04karivanderploeg by Jonge Historici

Abbreviations Maps Introduction Crisis and Nationalism The Goal: A Greater Serbia The Means: Official and Unofficial Forces Terminology: Paramilitarism Terminology: Plausible Deniability Terminology: Genocidal Crimes Historiography Research Question Methodology and Thesis Outline

3 4 5 5 6 8 10 11 12 13 15 16

1. The Military Heritage of Yugoslavia and its Limitations Introduction General People’s Defence Extraterritorial Limitations Serbianizing the JNA Reorganization of the JNA and TO-system Conclusion

19 19 20 21 24 26 28

2. The Political and Military Organization of Paramilitary Groups Introduction

30 30 31 34 35 38 41

Schreibtischtäters Obscured Units Securing Loyal Forces Recruitment and Training Conclusion 3: Arkan’s Tigers Introduction The Thug Life Sports and Militarism Training for War The Chain of Command Making Money Operations in Croatia Operations in Bosnia A Career Change Conclusion

43 43 44 46 49 51 55 57 58 60 62

4: The Siege of Bijeljina Introduction The Strategic Importance of Bijeljina The Order: Biljana Plavšić Cooperation to Conceal Responsibility Arkan’s Command and Authority Ethnic Cleansing A Strategy of Intimidation Self-Defeating Exposure After the Attack: A New Government Conclusion

64 64 65 67 70 72 73 75 80 82 83

Conclusion

Bibliography

Abbreviations

CIA

– Central Intelligence Agency

FRY

– Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

GDP

– General People’s Defence

ICTY – International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia JNA

– Yugoslav People’s Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija)

MUP – Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministarstvo Unutrašnjih Poslova) NKVD – People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del) RS

– Serb Republic (Republika Srpska)

RSK

– Republic of Serb Krajina (Republika Srpska Krajine)

SAO

– Serbian Automonous Oblast (Srpska Autonomna Oblast)

SBWS – Slavonia Baranja and Western Srem SČP

– Serbian Chetnik Movement (Srpski Cetnicki Pokret)

SDA

– Party of Democratic Action (Stranka Demokratske Akcije)

SDB

– Serbian Secret Services (Služba Državne Bezbednosti)

SDG

– Serbian Volunteer Guard (Srpska Dobrovoljačka Garda)

SDS

– Serb Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka)

SFRY – Social Federal Republic of the Former Yugoslavia SG

– Serbian Guard (Srpska Garda)

SKJ

– League of Communists of Yugoslavia (savez komunista jugoslavije)

SNO

– Serb National Renewal Party (Srpska Narodna Obnova)

SPO

– Serbian Renewal Party (Srpski Pokret Obnove)

SPS

– Socialist Party of Serbia (Socialistička Partije Srbije)

SRS

– Serbian Radical Party (Srpska Radikalna Stranka)

SSNO – Federal Secretariat for People’s Defence (savezni sekretarijat za narodna odbranu) SVK

– Serbian Army of Krajina (Srpska Vojska Krajine)

– Territorial Defence (Territorialna Odbranai)

UDBA – Yugoslav State Security Administration (Uprava Državne Bezbednosti) VJ

– Yugoslav Army (Vojska Jugoslavije)

VRS

– Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske)

Maps

Source: http://www.icty.org/sid/321 4

Crisis and Nationalism In May 1980, the leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, died. Tito had led Yugoslavia for thirty-five years, while maintaining unity among the many different ethnic groups. Yugoslavia was made up of six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Serbia contained two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina. The borders of the republics were drawn up along ethnic, historic and economic lines.1 Tito had kept the Yugoslav republics united with his ideology of bratsvo i jedinstvo (‘brotherhood and unity’). As Tito dictated the interests of the Yugoslav people and would not tolerate any form of nationalism, his doctrine was successful in keeping the different nations and ethnicities together for as long as he was alive. However, his death set in motion a series of events that eventually led to the outbreak of the wars in 1991. Tito had no successor and left the country in a political vacuum. With the central force keeping the republics together gone, politicians started questioning the federal structure of the country. The issue arose of whether the republics and different ethnicities should obtain more autonomy. The collapse of communism and the increasing power of capitalism destroyed the protection provided by the communist system.2 The country’s stagnating economy lacked the flexibility needed to respond to the changing world market. The high unemployment rates and slow transition from a rural to an urban society brought structural problems with it.3 These political and economic problems caused a great sense of unease among the Yugoslav population. The institutional structure of communist Yugoslavia had developed particular national identifications, causing the people to turn to nationalism for solutions.4 Nationalist groups responded to these feelings by claiming more political and economic autonomy during the 1980s. Tito’s ideology of brotherhood and unity disintegrated together with the Yugoslav government. Nationalist parties gained substantial power in the different republics.5 In 1987, Slobodan Milošević enthroned himself as leader of the nationalist Serbs after he declared his support to the Kosovar Serbs, who were 1 T. Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (New Haven & London 2009) 138. 2 E. Weitz, A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton & Oxford 2005) 205. 3 T. de Zwaan and B. de Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië: 1985-2005 (Amsterdam & Antwerpen2005) 64. 4 Weitz, A Century of Genocide, 208. 5 S.P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to Ethnic War (Boulder 1996) 1011.

supressed by Kosovo’s majority of ethnic Albanians. His speech at Kosovo Polje, addressing an angry mob of Kosovar Serbs on 24 April 1987, is often seen as the point where Milošević was crowned as Serbian leader.6 Milošević mobilized longstanding national sentiments and by 1989 he had become president of Serbia. His nationalist policies destroyed all of what remained of the original consensus in Yugoslavia.7 In the other republics of Yugoslavia, nationalism had grown as well. On 23 December 1990, 88% of the Slovenes voted for independence and, on 25 June 1991, Slovenia became independent. Croatia had declared independence in June 1991 as well, and gained independency in October 1991. Slovenia and Croatia’s declarations of independence effectively ended the existence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and started the Third Balkan War. Milošević sought to create a Serbian state with a homogeneous Serbian population. Since a number of areas in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina hosted ethnic Serbs, Serbia did not want these republics to become independent.8 The war in Slovenia lasted only 10 days as the Serbs did not have a particular interest given the low number of ethnic Serbs in the country. The war in Croatia, however, would last much longer. Five months after Croatia had declared independence, almost one third of Croatia was occupied by the Yugoslav People’s Army (jugoslavenska narodna

armija; JNA) and Serbian paramilitary troops. Bosnia-Herzegovina was an ethnically mixed republic, which hosted mainly Bosnian Muslims (43,47%), Serbs (31,21%) and Croats (17,38%).9 In 1991 the rump assembly of Bosnian Serbs decided to form the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Republika Srpska.10 When the Bosnians voted for independence in March 1992, war also followed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.11

The Goal: A Greater Serbia When the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was disintegrating and war was about to break out, Milošević had to prepare an armed force for the implementation of his plan to create a Greater Serbia: uniting all Serbs in one state. As nationalistic ideas had become widespread, this idea was supported by a great part of the Serbian population,

6 Judah, The Serbs, 167. 7 Ramet, Balkan Babel., 21. 8 T. Bringa, ‘Averted Gaze: Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995’ in: A.L. Hinton, Annihilating Difference, the Anthropology of Genocide (Berkeley & Los Angeles 2002) 197. 9 Consensus Data for Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991: http://josip.purger.com/other/bih/index.htm, accessed 3 December 2013. 10 For political ideals behind this decision, see: R. Donia, ‘Thematic Excerpts From the Assembly of Republika Srpska, 1991-96’, Statement of Expert Witness Presented to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia under Rule 94 bis, Case number IT-03-69 (17 March 2008) 5-9. 11 Bringa, ‘Averted Gaze’, 197-198.

inside and outside of Serbia. Milošević used old sentiments of Serbian victimhood to motivate and activate the Serbian population for the war.12 History gave them a reason to believe that they needed and deserved their own state. Many scholars argue that the idea of a Greater Serbia originated in the nineteenth century and was reinvented at the end of the 1980s when nationalism arose in each of Yugoslavia’s republics.13 After the first Serbian uprising (1804-1817), an autonomous Serbian principality was established within the Ottoman Empire. This led to the revival of the national question about the inclusion of all Serbs in one state. From the mid-nineteenth century until 1918, many Serbian politicians tried to find ways to expand the Serbian state, so it would include more Serbs.14 The definition of a ‘Serb’ was much contested. Vuk Karadžić (1787-1864), who was a great reformer of the Serbian language, argued that all stokavian speakers should be considered Serb, no matter what their religion was. This view was not widely accepted, as the Serbs usually identified themselves with Serbian Orthodoxy and the Croats with Roman Catholicism.15 The vague definition of a ‘Serb’ actually made it easier for politicians to pursue the dream of uniting all Serbs in one state, without having to confront the fact that not all inhabitants were ‘real’ Serbs. In 1918, the Serbs became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. Being part of Yugoslavia was the first real opportunity to unite all Serbs in one state.16 Serbian nationalism was triggered heavily by the new constitution of 1974. As it then consisted of three federal units which all had representatives in the Federal Presidency, the constitution weakened Serbia’s individual power. The 1974 constitution had become a major issue for the Serbs by the end of the 1980s.17 By this time, Serbian nationalism had grown severely. The ideological underpinning of the Serbian nationalist program was given by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In September 1986, a group of intellectuals and scholars of the Academy published a document, the Memorandum, giving a radical nationalist vision on the Serbian position within the Yugoslav Federation. It used Serbian history to argue that the Serbs had always been treated as inferior: Serbia had to be kept small in order for

12 For an extensive study on Serbia’s historical identity, see: Judah, The Serbs. 13 J. Gow, The Serbian Project and its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes (London2003) 8. 14 Budding, A., ‘Serbian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: History and Context’, Statement of Expert Witness Presented to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia under Rule 94 bis, Case number IT-02-54 (July 23, 2003) 2. 15 Ibidem, 2-3. 16 Gow., The Serbian Project, 9. 17 Budding, ‘Serbian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century’, 41-42.

Yugoslavia to be big. It also encouraged the territorial unity of the Serbs.18 Ton Zwaan and Bob de Graaff argued that: this classic nationalist credo of national unity, political sovereignty and a presumed homogeneous cultural identity, interlaced with partly correct historic observations, myths, nationalist alarmist rhetoric and malicious accusations to the address of other groups within the Yugoslav population, had in Yugoslav proportions an explosive effect.19 Due to the course of events, Slobodan Milošević was able to use the political program of Memorandum to bring down the other Communist leaders of Yugoslavia and to strengthen his own powerbase.20 Support for a Serbian state had become widespread among the Serbian population. As the Yugoslav federation was about to fall apart, the prospect of separation arose. The dissolution of Yugoslavia did not only pose a threat to the Serbs, but also fostered a new opportunity to redraw the Yugoslav map to include all Serbs, living in three of Yugoslavia’s republics, in one state. Borders needed to be revised by the use of force. Milošević and other Serbian elite politicians took a leading part in orchestrating a strategy for the creation of a single Serbian state, founded on illegitimate military action.21 As the other republics and ethnicities did not agree or obey to Milošević’s plan of uniting all Serbs in one state, they had to be ‘cleansed’ from the areas claimed by the Serbs. In international humanitarian law, ethnic cleansing is constituted a war crime. Milošević’ efforts in creating a homogeneous Serbian state by ethnically cleansing the areas of non-Serbs, would therefore incriminate him and his government. The implementation thus had to be done by groups whose orders could not be linked directly to the Serbian government. The Means: Official and Unofficial Forces In order to establish a homogeneous Serbian state, Milošević used several armed forces, which he employed for different purposes. First, he made sure loyalty among the existing forces lay with the Serbs. The Yugoslav Army, which initially had a multi-ethnic structure

18 19 20 21

Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië,76. Free translation from Dutch from: Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië, 76. Gow, The Serbian Project, 40. Ibidem, 7-8.

as it served the purpose of all Yugoslav nationalities, was ‘Serbianized’. Because of the growing Serb dominance in the army, it started to fight more for the Serbian rather than for the Yugoslav cause.22 As the Serbs controlled the Yugoslav Army, Croatian and Slovenian officers were retired and Serbs were encouraged to take their places.23 After Bosnia had declared its independence in March 1992, the Yugoslav Army was officially dismantled in May. Milošević continued his fight for a Greater Serbia with three new armies: the Army of Yugoslavia (Vosjka Jugoslavije; VJ), the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike

Srpkse; VRS) and the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (Srpska Vojska Krajine; SVK).24 Another important tool used by the Serbs was the Territorial Defence Force (Teritorijalna Odbrana; TO). Like the Yugoslav Army, the Territorial Defence Forces were a legacy of the SFRY. It was an irregular force, derived from the Partisan tradition of guerrilla warfare. Each republic had its own reserve force which they could call upon in the event an external threat would occur. These local forces, which were able to mobilize up to 85% of the population, were able to function on their own.25 Milošević used the TO-system for mass mobilisations of Serbs in Croatia and later in Bosnia as well.26 These official forces were deployed at the forefront of the war. The Serbs used paramilitary groups for the criminal activities, which had to stay invisible for the international community. The United Nations identified 55 different ethnic Serb paramilitary groups and 67 different communities in the former Yugoslavia that had experienced Serb paramilitary action, of which the majority were in Bosnia.27 Paramilitary groups were used for practical and political purposes. According to Ton Zwaan, the behaviour of the paramilitaries was determined by political and military decisions in higher echelons. Research has proven that the paramilitary groups weren’t operating with complete freedom but unofficially within the official military structure.28 However, as their links with the Serbian government were obscured, they were still able to operate with relative impunity, making them very dangerous groups. Paramilitary groups have played a central role in the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Croatia and Bosnia. They were deployed in Serb-claimed area’s which hosted many Croats or Muslims. They also operated in areas that were necessary to form a bridge between

22 J. Semelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (London 2005) 191. 23 Ramet, Balkan Babel, 43. 24 Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 191. 25 Judah, The Serbs, 169-170 26 Ibidem, 170 27 J. Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability: Serbian Paramilitaries in the Bosnian War’, in: Campbell, B., Brenner, A., Death Squads in Global Perspectives: Murder with Deniability (New York 2002) 287-288. 28 Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië, 176.

already occupied Serbian territory.29 In order to cleanse an area of Muslims or Croats efficiently, the groups used terror techniques such as rape and public executions to scare the non-Serb population out.30 Terminology: Paramilitarism Organizers of genocide sometimes rely on paramilitary groups for certain tasks within the genocidal process. Often they are at the forefront of the actual killing process. The usage of paramilitary groups in the most well-known genocides of the twentieth century, such as the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, in a limited way the Holocaust, and the genocide in Bosnia, show the important role these groups have for the implementation of the genocide.31 Paramilitary groups are also used in ordinary violent conflicts, for example in East-Timor in 1999, Guatemala in the 1980s, Brazil in the 1980s, but also in Iraq from 2006 onwards, and in the Darfur region of Sudan.32 But what exactly is a paramilitary group? Political Scientist Julie Mazzei defines paramilitary groups as elite, well-trained portions of a country’s military, rogue units and death squads.33 These political, armed organizations are non-state entities, created to engage in acts of collective violence. Even though they do not have any official ties to the state, they mobilize and operate with assistance from within the state-system. According to Alex Alvarez, they are illegal, but still enjoy some of the resources and the status that is generally exclusive to official state-entities.34 They also do not have a formal organizational structure or clear chain of command. This makes it possible for the state to claim no knowledge of, or influence over, these groups. It enables states to deny responsibility for paramilitary activities.35 Paramilitary groups are offensive rather than defensive in nature. Their purpose is to eliminate those who pose a threat to their employers, which in several cases have been formal governments. These elite groups are generally used to implement the worst excesses of violence during a conflict, such as torture, rape and murder. In some cases, they are even the prime agents for mass murder and genocide.36 Their covert character serves their secondary purpose of enhancing the terror they generate,

29 30 31 32

Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’, 289. N. Popov, The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis (Budapest: 2000) 380-384 A. Alvarez, ‘Militia’s and Genocide’, in: War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, vol. 2 (2006) 2. J. Mazzei, Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? How Paramilitary Groups Emerge and Challenge Democracy in South-America (Chapel Hill 2009) 3. 33 Ibidem, 4. 34 Alvarez, ‘Militia’s and Genocide’, 3. 35 Campbell, Death Squads, 5. 36 Ibidem, 2-4.

since an unnamed threat can be even more frightening than a known threat.37 On the other hand, paramilitaries often make sure that their actions are very public, so people know what can happen. If their actions would be kept completely secret, they would lose much of their intended effect.38 They usually do not defend the interest of the whole society, but only of a particular group within a society, like the Serbs during the Yugoslav Wars or Sudanese Arabs in Darfur. However, paramilitary soldiers often act for their personal gain and profit as well. In many cases they use their status to enrich themselves by looting and pillaging.39 As they are well-trained in violence, but not bound by formal codes of conduct, they form a dangerous form of military organization. By outsourcing the execution of the actual violence, the state can maintain their facade of innocence. Terminology: Plausible Deniability The term ‘plausible deniability’, was first used by CIA director Allen Dulles in the early 1960s. He argued for the use of covert political action against expansionist moves of communist countries.40 In order to protect its officers, the CIA decided to withhold information from them on its covert and sometimes illegal activities. Thereby the officers could deny their knowledge and involvement in these activities. Plausible deniability is currently used to describe the outsourcing of illegal activities by senior officials to lower ranks in the chain of command. Hereby the organizers of these activities can deny involvement and responsibility, and make it harder to find evidence against them. What I call ‘outsourcing’ state abuses, Jamieson and McEvoy call ‘othering strategies’.41 They explain that states conducting illegal activities have adopted several strategies to keep distance between the organizers and their abuses. These strategies include training and using specialized counter-insurgency groups to execute state crimes, as well as private military firms and paramilitary units.42 By creating a distance between the government and its criminal activities, they create the possibility of plausible deniability.

37 38 39 40 41 42

Ibidem, 21. Ibidem, 5. Mazzei, Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? 5. Hilsman, R., ‘Does the CIA Still Have a Role?’, in: Foreign Affairs, vol. 74, no. 5 (September-October 1995) 111. Jamieson and McEvoy, ‘State Crime by Proxy and Juridical Othering’, 519. Ibidem, 506-512.

