, Stevo Goranovic and Rajko Bozic, but they were ambushed by Ustashi from Prud and members of the National Guard of the Republic of Croatia. On that occasion Rajko Djuric was killed, Rajko Bozic severely wounded and captured, while Stevo Goranovic and Boro Rakic, who were slightly wounded managed to escape and bring the news of this Ustashi crime to Donja Dubica.

The killed Rajko Djuric was buried on April 20. On the same day Milan Rakic, president of the crisis Headquarters of the local (Serbian) community of Novi Grad, went to Prud for negotiations related to Djuric's killing. He was accompanied by Bogdan Dragojlovic and his wife Mileva, Tomislav Krsic and Pero Vladic. None of the five of them came back that day. They were thaught to have been captured or killed. Only after the commune of Odzak was liberated by the army of the Republic of Srpska did we learn that this group of negotiators had been kidnapped in Prud and taken to the territory of the Republic of Croatia. According to the words of Mileva Dragojlovic, immediately after they were driven to Croatia, on April 20, Tomislav (Rajko) Krsic (born 1962) and Pero (Mirko) Vladic (1970) were taken out of the car and several moments later two shots were heard, some fifty meters from the car. Krsic and Vladic were never heard of again...

...

After everything that transpired the remaining population of Donja Dubica mustered and found various ways to get to Novi Grad. They clambered onto tractors, trailers, lorries and passenger cars where they also loaded what precious possessions they could. In Novi Grad the Serbs organized a defense. They would not allow themselves to be again the victims of genocide like the one committed on December 7 and 8, 1944 in the Serb villages of the commune of Odzak, when Pavelic's Ustashi hordes slaughtered every living soul in sight in Trnjak and Donja Dubica. 713 men, women and children lost their lives then only because they were Serbs.

On the line of defense of Novi Grad the defenders withstood Ustashi pressures until May 8, 1992. The supremacy of the Ustashi forces was evident. Grenades were fired on Novi Grad every day from the territory of the Republic of Croatia from the village of Jaruge as well as from the surrounding Croatian villages in the commune of Odzak. The village suffered much destruction from the artillery and villagers suffered heavy casualties. On May 7, 1992, the defenders of Novi Grad were informed that an agreement had been made with the Ustashi according to which they should surrender their weapons to the Ustashi after which all Serbian population including the defenders of Novi Grad would be evacuated over the Bosna river to the village of Milosevac on free Serbian territory. Many of the defenders doubted that the Ustashi would observe this agreement but the orders of the Chrisis Headquarters from Novi Grad were nevertheless carried out.

The weapons were surrendered in the compound of the "Ratar" enterprise, located between Novi Grad and Posavska Mahala. Previously, a line have been made of tractors with trailers, trucks and passenger vehicles. All of them were loaded with more valuable household effects, food and clothing. The line was surrounded by large number of Croatian army and police troops. It moved slowly toward Odzak. The Ustashi soldiers and police searched the column group by group. In the process they hit people, especially younger men... The column was very long. It started from Novi Grad on May 8 at 3pm and arrived at Odzak about midnight. Namely, it took it nine hours to cover only eight kilometers, the distance between Novi Grad and Odzak. It was a real ordeal. All the vehicles carrying their cargo, i.e. the movable property of the Serbian civilians comprising this long column, were packed at the Odzak cattle market. The people were then driven into busses after having been searched again. They were taken to the elementary school in Odzak where the citizens of Odzak had already formed a gauntlet the Serbs were forced to run on arrival. They struck the Serbs on their heads and kicked them with their feet. After this humiliating ordeal the Serbs were taken to the gym of the elementary school. The school was crammed full. The Ustashi started making some sort of a register of the prisoners. According to that first register there were 728 persons (160 from Donja Dubica and others were Serbs from Novi Grad).

Thus, on May 8, 1992, the Serbs from the area of the commune of Odzak, instead on free territory, found themselves in Ustashi concentration camps. They were deceived and taken hostage and thrown into the most horrendous prisons one can imagine... the camps had evidently been set in advance. There were two camps for Serbs in Odzak. One was in the already mentioned gym of the elementary school and the other in the "Strolit" enterprise. Men were imprisoned in these camps while women were held in rooms on the top floor of the elementary school...

After the army of the Republic of Serbska liberated the area of Odzak, the Ustashi, who were retreating, deported the remaining inmates from Odzak to camps in Bosanski Brod... ...After Bosanski Brod was liberated,... all inmates were taken to Slavonski Brod (Croatia) and then deported to Ustashi camps in Orasje and Donja Mahala. Some of them were exchanged for captured Ustashi combatants in various intervals, and others remained struggling for survival in the inhumane camp conditions. Many of them are still in Ustashi camps in the Republic of Croatia, in Orasje and Donja Mahala and many have left their bones in these awful camps after horrible torture.

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