Terminology: Genocidal Crimes The term ‘genocide’ was introduced by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in

Occupied Europe. He defined genocide as “the aim to annihilate the groups completely”.43 Lemkin received much criticism on his definition. Holocaust specialists believed it to be too broad, illegitimately associating other crimes with the Holocaust. Other scholars thought it was too narrow as it was modelled foursquare on the Holocaust, referring only to Nazi crimes.44 On 9 December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the term. Under Article 2, the term ‘genocide’ is defined as consisting of “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, including: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.45 The role of the Soviet Union in the Genocide Convention led to the exclusion of political and economic groups in the definition. The Soviet Union tried to obscure its responsibility of the Katyn Massacre in 1940 at the time, in which the Soviet Security Service (NKVD) massacred an estimate of 15.000 Polish officers in the Katyn forrest.46 By accepting political groups in the definition, the Soviet Union would have incriminated itself. The exclusion of these groups, however, has led to much criticism on the definition among scholars. Numerous scholars believe the definition is too limited if one tries to understand and explain genocides. Many different definitions have entered the field with its development.47 Anthropologist Ton Zwaan provides the definition used in this thesis. With his broad definition of ‘genocidal crimes’, Zwaan refers to genocide as a whole range of different

43 Moses, D., ‘Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide’, in: The Oxford Handbook of Genocidal Studies. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 23. 44 Ibidem, 21-22. 45 United Nations, ‘Booklet on the Prevention of Genocide’, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/osapg_booklet_eng.pdf (accessed 31 January 2013). 46 G. Sanford, Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory (New York 2005) 1. 47 ‘Genocide: Scholarly Definitions’ (Box 1.1), in: Jones, A., Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (London 2006) 15-18.

genocidal crimes, each consisting of its own complex historic context.48 All genocides appear in different forms, which makes the term genocide hard to define. In the case of Bosnia, only the Srebrenica massacre is officially recognized as genocide by the ICTY. However, during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, many other mass crimes have occurred in which specific groups were targeted by the Serbs. Some of these I would like to refer to as genocidal crimes. According to Zwaan, Helen Fein provides two conditions that make crimes genocidal: first, the absence of sanctions against killing or the failure to enforce sanctions; second, the presence of ideologies and beliefs legitimizing the crimes.49 I will take these two conditions as a model for defining crimes as genocidal. As the paramilitary groups were not sanctioned for their acting during the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and their activities were legitimized by the ideology of a Greater Serbia, one can define some of their crimes as genocidal. However, as they were used in many different ways, not all of their crimes remained unsanctioned or were based on the ideology of a Greater Serbia, so not all of their crimes can be called genocidal. In my research, I will try to explain how paramilitary groups were used for the execution of genocidal crimes, but to do so I will have to look at how they were used in general, as these crimes cannot be studied on their own. They have to been seen in the broader context of the ongoing war and the crimes that came with it. Historiography Since the introduction of the term ‘genocide’ by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, the number of in-depth studies on genocide has increased considerably. The five internationally recognized genocides of the twentieth century - the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide and the Bosnian genocide - are all extensively researched. Research is conducted mostly by historians50, but also by political scientists51, sociologists52

48 Zwaan, ‘On the Aetiology and Genesis of Genocides and other Mass Crimes Targeting Specific Groups’, 11. 49 Ibidem, 13. 50 O. Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford 2000); Y. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, (New Haven 2001); D. Bloxham, Genocide on Trial: War Crime Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory (Oxford 2000); S. Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (New York 2008); R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York 1985); I. Kershaw, , Hitler, The Germans and the Final Solution (New Haven 2009); Weitz, A Century of Genocide. 51 M. Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Princeton 2004); Semelin, Purify and Destroy; R. Thomas, Serbia Under Milosě vic:́ Politics in the 1990s (London 1999). 52 A. Alvarez,, Governments, Citizens and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach (Bloomington 2001).

and anthropologists53 as well as psychologists54, philosophers55 and criminologists56. The contributions of different fields and methods have shaped the field considerably in the past couple of decades. However, because early research has been mainly focussed on the victimside of the field, a lot of work remains to be done when it comes to research about perpetrators. Psychologically focussed studies are numerous57, but only a few scholars (among others Alvarez and Semelin58) have tried to link the psychology of perpetrators to strategic objectives of genocidal regimes. An understanding how psychological attributes of perpetrators, such as a feeling of not-belonging and powerlessness, are used by genocidal regimes, can tell us a lot about the intent behind this strategy. It is therefore important that this gap is filled by future scholars. In-depth studies on the Bosnian genocide and the Yugoslav Wars are numerous. The first studies appeared while the wars in Croatia and Bosnia were still going on. Among these studies, as well as within the field of genocide studies as a whole, the aspect of strategy is a well-covered theme. There is a large body of research available when it comes to state violence. Most important scholars researching the Yugoslav Wars, including Nebojsa Popov, Norman Cigar, James Ron, Ton Zwaan, Sabrina Ramet, Tim Judah and James Gow, cover the strategic use of the state forces extensively. 59 The subject of paramilitary activity during the Yugoslav Wars, or during any other armed conflicts, is unfortunately not as well covered. This is unfortunate because these groups are often used for illegal means and are therefore always important agents of genocidal campaigns. Several authors have done in-depth research on the deployment of paramilitary groups.60 However, their research has remained limited in its scope and ability to provide the field with an insight into what their use means for the genocidal structure. The lack of in-depth research on this topic is remarkable considering that paramilitary groups play a key role in the spread of terror by the state and

53 Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië. 54 D. Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston 1995); S. Milgram, ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, in: Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 67 (1963); P.G. Zimbardo, ‘Pathology of Imprisonment’, in: Society, vol. 6 (1972). 55 H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (London 1996). 56 Jamieson and McEvoy, ‘State Crime by Proxy and Juridical Othering’. 57 C.R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York 1993); D. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York 1996); J. Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (New York 2005); J. Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford 2007). 58 Alvarez, Governments, Citizens and Genocide; Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’; Semelin, Purify and Destroy. 59 Popov, The Road to War in Serbia; N. Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ (College Station 1995); Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’; Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië; Ramet, Balkan Babel; Judah, The Serbs; Gow, The Serbian Project. 60 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’; Jamieson and McEvoy, ‘State Crime by Proxy and Juridical Othering’; M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Cambridge 2006); Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’.

are therefore an important aspect of state violence.61 Few researchers have taken a more theoretical approach or have tried to draw a broader conclusion about their nature from a case study. The existing research concludes that paramilitary troops are used for the purpose of upholding plausible deniability.62 The reason they were used however is way more complex. I agree that, in the case of the Serbian paramilitary groups, the end-goal of their use was to enable the government to uphold its facade of innocence, but in the mean time they were used for much more reasons. Loyalty and efficiency, for instance, are two key terms that describe their other purposes. Therefore it is important that future scholars will engage in a broader discussion on the intent of using paramilitary groups during mass atrocities. Through this thesis, I hope to provide this discussion with an introduction and my views on the phenomenon. Research Question Genocide is a top-down process. Genocidal crimes happen with the knowledge, approval and involvement of the state authorities. As the top-level officials are never engaged in the actual killing process, they delegate the ‘dirty work’ to lower levels.63 Often, they use special units for this, which they exempt from the rule of law. An example of such units are paramilitary groups, which are often used in violent conflicts. There are many advantages of using such special units. Their links with the power government are obscured, which enabled the government to uphold their policy of plausible deniability.64 Crimes committed by paramilitary units can be dismissed as beyond the responsibilities of the state, as the paramilitary soldiers are often portrayed as extremist sociopaths. To make this portrayal more realistic, these units recruit young boys with violent backgrounds who are prone to violent behaviour. This makes them suited for the execution of the most excessive forms of violence conducted during a conflict.65 However, there are many disadvantages in using unofficial forces as well. Their specific character, which makes them efficient perpetrators, also makes them unreliable. They have their own agendas in joining the war, which poses the danger that they prioritize this over the actual goal for which they are used. As links between the state and the paramilitary groups need to remain obscured, the state often has

61 Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’. 62 Ibidem, 287. 63 Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic, 93. 64 Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’. 65 I. Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’ in: N. Popov, The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis (Budapest 2000) 392.

difficulty controlling them. The risks that come with paramilitary groups, pose the question of why a state would rely on these groups while official military and police forces are already available? Therefore, I will try to answer the following question in my thesis:

Why did the Serbian government employ paramilitary groups used for the execution of genocidal crimes during the Yugoslav Wars? A complex phenomenon such as the use of paramilitary groups can best be studied by analysing a case study. Such a case study gives us detailed factual information about the structure and dynamics in which they operated, and can provide us with an answer to the main question of why they were used. Therefore, I will study a group named the Serbian Volunteer Guard, also known as ‘Arkan’s Tigers’, which operated in Croatia and Bosnia during the Yugoslav Wars from 1991 to 1995. Methodology and Outline To answer the question on why paramilitary groups were used, I will work deductively. I will begin with a meso-analysis, based on research of secondary sources, of the limitations of the official military forces the Serbs had available. By understanding why these forces did not suffice for the fight for a Greater Serbia, we can understand why Milošević started looking for alternative forces, such as paramilitary groups. The multi-ethnic character of the Yugoslav official forces posed a problem for Milošević in terms of loyalty. He tried to reorganize and ‘Serbianize’ these forces, but because of their federal origin, he could never be sure that they were fighting for the Serbian cause instead of the Yugoslav cause. These forces also limited him in his extraterritorial plans. With the signing of the Vance-plan, and its prohibition of cross-border military activity, Milošević needed to look for other forces, which would not incriminate him directly when used for his ethnic cleansing campaign. In the second chapter, I will explain how the paramilitary groups were organized. The way the means are set up on the ground, gives us evidence on the motives of the higher authorities who organize it. An analysis of the political and military organization of paramilitary groups, shows that the government was motivated by political and practical reasons, as well as reasons concerning loyalty. Besides the practical use of paramilitary groups to uphold plausible deniability, my research has shown that they were also needed to pressure the official military into following the Serbian line and to provide Milošević with an entirely 16

loyal force. The fact that the government recruited not only paramilitary leaders but also provided these leaders with soldiers, shows that the government had planned in detail for which purposes they would be used. In the third and fourth chapters, my micro analysis on Arkan’s Tigers will be mainly based on primary sources. This analysis will show that Arkan and his soldiers were carefully selected and recruited by the Serbian government because of their personality attributes. Arkan was known to be a disciplined and efficient leader, and his soldiers were recruited because of their criminal background that could be easily applied to the battlefield. The Serbian government motivated them by providing them with opportunities to enrich themselves by looting. These opportunities were, for most soldiers, the main reason to join the unit. The way the government played into their psychology, shows how the paramilitaries were part of a carefully planned and well-thought out strategy. The way they were deployed shows us that they used as a psychological force to scare the non-Serb population out of Serb-claimed areas. To conceal responsibility for these illegal acts of terror, they had to operate in a chaotic structure of cooperation with other military forces, official and unofficial ones. In the fourth chapter these statements are demonstrated by the detailed analysis of the siege of Bijeljina, in which Arkan’s Tigers played an important part. The terror techniques they used during the attack show how they operated as a psychological force, and examples of cooperation with other units during the operation show how the government tried to conceal responsibility for the attack and the criminal events that happened in Bijeljina. Research on paramilitary groups is extremely difficult because of their clandestine and obscured nature as well as their chaotic structure. Lines between groups are blurred, as well as the commando structures, making it difficult to form any hard statements. As far as the first and second chapter is concerned, secondary sources suffice in conducting my analysis. I will complement the secondary sources where needed with sources found at the database of the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Most of these sources are transcripts of witness testimonies in the cases against Milošević (case number: IT-02-54) and against the Serbian Secret Services officials Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović (case number: IT-03-69), as well as some expert reports in these cases. These transcripts also form the sources of my research on Arkan’s Tigers and the operation in Bijeljina. Witnesses include former members of the Serbian Volunteer Guard - such as Borislav Pelević, Arkan’s wartime secretary - and inhabitants of Bijeljina. Their testimonies 17

provide us with many details about Arkanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tigers and their operations, including the one in Bijeljina. It is however necessary to be careful when using these testimonies, as one cannot be entirely sure that they are accurate. Witnesses tend to lie for several reasons, such as denial about individual guilt but also to protect the accused. Besides that, research has proven that memory is not a static phenomenon. Especially memory on traumatic events can change over time as people tend to block out the painful past.66

66 For research on memory of atrocities, see for instance: S. Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge 2001).

Introduction As soon as it became clear that war was inevitable, Milošević started preparing his armed forces. The armed forces of Yugoslavia were united under the name ‘General People’s Defence’ (GDP). This doctrine, in which all citizens would be engaged in the defence effort when an external threat would occur, was not prepared for the scenario where the threat would arise from within. Therefore Milošević had to take matters to his own hands and gain control over the military. As Milošević was planning on taking Serb-claimed lands in the other republics with armed force, he started to arm the Serbs inside and outside Serbia in 1990. Creating a reliable armed force was not an easy task for Milošević. The SFRY hosted several official military forces, which were all in their own ways limited in defending the Serbian cause. With its federal character and Titoist history, the Yugoslav People’s Army (jugoslovenska narodna armija; JNA) was not easily controlled. The army was designed to defend all of the republics of the SFRY, not just Serbia. Even though it was predominantly Serbian in composition, changes had to be made so Milošević could be sure loyalty lay with the Serbs. Every republic had its own Territorial Defence unit to defend themselves against an external threat. A decentralized command enabled the republics to operate on their own when communication lines would be cut with Belgrade, which hosted the centralized command.67 The armed forces of each republic posed a problem for Milošević because it gave the republics the possibility to defend itself against the Serbs. Therefore Milošević had to make sure they were dismantled before the war reached its peak. With the international community imposing territorial limitations on Serbia, the Serbs were limited in their efforts of establishing their goal of a ‘Greater Serbia’. Thus, it was not only necessary to gain control over the regular armed forces, but also to ensure that there were alternative armed forces available. The creation of these alternative forces will be discussed later on. This chapter will give an overview of the Titoist background of the official Yugoslav forces, how these forces were limited by the international community, and what measures the Serbs took in reorganizing their official armed forces for the Serbian cause. The goal of creating a Greater Serbia went hand in hand with illegal goals of establishing ethnically homogeneous 67 Judah, The Serbs, 169-170.

Serbian areas by ethnical cleansing. With the international community keeping a close eye on Serbia, the involvement of para-state groups was therefore inevitable for implementing these illegal goals. General People’s Defence General People’s Defence consisted of a two-tier system of armed forces. One part was the Yugoslav Army and the second part was the system of Territorial Defence (TO), which referred to all the armed formations that were not part of the JNA or the police.68 This meant that, apart from the Yugoslav Army, each republic was able to call upon its own defence forces in the event of war, and was thereby able to defend itself.69 The Yugoslav Army was a highly trained standing army, based on conscription. The Federal Secretariat for People’s Defence (savezni sekretarijat za narodna odbranu; SSNO) was responsible for leadership of the army. The Yugoslav Army originated in the Second World War Partisan movement that had brought Tito to power. It used to have no political role, but with the new Constitution of 1974 it gained a leading role within the governing party: the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (savez komunista jugoslavije; SKJ). With this role, its leadership became essential in maintaining stability, cohesion and authority of civilian political institutions.70 The army formed the cornerstone and binding force of the SFRY. It was its protector and had a special role in safeguarding the Yugoslav state and identity.71 The army was supposed to mirror the ethnic composition of the whole of Yugoslavia. In practice, this composition distorted reality. Serbs and Montenegrins together held 70% of its officer positions, while these two nationalities only comprised 39% of the Yugoslav population.72 Despite its ethnic imbalance, the army nevertheless considered itself a necessary integrative factor of the Yugoslav state. In case of an invasion, it was the first to be mobilized to challenge and delay the invasion long enough for the Territorial Defence forces to mobilize. After that, these would carry out the their defence strategy of conducting warfare to exhaust the aggressor. The primary aim of this strategy was to deter attack by persuading that the costs for the enemy would be too high.73 68 R. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović in the Conflict in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) 91-95’, Statement of Expert Witness Presented to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia under Rule 94 bis, Case number IT-03-69 (June 30, 2007) Part I, 5. 69 Gow, The Serbian Project, 93. 70 Ibidem, 53. 71 Ibidem, 57. 72 Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Russian and European Analysis, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990-1995, Volume I’, CIA Report 20505 (May 2002) 46. 73 Ibidem, 48.

The TO system was intended to be complementary to the JNA. The origins of the system lay in the invasion of the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Tito’s fear that a similar fate would befall Yugoslavia. This led to the reorganization of the Yugoslav military and the establishment of the two-tier military structure called General People’s Defence.74 Responsibility for the Territorial Defence forces lay with the republics. The command of the forces was decentralized; each republic’s political authorities had final responsibility. The Yugoslav Army on the other hand was bound to a centralized command in Belgrade. A decentralized command was necessary so the forces could not be wiped out in a single blow. In the event of a breakdown in communications, the forces would be able to continue functioning on their own. For political guidance, the command worked closely with the leadership of the local Communist Party.75 The system relied upon countrywide military training for the entire male population and stockpiles of small arms and caches of light weapons like mortars. The TO manpower was much larger than the army, while its inventories were much smaller and cheaper.76 Although the Territorial Defence forces were intended to serve alongside the Yugoslav Army, by the end of the 1980s they were increasingly answering to the republics and became a threat to the army. With the changing political situation, the objectives of the JNA changed as well. Therefore, leadership of the Yugoslav Army began drafting plans to neutralize the potentially hostile and rival military forces that were part of the Territorial Defence system. By replacing the Communist Party with the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), Serbian leadership was able to make use of the system for mass mobilisations of Serbs in the Krajina in Croatia and later in Bosnia as well.77 The army’s move to disable the Slovenian and Croatian TOs in spring 1990 can be seen as a turning point in the road to war. Despite its federal character and history, by the time war started in Slovenia and Croatia, the Yugoslav Army was not fighting for the Yugoslav cause anymore, but for the Serbian. Extraterritorial Limitations The international attitude towards Serbia was rarely straightforward. First and foremost, the aim of the international community was to uphold the key principle of international order: state borders were not allowed to be altered by the use of force. According to several

74 75 76 77

CIA, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds’, 47. Judah, The Serbs, 169-170. CIA, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds’, 48. Judah, The Serbs, 170.

Western scholars, political leaders from most of Europe and the United States desperately wanted to preserve the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.78 Also, violations of human rights had to be resisted. This meant that they were opposing the Serbian goal of creating a Greater Serbia. The West tried to resolve the issue with economic and political pressure, whereas the Soviet Union provided the government of Ante Marković, the last president of Yugoslavia, with oil and weapons. The West did not oppose the decision of the Soviet Union, which was also determined to keep Yugoslavia united for the purpose of international stability.79 When the Ten-Day War started in Slovenia, the Yugoslav Army lost the international support of countries like Germany, France, Italy and the US, which condemned the attack on Slovenia. The West stated that they would act in solidarity with Slovenia and Croatia, unless the army respected a cease-fire.80 When war started in Croatia, the United Nations Security Council got involved. It responded with a general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia, which had serious consequences for Croatia. As the Yugoslav Army was well equipped and had stocks of weapons in its arsenal and Croatia did not, the embargo only strengthened the army’s power and its offensive against Croatia.81 As war continued in Croatia, the international aims of intervention became more focussed on two issues: to reject the Serbian attempt to disrupt the territorial integrity of Bosnia by use of force, and to respond to, oppose and prevent ethnic purification.82 Therefore, the UN Secretary-General De Cuéller decided to send Cyrus Vance, former US secretary of state, to Yugoslavia as his personal convoy. Vance succeeded in getting both Croatia and Serbia to sign a cease-fire on 23 November 1991, followed by the signing of the Vance-plan on 2 January 1992. The Vance-plan was signed by Slobodan Milošević , Franjo Tuđjman, the SSNO and General Veljko Kadijević. It was intended as an interim arrangement to create conditions for peace and security, in order to settle the Yugoslav crisis.83 It contained three phases. First, United Nations troops were deployed, as well as unarmed police monitors in three UN protected areas: SBWS (Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem), Western Slavonia and Krajina. Second, the protected areas were demobilized, including the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army, Croatian armed forces and volunteer units. 78 M. Klemencić, ‘The International Community and the FRY/Belligerents, 1989-1997’ in: C. Ingrao and T.A. Emmert, Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars Initiative (West Lafayette 2009) 153. 79 Emmert, Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies, 159. 80 Ibidem, 161. 81 Ibidem, 164. 82 Gow, The Serbian Project, 266-267. 83 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 98.

The Territorial Defence force of the SAO Krajina and other armed groups had to be disarmed, disbanded and demobilized as well. Only a light armed police force of the Serbian Republic of Krajina could remain in the protected areas. The third phase of the Vance-plan was the maintenance of peace in the protected areas and preparations for the return of refugees and displaced persons.84 According to Tim Judah, Milošević agreed with the Vanceplan as his aim was to politically freeze the frontlines. The Serbs controlled most parts of its envisaged territory by that time. A de jure Greater Serbia was not yet possible, so a de facto one would have to do for the moment. According to Judah, General Kadijević stated in his notebook that signing the Vance-plan made the realisation of the Serbian leadership goals on a longer term possible and was therefore the right thing to do.85 Following the international recognition of the independence of Bosnia, Western powers and the United Nations had sought to block direct Serbian state intervention in the Bosnian fighting. Constraints on cross-border Serbian military intervention were reinforced and Serbia had publicly declared to keep their military forces within its own territory.86 On 6 and 7 April 1992, the US and EU recognized Bosnia’s independence, threatening Serbia with punitive action if it would intervene in the Bosnian conflict. The Western powers hoped to prevent outside stimulation of the Bosnian fighting and to secure a lasting cease-fire. Throughout spring 1992, Western intelligence continued charging Serbia with continued involvement in the conflict, through both the Yugoslav Army and paramilitary groups. On 30 May 1992, the Security Council imposed sanctions on rump Yugoslavia, which contained Serbia and Montenegro, for its suspected cross-border activity. The Security Council ordered all UN member states to cut commercial ties with the country.87 A Serbian campaign against Bosnia would be met with a hostile international response and brand the Serbs as aggressors. Serbia pretended to submit itself to the restrictions on extraterritorial military action, promising it would respect Bosnia’s territorial integrity. According to James Gow, in order to do so and avoid a military conflict with the international community, the Serbian strategy had to focus more on ambiguity and attempted deception.88 Milošević tried to convince the outside world that the new FRY was not responsible for the events in Bosnia, while the reality was very different.

84 85 86 87 88

Ibidem, 98-99. Judah, The Serbs, 190. Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’, 287-289. Ibidem, 290. Ibidem, 268.

Serbianizing the JNA Before the international community intervened in the conflict and restrained Serbia on its extraterritorial action, Milošević had started taking measures to make sure the Yugoslav Army was fighting for Serbia rather than for Yugoslavia. Sometime after April 1990, the Yugoslav Army was already considering ‘how to defend the right of the peoples which want to live in the mutual state of Yugoslavia’89 This was a quote from the diary of the JNA General Veljko Kadijević, who also occupied the position of Federal Secretary of People’s Defence. Only later were the Serbs and Montenegrins specifically identified as those peoples. Milošević had already begun to plan the armament of the Serbs outside Serbia. A turning point in the road to war was the disabling of the Slovenian and Croatian Territorial Defence forces by the JNA. The Yugoslav Army was aware of the importance of these forces for the republics in case internal conflict would break out. It enabled the republics to defend themselves against the army. Therefore, following the first democratic elections in Slovenia in spring 1990, the Yugoslav Army captured almost all of the weaponry designated for the Croatian Territorial Defence force and about 40% of the Slovenian weaponry. Later, it carried out a similar program in Bosnia in 1991, following the elections there at the end of 1990.90 In order to eliminate organizations that could resist a Serbian take-over, the Yugoslav Army tried to dismantle and disarm the Territorial Defence forces that had a significant nonSerb membership such as the Slovenian TO.91 Within the TOs that consisted mostly of Serbian members, they simply excluded the non-Serbs.92 The JNA legitimized their actions by claiming that the TOs were posing a threat to the internal stability of Yugoslavia, as they were fighting for their individual republics. The Serbs eventually did not succeed in dismantling the Territorial Defense forces completely. Some of the weaponry and training camps were taken over, but both the Slovene and Croat TO units were successfully reorganized into a part of the republic’s official armed forces. Plans for the Serbianization of the Yugoslav Army became evident as early as 1988. Quietly and without public discussion, the Yugoslav Army had reorganized in 1988, replacing the old Army Districts (whose borders were often identical to those of the republics), with new Military Districts. The new Military Districts had an increased autonomy from superior army command and republican political authorities. As the SFRY was about

89 90 91 92

Judah, The Serbs, 169. Gow, The Serbian Project, 94. CIA, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds’, 51. Gow, The Serbian Project, 124.

to fall apart, this had important consequences. One of the consequences of the reorganization of 1988 was that the Knin Corps, based in Knin in the Krajina region, could give the local Serb population access to JNA arms and equipment as early as the summer of 1990. This was one of the several ways in which elements of the Yugoslav Army increasingly acted in collusion with Serbs political forces. As the influence of non-Serbs in the Yugoslav Army was decreasing, the army’s tendency to align itself with mainly Serb interests grew.93 The dissolution of the Yugoslav state and armed conflict had great impact on the ethnic composition of the army, as well as its ethno-political character. Even though most of the senior posts were held by Serbs and Montenegrins, the Yugoslav Army had always ensured proportional representation by the use of an ‘ethnic key principal’.94 The ethnic composition of the Yugoslav Army changed substantially in the road to war. Many disillusioned officers, who could not defect, resigned. The army also encouraged non-Serbs to retire. The combined effect of circumstance and the active Serbianization campaign caused the army to progressively become Serb-dominated. The consequences of the growing Serbian dominance within the JNA became more evident in spring 1991, right before the war was about to start. As Milošević was looking for reliable and usable forces, the army formed ethnically homogeneous Serbian units in Slovenia.95 In June and July 1991 Milošević held several meetings with General Kadijević and the president of the collective Yugoslav Presidency: Borisav Jović. During these meetings they decided that the army had to defend the future borders of Yugoslavia and that the main forces therefore were to cover all Serbpopulated territory until the situation was fully resolved.96 The new tasks of the Yugoslav Army included: the defence of the Serb nation in Croatia and the national interests of the Serb nation, pulling out JNA garrisons from Croatia, gaining full control of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the ultimate aim of defending the Serb nation and its national rights there, and the creation and defence of the new Yugoslav State and those Yugoslav nations that desire to be a part of it (meaning: the Serb and Montenegrin Nations).97 The constitutional mission of the army of “safeguarding territorial integrity” had been reduced to the

93 94 95 96 97

Gow, The Serbian Project, 54. Ibidem, 57. Ibidem, 55. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 4-5. Ibidem, 8.

consolidation of Serbian control of the latter areas in order to “protect the Serb population”.98 Reorganization of the JNA and the TO-system On 19 May 1992 the Yugoslav Army formally ceased to exist as the Republic of Yugoslavia had dissolved. Belgrade’s new army, the Army of Yugoslavia (Vojska Jugoslavije; VJ), continued the process of Serbianization. This meant that the originally multi-ethnic forces of the Yugoslav Army had to be transformed into a homogeneous Serbian organization and that the command had to be with the Serbian president.99 Next to the Army of Yugoslavia, two other Serbian armed forces were created: the Serbian Army of Krajina (Srpska Vojska

Krajine; SVK) and the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske; VRS). The Yugoslav Army and Army of Republika Srpska each gained about 80.000 personnel. While remaining divided, the chain of command within the old federal army did not change. The Army of Republika Srpska continued to operate under Belgrade’s command, but with operational authority given to the commander in Bosnia: General Ratko Mladić. Mladić made sure the army acted in line with Serbian nationalist political objectives. After the division, problems with reliability remained within the Yugoslav Army. Because of its Yugoslav orientation, many of the top officers could not be trusted. Milošević was afraid their loyalties lay with one of the other republics. Therefore, unreliable personnel had to be replaced and the Serbianization process continued. The Serbian Security Service (Služba Državne Bezbednosti; SDB) recruited loyal Serbian generals that could be trusted not to cling to the Yugoslav orientation, like many others in the army’s command. This web of Serbian oriented officers was known as the Vojna Linija (‘the military line’).100 They included General Andrija Biorčević, the commander of the Novi Sad Corps, and General Ratko Mladić, the commander of the Knin garrison. The main idea behind the Vojna Linija was to first arm the Serbian people in Croatia, and then in Bosnia.101 Reliability among the personnel however, was only one of the many problems Milošević was facing after the dissolution of the Yugoslav Army. As he had agreed to withdraw from Bosnia, he needed to find other ways to reach his goals. The reorganization of the JNA into the VJ, VRS and

98 Ibidem, 19 99 Gow, The Serbian Project, 57. 100 Ibidem, 61. 101 Judah, The Serbs, 170.

SVK created an opportunity. Dividing the Yugoslav Army and its assets between Republika Srpska and the FRY, the Serbs evaded de facto withdrawal from Bosnia.102 The Army of Republika Srpska was essentially the former Yugoslav Army’s Second Military District Command (2nd MD), covering Bosnia. It incorporated those elements of the old Territorial Defence system, which had been mobilized in Serb-dominated areas by the Yugoslav Army throughout the second half of 1991 and 1992. With the cease-fire that was signed in Sarajevo on January 2, 1992, the Serbs had to withdraw from Bosnia. However, soon after the establishment of the Army of Republika Srpska, measures were taken to ensure the removal of Muslim and Croatian nationalities from commanding positions. In December 1991, anticipating the Vance-plan, all Serbs from Bosnia were redeployed to certain units, while Serbs not from Bosnia were removed from those units, creating entirely Bosnian Serb units. When the formal withdrawal was happening in May 1992, the Bosnian Serbs could legitimately stay behind.103 The Serbs could claim not to be involved in the Bosnian war as those who were fighting were Bosnian Serbs, reducing Belgrade’s open participation in the war.104 The Yugoslav Army offered assistance to the military forces that remained in Bosnia and continued support for those in Croatia. The Krajina Serbs had inherited a military capability, as well as command and control structures from the Yugoslav Army, as did the VRS after its division. The Army of Repubika Srpska benefited from continued support from the Yugoslav Army. It continued to supply them with reinforcement troops and equipment long after the formal division.105 The Vance-plan also had major implications for the TO-system, as it stipulated the demobilization, disarming and disbanding of all Territorial Defence forces and other armed groups. On 19 December 1991, less than a month before the signing of the Vance-plan, the TO of the Republika Srpska was declared, with Milan Babić as its president. The RSK TO was constitutionally declared as the official armed forces of the Republika Srpska on 2 January 1992, the same day as the signing of the Vance-plan. As all armed groups had to be demobilized, disarmed and disbanded, the declaration of the TO as the official armed force of the Republika Srpska could be considered a violation of the Vance-plan.106 Therefore, prior to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and the arrival of the international

102 Gow, The Serbian Project, 59. 103 N.M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe (London: Harvard University Press, 2001) 158. 104 Gow, The Serbian Project, 59. 105 Ibidem, 77. 106 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 100.

peace forces, the force was reorganized and re-equipped by the SSNO. Once the UN protection forces were installed, the force was transformed into the RSK Special Police Unit (Milicija) with the support of the FRY.107 Commanding officers, other personnel and equipment of the Yugoslav Army and the Territorial Defence unit were transferred to this Special Police Unit. The establishment of these brigades were in effect a rebadging operation, whereby the Territorial Defence unit was renamed ‘special police’.108 With the transformation of the RSK TO into Milicija-units, the Serbs tried to evade the demilitarisation clause, soon contained in the Vance-plan. The UN reported that “their level of armament and their almost total ignorance of police work show that, in reality, they are paramilitary forces”.109 International pressure had caused the Serbs to transform their official forces into unofficial, paramilitary, forces. Conclusion As war was about to break out, Milošević started to prepare his forces for the implementation of his plan to create a homogeneous Serbian state. The heritage of the Yugoslav defence system proved not to be sufficient to help him reach this illegal goal. Problems with loyalty and limitations by the international community forced him to look for alternative forces. The armed forces of the SFRY were not prepared for a civil war as the Yugoslav system was designed to defend all countries against external enemies. Yugoslavia’s defence system, called General People’s Defence, consisted of the JNA and the TO system. Milošević used the weaknesses of the General People’s Defence to his advantage. The Yugoslav Army had always been predominantly Serbian in composition, but under Tito’s reign it always ensured proportional representation.110 However, as early as 1988, Milošević started an active Serbianization campaign. Non-Serbs had decreasing influence and the Yugoslav Army started fighting more for the Serbian than for the Yugoslav cause. The dissolution process of Yugoslavia also had great impact on the ethnic composition of the Yugoslav Army. The Serbianization of the army was eventually the result of the changing focus of the army’s leadership towards their own national cause, instead of the Yugoslav cause, as well as active campaigning by Milošević. As the international community was keeping a close eye on the conflict, the Serbs were further limited in terms

107 108 109 110

Ibidem, 97. Ibidem, 104-105. Ibidem, 105-106. Gow, The Serbian Project, 57.

of territoriality. With the signing of the Vance-plan on 2 January 1992, all armed forces had to demobilize, disband and disarm.111 By that time, Milošević had already secured almost all of the desired territory in Croatia. Milošević agreed with the Vance-plan, binding him to move his troops out of Croatia. With the international community looking over his shoulder, Milošević had to continue his plans for a Greater Serbia secretively. As Yugoslavia officially disintegrated in May 1991, following the international recognition for the independence of Bosnia, the official armed forces of the SFRY were reorganized in order to circumvent the extraterritorial boundaries. The Yugoslav Army was split into the VJ, VRS and SVK. In Bosnia, Milošević created entirely Bosnian Serb units by redeploying Bosnian Serbs to certain units while Serbs from Serbia were removed from those units. Milošević could claim that the Serbs were not involved in the Bosnian war as Bosnian Serbs were fighting there. Hereby he enabled some of his official forces to help him with the creation of a Greater Serbia. Another way to avoid the demilitarisation stipulation was the reorganization of Territorial Defence units into Milicija-units. Because Milošević could not fully depend on the official armed forces, he had to look for alternative means in the fight for a Greater Serbia. International limitations forced him to reorganize his official forces in such a way that they would not incriminate the Serbian government. By creating entirely Bosnian and Croatian Serb units, he succeeded in doing so. This enabled him to claim that the Serbian government was not involved in the genocidal campaign. However, links between these units and the government were easy to prove, which is why he needed units that were harder to trace back to the government. Also, loyalty remained a difficult issue, which is another reason he looked for alternative ways to reach his illegal goal of creating a Greater Serbia.

111 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 98.

Introduction

The best evidence of the will of those deciding to massacre is the deployment of the means set up on the ground for the purpose of perpetrating the massacre.112 Genocide is a top-down process, which is always organized by a powerful government’s political and military elite. This means that the political and military elite not only creates the ideological framework, but also sets up the means on the ground necessary for the implementation of the genocide. Problems with loyalty and extraterritorial limitations imposed by the international community forced Milošević to look for alternative ways in which to achieve his goals. Milošević created para-state forces which were able to operate outside the official framework of the Serbian government. These paramilitary groups were responsible for the worst excesses of violence during the war, such as rape, torture and executions. Their activitieswere meant to spread terror in order to cleanse Serb-claimed areas of its Croats and Muslims as efficiently as possible. Because of their obscured character, the Serbian government could claim to have no responsibility over the criminal acts of the paramilitary units. Paramilitary groups were a vital part of the genocidal effort. The way the political and military elite are involved in the organization of the paramilitary groups, shows the intention of the Serbian government to destroy ethnic and religious groups in certain regions while trying to uphold an innocent reputation. The responsibility of the Serbian government in organizing the paramilitary formations is obscured and therefore difficult to research. Many scholars contradict each other when describing the formation of paramilitary groups because these events are kept as secret as possible. Still, it is possible to get an idea of the way the Serbian government put the means in place for the genocidal effort, based on secondary literature, witness testimonies and other primary sources. These sources indicate that the Serbian government under Milošević started to plan the genocide from the late 1980s by putting its means in place. The way the groups were organized, shows that they 112 Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 183.

had several purposes: practical and political purposes as well purposes concerned with loyalty. This is demonstrated by their cooperation with the official army, which was forced by the paramilitaries to follow the Serbian line, and by the foundation of the first paramilitary groups as political party militias which formed Milošević’ opposition, forcing him to form his own loyal unit. The importance of their covert nature is evidenced by the way they were organized by the Serbian Secret Services. The recruitment and training of the paramilitary soldiers, shows us that the Serbian government had a clear idea of the purposes the units would be used for. The soldiers were chosen based on their specific characteristics, which served the genocidal effort. This shows that the government orchestrated everything: from the organization, through the recruitment and training process to the way they would be deployed.

Schreibtischtäters At the centre of genocide, there is always an organisation dedicated almost exclusively to the task of genocide. The ideological framework is always provided by the political elite. They are also responsible for the organization of the violent actors. While the elites operate rationally and seek to preserve or gain their power, they organize great numbers of ordinary people to act on their wishes.113 Research has proven that paramilitary groups do not operate with complete freedom like local warlords, as was commonly assumed in the West. Even when they have a para-governmental or even private status, they still have definite informal or secret links with leaders within the state apparatus, and operate within the existing subordinations.114 The behaviour of the paramilitaries is determined by political and military responsibilities in higher echelons, which seek to bypass existing constraints on internal violence. Some of these officials are more visible than others as they are more actively engaged. They know how to work the state structures and do not hesitate to leave the framework of legality in order to achieve their own ends. By instrumentalising the state apparatus, they are able to implement their policy of destruction.115 The personal networks of these leaders, who were occupying positions of responsibility within ministries or operations divisions, were attached directly to the head of state.116

113 114 115 116

E. Suljagić, Community of Murder (Sarajevo: Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies, 2006) 43. Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië, 176. Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 183. Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’, 293.

The first battles began during the summer of 1991 between Serb and Croat forces in the Krajina region of Croatia. When violence spread to Bosnia in 1992, reports on paramilitary violence started to accelerate. Serbian officials denied the relationship between the paramilitaries and the state, making the direct link of Belgrade to the paramilitaries hard to establish. Milošević tried to convince the outside world that the new FRY was not responsible for the atrocities, claiming that the violence conducted by the paramilitaries was beyond his control.117 However, Milošević was clearly responsible for forming, recruiting, housing, transporting, arming, training and directing paramilitary groups.118 In the BBC documentary ‘Death of Yugoslavia’, Vojislav Šešelj claimed that “Milošević organized everything. We gathered the volunteers and he gave us special barracks at Bubanj Potok, all our uniforms, arms, military technology and buses. All our units were always under the command of […] the Yugoslav army.”119 According to James Gow, there were three reasons why Milošević chose to use paramilitary groups. First, it was practical as the organization of paramilitary units served the purposes of strategic deception and ambiguity. Second, paramilitary groups could carry out action that required support from the Yugoslav Army or its successor, thus putting pressure on the regular forces to follow the Serbian line. The third reason Milošević depended on paramilitary units concerned loyalty. Milošević couldn’t fully depend on the loyalty of the official forces as they were of federal origin. Therefore he secured loyalty among the paramilitaries by training and equipping them better than Belgrade’s regular army and giving special privileges and freedom to pillage their targets.120 During war, nobody receives salaries except for officers. However, the paramilitary soldiers did occasionally receive some salary, in addition to the usual pocket money. For some men, this served as a motivation to join a unit. It was also common knowledge that pillaging and ransacking houses came with the task, which for many soldiers was enough reason to join these groups.121 Milošević set the general tone by providing guidance and weapons while the State Security Services (SDB) and Serbia’s Ministry of Defence channelled the paramilitary groups. The SDB, and its formal and informal network of power and influence, was at the heart of 117 Ibidem, 292. 118 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 19. 119 D. Doder and L. Branson, Milošević: Portrait of a Tyrant (New York 1999) 101. 120 Gow, The Serbian Project, 79-80. 121 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, Case: Stanisic, Jovica and Simatovic, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 17 January 2012, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 16098.

the genocide. Their actions were coordinated with the Yugoslav Army.122 Between 1987 and 1990, Milošević gained increasing influence over the major institutions of public power, including the Ministry of Interior, which the SDB was a part of. As he was in need of loyal followers, he allegedly ordered the secret services to recruit individuals willing to support him. According to Robert Thomas, key state functionaries who were involved in this recruiting process were the Minister of Interior Radmilo Bogdanović, Mihalj Kertes, the head of the SDB Jovica Stanišić and his subordinates Franko Simatović and Radovan Stojisić, also known as Badža.123 The SDB had a well thought-out plan to develop new armed forces. At first, the paramilitaries were controlled by the MUP of Serbia, later responsibility was shifted to Jovica Stanišić and Franko (‘Frenki’) Simatović124. Stanišić was born in the Vojvodinan town of Bačka Palanka in 1950. His family originated from Montenegro. He studied political science in Belgrade, after which he started working for the Secret State Services in 1974.125 Stanišić became the head of the State Security Service within the MUP Serbia. On 30 May 2013 he was acquitted by the ICTY as they failed to link him and Franko Simatović with the organization of Serbian paramilitary activity. However, research implicates both of them played an important part in the organization of the genocide. The secret services provided money, weapons and equipment to paramilitary leaders like Arkan and Sešelj. Starting in 1991, Stanišić had set up front companies in Cyprus for the laundering of money and for the purchase of arms, ammunition and telecommunication equipment which were used to fund and supply the paramilitary units.126 A report by the VJ Security Organs, drawn in October 1993, mentioned the role of the Serbian Ministry of Interior in arming volunteer groups. It stated that: a large number of people who have joined these formations are armed, mostly with small arms from depots of the former JNA, MUP and Serbian Ministry of Defense that were distributed in large numbers to volunteer forces engaged on the fronts in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and in most cases were not returned.127

122 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 19. 123 R. Thomas, Serbia Under Milosevic: Politics in the 1990s (London 1999) 93. 124 Franko Simatović is an ethnic Croat, born in Belgrade in 1950. He served as the Head of Operations in the Secret Services. 125 Idem 126 R. Cohen, Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo (New York 1998) 410. 127 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 94.

This shows that the paramilitary groups were dependent on the Ministry of Interior and the Secret Services as well as on the official army. Obscured Units Serbia based paramilitaries clustered around nationalist politicians from Belgrade, which began to double as paramilitary organizers. The Secret Services had a well thought-out plan for the development of new armed forces. Local leadership was created in places in need of new forces. This leadership was recruited among members of nationalist political parties, which were also the organizers of the first paramilitary groups.128 During the conflict in Croatia, political parties in Serbia were allowed to organize the recruitment, training and dispatching of volunteers to conflict zones in Croatia. With the authorization of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, they were also allowed to set up their own volunteer formation.129 The biggest paramilitary groups were formed by political parties. Some groups were formed by order of the Serbian government and not connected to a certain political party. Others formed locally and were not connected to the Serbian government at all. Their command and control was local and the chain of command was very hard to establish. These groups operated locally, unlike the paramilitary groups under command of the government, which operated in many different areas.130 During the conflict in Croatia, seven significant paramilitary groups operated on the Serbian side, four of which were paramilitary branches of political parties. One of the other groups, the Serbian Volunteer Guard, was founded on orders of Milošević and was not affiliated to a political party. During the summer of 1991, legislation on volunteers was amended in the 1991 Law of Defense of the Republic of Serbia. Article 39 states: “In war, imminent war threat and state of emergency, Territorial Defense could be replenished with volunteers.”131 In the following months, the SFRY authorities adopted a number of decrees, instructions and orders on the participation of volunteers in the conflict, aiming at regularising and legalising the status of volunteers participating in the conflict.132 The first paramilitary groups had, however, emerged far before the creation of the legal framework. They emerged after the first signs of unrest, when Milan Martić was removed from his post as police officer in Knin

128 CIA, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds’, 85. 129 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 80. 130 United Nations, Final Report of the United Nation Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), (New York: United Nations Publications, 1994), Annex III, par. 122. 131 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 83. 132 Ibidem, 111-118.

by the Croatian MUP in August 1990. After his removal, Martić transformed his police unit into a paramilitary unit that went by the name of ‘The Martičevči’, ‘Milicija Krajina’ or ‘Martic’s Police’. The unit was a combination of a party army and an element of the old TOsystem. It behaved like a party army with loyalty to specific politicians in the Krajina area.133 The Martičevči are often seen as the same unit as the ‘Knindža’, which is officially called the Special Purpose Unit of the SAO Krajina. The Knindža also originated in Knin, Krajina. It was organized by the Serbian Secret Services, with Jovica Stanišić overseeing the campaign and Franko Simatović implementing it. The Knindža are better known as the ‘Red Berets’ or simply ‘the Unit’. They were led by ‘Captain Dragan’ (Dragan Vasiljković), an Australian Serb who was trained by the French Foreign Legion.134 The initial purpose of the unit was to form a Praetorian Guard for Milošević, but under Captain Dragan they were transformed into a formidable armed force, trained to fight for a Greater Serbia. The way these two groups are often mistaken for each other, even by acclaimed scholars such as James Gow,135 indicates that the obscured organizations behind both forces probably overlap. According to Gow, the Martičevči were transformed into the Knindža after Martić became de facto Minister of Defence in the government of the self-proclaimed ‘Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina’. However, according to expert on the subject Vladimir Petrović, the Martičevči and Knindža were never the same unit.136 The misunderstandings on this issue and the contradicting sources are the result of the obscured character of these units, which makes research on them extremely difficult. The fact that their organization is as obscured as it is, however, does tell us a lot. Having to obscure the organization of an institution, proves, on its own, that the organizers have something to hide. Factual knowledge on the conflict shows us exactly what they needed to hide: the use of paramilitary units for the implementation of genocidal crimes. The embezzlement of the organization is necessary because of the illegal purpose of the units and shows that the government was deeply involvemed in setting up the genocidal means. Securing Loyal Forces Besides the Martičevči and Knindža, four other groups were organized by political parties to fight on the Serbian side during the Croatian war. Each of these groups had its own

133 134 135 136

Gow, The Serbian Project, 80-81. V. Petrović, interview by Kari van der Ploeg, Amsterdam, 6 November 2013. Gow, The Serbian Project, 80. Petrović, interview 6 November 2013.

political identity and each tended to fight in certain areas. Even though they fought for the Serbian cause, they posed a threat to Milošević as they were organized by his political opposition. All were called ‘Chetniks’ by the Croats and the majority of the Western press, although only one actually bore this title. The Serbs referred to them as ‘volunteers’ or ‘territorials’.137 In June 1991 the Serbian Renewal Party (SPO) formed a paramilitary group known as the Serbian Guard (Srpska Garda; SG). The SG was initially formed to provide opposition leaders with personal protection, but soon it became involved in the war, in particular in the Gospić region. Djordje Bozović-Giska and Branislav Matić-Beli (both alleged criminals) established the force. When both were killed, command was passed on to Branislav Lainović-Duga. Lainović-Duga did not follow the party line and wanted to cooperate with the army because, according to him, the Serbian Guard did not belong to the SPO. This line suggests that he was cooperating with the secret services, who wanted to prevent independent action by opposition elements in Serbia. One of the reasons for organizing and supporting other paramilitary groups was therefore to draw support from the SG. We see here that the first paramilitary groups came into existence to provide personal protection forces for opposition leaders. These groups, however, became a threat to Milošević. Because he did not want the opposition to strengthen, he had to draw support from these groups by creating more groups. With the involvement of the secret services, two other opposition parties formed their own military wings: the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), run by Šešelj, created the Serbian Chetnik Movement (SČP). The Serb National Renewal Party (SNO, led by Mirko Jović and Dragoslav Bokan) formed Beli Orlovi (also known as the White Eagles)138 as well as Dusan Silni, which was led by Vuk Drasković, also an important commander of the SG.139 All these different paramilitary groups worked closely together as the organizations behind them overlapped as well. With all the opposition parties creating their own military wings, Milošević needed to have a force which would ensure complete loyalty. Therefore, he created the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG). Željko, ‘Arkan’, Ražnatović, was recruited by Minister of Interior Radmilo Bogdanović, who made him commander of this unit. Arkan was a Belgrade gangster who became involved in crime at a young age. He had been detained in several European prisons – from which he escaped – for bank robbery and theft. The Yugoslav secret services, which he worked for as a hit man, allegedly helped him to escape several 137 Gow, The Serbian Project, 81. 138 Ibidem, 83. 139 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, Section 3, 85.

times.140 From the start of the conflict, he had been involved by smuggling weapons into Croatia, for which he was detained in 1991. Before his detainment, the secret services had made him head of Belgrade’s Red Star Football Club’s fan club: Delije, which men would form the nucleus of the Serbian Volunteer Guard.141 Arkan w as not purely motivated by patriotic reasons to join in the fighting, but also by the opportunities it gave him to loot and make a name for himself as a soldier, which would help him to legalise his unlawfully acquired wealth.142 The Serbian Volunteer Guard was not solely formed to counter the Serbian Guard and draw away support from the other paramilitary groups outside Milošević’ control, they were also formed to be a murderously effective instrument for close combat and ethnic cleansing. Intelligence reports by the JNA Security Organs drafted between October 1991 and January 1992 confirm the close relationship between Arkan and the MUP Serbia: “Arkan goes in action only after the JNA units mop up the area […] and commit crimes […] they believe that Arkan is doing it with the full support of the SDB of Serbia.”143 This quote shows that paramilitary groups frequently cooperated with the regular armed forces. Some others operated independently in certain areas from which the personnel in these units came. This structure and strategy blurred the chain of command and concealed responsibility. Another important reason why these paramilitary groups operated with the official forces was because they pressured the army, with its federal character and orientation to follow the Serbian line. They were able to make the other forces follow their line because they often dominated the forces they worked with. They were feared by the other forces that they often mistreated. Command of the Yugoslav Army reported about their influence on their official forces in ‘Situation Report 187-2’: The presence of Arkan and his men, their courage, bravery and perseverance inspired trust in other soldiers and motivated them, but on the other hand, their behaviour and privileges and the awe they inspired by overtly physically mistreating some soldiers and officers also caused unconcealed dissatisfaction, which may lead to open conflicts that could escalate further. Some members of the Brigade Command have

140 More on Arkan’s life as a gangster and prison escape-artist, see: Stewart, C., Hunting the Tiger: The Fast Life and Violent Death of the Balkan’s Most Dangerous Man (New York 2008). 141 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 8. 142 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 77. 143 Ibidem, Part I, 105.

accepted this abnormal behaviour, which causes fear of “arkanisation” among the soldiers and may have negative consequences.144 Recruitment and Training Paramilitary units were used for specific tasks within the genocidal process. Often they were at the forefront of the killing process. They are generally used to implement the worst excesses of violence during a conflict like torture, rape and murder. In some cases, they are even the prime agents of mass murder and genocide.145 Their special purpose makes it necessary to recruit special men for these paramilitary units. Paramilitary soldiers often share certain characteristics that contribute to their ability to commit genocide. Often these soldiers are recruited from segments of a society that are extremely vulnerable to indoctrination into ideologies and practices of violence.146 In Serbia, these men were recruited from members of the fan club of Belgrade’s football club Red Star, but sometimes also from prison inmates. In the course of 1991, and 1992 supporting Red Star came to mean supporting the idea of ‘a Greater Serbia’.147 The greatest value of the club was its Serbian identity. Modelled after the Italian and English hooligans, the Serbian hooligans were already familiar with violent structures. Their names were provocative, and they were always equipped for fighting.148 These hooligans formed a subculture which defied social values and overturned hierarchy. They glorified alcoholism, vandalism and barbarism. Among the Serbian and Montenegrin hooligans, some were starting to try to find a patriotic justification for their misbehaviour.149 More on this violent subculture will be discussed in the next chapter. The values and morals of these hoolignas could easily be used for practical matters. Milošević encouraged the recruitment of these men for paramilitary groups. Football hooligans are easily made into paramilitary soldiers for several reasons. Usually they are mostly made up of young males. Most of the violence was perpetrated by young males in their late teens and early twenties because their life style; inclination and culture makes men of that age most vulnerable to the attractions of violent behaviour. Also, many football hooligans tend to be jobless, poor, uneducated and unmarried, which makes them feel powerless. Being part of a group, whether it is a football

144 145 146 147 148 149

Ibidem, Part II, 77. Campbell, Death Squads, 2-4. Alvarez, Governments, Citizens and Genocide, 93. Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 380. Ibidem, 373-380. Ibidem, 380-384.

fan club or a militia, gives them a sense of purpose and belonging. It provides meaning, status and an identity. The energies that young men channel into sports clubs can easily be transferred to more violent outlets. The power they derive from belonging to these organizations can be intoxicating, especially for angry young men.150 This made that most of the units were not composed of fanatic nationalist but rather of common criminals who were specifically recruited for the task. It appeared that many prison inmates were promised shortened sentences and tempted by the prospect of looting freely. They were released from prison to join the paramilitary units.151 War propaganda succeeded in directing their aggressive energy towards the battlefield.152 The transformation of this energy into violent behaviour is fostered in training camps. All military establishments, regular army units as well as paramilitary units, have an initiation process which is usually in the form of a boot camp. The training camps are meant to transform young men into soldiers capable of killing on command. According to Alex Alvarez, “basic training is designed to provide new soldiers with the mechanical skills of violence and to socialize them into a value system that supports fierceness, aggression, and solidarity with their comrades. For the same reasons, informal military organizations such as militias employ the same kinds of training patterns.”153 Militia members are not as thoroughly trained as professional soldiers, but with the same purpose. The basic training is not only meant to teach military skills, but also to indoctrinate the recruits with an ideology of loyalty, pride and obedience. Training degrades the recruits psychologically and physically and destroys their personal identity, which is replaced by one that defines them as a vital part of the military system. Individual values are replaced by group spirit and loyalties.154 The initiation process takes place in several phases. First the recruits are indoctrinated, their identity is taken and their tendency for group conformity is enhanced. Military organizations work to strengthen the ties between the soldiers through initiation ceremonies, oaths, distinctive clothing and accessories, and a culture that stresses the primacy of the group. The value of individuals are transformed into the values of the group. The effect is a process of peer pressure, in which the individual cares so deeply about his peers that he would do anything rather than let his peers down, including killing other people.155 This process, in

150 151 152 153 154 155

Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 27. J. Mueller, ‘The Banality of “Ethnic War”’, in: International Security, vol. 25, no. 1 (summer 2000) 49. Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 392. Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 25. Alvarez, Governments, Citizens and Genocide, 93. Waller, Becoming Evil, 157.

which the perpetrator feels a deep connection with his peers is partly fostered by the fear of non-belonging and being excluded from the group he so deeply cares about. According to Sober and Wilson “group selection does provide a setting in which helping behaviour directed at members of one’s own group can evolve; however, it equally provides a context in which hurting individuals in other groups can be selectively advantageous.”156 Being part of a group thus enhances one’s capability of killing. During the initiation process the hierarchical stratification is reinforced and the habits and patterns of obedience are instilled. Military and paramilitary organizations reinforce and strengthen the natural tendency of individuals to conform to the behaviours and ideals of the group. They also create a sense of individual absolution; responsibility is deferred to the group. At last the trainees are conditioned to use violence which includes desensitizing them to violence. First they are made to watch. Then, step by step, they need to participate in torture, rape and murder so they get used to it slowly. The act of killing eventually needs to become a habit or a reflex.157 The Serbian paramilitary groups were trained in several camps. In Croatia there were training centres in Golubić near Knin, in Bruška near Benkovac and in Erdut just across the Serbian border. The Special Unit of the SAO Krajina MUP, more commonly known as the Red Berets or Captain Dragans ‘Knindže’, was trained in Bruška. It is reported that Simatović, Captain Dragan and other officials of the MUP Serbia played a leading role in the training of this group.158 Captain Dragan commanded the soldiers who had completed training to return home and form small training groups where possible, which would produce new formations.159 The Erdut training centre was financed by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and by several enterprises. Arkan stayed at the training centre from September 1991. Captain Dragan visited the centre a couple of times as well. In a 1st Military District OB report, dated 25 October 1991, it stated that volunteers were taught to “kill whomever they find in the house” “when raiding into Croatian houses” at the training centre.160 At least 50 of Arkan’s men were trained at the training centre in Erdut. SRS volunteers were trained in the Golubić training centre. According to an undated intelligence report of the VJ, the training centres were directly subordinate to the General Staff of the army of Serbian Krajina, proving the involvement of the military elite in the organization of paramilitary 156 157 158 159 160

E. Sober and D.S. Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge 1998) 9. Alvarez, Governments, Citizens and Genocide, 96. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 65. Ibidem, 68. Ibidem, 74-75.

groups.161 Training centres in Bosnia were located in Divić in the Zvornik Municipality and in Mount Tara on the Serbian border with Bosnia. Reports have mentioned that the Red Berets were present in the training centre in Divić. Dragan reportedly stated that “he has the support of the President of the Presidency, Radovan Karadžić and other Ministers in the Government of the RS”, which shows that the political elite was involved in the training of paramilitary soldiers as well.162 Conclusion The Serbian paramilitary groups were organized by the political and military elite. Milošević instigated the organization for several reasons. First, it was practical as paramilitaries operate independently from the state, so the Serbian state could maintain a façade of innocence. Second, cooperation between paramilitary groups and the Yugoslav Army pressured the regular forces to follow the Serbian line. The paramilitaries were able to do so because their dominant behavior intimidated the other military forces. Still, Milošević couldn’t fully depend on the regular forces because of their federal character. Therefore, he needed a force with complete loyalty to him.163 Milošević used the Serbian Secret Services to do the actual organizing. They had to make sure that the organizational structure behind the groups were kept secret, so the government could secure plausible deniability. Secretly, the secret services organized a group known as the Knindže or the Red Berets. Jovica Stanišić, Head of the SDB, oversaw the organization of this group while Franko Simatović, Head of Operations, implemented it. The Red Berets are often mistaken for another group called the Martečevči, even by renown scholars. The blurred lines between paramilitary groups shows how they were obscured by the Serbian government, in order to keep its links with them secret. Even though the SDB organized the groups as secretively as possible, their responsibility incriminated the Serbian government. The Secret Services were part of the Serbian Ministry of Interior, which links the government and Milošević to the organization of the paramilitary groups. Another way the involvement of the political elite in the organization of paramilitary groups is evident, is the legal framework that was created during the summer of 1991, which aimed at regularising and legalising the status of volunteers participating in the

161 Ibidem, Part III, 69. 162 Ibidem, 70. 163 Gow, The Serbian Project, 79-80.

conflict.164 The first groups emerged as militias of Milošević’ opposition parties. To weaken his opposition, Milošević ordered the recruitment of Arkan as the leader of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. The SDG secured Milošević with having a loyal force. Its soldiers were recruited from special ranks of society such as football hooligans and other criminals who were sometimes even released from prison. These men were already prone to violent behaviour and were often unemployed, poor, uneducated and unmarried. They were already used to vandalism and an aggressive culture. These specific characteristics are the reason why these men were recruited. This shows that Milošević already knew exactly for what purposes they were used. He made sure that their energy and anger were harnessed for military purposes by training and indoctrinating them. The training camps were organized and financed by the Serbian Secret Services. They were indoctrinated there and their identity was taken as they were transformed into solely a member of the group. This enhanced their ability to kill as loyalty to the group was their highest goal as well as not being excluded from it. Also, patterns of obedience were instilled and where they were conditioned to violence. There they were transformed into soldiers able to kill on command.

164 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 111-118.

Introduction

They protect Serb glory, They guard Serb lands, Arkan’s Tigers, Brave warriors without a flaw.165 Of all paramilitary groups which operated during the Yugoslav Wars, Arkan’s Tigers and Šešelj’s Chetniks are arguably the most infamous. These groups have operated in numerous battles in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, helping the Serbian power government to cleanse areas of non-Serbs by looting, terrorizing, torturing and killing the non-Serb population. Arkan and his Tigers were employed by the Serbian secret services to provide Milošević with a well-trained and highly disciplined group of soldiers who efficiently cleansed Serb claimed areas of its non-Serb citizens in order to create a Greater Serbia. Arkan and his soldiers however, had their own goals in joining in the war. They often used their position for the power it gave them as well as the opportunities it provided them with to make money by looting homes and businesses and smuggling oil and cigarettes on the black market. Financed and supplied by the Serbian Secret Services, the Tigers rampaged through Croatia and Bosnia.166 Analysing a specific group, in this case Arkan’s Tigers, gives us an understanding of the structure in which the Tigers operated and what their role was within this structure. The way they were deployed shows us for which purposes they were used and why they were so important to the Serbian government. The government relied upon Arkan, who they had personally recruited to form a paramilitary unit, even though they knew he could be unreliable and had his own agenda. From the time he worked for the Yugoslav Secret Services, they knew he worked efficiently and disciplined, which made him the right person to lead the ethnic cleansing operations in Croatia and Bosnia, which had to be executed as efficiently as possible. To enhance this efficiency, the government also recruited the soldiers for the unit from the ranks of hooligans and other criminals which were prone to violent behaviour. This shows 165 Translation of a popular war song which was often sung by Arkan’s Tigers during operations. From: Doder and Branson, Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant, 120. 166 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 8.

that the government already knew for which purposes they wanted to use the unit and how they could use them as efficiently as possible. Not only were the Tigers useful because of their efficiency; their chaotic structure with its subunits and the way it cooperated with other forces also helped the government to conceal its responsibility. An analysis of their operations in Croatia and Bosnia shows us for which other purposes they were used. It proves that they started off as a physical force whenever this was needed by the Serbian government, but that they soon evolved into a psychological force which they manifested as their main purpose: spreading terror onto the non-Serb population. The Thug Life Željko ‘Arkan’ Ražjnatović was born on 17 April 1952 in the Yugoslav National Army barracks in Brežice, Slovenia. His father was a colonel in the national military who wanted Arkan to join the military like him. Arkan became involved in crime from a young age, starting pickpocketing at age 12 or 13. Preparing himself for a life as a criminal, he started kickboxing in his teens and drifted into the world of gangsters. In 1966 he was arrested for the first time and sent to juvenile prison. After being sent to prison again in 1969 for three years, and again in 1972 for 10 years, he escaped during his third sentence and fled Belgrade.167 Arkan never stayed anywhere for too long. He went by different names: Arkan, Željko and sometimes Marko. In 1972 he moved to Rome where he met his mentor, a gangster named ‘Crazy Horse’. Under the wing of Crazy Horse, Arkan began to rob stores and collect arrest warrants.168 He needed a stronger back-up in case he got caught. His father was a close friend of the head of the Yugoslav Secret Services, the UDBA: Stane Dolanc. The UDBA targeted dissidents of Tito’s regime who were living abroad. Most of these expatriates were ideological descendants of the Croatian ‘Ustashas’, who collaborated with the Nazi’s during the Second World War, and Serbian Chetniks.169 To eliminate these dissidents, the UDBA contracted several hit men. As Arkan needed security, he contacted the UDBA through his father’s friendship with Stane Dolanc and became a hit man.170 In return he could count on their protection whenever he got in too much trouble. This also entailed prison escapes.171 Arkan escaped from prison in Belgium in 1979 and again from a

167 Ibidem, 15-26. 168 Ibidem, 28-34. 169 F. Bovenkerk, ‘Organized Crime in Former Yugoslavia’, in: D. Siegel, e.a., Global Organized Crime: Trends and Developments (Dordrecht 2003) 46. 170 Thomas, Serbia under Milošević, 94. 171 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 8.

high-security prison called the Penitentiaire Inrichting Amsterdam Over-Amstel (also known as ‘de Bijlmer-bajes’) in the Netherlands on 8 May 1981, where he was serving his sentence for bank robbery. Dutch newspaper Het Vrije Volk reported about his spectacular escape from the Dutch prison. Arkan and an Italian inmate, who was also serving a sentence for bank-robbery, were helped by people outside of the prison. These people, who were rumoured to be of the Yugoslav Secret Services,172 threw a gun over the walls which Arkan used to intimidate and corner the guards. The paper reports that “the Yugoslav and the Italian, who was arrested shortly after his escape, did not climb over the prison wall with a rope, but with a human tower made up of fellow inmates.”173 His escape portrays how Arkan was able to recruit people from all places to help him with his illegal activities, even in most extravagant ways such as building a human tower for him. After his escape from the Dutch prison, Arkan engaged in further criminal activity in West Germany and Sweden.174 Arkan returned to Belgrade in 1986. In the mid-1980s, he began to organize his gang. In 1986 he opened a bakery across the street from the Red Star soccer stadium, which became the hangout of his gang.175 As tensions were rising between the different Yugoslav republics and people started turning to nationalism, Arkan started preparing for war. The Serbian authorities had allegedly approached Arkan in 1990 to form a paramilitary unit. As Milošević could not rely on the Yugoslav forces in terms of loyalty, he needed to secure a loyal and disciplined force to implement his policy of ethnic cleansing.176 The SDB had recruited Arkan because he was already well-known within the Secret Service for his work as a hit man. He had proven himself to be an efficient killer and was known to be very disciplined. He was also a political means to generate support for the war among the Serbs. Arkan was a highly charismatic man who knew well how to play the people and media. “I am a patriot. […] I am here to protect you from your enemies,” he once said.177 The Serbian government made sure he obtained the status of a pop idol with tabloids writing about him every day. As Arkan, who’s involvement in the war was known, grew in popularity, support of the war grew as well, which gave Arkan’s role a political purpose. His recruitment by the 172 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 78. 173 Freely translated from Dutch. ‘Menselijke Toren Hielp Uitbrekers’, in: Het Vrije Volk: Democratisch-Socialistisch Dagblad (9 May 1981). http://kranten.kb.nl/view/article/id/ ddd%3A010960840%3Ampeg21%3Ap001%3Aa0002 (accessed 2 December 2013). 174 Thomas, Serbia under Milosě vic,́ 94. 175 Ibidem, 114. 176 Gow, The Serbian Project, 80. 177 M. Weerdesteijn and A. Smeulers, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen: De Normalisatie van Geweld in het Servië van de Jaren Negentig’, in: Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, vol. 53, no. 4 (2011) 331.

Serbian authorities shows that Milošević had started planning the genocide and set up its means before the war had actually started. Arkan agreed to his role as paramilitary leader not purely for patriotic reasons, but also because of the possibilities it provided him to loot and make a name for himself. Reynaud Theunens quotes the intelligence report named ‘Zeljko Raznatovic aka Arkan, Commander of the Serbian Volunteer Guard’ by the OB of the First Military District dated 9 January 1992, which gives an assessment of Arkan’s motivations to join in the war: It is undeniable that Raznatovic’s involvement in the war in not motivated purely by patriotic reasons, and is also motivated by looting and [illegible] to make a name for himself as a soldier, which would help him to legalise his unlawfully acquired wealth.178 Arkan was made head of Red Star’s fan club, which men would come to form the nucleus of the Serbian Volunteer Guard.179 At the end of 1990, a sports journalist reported that it seemed like the behaviour of Red Star’s hooligans was rapidly improving after the arrival of Arkan as their leader.180 Arkan instilled discipline and order in his men. He made them shave their heads, and stop drinking and misbehaving. The authority he had over them and the order that he brought upon them was exactly the reason why he was recruited by the authorities. The decision that Arkan’s men were ready for war came after the Red Star Dinamo match in Zagreb on 13 May 1990, Arkan once said himself.181 The nationalist propensities of Red Star’s fans were displayed as they clashed with Dinamo’s ‘Bad Blue Boys’. After the match he began to reorganize and train them for war. Sports and Militarism Milošević needed a strong paramilitary leader in his fight for a greater Serbia. In 1989, Minister of Interior Radmilo Bogdanović drafted Arkan to take over the fan club. This shows that not only had they chosen Arkan to lead a paramilitary unit, but also that the Serbian government had decided which soldiers would be recruited and from which ranks. It was no coincidence that Milošević chose football hooligans to become the nucleus of Arkan´s

178 179 180 181

Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 77. Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 8. Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 387. Ibidem, 387.

Tigers. Delije’s men already had a violent subculture which was easily directed to the battlefield. Social scientist Gary Armstrong defines the culture as an “age-old masculine pursuit of rivalry.”182 According to Armstrong, the violent culture originates from a symbiosis between the game of football and local male cultural mores.183 The values and beliefs that come with football and hooliganism overlap with the values that were needed for the skilled and motivated fighters the Serbian government was looking for. According to historian Richard Holt, the game of football is “a celebration of intensely male values, [...] where skill and cunning were valued, but hardness, stamina, courage and loyalty were even more important. Fairness and good manners were not held in high regard.”184 This culture with its male values focussed on rivalry, makes its men prone to violence and therefore easy to transform into skilled soldiers.185 The transformation of Delije into a military units was merely a reinterpretation of the already existing structure of the group.186 The Red Star hooligans had developed warlike behaviour before the war. They praised barbarism, alcoholism, vandalism, sex and a pornographic vocabulary.187 Their discourse consisted of many words associated with violence, death and sex. In the face of war, involvement with a sports club also required patriotism. Whenever the Red Star fans were supported their club, they were supporting ‘Serbdom’. For some, the Red Star became symbol for being Serbian.188 They took English hooliganism as an example, but took it to a whole other level. They did not only fight their rival clubs but also threatened their own players and coaches when they underperformed. When they were not fighting, they drank, smoked and sang nationalist songs.189 Hooligans were prone to violence as it gave them an outlet and some form escapism from daily problems such as unemployment and poverty. They could release stress by letting themselves go in their hatred against another group. These unemployed young men began to channel their anger at the stadium and wanted to blame someone for their problems.190

182 Armstrong, G., Football Hooligans: Knowing the Score (Oxford & New York: Berg, 1998) 6. 183 Ibidem, 7. 184 Holt, R., Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 174. 185 Because of these reasons, power regimes often recruited hooligans for paramilitary units. This did not just happen in Serbia, but also during the Rwandan genocide. Belgrade’s Delije mirrors a Rwandan football club ‘Loisirs’ (meaning: leisure), from which the first recruits of a paramilitary unit called the Interahamwe were drawn. Its leader Jerry Robert Kajuga, who also became president of the Interahamwe, fulfilled the same role for Loisirs as Arkan did for Delije. For further reading on Loisirs and the Interahamwe see: Melvern, L., Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide (London: Verso, 2004), and: Alvarez, A., ‘Militias and Genocide’, 1-33. 186 Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 392. 187 Ibidem, 382. 188 Ibidem, 380. 189 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 119. 190 Idem

As the crisis wore on, frustrations increased and hooligans began justifying their behaviour with patriotic motivations.191 Their anger became more and more directed against other nationalist groups. Nationalism grew simultaneously with their anger and frustrations which motivated them to join in the fighting for a Greater Serbia. The decision to recruit football hooligans for a paramilitary unit was twofold. First of all, their violent subculture made them predestined to be excellent fighters. Also, their violent background fostered the image of a spontaneous formation initiated by violent men that had no connection to the government. Putting Arkan, a known criminal, in charge of these men also helped to support this image. Another reasons why Milošević put Arkan in charge of Delije was because he was afraid that their violent energy would be harnessed by his opposition. He was particularly concerned with nationalist politicians like Šešelj and his opposition with the Serbian Renewal Party. Because of this fear for his opposition he needed someone on his side to control these men.192 By putting Arkan in charge of the fan club, he gave Arkan the opportunity to expand his mob empire and Milošević would secure himself with followers.193 Arkan united the fan club under the name ‘Delije’, which means heroes or rebels. As nationalism grew in Yugoslavia, Arkan sensed war was on its way and that this could offer him greatness. He dispatched a group of recruiters to look for young criminals from the streets. He also toured prisons himself, with permission from the Serbian government.194 He personally selected criminals to join his gang of mobsters. This group was supplemented with his followers in Delije. Arkan instilled discipline into his men; he made them stop drinking, cut their hair and shave regularly.195 On 13 May 1990 the Red Star played the Croatian team Dinamo in Zagreb. Arkan had prepared his men for months for this particular match. He had militarized them by training them in street fighting and promoting new nationalist songs. At the train station in Zagreb, his men clashed with Dinamo’s ‘Bad Blue Boys’. The clash is often seen as Arkan’s first war offense; he and his men came to Zagreb to kill Croats. It served as a test for his men to see if they were ready for war.196 In the months that followed he began to prepare them for war.

191 192 193 194 195 196

Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 384. Judah, The Serbs, 186. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 124. Ibidem, 128. Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 10. Thomas, Serbia Under Milosevic, 94.

Training for War The circumstances in which the Serbian Volunteer Guard was founded, remain obscured. It is acknowledged by most scholars that they were founded on 11 October 1990 at the Pokajnica monastery near Velika Plana in Serbia,197 which is also the date the Tigers celebrate their anniversary. This story, however, is contested by other sources such as expert Vladimir Petrović, who claims that the foundation at the Pokajnica monastery is a myth.198 According to Petrović, the Tigers were actually formed after Arkan was released from Croatian prison. From July 1990, Arkan and his men, with support of the Serbian Secret Services, started to move artillery and other military equipment into strategic locations in Croatia. It was during one of those operations on 29 November 1990, moving light weapons into Dvor na Uni in Croatia by car, that Arkan was caught by the Croatian police. Arkan told them that they were just there out of curiosity, but was arrested and charged with conspiracy to assassinate the Croatian president Franko Tuđjman and to start a rebellion in the Krajina region of Croatia.199 After his arrest, Arkan’s men stopped their activities. Arkan was mysteriously released in June 1991, pending an appeal on his judgement and returned to his men. Before his imprisonment Arkan and his men were merely preparing for war and were not engaged in any significant activity. Soon after his return, war erupted in July 1991 when Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence. The Tigers headed to the front in August. Sources estimate the numbers that Arkan signed up for the Serbian Volunteer Guard from 40.000,200 which is a very unlikely number, to a more realistic estimate of 3.000,201 with an active core of 500 to 1.000 men. The nucleus of the first recruits came from within the ranks of Red Star’s fan club.202 The first soldiers were tested for drugs and warned that there was no room for error.203 They had to sign written statements swearing to the Orthodox Church, after which they were baptized. Arkan flirted with the Orthodox faith occasionally but religion did not take in a prominent role for the Tigers. Some men who joined the Tigers saw their involvement in the war as a religious duty. These men were often motivated in the first place by patriotic reasons. However, several sources claim that this was only a small group among the 197 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 16 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 19419; Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 131; and: Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic, 94 198 Petrović, Interview 6 November 2013. 199 Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 10. 200 Gow, The Serbian Project, 80. 201 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 136. 202 Thomas, Serbia Under Milosevic, 94-95. 203 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 131.

paramilitaries.204 Most men, though they probably did have nationalist motivations as well, were primarily motivated by the wealth, power and status it gave them. Some men only joined for a short amount of time to be able to loot for a short while and leave as soon as they had made enough profit.205 Being unemployed before the war had given them a feeling of being powerless. Being part of a group gave them back their sense of purpose and belonging. Arkan trained his men in a camp on a stretch of the Danube northeast of Erdut, Croatia, just across the border with Serbia. At Erdut, training went on around the clock. Whenever the Tigers were not at the battlefield, they based there. Arkan was present all the time, almost never sleeping, busy with war planning.206 He led morale talks and instructed his soldiers with strategies of ethnic cleansing. As numerous soldiers were common criminals without nationalistic motivations, propaganda was used to psychologically normalize their violence. By using neutralising techniques they taught soldiers to use violence without decreasing their sense of self-worth. The neutralization techniques include: denying of responsibility, denying the damage, denying the victim, condemning conviction and believing in a higher purpose.207 Especially the political elite used neutralisation techniques in its rhetoric, but Arkan did it as well. He often appealed to his men to protect the Serbs against “the jihad”, giving them a higher purpose to serve and remaking the victim into the enemy.208 Killing victims was subsequently diminished to a form of self-protection. Protecting the Serbian state became a higher purpose which legitimized all means. Arkan allegedly hired specialists to talk about the psychology of death with his men. Men were learned how to kill by practicing, for instance, how to slit throats on a pig. According to a Russian recruit, the philosophy of brutality – “a Serbian patriot is merciless towards the enemy; he does not have the right to spare the latter’s children, women, or the aged” – was drummed into the heads of the recruits.209 New recruits came in weekly at Erdut. Some were volunteers, others were refugees or sent by local police and were forced to join the Tigers. After arrival in Erdut, new recruits were tested for drugs, sworn in and required to give up all personal identification. Their

204 Mueller, ‘The Banality of Ethnic War’, 50; Weerdesteijn and Smeulers, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen’ 329. 205 Mueller, ‘The Banality of Ethnic War’, 50. 206 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19431. 207 Weerdesteijn and Smeulers, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen’, 335. 208 Brosse, R. de la, ‘Political Propaganda and the Plan to Create “a State for all Serbs”: Consequences of Using Media for Ultra-Nationalist Ends’, Statement of Expert Witness Presented to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia under Rule 94 bis, Case number IT-02-54 (4 February 2003).64. 209 Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia, 65.

identification cards were replaced with special identification cards of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. Whenever the Tigers would go on an operation they would leave their personal identification behind and only took a membership card of the SDG with them with their name and blood type on it.210 Arkan was ruthless in instilling discipline into his soldiers. Whenever a Tiger would do something he was not allowed to, like drinking or misbehaving in another way, he would be severely punished with lashes which were sometimes made of electrified wire. Drinking carried the most severe punishment: one hundred lashes on the back while being hoisted up a flagpole upside down. Afterwards, the offender was made to run a track of sometimes dozens of miles. All people present at Erdut were made to watch the punishment as a form of warning.211 The Serbian authorities had chosen Arkan because of the focus he had on discipline, which they knew he had from his work as a hit man for the UDBA. His disciplinary techniques were what made the Tigers such an efficient and dangerous unit, which the authorities knew he would create when they recruited him. The Chain of Command Even though the Tigers were a paramilitary group and did not have formal links to the Serbian government, they were unofficially operating within the official military framework and had a similar military hierarchy. From the outset, the Serbian Volunteer Guards were under the Territorial Defense of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.212 Camp Erdut was officially called the 101st Training Centre of the Territorial Defense of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem. The headquarters of the Territorial Defense was in Dalj, a town very close to Erdut. The commander of the Territorial Defense force was Radovan Stojičić, also known as Badža. In 1989, the Serbian government started training military police officers in Croatia, within a para-state structure. Badža was the commander of this operation. This operation also proves that the Serbian government was implementing means for its genocidal campaign years before the war started. In mid-1991, Badža moved to the Vukovar by command of the Serbian government to further expand the military infrastructure for the genocidal campaign, where he creates the Territorial Defense force.213 As Badža and Arkan were close personal friends, the Tigers subsequently came under his command. Badža often 210 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19450. 211 Ibidem, 19444; Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 155. 212 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, Case: Stanišić, Jovica and Simatovic, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 24 January 2012, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 16374. 213 Petrovic, interview 6 November 2013.

visited Erdut and was by virtue and position the Tigers superior.214 After Badža stopped working for the Territorial Defense, he became Assistant Minister of the MUP Serbia and the chief of the Public Security Department. According to Borislav Pelević, a former prominent Tiger who witnessed at the ICTY case against Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, Badža’s employment at the MUP Serbia does not prove that there was cooperation between the MUP and the Serbian Volunteer Guard as there was a lot of animosity between the MUP and the Tigers. “That animosity was due to the fact that we thought that the DB, i.e., the secret police and the police in general, saw Arkan as a person with a criminal record. That was our perception. And I don't think that our perception was far off,” said Pelević.215 The MUP perceived Arkan with suspicion, as they felt like they could not rely on him completely as he always had his own agenda. This is why the Tigers believed there were some spies among them, which shows that even though cooperation between the MUP and the Tigers may not have existed, there was in-depth knowledge about the Tigers’ operations within the MUP.216 After the adoption of the Vance-plan, the TO was abolished and the Tigers transformed into the police of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.217 They operated in that way up to the attack on Maslenica in late January 1993.218 After operation Maslenica, the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, the SVK, had been established so the Tigers became part of it. During their operation in Knin, they fought under command of the SVK commander Mile Novaković.219 Milošević made sure that, although the Tigers were fighting within the official military framework, they were only engaged with Croatian-Serb or Bosnian-Serb forces instead of purely Serb forces. This way he could maintain his façade of the innocence of the Serbs in case someone would pin the crimes of Arkans Tigers on him. According to a ‘situation report’ of the SVK, (no. 187-2) as the Tigers joined the army of Serbian Krajina, the situation worsened for the corps. Dissatisfaction grew among soldiers as the Tigers physically mistreated some soldiers and officers.220 This shows that, even though the Tigers were subordinate to official military commanders, Arkan maintained exclusive control over his men and they did not obey orders from superior commanders.

214 215 216 217 218 219 220

ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16337. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19339. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16340. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16094. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16374. Ibidem, 16337. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 77.

During operations, the Serbian Volunteer Guards almost always cooperated with the JNA or TO in the field.221 According to Arkan’s secretary, who testified in the Hague during the Milošević trial, orders for operations always came directly from the SDB.222 The Tigers operated quasi-independently from the official army during joined operations. Arkan could do whatever he wanted during the war, as long as it was in favor of the Serbs. Arkan was needed by the Serbian government, which was why he was allowed to go his own way. Still, many reports by the official army describe him as a very dangerous and well-organized man who sooner or later could do too much harm and therefore needed to be controlled, which is also the reason why they had spies infiltrating the Tigers.223 These reports describe him as a loose cannon, but an effective one when it came to ethnic cleansing. Partly due to this efficiency, the government kept him on board.224 Not only did the Tigers engage in combat together with official armed forces in the field, occasionally they also cooperated with other paramilitary groups, though sometimes reluctantly as Arkan did not want other groups to know how he operated.225 Arkan specially avoided the forces under command of Vojislav Šesělj as both men had been in conflict with each other since the early 1980s.226 Cooperation with other groups was more welcomed. Some groups had even merged from within the ranks of the Tigers, which shows the chaotic structure of the web of paramilitary units. Some of the highest ranking members of the Serbian Volunteer Guard trained other soldiers to become instructors. These new instructors were sent to other areas, where they would form their own paramilitary units. These subunits of the SDG were similarly trained as the Tigers, sometimes even at Erdut. The formation of these groups served the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of the ethnic cleansing process and concealing responsibility for it. Expertise from within the Serbian Volunteer Guard was transferred to new smaller groups who worked as disciplined and efficiently as the Tigers but were harder to link to the Serbian government. They received orders from the SDG but operated on their own.227 With the Guard in between, their connection to the government was easily concealed, contrary to the SDG whose close relationships with government 221 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January, 16071. 222 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 143. 223 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 104. 224 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 164-165. 225 Ibidem,, 145. 226 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 5 September 2005, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 5 September 2005, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 43663. 227 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 2 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 18406

officials were well known. To enhance the secrecy of their ties with the government, uniforms were often altered as well; sometimes they wore insignia’s or berets, other times they did not. This helped to make it unclear who was operating and who gave the orders.228 An example of such a sub-unit is the Skorpioni or: ‘the Scorpions’. The Scorpions had started off as Arkan’s bodyguards and as guards for his oilfields in Eastern Slavonia. They were similarly disciplined and trained as the Tigers, but operated independently.229 The Executive Secretary for Serbia´s Defense Minister once said: “Arkan operated within the Territorial Defense system. He had his own group which acted under his command, but all his actions were cleared and coordinated with the Yugoslav Army.”230 No operation would be undertaken without the cooperation and consent of the official armed forces, but the Tigers organized themselves independently and had their own chain of command. Their ranks corresponded with regular military ranks, though names differed. The Tigers were divided among several units, depending on their skills. There were: Special Purpose Units, men who manned the tanks, snipers and men with other artillery, professionals, intervention units, military police units, a renaissance unit, and a communication unit.231 Furthermore there was a difference between regular Tigers and so called ‘Super Tigers’. The Super Tigers were the Tigers’ elite group. They consisted of the unit’s best men, which were recruited by Milorad Ulemek, also known as ‘Legije’. Legije was a former soldier of the Foreign Legion of France and, like Arkan, had been recruited by the Serbian authorities to join the Serbian Volunteer Guard. The Super Tigers wore different patches on their sleeves, carried different documents and enjoyed privileges. They did not have to line up, had more freedom and were allowed to drink alcohol. They were superior to the regular Tigers and had the authority to punish them.232 When the Tigers were in the field, a military police unit became effective. Its members differed per operation and the unit would be disbanded ad hoc after the operation. This unit provided the soldiers with boundaries. Its purpose was to prevent Tigers on the ground from looting and mistreating the civilian population as well as preventing them from getting drunk. These boundaries were part fake and part real. Arkan’s focus on discipline was real, and formed an important part of why he was recruited. He did not allow his soldiers to drink during operations and wanted to work efficiently and systematically. The 228 229 230 231 232

UN, Final Report of Commission of Experts, 32. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, 18406 Doder and Branson, Milošević, 102. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, 18386. Ibidem, 18389-18390.

Military Police Unit was there to make sure operations went smoothly. However, according to witness B-129, Arkan’s war-time secretary, the appearance of the military police unit did not mean that Arkan actually cared for the prevention of looting and terrorizing the nonSerb population.233 Mistreating the non-Serb population was necessary for spreading terror, which was an important part of the Tigers tasks. Sometimes, when soldiers misbehaved during an operation, they had to leave the Tigers but were allowed back some time later.234 Making Money Besides strategic and ethnic cleansing operations, the Tigers also occupied themselves with looting activities and black marketeering. The most important reasons for doing this were financing their operations and personal enrichment. Their operations were partly financed by private investors, which had to be complemented by looting and smuggling goods on the black market. The Serbian Volunteer Guard had several sponsors which provided them with money and supplies. According to witness B-129, Arkan’s secretary, the biggest contributors were a businessman named Giovano di Stefano, the Karić brothers, a private company called Simina Mari, Arkan’s bakery, and a security company founded by the Serbian Volunteer Guard.235 According to witness Jovan Dimitrijevic, a former SDG member, there were also some state companies that contributed to the guard.236 Supplies such as weapons, ammunition and uniforms were also provided by the official armed forces.237 It was therefore necessary to remain in close contact with the Yugoslav Army and the Territorial Defense forces in order to provide their warehouse with the needed supplies. Commander of the Novi Sad Corps of the JNA, general Andrija Biorčević, often visited Erdut to talk about supply needs with Arkan.238 Most supplies were not provided by the Yugoslav Army, but by the Territorial Defense of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem, which the Tigers were subordinated to. They would make a list of their needs and bring it to the headquarters of the TO. As they were a part of it, they did not have to pay for their supplies.239 Not only did the state security provide the Tigers with finances, the Tigers also had to share their profits with the SDB in return. This only happened at the beginning of the war. When Arkan’s power increased they stopped asking for money. Evidence for this 233 234 235 236 237 238 239

ICTY, Public Transcript ICTY, Public Transcript ICTY, Public Transcript ICTY, Public Transcript ICTY, Public Transcript ICTY, Public Transcript Ibidem, 16067.

of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19439. of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16209-16211. of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19453. of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16098. of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16363. of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16070

appeared for the first time in 1991 in a secret Serbian government document, which came from Sector V of the Ministry of Interior, dated 19 November 1991. The document stated that Arkan could keep 2.500.000 German Marks and 15 kilograms of gold of his Vukovar spoils. State agents would take 3.876.000 dollars, 430.600 Swiss francs and 38 kilograms of gold.240 As the Tigers usually did not receive a salary, except for some pocket money now and then, they needed to loot in order to make some money for themselves. Whenever they left Erdut, they looted houses and businesses in their surroundings. They plundered whatever they found: from shoes to tires and whiskey. The victims they made during operations were also almost always pillaged of their property. This was never the true motive of killing them, but did contribute to stimulating the perpetration. Besides the material consequences for the victim, being pillaged of their property also served a political goal: stripping them of their social status. Stripping them of their goods provoked their immediate social downfall and thereby ‘killing’ them socially.241 Looted goods were brought to a warehouse near Belgrade after which they were sold off on the black market.242 Scarcity made prices on the black market very high. The economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the shelling of Sarajevo on 27 May 1992 only increased prices even more. Arkan had also just started a new smuggling business at this time. He shipped cigarettes, food, wood, whiskey and oil into Serbia. The oil came from Eastern Slavonia, where Arkan owned every major oil plant.243 Part of the smuggled goods were shipped to the SDG headquarters in Belgrade, the other part was directly shipped to Erdut. Erdut became the region’s most extensive distribution point for black market goods.244 The secret services did not approve of Arkan’s smuggling business. However, they knew that pillaging opportunities formed an important motivation for the soldiers to stay with the Tigers, so they had to tolerate it up to a certain degree. This meant that, for instance, one truckload of smuggled goods would be allowed to pass check points, but not two or three.245

240 241 242 243 244 245

Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 163. Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 232. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, 18406. Judah, The Serbs, 274. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 199. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19552-19553

Operations in Croatia In August 1991, Arkan’s Tigers entered Croatia, where they were needed to help cleanse the Krajina region of non-Serbs. One of the first jobs they had, was ending the siege in the town of Tenja, which had been going on for several months. When they arrived, they swarmed the town, throwing hand grenades in basement hide-outs. The town was taken over in no time after which all remaining Croats were evicted and their houses pillaged and burned by the Tigers. After the first sieges, only rumours that Arkan’s Tigers were coming would be enough to cause the non-Serb population to flee, elevating the Tigers from being just a military force to a psychological force as well.246 The first major joint operation with the official military the Tigers took part in was the siege of Vukovar. Several witnesses reported about soldiers bragging about the operation, proud of their role in protecting the Serbian fatherland. Witness B-071 of the ICTY case against Milošević was a former TO soldier who was picked up by Arkan and made to join the Serbian Volunteer Guard in a work obligation unit. He testified that occasionally Super Tigers came to Erdut drunk, telling stories about killing people in Vukovar: “They would come drunk and recount stories of how they killed people around Vukovar, and children weren't spared either. They did everything they shouldn't have done,”247 he said. Other soldiers had bragged about it as well to the Croatian magazine Globus. Besides these testimonies, a UN investigation also found that Arkan and his Tigers had in fact played a role in the siege.248 Two months after the bombardment, the Yugoslav army had infiltrated the Vukovar suburbs. As the Croats had succeeded in forming an army and were resisting a lot, the JNA had trouble breaking through. Disorder was prevailing within the JNA, which troubled them during the siege as well. Morale had become very low as non-Serb officers were turning against their own army and as the JNA had just been defeated in Slovenia. Financial cutbacks also left their mark. By the time the JNA moved to Vukovar, the army was plagued with mutinies and desertions.249 With little financial means, fewer soldiers and a low morale among the remaining ones, Milošević was forced to rely on other military means if he wanted to attack Vukovar. He needed the help of paramilitary troops and called upon Arkan to help the JNA. This shows how the Tigers were not just used to spread terror but also to back up the official military when needed. The Tigers allegedly entered Vukovar on 2

246 247 248 249

Gow, The Serbian Project, 130. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, 18404. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 161. CIA, ‘Balkan Battlegrounds’, 46.

November 1991. They first had to get through a frontline of snipers and landmines before reaching the city centre, where they reorganized and fanned out again.250 After the fall of Vukovar, Arkan stayed around to mop up the area. Sticking around made it possible to loot abandoned houses. Besides ethnic cleansing and looting, they also tried to capture the military equipment of their opponents. During the siege of Vukovar, the Serbian Volunteer Guard captured four immobile tanks from their enemies. They exchanged the tanks with the JNA for a certain quantity of weapons.251 After the fall of Vukovar, the Tigers escorted the remaining non-Serbs out of the town. The JNA followed the Tigers into Vukovar and took over control, including control over the hospital which hosted around 200 non-Serbs who were eventually all slaughtered.252 What role the Tigers played in this particular massacre is unknown. After Vukovar, the Tigers moved from Laslovo to other Croatian towns such as Tordince, Erestinovo and Osijek, where they would storm the town, take over the police building and move on to the next town as soon as everything was under control.253 The operations in Croatia served to prepare the Tigers for their deployment in Bosnia. At the beginning of the war, the main tasks of the unit were infiltrating certain areas, causing chaos, and killing an amount of thirty to fifty civilians, mostly high-ranking Muslim men, such as high officials and religious leaders.254 About fifty to one hundred soldiers per operation were deployed. They systematically identified and segregated the non-Serb population. Military-aged men were divided from the women, children and elderly. This gave them more control over the men, and left the children, women and elderly more vulnerable. By looting, terrorizing and intimidating, the Tigers tried to compel the non-Serbs to flee and help units of the federal army to block and occupy the Serb claimed areas.255 Operations in Bosnia The pattern that started during the war in Croatia manifested itself further in Bosnia. The sieges of Bijeljina and Zvornik are cases in which this pattern can be seen clearly. A couple of weeks after Bosnia had declared its independence on 5 March 1992, Arkan’s Tigers were

250 Ibidem, 158-159. 251 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16082. 252 Gow, The Serbian Project, 164. 253 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 165. 254 ICTY, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 9 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 9 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 18888-18889. 255 Gow, The Serbian Project, 130.

sent on their first big operation to Bijeljina. The siege of Bijeljina and how the Tigers operated there will be discussed in the fourth chapter. They stayed in Bijeljina for one to two weeks, doing whatever they wanted. Within fourteen days, 20.000 people had been expelled, transferred to concentration camps or killed.256 After the siege of Bijelijna the Tigers moved to Zvornik on 9 April 1992, a town with a Muslim population of 60%. During the siege of Zvornik, the Tigers cooperated with the JNA. As the JNA was shelling the town, the Tigers stormed in. 200 houses were burned to the ground and thousands of people were transported to the concentration camps Keraterm or Omarska. Arkan negotiated with the main Muslim political party in Zvornik and, under the threat of violence, compelled the Muslims to divide the city and hand over the industrial section to the Serbs.257 Government buildings like the courthouse and police station, as well as the Drina Hotel, were taken over by the Tigers, where they tortured people in order to extract information from them. Several thousands of people have eventually been reported missing from Zvornik and over half of its population had left the city.258 After Zvornik, the Tigers operated in Kamenica, Grbavica, Rogatica, Kozarac, FocĚ&#x152;a and other towns. In 1992, the Tigers also joined in a few smaller sized counteroffensive operations such as stopping the transport of Romanian mercenaries for the Croatian army and countering their scouts that infiltrated Serbian territory.259 By the fall of 1992, they had helped the Serbs gain control of 60-70% of Bosnia. After their first major operations in Bosnia, the Tigers had become more than a physical force, they had also become a psychological one. The fear of the Tigers and other paramilitary units was instilled by terror techniques such as rape and random executions. It did not matter whether they were actually coming to a certain town or not, rumours about them coming could cause the non-Serb population to pack up their belongings and leave immediately.260 This enhanced the efficiency of their ethnic cleansing operations as it caused a part of the non-Serb population to have already fled prior to the arrival of the Tigers. Human Rights Watch concluded in their report on rape as a weapon of ethnic violence in Kosovo, that this mass fear, in this case for rape by paramilitary soldiers specifically, was still present during the war in Kosovo:

256 257 258 259 260

Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 184. Gow, The Serbian Project, 124. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 186. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16336-16337. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 189.

Reports that some Serbian paramilitary groups active during the Bosnian war, such as Arkan's Tigers and Vojislav Sešelj's White Eagles, allegedly joined in the "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Kosovo. These groups had reputations for using rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia. The atmosphere of terror, heightened by published accounts and collective memories of recent mass and systematic rapes in Bosnia, motivated families to pack up and leave as quickly as possible. Although there were fewer rapes in Kosovo, both the threat of rape and actual rape were very much a part of the assault on Kosovo. The mere threat was enough to force women and families to flee. The fact of rape in Bosnia had already established the credibility of the threat.261 Many scholars believe that the spreading of this fear was part of Milošević’ well thoughtout strategy for the creation of a Greater Serbia. The United Nations stated that this was evidenced in the matter in which the paramilitary units acted. In their final report, the UN wrote: There is sufficient evidence to conclude that the practices of "ethnic cleansing" were not coincidental, sporadic or carried out by disorganized groups or bands of civilians who could not be controlled by the Bosnian-Serb leadership. Indeed, the patterns of conduct, the manner in which these acts were carried out, the length of time over which they took place and the areas in which they occurred combine to reveal a purpose, systematicity and some planning and coordination from higher authorities.262 A Career Change In 1992 something peculiar happened: Arkan changed careers and ran for Serbian parliament in Kosovo. He used his status as a war hero to win votes. During one of his speeches, he told the Serbs: “I don’t promise you new highways. But I pledge to defend you with the same fanaticism that I’ve used so far in defending the Serbian people”263 As the Albanians decided to boycott the elections, Arkan won the elections with 17.352 votes out of a population of two million people. During his time as a politician, the Tigers were redeployed in Arkan´s businesses in Belgrade. Afterwards, Milošević disbanded the Serbian parliament

261 Human Rights Watch, ‘Kosovo: Rape as a Weapon of “Ethnic Cleansing”’ (1 March 2000). http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/03/01/kosovo-rape-weapon-ethnic-cleansing (accessed: 30 September 2013) 21. 262 UN, Final Report on the Commission of Experts, 35. 263 Weerdesteijn and Smeulers, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen’, 332.

in 1993 Arkan and the Tigers joined the war again in January 1993 with the so-called KninKrajina campaign.264 The Tigers were quartered in Benkovac in the Aseria Hotel, which had been completely emptied. The Minister of Defense of the Army of the Republic of Serbia, Tomislav Simović, arranged for the Tigers to be allowed to use trucks and be able to cross the Croatian border. The Tigers participated in some operations around Benkovac on the Paljuv plateau, where several Serbian villages had been plundered and torched by the Croats.265 The Tigers continued to operate from Erdut until April 1994, when they were moved out and the camp was closed. They were sent on a long leave even though they were all obliged to respond to Arkan’s call whenever it came. In November 1994, Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Milan Martić and Fikret Abdić, who was the leader of Muslims from the Cazin Krajina area in Western Bosnia, held a meeting. During this meeting it had been agreed that a group of instructors should be sent to the Cazin Krajina and would train the military troops of Fikret Abdić. They wanted the Cazin Krajina area to join Republika Srpska. Milan Martić asked the Serbian Volunteer Guard to send their most experienced men.266 These instructors held a very high position within the Serbian Volunteer Guard. They were the soul of the Tigers. They trained men who became instructors themselves and started training other military troops. This way, the expertise of the Tigers could be transferred to other paramilitary units linked to the Tigers. Some fifty to seventy of the guard’s most seasoned fighters were thus sent to Velika Kladusa on 4 November 1994. Arkan himself did not join the operation as it was not a terror campaign and the operation could not be linked to the Serbian Volunteer Guard. Therefore, Legija, became commander during the operation.267 Legija and his unit remained in Velika Kladusa up until August 1995, when Operation Storm happened. At that time the camp at Erdut had been reopened after Operation Flash in May 1995. From there, they joined in the operation in Banja Luka which started in September 1995. Arkan and two hundred of his men joined fighting in Sanski Most, Mrkonjic Grad, Kljuc and Prijedor in order to prevent Banja Luka to fall into the hands of their enemies.268 In 1996, Arkan disbanded the Tigers and Erdut was closed. Most Super Tigers went to Ðeletovci, Croatia to form a unit with the 264 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 215; ICTY, Public Hearing 24 January 2012, 16369. 265 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16369-16373. 266 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 25 January 2012, Case: Stanišić, Jovica and Simatovic, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 25 January 2012, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 16403-16404. 267 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 16 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 19460. 268 Ibidem, 19480-19485.

Red Berets and the Scorpions.269 Arkan went back to Belgrade, to his wife, the folksinger ‘Ceca’. Many Tigers joined Arkan in Belgrade and turned into gangsters.270 Conclusion An analysis of a specific group provides us with an understanding of the bigger structure in which the paramilitary groups operated. Looking at the leader and members of the group, their structure and operations, can tell us a lot about the intent of their existence. It shows us that the Serbian government carefully planned the organization of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. They personally recruited Arkan, provided him with soldiers, financed his operations and gave him orders. Sometimes they were needed for their physical strength, sometimes for the psychological effect they had on non-Serbs. Either way, where and whenever they were deployed, it was on orders of Milošević. As Milošević could not fully depend on the Yugoslav forces in terms of loyalty and for use in the ethnic cleansing operation, he needed a disciplined, efficient and loyal force. Therefore Željko ‘Arkan’ Ražnatović, an infamous criminal who was searched by Interpol, was recruited to lead this group.271 Arkan was known by the state services because of his work for them as a hit-man and was recruited because of his discipline and efficiency. The state services made him head of the Red Star’s fan club, Delije, which would come to form the nucleus of Arkan’s Tiger.272 The SDB chose hooligans as recruits for the unit because they already had a violent subculture which was easily directed towards the battlefield. Also, Milošević was afraid that their energy would be harnessed by his opposition. The way that the government put in place the means for the genocidal campaign shows that they knew what purposes they wanted to use them for. They had figured that the genocidal effort would be executed most efficiently if they deployed these specific men for it. Arkan instilled discipline into his men and transformed them into soldiers by reinterpreting their existing structure.273 This reinterpretation was done at camp Erdut, which was financed and supplied the Serbian Secret Services, where they were made into disciplined agents of genocide. Arkan was always present at Erdut, where he led morale talks and taught them strategies of ethnic cleansing. Milošević kept the soldiers motivated by giving them the opportunity to enrich themselves by looting during operations. This was the primary motivation for most 269 270 271 272 273

ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 2 April 2003, 18404-18406. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 242. Ibidem, 78. Thomas, Serbia Under Milošević, 94-95. Čolović, ‘Football, Hooligans and War’, 392.

men to join the SDG. Indoctrination motivated them to kill, so they would not be excluded from the group. This was very important to them as being part of the group gave them status, meaning, and a sense of purpose and belonging.274 The Tigers operated unofficially within the official military structure.275 They joined official units during operations, concealing the command structure. This was necessary because of the illegal activities they were jointly engaged in and because the official forces were easy to link to the Serbian government. By mixing them with unofficial forces, it was harder to detect which perpetrators were part of which group, thus enabling Milošević to claim that incriminated perpetrators were not under his responsibility. Some of the unofficial units the Tigers cooperated with were its sub-units. These sub-units were helpful for the Serbian government as their link with the government was even harder to come by than with regular paramilitary units. This chaotic web of cooperation between official units, paramilitary units and sub-units helped Milošević to uphold his policy of plausible deniability. Even though the Tigers operated within the official structure, they operated quasi-independently and with relative impunity. They could do whatever they wanted, as long as it was in favour of the Serbs. Arkan was known to be unreliable as he had his own agenda, but he was too important to Milošević for the execution of ethnic cleansing operations to be let go.276 The operations in Croatia and Bosnia show us that the Tigers were deployed as a physical as well as a psychological force. During the war in Croatia, they were sometimes needed to back up the JNA as its soldiers had a low morale and mutinies and desertions were wide-spread. By the time the Tigers were deployed in Bosnia, a pattern had emerged in which the Tigers would infiltrate a town, cause chaos by looting and burning homes, kill several prominent men and segregate the remaining non-Serb population, making them more vulnerable.277 They had evolved from being a physical force to being a psychological one, which was their ultimate purpose. They used their psychological power to scare nonSerbs out of Serb claimed areas, which indicates that their task was rather to scare than to kill, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

274 275 276 277

Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 27. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16337. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 164-165. Gow, The Serbian Project, 130.

Introduction On 6 March 1992 Bosnia announced its independence. Several weeks later, Milošević sent Arkan and his Tigers to Bijeljina: their first mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the end of March the Serbian Secret Services had given orders to take control of Bijeljina and Zvornik in rapid succession. On the morning of 1 April 1992, 86 men from Arkan’s Tigers entered Bijeljina and took control of the town in co-operation with the Bijeljina Territorial Defense force and other paramilitary groups.278 With the siege of Bijeljina, a pattern started in which official forces created a safe environment for Arkan and his men, who could thereby operate with relative impunity.279 The goal of the operation was to take over the town as fast as possible after which the Tigers would move to Zvornik to do the same. Arkan wanted to lead the operation as efficiently as possible. To enhance efficiency, he did not allow his soldiers to misbehave as it would thwart the operation. There was a fine line between what was allowed and what was not. They needed to use terror to scare the non-Serb population enough to keep opposition away and make them flee Bijeljina. Misbehaviour, however, was not allowed if it did not serve this goal. This resulted in a smooth operation in which the Tigers would enter the town, kill prominent Muslim men, loot and burn houses, and terrorize the local non-Serb population out of the town. After Bijeljina, in other towns, among which Zvornik, Bratunac, Srebrenica, Visegrad and Foča, the same pattern followed.280 Prior to the attack, Bijeljina was an ethnically mixed town. Its demographics consisted of 59% Serbs, 31% Muslims, 1% Croats, 5% of people who considered themselves Yugoslavs, and 4% of other ethnicities.281 These groups coexisted relatively peaceful prior to the war. Muslims lived in the city centre, with the Serbs living in the suburbs and in surrounding villages. After the persecutory campaign of violence targeting Bosnian Muslim civilians, many Muslims evacuated Bijeljina. After the war, the percentage of Serbs living in Bijeljina had

278 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Judgement Volume I of II, Case: Stanišić, J. and Simatović, F. (IT-03-69), by: Trial Chamber I, 30 May 2013, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 227. 279 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 11 April 2011, Case: Stanišić, Jovica and Simatović, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 11 April 2011, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 11407. 280 Glenny, M., The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (New York City: Penguin Books, 1996) 168. 281 ICTY, Judgement Stanisǐ ć and Simatovic,́ 225.

increased to approximately 91% in 1997 and the Muslim population had decreased to around 3%.282 The attack on Bijeljina and the role of the Tigers shows us how paramilitary groups operated, for which purpose they were used and why they were important to the Serbian government for the execution of its genocidal policy. Arkan’s Tigers had played an important part in the cleansing of Bijeljina of its non-Serb civilians. However, the real ethnic cleansing campaign came in the months after the take-over. This implies that the Serbian Volunteer Guard was not in Bijeljina to cleanse it, but just to take over. This serves as an explanation why they did not kill a great deal of people, but just terrorized them. Even though they were not used primarily to cleanse Bijeljina of its non-Serb population, their psychological power was still very important. It was their strength as a psychological force for which the Serbian government had invited them to Bijeljina. Without them, the operation could not have gone as smoothly as it did. They were also needed because if the attack on Bijeljina was performed by official Serb forces, it would be considered a violation of the Vance-plan. Therefore, the Serbian government had to use a para-state group, so it could keep its hands clean. Links between the Tigers and the government were obscured by the chaotic structure in which the Tigers operated. Unfortunately for the Serbian government, the Tigers liked to be visible and to document their activities as they were very proud of them. By inviting photographer Ron Haviv to shoot the siege, they did not only incriminate themselves, but also the Serbian government. The Strategic Importance of Bijeljina Before the war, relations between the Serb and Muslim population in Bijeljina were generally good. Following the declaration of independence of Bosnia, tension rose between Bijeljina’s ethnic groups. In the last week of March 1992, several violent incidents between Serbs and Muslims occurred, which provided the pretext for Arkan’s Tigers to enter the town.283 There were shootings between the two groups and a Muslim citizen named Alija Gusalić had thrown a grenade into the Serbian Café Srbije. The Serbian authorities told the public that the security situation in Bijeljina had been destabilized on the night of 31 March

282 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 October 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 16 October 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 27088. 283 Human Rights Watch, ‘Unfinished Business: The Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons to Bijeljina’, volume 12, number 7 (May 2000) 12.

1992, and that Muslim extremists had put up road blocks in the centre of the town.284 The siege of the town by the Territorial Defense and the paramilitaries was an immediate response to this threat by the Muslims. Arkan himself defended this statement in several speeches, talking about a Muslim threat. According to Arkan, Muslims had drawn up lists of prominent Serbs to be assassinated. Arkan and his Tigers needed to “liberate” Bijeljina from these terrorists. The participation of his Tigers was thereby legitimized as self-defense. During a speech in November or December 1992, he mentioned: “In Bosnia we prevented there being a border on the Drina river. The force of the Jihad had already occupied Bijeljina. Everything was already in their hands when we arrived and got rid of the Jihad.”285 He used similar rhetoric in another speech: So we found out that the Muslims had armed themselves, that there were over 300 Kalashnikovs in Janja, that there were over 600 Kalashnikovs in Bijeljina itself, that a Croatian unit that was composed of Albanians, of Siptars, had already infiltrated Bijeljina. And during the night they were to take over power in Bijeljina. There was a list for prominent Serbs who were to be assassinated in the following 24 hours. In the course of the night we arrived. Naturally at the time, the Muslims arrived. There were more Albanians amongst those Croatian combatants. They were holding check-points in Bijeljina. They had snipers. It was night. We entered Bijeljina and took over the centre. Naturally it was a merciless battle. We didn't spare the Croatian soldiers. After the combat, Fikret Abdic and Biljana Plavšić and Prascevic, the general, were present. I showed them the weapons they used. They used automatic weapons with an Ustasha insignia on them. It said 'made in Croatia' on them. They were green. They'd been made for these Muslims from Croatia. So at the time we arrived at the last minute. Four or five Serbs had already been slaughtered.286 According to the trial record, there was no such threat coming from the Muslim or Croat population in Bijeljina. The evening of 31 March 1992 did not involve any special conflicts or clashes. There was only some sporadic shooting, with no casualties, nor did the incident at the café result in any casualties as the café was empty at the time. Still, the incident was 284 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 7 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 18632-18633. 285 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16364-16365. 286 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16101-16102.

often put forward as the offensive that made Arkan move in.287 Witnesses and scholars use competing narratives about the reason Bijeljina was attacked.288 Evidence that the operation in Bijeljina was planned, and not caused by an immediate threat against the Bijeljina Serbs, is provided by the fact that the Tigers had already set up their camp at Amajlije, south-east of Bijeljina, a week before the operation.289 This proves that the Serbs were not in Bijeljina to protect its Serb citizens against a Muslim threat but for other reasons. Bijeljina was located at one of the main roads leading to the predominantly Serb areas in northwestern Bosnia. Bosnia and Croatia could only be connected to Serbia if Bijeljina was under Serb control, which made the town strategically very important for the creation of a Greater Serbia. Therefore, the Serb authorities ordered a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign to force all nonSerb citizens out of Bijeljina.290 Human Rights Watch stated in their report on the atrocities in Bosnia that: “The ultimate aim of the takeover of Bijeljina was to create an ethnically clean area, i.e., to force all, or at least the vast majority of non-Serbs living in the Bijeljina area to leave.”291 The Invitation: Biljana Plavšić Scholars and witnesses agree that Arkan and his Tigers came to Bijeljina on the call of Biljana Plavšić. Plavšić, born in 1930 in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, was a professor in Biology in Belgrade before she joined the political arena in July 1990 as a prominent member of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) in Bosnia. From 28 February 1992 until 12 May 1992, she was one of the two acting presidents of the Serbian Republic of BosniaHerzegovina. On 12 May 1992, she became a member of the three member Presidency of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Plavšić, who was nicknamed ‘The Iron Lady of the Balkans’, distinguished herself by promoting radical nationalist views and publically praising Serbian ‘heroes’ such as Arkan and Šešelj. Ethnic cleansing was a natural phenomenon to her and Muslims were in her eyes “genetically deformed material that embraced Islam”.292 This quote evidences her view of Muslims as genetically inferior beings. Cleansing them only meant ridding the country of its unnecessary burden. In 2000, she was indicted by the ICTY for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. She ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, 18632-18633. For instance: Gow, The Serbian Project, 128-129. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, 18259. HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 2. Ibidem, 27. M. Sells, ‘The Construction of Islam in Serbian Religious Mythology and its Consequences’ in: M. Shatzmiller, Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States (Quebèc 2002) 58.

287 288 289 290 291 292

allegedly planned, instigated, ordered, and aided and abetted the persecution of the Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats and other non-Serb populations of 37 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1 July 1991 and 30 December 1992.293 During this period, she called upon Arkan’s Tigers to defend the Serbs against the Muslim terrorists and “liberate” Bijeljina. Biljana Plavšić herself states in Exhibit D52 of the ICTY that she personally directed the events in Bijeljina.294 Even though Plavšić made the call for the operation, Arkan’s secretary testified that Arkan would not do anything without an order from the SDB.295 The SDS had copied Arkan’s narrative of a threat from Muslim terrorists who had compiled lists of prominent Serbs to be assassinated. Plavšić had asked Arkan to act in such a way, as to defend these prominent individuals.296 Plavšić’s responsibility for the Tigers’ involvement in Bijeljina indirectly incriminates the Serbian government. The government of Republika Srpska, which Plavšić was the acting president of during the siege, always acted in accordance with Belgrade’s policies. It needed to account for all its actions to Milošević. Cyrus Vance,297 who was very concerned about the reports he received about the activities of paramilitaries in Bijeljina, discussed the situation in detail with Milošević. Milošević was aware of Arkan’s presence in the municipality of Bijeljina but argued that he was there privately, under his own authority.298 Milošević said that Arkan and his Tigers were not wanted in Bijeljina by the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian government, and denied that the order came from Plavšić. However, the JNA outnumbered the Tigers all the time. If the Serbian government had really resisted the Tigers’ operation, they could have easily thwarted them, which they did not do.299 After the call, Arkan contacted a paramilitary leader in Bijeljina, ‘Mauzer’, who urged him to come and liberate Bijeljina.300 According to Borislav Pelević, former member of the SDG, Arkan was proud that a prominent politician such as Plavšić had appealed to him. Pelević testified that Arkan had said he was a patriot and asked to help the Serbs who were

293 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Sentencing Judgement, Case: Plavšić, B. (IT-00-39 & 40/1) 27 February 2003, 2-6. 294 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 31 January 2013, Case: Stanišić, Jovica and Simatović, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 31 January 2013, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 20354. 295 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19426. 296 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16347-16348 297 Cyrus Vance fulfilled the position of 57th Secretary of State of the United States until April 1980. In 1991 he was named Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. 298 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 26 February 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 26 February 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 16954. 299 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 9 April 2003, 18893. 300 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16347-16348

under threat.301 After the massacre was carried out, the SDA (Party of Democratic Action, founded by Bosnian Muslims) and the Bosnian public were shocked. A delegation, including Biljana Plavšić, escorted by Fikret Abdić, other members of the Presidency and the Minister of Defence Jerko Doko, visited Bijeljina to investigate the events. When they arrived, the relations between Arkan and the delegation were soon made clear. In front of a large party of journalists and their cameras, Arkan showed the public that the Presidency had no authority over him by making its present members, including the Minister of Defence, lie down on the street. Jerko Doko and his escorts were disarmed while Abdić was walking around saying: “Nobody can make me lie down”. Abdić, who was a Muslim, appeared to be a puppet and a contact man of Plavšić. Plavšić and Abdić received special treatment by the Tigers, which shows that the Tigers knew they would not report their activities as criminal.302 Plavšić was documented on camera while stepping over the dead body of a Bosnian civilian, to embrace and kiss Arkan in front of a television crew and the public to thank him for his work in Bijeljina.303 This intimate gesture is not surprising if one reflects on her nationalist and racist views and the public statements of affiliation she made about Arkan, who in her view saved the Serbs of Bijeljina from Muslim terrorists.304 She praised Arkan publically for doing his task well. Plavšić later reported in the media about the situation in Bijeljina. The town she talked about however, was far different than the one she had actually visited. We slowly enter deserted Bijeljina. There is only an occasional passer-by, many store windows are broken but nothing is missing from them, each item still even has a price tag on it. This is astonished to me and tells me a lot about the discipline that is present in the city. Who could have prevented chaos? (…) There were no expulsions, only those who wished to leave the city could do so voluntarily. Only in early 1994 did the Muslims start to leave the city, when Serbs left Tuzla so they made some deals for exchanging houses and apartments.305

301 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 April 2003, 19533. 302 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 15 July 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 15 July 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 24419-24420. 303 J. Subotic, ‘The Cruelty of False Remorse: Biljana Plavšić at The Hague’, in: South Eastern Europe, vol. 37 (2012) 42. 304 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 October 2003, 27681. 305 Subotic, ‘The Cruelty of False Remorse’, 42.

In the media, Plavšić created the false image of the Tigers protecting Bijeljina rather than attacking it. Cooperation to Conceal Responsibility On the order of the secret services, Arkan coordinated with other forces during the siege of Bijeljina. These forces included Šešelj’s Chetniks, the JNA, local TO forces and other Serb paramilitaries of which Ljubiša ‘Mauzer’ Savi’s ‘Panthers’ were the most important.306 The way groups cooperated with each other can tell us several things. The involvement of official troops incriminates the Serbian government more directly than the involvement of paramilitary groups, as ties between the government and the latter are more easily obscured. The cooperation of multiple forces, as it happened in Bijeljina, shows us how the government tried to avoid incrimination. The more groups cooperate, official forces, unofficial forces and sub-units, the harder it becomes to trace back the orders and chain of command, thus enabling the Serbian government to uphold plausible deniability. This strategy is clearly evidenced during the siege of Bijeljina. During the attack, several forces cooperated with each other as well as with Serb civilians of Bijeljina who joined in the fighting. According to Pelević, these civilians were first confused by the events, but after one day of combat, the Tigers started providing them with weapons and encouraged them to join. The engagement of civilians in the attack made it easier for Milošević to be able to claim that it was a spontaneous act of rebellion against the Muslim terrorists in Bijeljina. The Serbian government encouraged civilians to join by reporting on a threat of a new Serbian genocide. The Serbian elite and intelligentsia provided these reports with an intellectual foundation.307 By repeatedly reporting on this threat in the media308 and creating fear, they influenced the shaping of Serbian public opinion and created support for political action and also encouraged the Serbian population to join in the fighting. General Gavrilović, commander of the 2nd Semberija unit, a local Territorial Defence Unit, took weapons from the warehouse where they were stored to arm the population.309 These weapons were provided by the Yugoslav Army, which also cooperated

306 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 11 April 2011, 11406. 307 Subotic, J., ‘The Role of Intelligentsia and Media in Creating a National Worldview: The Case of Serbia’, http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jrshiffman/symposium%20files/Best%20Papers%20(pdf)/Subotic%20paper.pdf (accessed 25 November 2013) 7. 308 For instance the publication of ‘The Memorandum’ in September 1986 of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, started the shift towards a nationalist discourse based on fear for a new Serbian genocide. The Memorandum provided the ideological guidelines for solving the Serbian question. 309 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16101-16102.

with the Tigers in the operation. Some sources claim the army was not present during the operation, while other sources claim they were. Plavšić mentioned in her report about the situation in Bijeljina that the take-over was done by the Serbian Volunteer Guard and that the JNA did not participate in it.310 Due to her acknowledged responsibility for the attack on Bijeljina, Plavšić’s report cannot be considered a reliable source for establishing facts. According to witness Alija Gusalić, a Muslim from Bijeljina, the army came in some time after the paramilitaries and also started looting and killing people.311 According to witness B-1493, another citizen from Bijeljina, the JNA Division Command blocked the entrance to Bijeljina, allowing no one to enter the town.312 The army thereby created a safe area for the Tigers to operate with impunity. The JNA did not impede them in any way, giving them impunity and allowing them to do whatever they wanted.313 The involvement of the army and its failure to sanction the crimes that happened during the attack, implicates that they had orders to support Arkan and the Tigers in their operation. The responsibility of the government for these orders was concealed by blurring the lines of command as different forces cooperated with each other. A week before the attack, the Serbian Volunteer Guard had set up their operating base in Amajlije. An estimated 150 to 200314 men were based there, part of whom were members of the SDG. The soldiers had been training at the base for two weeks prior to the siege.315 The Tigers received support in two ways during the siege. The main form of support was in the form of logistics. They were provided with supplies by the Yugoslav Army and the Army Garrison in Bijeljina. The army provided them with artillery and all other supplies needed.316 The second form of support was in the form of man power, which was mainly contributed by Mauzer. Ljubiša ‘Mauzer’ Savi led a paramilitary group called ‘the Panthers’. They were also known as ‘Mauzer’s Guard’ or ‘Vojkan’s Men’. Besides the siege of Bijeljina, Mauzer was also involved in an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Brčko area and he claimed to have been commander of the Batkovi detention camp North of Bijeljina.317 According to

310 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 1 April 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 1 April 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 19270. 311 Ibidem, 18347. 312 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 9 April 2003, 18890. 313 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 184. 314 Ibidem, 176; International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 22 May 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 22 May 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 21012. 315 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 176. 316 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 25 January 2012, 16477-16478. 317 HRW, ’Unfinished Business’, 95.

Human Rights Watch, the Panthers were initially a sub-unit of the Tigers, but later came under the command of the 1st Bijeljina Light Infantry Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS).318 Other sources claim that the Panthers were founded by the Crisis Staff in Bijeljina, which included Mauzer himself, and were a part of the Territorial Defense before they became a part of the VRS.319 The fact that the Tigers and the Panthers worked closely together seems less incidental, taken into account that the Panthers originated from the Tigers. According to witness B-161, who was present in Bijeljina during the siege, the paramilitary soldiers, who were members of several groups, all operated under Arkan’s command.320 Pelević backed up the statement that the Panthers originated from the Tigers when he testified at the ICTY that he had personally trained Mauzer before he founded the Panthers: “He was provided with military training by me, and later he became a seasoned combatant and he established the Panther Guards Unit, which I welcomed. The more Serbian troops you have, the better.”321 This quote shows how the formation of sub-units was welcomed as it spread the expertise of the Tigers and expanded the chaotic web of paramilitary units, making it harder to identify who had final responsibility for their criminal activities. The quote also tells us something about Pelević’s motivations. By saying “the more Serbian troops you have, the better”, Pelević shows that the Serbian cause was indeed important to him, thus likely for other soldiers as well. This means that, although nationalism may not be their first and foremost motivation and that enrichment possibilities were more important to them, they did believe in what they were fighting for. Arkan’s Command and Authority On 4 April 1992, command of the JNA 17th Corps informed the 2nd Military District that Bijeljina was controlled by the SDS and the Serbian Volunteer Guard. The operation had been conducted under Arkan’s command. From the beginning of the conflict, Arkan was linked to the Crisis Staff in Bijeljina. The Crisis Staff was a Bosnian-Serb staff that grew into the War Presidency in Bijeljina, of which Cvijetin Simic was the president. Mauzer was commander of the Crisis Staff and everything that was going on in Bijeljina and surroundings were under his authority. Arkan and Mauzer gave instructions to the official

318 Ibidem, 36. 319 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 13 January 2004, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 13 January 2004, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 30757. 320 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 22 May 2003, 21012. 321 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16101-16102.

and paramilitary forces on how to conduct their work and what they should and should not do.322 Arkan and his men controlled everything. Policemen, for instance, were always accompanied by Tigers when they would go on patrol. Without Arkan’s men present, they were not allowed to do anything.323 The duumvirate of Arkan and Mauzer was not as equal as it appears. Sources claim that Mauzer was actually rather scared of Arkan. A witness remembered: I remembered the face of that young man, and I was later to learn that he was Ljubisa Savic, Mauzer. He kept playing with a knife, a two-edged, two-bladed JNA knife. The knife dropped out of his hands at one point, and as he saw the slapping of this soldier and the fact that he had been demobilised on the spot, he became afraid, and he went all red in the face. And I was standing next to him and noticed this face of his, what it looked like, and I could never forget that face ever afterwards because of this sudden fear that he showed on his face.324 This quote shows that Arkan did not just instill fear in his enemies, but also in his allies. He wanted to be feared as it enhanced his power and the mythology surrounding him. Arkan carefully molded his own image, in public and in private.325 The fact that Arkan held the highest command during the operation evidences this statement. He had come to Bijeljina by request of the political elite, but this did not mean that he took orders from them. He always kept matters in his own hands and went his own way. This posed a threat to the Serbian government as Arkan took control over the situation. However, Arkan was too important for the ethnic cleansing campaign, and for the government to uphold plausible deniability, to counter him. His efficiency, expertise, tools, and the psychological effect he had on the non-Serbian population, made him essential for the ethnic cleansing campaign. His authority during the operation also gave Milošević the opportunity to deny his responsibility as he could claim that Arkan came to Bijeljina on his own initiative, which he did several times. According to Milošević, Arkan had come to Bijeljina on his own initiative and was not wanted there by the official armed forces.326 However, as the Yugoslav Army outnumbered the paramilitary men all the time, they could have easily dismantled them. The 322 323 324 325 326

ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, 18642. Ibidem, 18637. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 October 2003, 27692. Weerdesteijn and Smeulders, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen’, 331. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 26 February 2003, 16954.

fact that they did not do so, shows that the Serbian government did not resist the conduct of Arkan’s Tigers, and allegedly even ordered it.327 Ethnic Cleansing “We were told that terrorists in Bijeljina who were ethnic Muslims were supposed to be found by us and possibly liquidated. We were divided up into smaller groups in order to cover the entire town as soon as possible.”328 Witness B-1738, a former member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, tells the ICTY how Arkan motivated them to kill Muslims by spreading rumors about the Muslim terrorists who were about to kill all Serbs on their assassination list. In response to this rumor, they had drawn up their own list of prominent Muslim politicians, businessmen and intellectuals to be targeted. Killing the elites first is a frequent practice in genocide. According to Jacques Semelin, the aim is to reduce the defence capacities of the adversary to nothing. Pre-established lists are also common in other genocides.329 The elites are often seen as a military target by the perpetrators, even though they are unarmed. Their political value poses such a great threat that killing them is seen as an act of war by the perpetrators.330 Besides these prominent individuals, young men who were suspected of being fighters were attacked as well. Guided by these lists, the Serbian Volunteer Guard efficiently rampaged through Bijeljina. Whenever they could not find someone, they would approach the family. Family members who refused to provide the whereabouts of their relatives were tied up and beaten.331 The Tigers systematically worked through the whole town looking for ‘Balija’s’. When they entered the town, the Tigers, in cooperation with the other forces, fanned out, covering all neighborhoods. The hospital was an important site and taken over immediately. Regular soldiers visited it first, looking for Muslims, which they did not find.332 The hospital was held by the SDG and later guarded by other paramilitary groups, among which were the White Eagles.333 Later on, the hospital was also toured by Arkan personally.334

327 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 9 April 2003, 18893. 328 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 March 2003, 18033. 329 During the Rwandan genocide, lists were distributed among the Hutu militias, naming all Tutsi´s and Hutu moderates that had to be killed. Killing was conducted systematically and efficiently due to these lists. 330 Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 230. 331 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 179. 332 ICTY, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 31 March 2003, Case: Milošević, Slobodan (IT-02-54), by: Trial Chamber III, 31 March 2003, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 18264. 333 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, 18628. 334 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 1 April 2003, 19269.

Besides the prominent Muslims, the Tigers harassed any Bosniak or other non-Serb they encountered. They were randomly threatened, tortured, raped, and sometimes even murdered. The goal was to instill fear into Bijeljina’s non-Serb population. According to witness B-1003, there was a large number of civilian corpses in the streets of Bijeljina. None of them were armed and their ages ranged from ten to seventy years.335 The exact number of people killed during the siege of Bijeljina is still disputed. According to Human Rights Watch, counts range from fifty to several hundreds of deaths.336 The number of casualties during the attack is relatively low for of several reasons. First of all because the attack had to be conducted as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to reduce the opportunity for the opposition to assemble. The goal of the take-over was not to cleanse it immediately, but rather to secure the area. The ethnic cleansing campaign started a couple of months after the attack. The total number of people who had been expelled, transferred to concentration camps or killed during the months following the take-over, is estimated at 20.000.337 Even though their goal was to take over the town, the Tigers did the best they could to expel as much non-Serb citizens as possible. This would make the ethnic cleansing campaign easier later on. A great number of Muslim citizens left Bijeljina voluntarily after the terrorization campaign of the Tigers. A man named Vojislav Ðurkovi, generally known as ‘Vojkan’, led the transfer of non-Serbs out of Bijeljina. He was the head of the Commission for the Exchange of the Civilian Population and a major figure in Arkan’s Tigers. His commission arranged the transport of non-Serbs who would leave Bijeljina voluntary in exchange for a fee. Those who did not leave on their own initiative were often forced to leave anyway. When people were transported from Bijeljina, they had to sign over everything they owned: their money, valuables and house, as well as their documents.338 Men of military age were often taken off the transport and forced to work at the front lines. Others were sometimes dropped off at a nearby minefield between a Serb and a Muslim town and ordered to walk to the other side.339

A Strategy of Intimidation The strategy used by the Tigers, killing a few non-Serbs and terrorizing the rest out of Bijeljina, gives the impression that it was not their first goal to kill everyone. The ethnic 335 336 337 338 339

ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 7 April 2003, 18610. HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 14. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 184. HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 36. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 183.

cleansing campaign started gradually in the months after the attack, which supports this view. The Serbian Volunteer Guard needed to take over Bijeljina as quickly as possible. In order to do so, they needed to terrorize the non-Serb population. The result of their terror was a smooth operation and the flight of a great number of Muslims, leaving those who remained terrified. The killings that happened during the siege of Bijeljina seem to serve as a psychological strategy. By the time the Tigers moved to Bijeljina, they had become a psychological force due to this strategy of terror. An undercurrent of fear had risen among the non-Serb population of Bosnia. Rumours about the Tigers coming, could make them leave their homes immediately. This made the Tigers a very efficient weapon of ethnic cleansing and serves as an explanation why they were asked to come to Bijeljina. To uphold this image and to scare the remaining non-Serbs of Bijeljina out, the Tigers used several terror techniques during the attack. They ransacked, looted and burned the houses, shops and businesses owned by Bosniaks. By destroying religious buildings and other religious symbols, they tried to destroy the Muslim culture in Bijeljina. Of the five mosques in Bijeljina, the biggest one was burned and the others were vandalized and later burned as well.340 On one occasion, when the Tigers found a mosque, they took down the Muslim flag and substituted it with a Serbian one, telling the Bosnian Muslims that they now also dominated their religion. They took mocking photos of themselves, flashing the three-fingered salute inside the mosque, ridiculing the Islamic faith and stripping it of its significance.341 Destroying culture is common practice in the genocidal process. According to A. Dirk Moses, founder of the term ‘Genocide’, Raphael Lemkin defined culture as constitutive for human group life. Culture integrates society and ensures internal balance and stability. By destroying culture the group disintegrates. Therefore, by destroying culture, you destroy the group itself.342

340 Ibidem, 179. 341 HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 13.; See figure 1. 342 Moses, ‘Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide’, 29.

Figure 1: Paramilitary soldiers of the Serbian Volunteer Guard desecrate a mosque in Bijeljina and take mocking photo’s

Source: Ron Haviv. Besides destroying cultural symbols, more direct terrorization also happened frequently. Incidents in which the Tigers ‘played’ with their victims, killed them gruesomely, or mistreated their victims even after their death, are well known. Human Rights Watch reported about a couple of incidents like this, based on witness testimonies.343 One of these incidents involved an old man who the Tigers had found in the mosque. They dragged him to another building where they threw him from the third floor. After he had crashed to the ground they started beating him up.344 The public terrorization of the non-Serb population made it easy for the Tigers to conduct their operation. Nobody dared to get in their way and many left Bijeljina on their own initiative as they knew what could happen to them if they stayed behind. By using terror, the Tigers became a strong psychological force. According to Stewart, it “contaminated the soil and infected the air. The result was mass fear among the Bosnian population.”345 Whether the Tigers would actually come to a town personally did not matter. Others used their name to create the mass fear that came with it: Arkan and his Tigers were everywhere.

343 HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 11-16. 344 Ibidem, 13. 345 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 189.

In its report ‘Unfinished Business: The Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons to Bijeljina’, Human Rights Watch also reports about soldiers of the Serbian Volunteer Guard who allegedly had captured a young boy outside the mosque, which they had just vandalized. They made fun of the boy and started playing with him by letting him escape and catching him again and again before killing him.346 Instead of killing him right away, they postponed the act, enhancing the fear of the boy and increasing their own sense of power as the faith of the boy was entirely in their hands. Incidents like this occur regularly during genocide as it gives the perpetrator a god-like feeling. Many boys who joined the Tigers joined because of their desire to belong, have meaning, and because it gave them a sense of power, which explains why these boys were prone to violent acts like this. Another example is an incident where the paramilitary group ‘the Scorpions’ killed six men in Srebrenica, of which three were still minors, and taped the execution.347 They postponed the actual killing for a long time. After letting their victims wait for a long time, they shot four of them and let the remaining two carry the bodies to a nearby house instead of shooting all six victims right away in the house itself. This way, the remaining victims knew what fate awaited them, just like the boy in Bijeljina, giving the perpetrators the highest form of power: they not only decide whether the victims die, they also decide when and how they die. Terrorizing the population posed a paradox for Arkan, who led his operations with discipline and efficiency. The way the Tigers mistreated their victims was not always appreciated by him. Misconduct was needed in order to keep the psychological power they had over people intact. People knew what could happen to them, which made them willing to obey the Tigers and leave Bijeljina if the threat became too big. Misbehaviour of soldiers was therefore needed, but it was not always welcome as it could also impede operations. When soldiers misbehaved without their misconduct serving a higher purpose, Arkan punished them. A famous example is the incident in which a family was killed and after their death beaten up by a soldier of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, which was captured on camera by photographer Ron Haviv, who was present during the siege. Soldiers dragged a man out of his house, with a bullet hole in his chest. His wife tried to aid her husband but was shot on the spot, as well as another woman who was in the house. One of Arkan’s Tigers walked up to one of the women, who was still alive, and started kicking her in the 346 HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 13. 347 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=norSzT3l2L8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKbab5bFeQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S-UZJ67AKc, accessed 01-04-2013.

head until she stopped moving.348 The name of the soldier was Srdjan Golubović, nicknamed ‘Max’. The photograph of him kicking the women349 was distributed widespread and caused a lot of turmoil, even sparking a scholarly debate. Scholars and journalists argued about what the photo actually tells us. According to Susan Sontag “the photograph tells us very little - except that war is hell, and that graceful young men with guns are capable of kicking overweight older women lying helpless, or already killed, in the head.”350 Other scholars, however, argue that the photo speaks faced the international community with the atrocities happening in Bosnia and directly incriminated the perpetrator. Subsequently, the soldier was punished for his misconduct and removed from the ranks of the SDG immediately. His punishment constituted 25 lashes on the bottom in front of all his fellow soldiers.351 Following the siege however, Srdjan Golubović was rehabilitated and called back to the ranks of the guard.352 His rehabilitation calls into question the motives of Arkan to remove him from the ranks of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. Arkan did not allow any misbehaving from his soldiers when they thwarted the operation. However, the removal of Golubović was probably just for show as he was later rehabilitated. Figure 2: Srdjan Golubović kicks a Bosnian women in the head on the streets of Bijeljina.

Source: Ron Haviv. 348 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 180-181. 349 See figure 2. 350 S. Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (London 2003) 81. 351 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Public Transcript of Hearing 19 January 2012, Case: Stanišić, Jovica and Simatović, Franko (IT-03-69-T), by: Trial Chamber I, 19 January 2012, from: International Criminal Tribunal Court Records, 16209-16211. 352 Ibidem, 16269.

Self-Defeating Exposure The incident involving Golubović introduces another paradox. The photograph that incriminated him was not taken by accident. The photographer, Ron Haviv, had come to Bijeljina on Arkan’s request, to shoot its ‘liberation’. Haviv’s presence during the attack on Bijeljina shows that publicity was wanted and needed on the one hand, but was also problematic on the other hand as it could serve as evidence against the Tigers and the Serbian government. Publicity was needed for several reasons. Arkan had become an idol in Serbia and the most feared man in Croatia and Bosnia.353 Because of the undercurrent of fear that had been instilled into the Croats and Bosniaks during the war in Croatia, dropping Arkan’s name had great consequences. Taking advantage of this fear, his name was often used by other groups. When he entered Bijeljina, Arkan announced over a megaphone: “I am Željko Ražnatović, Arkan. It is time for you to surrender. If you have weapons, surrender them now.”354 He knew that his name would cause enough fear for a great number of people to surrender immediately. His reputation enabled him to carry out his operations as efficiently as possible. His popularity among the Serbs was also very important for the Serbian government to increase support of the war. He was an important factor in creating a platform among the Serbs. Photographs of Arkan and his Tigers ‘at work’ also generated hatred and fear, which was necessary to fuel hostilities. On the other hand, the operations of the Tigers could not be advertised too openly as their obscured character was necessary to uphold plausible deniability for the Serbian government.355 Third, the Tigers needed to operate in public sight, because people needed to know what they were capable of. Arkan’s public performances were an important part of the government’s policy of intimidation. On the other hand, they needed to uphold some degree of mystery because an unknown threat is more frightening than a known threat.356 So it was necessary that the Tigers were seen and that people knew what they were capable of, but they could not operate too openly because they needed to keep some of their mystery, and their links with the Serbian government, obscured. Paradoxally, the photo’s Haviv took during the attack on Bijeljina, also enabled the Serbian government to deny its involvement in the attack because they could claim that it was only Arkan and his

353 354 355 356

Weerdesteijn and Smeulers, ‘Propaganda en Paramilitairen’, 331. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 179. Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’, 293. Campbell, Death Squads in a Global Perspective, 21.

Tigers that were present during the attack and that they had come on their own initiative. The Milošević government was actively engaged in keeping the links between his government and the paramilitaries a secret. As international pressure was high, the need for secrecy was high as well. The Tigers however, did not cooperate much in keeping up their covert facade. Due to narcissistic motivations and pride, they often portrayed themselves as protectors of the Serbian fatherland. Documenting their attack on Bijeljina evidences this.357 Arkan had personally invited Haviv to photograph the city under siege. Haviv’s photos captured the Tigers rampaging through Bijeljina and the casualness and callousness with which they terrorized its non-Serb population. Haviv shot the photo of Golubović kicking the Bosnian women, incriminating the direct perpetrator. After the attack, Arkan took Haviv’s film roles in order to prevent him from publishing them in the international media. However, a couple of months after the attack, Haviv managed to smuggle one of his roles out, which he later described as the result of “a combination of luck and playing to Arkan’s ego”. Arkan publically testified that he “was looking forward to drinking his blood” 358, but the fact that he had personally invited him and the way he had requested to be photographed implicates that Arkan may not have wanted his men to be so directly incriminated, but that he did like to have been portrayed in the way Haviv had done. Arkan had also asked Haviv to shoot him with his unit in Erdut.359 The photo showed the unit and Arkan holding a baby tiger. Everyone is masked except for Arkan: it is clear who the leader is. Haviv stated that Arkan thought “this made him look powerful and strong”.360 According to Vladimir Petrović the photo also serves another purpose. Conveniently, the real organizers are left out of the picture, making it easy for the Serbian government to deny ties with the unit.361 Once again, this serves the purpose of upholding plausible deniability.

357 358 359 360 361

R. Haviv e.a., Blood and Honey: a Balkan War Journal (New York: TV Books, 2000). Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 180-181. See Figure 3. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 188. Petrović, ‘Power(lessness) of Atrocity Images’.

Figure 3: Arkan and his unit posing with a baby tiger at camp Erdut.

Source: Ron Haviv. After the Attack: A New Government The siege lasted until 4 April 1992. The Serbian Volunteer Guard did not return to Erdut immediately. A part of the Tigers moved on to their next operation in Zvornik, which started on 8 April 1992, together with Arkan. Another group of the Serbian Volunteer Guard remained in the barracks of the Yugoslav Army in Bijeljina for seven or eight days after the siege had ended. They stayed there until the situation had calmed down and it was assumed that there would no longer be any sort of disruptive activity or combat.362 After seven or eight days, part of the group that had stayed in Bijeljina returned to Erdut. Another group stayed in Bijeljina and organized its own parallel authority there. They provided the Serb police in Bijeljina with support. They helped them bring back law and order to the town. The police had made a private arrangement with Arkan to be provided with support.363 This evidences another purpose of the Tigers in Bijeljina: they formed their own authority,

362 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 January 2012, 16106. 363 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 17 March 2003, 18095.

making sure the local law enforces follow the Serbian line, giving them a political purpose. It also gave them the opportunity to act with complete freedom as they made their own laws. They took advantage of the situation by engaging in various kinds of abuses such as further terrorizations of the non-Serb population and widespread thefts.364 In May 1992, the Yugoslav Army moved in and the Bosnian Serb Army’s (VRS) Eastern Bosnia Corps took over responsibility for the area. Conclusion The operation of Arkan’s Tigers in Bijeljina gives us detailed factual information on how paramilitary groups were employed by the Serbian government. The role they played in the attack and for what purposes they were used, shows us the motivations of Milošević to employ them. Their psychological effect on the non-Serb population made them efficient agents of the genocidal campaign, and outsourcing its criminal activities to para-state groups gave the Serbian government the opportunity to deny involvement. The events in Bijeljina evidence this statement. By the time the attack on Bijeljina happened, Arkan’s Tigers had grown into a strong psychological force. There was an ever present undercurrent of fear for the unit and their terrorizing operations, which pressured the non-Serb population sufficiently to make them leave as soon as rumors started of the Tigers coming. It is therefore no coincidence that Biljana Plavšić, herself an ultra-nationalist who saw Muslims as being racial inferior to Serbs, had asked this particular unit to come to Bijeljina to cleanse it of its non-Serb population.365 However, they were not the only force present during the attack, but had to cooperate with several forces, official and unofficial ones.366 Arkan had taken the highest command during the operation, which shows the power he had and how he was able to play the Serbian government.367 Even though this posed a threat to Milošević, as control was taken from him, Arkan was not countered because he was too important for the ethnic cleansing campaign with his expertise, discipline and wide range of means. Also, giving him final command gave Milošević the opportunity to claim that Arkan came privately and on his own initiative.368 To further conceal his responsibility, the Tigers were made to cooperate with several forces, not because it was needed in terms of strength, but because it created chaos 364 365 366 367 368

Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part III, 54. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 24 January 2012, 16347-16348 ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 11 April 2011, 11406. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part III, 50. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 26 February 2003, 16954.

in the chain of command. The joining of several units made it hard to detect who had final responsibility over the operation. With the responsibility covered up, the Tigers could rampage through Bijeljina freely and execute their ethnic cleansing campaign. The way the Tigers cleansed the area of its non-Serb population implicates that it was not their actual goal to kill everyone, but rather to scare them out. The ethnical cleansing campaign would occur months after the attack. The Tigers systematically worked their way through the town, looking for prominent Muslim men.369 Bijeljina started a pattern that was later conducted by the Tigers in other towns as well.370 They killed about fifty prominent men and scared the rest of the population out by using several terror techniques such as destroying cultural symbols and property, publicly executing Muslims, and (psychologically) torturing their victims. By terrorizing the population out, they saved a lot of time and worked more efficiently. This was needed as the attacks on Bijeljina and Zvornik were ordered in rapid succession, probably to avoid a counter-offensive. In order to spread fear and enhance their psychological power, people needed to know what could happen to them if they stayed behind and faced the Tigers.371 Visibility was therefore important to the Tigers, but the issue of publicity also posed a paradox because it could serve as evidence against them.372 This was manifested when Arkan asked photographer Ron Haviv to shoot the attack on Bijeljina. Arkan knew the importance of having an acclaimed photographer at his side, as he was carefully molding his own public image. He was proud of his role as protector of the Serbian fatherland and wanted this to be documented. Publicity was also important for the Serbian government because Arkan’s involvement generated support for the war as he was a popular public figure and it conveniently left the real organizers out of the picture. Too much visibility, however, was not desired because of the incrimination of the perpetrators and because it could be used as evidence against the government. This is exactly what happened when Haviv smuggled his tape out of Bijeljina: his photo’s incriminated the direct perpetrators. This way, Arkan had dug his own grave: his narcissism had led to his own incrimination.

369 370 371 372

Semelin, Purify and Destroy, 230. Calić, ‘Ethnic Cleansing and War Crimes’, 126. HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 13. Campbell, Death Squads in a Global Perspective, 21.

After Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Broz Tito died in 1980, a crisis started. Tito had kept the six republics of Yugoslavia united with his ideology of brotherhood and unity. His death left the country with a political vacuum and in economic misery which would lead to the Yugoslav Wars which started in 1991.373 The political and economic problems gave the Yugoslav population a great sense of unease, causing them to turn to nationalism for solutions.374 Milošević was enthroned leader of the Serbs in 1987 after his speech in Kosovo Polje. Right after, he began preparing for war. With his nationalist policies, he destroyed all that remained of the consensus in Yugoslavia, pushing the other republics to nationalism as well. When in June 1991 Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence, the war started.375 When Bosnia followed in March 1992, war also started there. Milošević did not want Croatia or Bosnia to become independent as they hosted many ethnic Serbs. He sought to create a Serbian state with a homogeneous Serbian population, including those who were living in Croatia and Bosnia.376 Support for a Greater Serbia had become widespread among the Serbian population. The dissolution of Yugoslavia gave rise to the opportunity to redraw the Yugoslav maps. In order to create this homogeneous Serbian state, orders needed to be revised with the use of force. Not only did this Serbian state need to host all ethnic Serbs, it also needed to be rid of all other ethnicities; which had to be cleansed from the Serbclaimed areas. Therefore, Milošević and other Serbian elite politicians started to put means in place for the implementation of this idea from the late 1980s.377 As ethnic cleansing is constituted a war crime by international humanitarian law, Milošević had to look for alternative forces which would not incriminate him and his government directly. The United Nations identified 55 different ethnic Serb paramilitary groups.378 There are many advantages to using paramilitary groups, but many disadvantages as well. They are very efficient in their tasks but, because their soldiers are often selected on their criminal background, they are unreliable as well. They are also difficult to control as they follow their own agenda. As there is a high risk in incorporating them in the

373 374 375 376 377 378

Zwaan and De Graaff, Genocide en de Crisis van Joegoslavië, 64. Weitz, A Century of Genocide, 208. Ramet, Balkan Babel., 21. Bringa, ‘Averted Gaze’, 197-198. Gow, The Serbian Projecct, 7-8. Ron, ‘Territoriality and Plausible Deniability’, 287-288.

genocidal effort, the state giving the orders must have a good reason for doing so. The reason why paramilitary groups were used during the Yugoslav Wars is very complex and involves with practical and political considerations. The chaotic structure and obscured character of paramlitary groups also makes it very hard to examine them. Research is therefore dependent on factual knowledge from which scholars have to derive meaning. The way these units were organized by the Serbian government and how they were kept secret, can serve as evidence that they were used for illegal purposes. To understand why they were used and for which purposes, one has to look at the problems the Serbian government faced in their fight for a Greater Serbia and how the paramilitary groups formed a solution to these problems. A microanalysis of a group and its operations provides us with detailed information about their deployment, which can tell us a lot about the purpose of their existence. The origin of the paramilitary groups stems from the problems Milošević faced with the legacy of the Yugoslav military structure. The Yugoslav forces were limited in their usability for his genocidal policies. The federal structure of the state forces was designed to protect the republics against external enemies and did not anticipate a threat from within. Therefore, Milošević started to actively Serbianize these forces. Non-Serbs were pressured to resign as they were demoted from the higher ranks and subsequently had a decreasing influence.379 Still, Milošević could not depend on unconditional loyalty within the army as it was de jure still the army of Yugoslavia, and not of Serbia. The problem of loyalty was solved by founding a paramilitary group which would not only operate on his orders, but could also force the army to follow the Serbian line. Loyalty was just one factor in which the official forces were limited. With the international community keeping a close eye on Serbia, they could not engage in criminal activities such as ethnic cleansing operations, as it would incriminate the Serbian state. They were further limited in terms of territoriality with the signing of the Vance-plan on 2 January 1992. All armed forces had to be demobilized, disbanded and disarmed.380 The Vance-plan forced Milošević to move his forces out of Croatia. As he continued his plans for a Greater Serbia secretively, Milošević reorganized the official forces in order to circumvent the extraterritorial boundaries. The JNA was disbanded and three new forces were created: the VJ, VRS and SVK. In Bosnia, Milošević created entirely Bosnian Serb units by redeploying Bosnian Serbs to certain units

379 Gow, The Serbian Project, 54. 380 Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, Part II, 98.

while Serbs from Serbia were removed from those units. Milošević could claim that the Serbs were not involved in the Bosnian war as it were Bosnian Serbs fighting there.381 Links between these Bosnian-Serb forces and the Serbian government, however, were easy to come by. Therefore he needed to have forces whose links with the government were more obscured so he could use them for his illegal policies. Paramilitary groups operated independently, keeping the hands of the Serbian government clean.382 Using unofficial forces made it easy for Milošević to uphold his policy of plausible deniability. Also, paramilitary groups were very important to Milošević as they secured him with a loyal force which could pressure other forces to follow the Serbian line. For instance, cooperation between the paramilitaries and the army, which Milošević did not trust due to its federal origin, pressured the army into loyalty to Milošević.383 Some paramilitary groups also served to weaken Milošević’ opposition. In 1990, some political parties started to organize military wings which became paramilitary groups. These political parties formed Milošević’ opposition. To weaken them, he ordered the foundation of his own paramilitary force. The Serbian Secret Services, under leadership of Jovica Stanišić, was put in charge of organizing this unit in secrecy.384 They recruited Zeljko ‘Arkan’ Razjnatovic to form a paramilitary unit with hooligans and other criminals as its soldiers. Thugs formed good soldiers as they already had a violent subculture which was easily directed towards the battlefield. The fact that the secret services knew exactly who they wanted and needed to recruit, shows that they already had in mind for what purpose they wanted to use the unit. In order to secure himself with loyalty among the soldiers, Milošević indoctrinated them in training camps which were organized, financed and supplied by the Secret Services. There, they were indoctrinated and transformed into ruthless killers. Even though the Serbian government tried to keep the links between them and the paramilitary groups obscured, it is clear that they organized everything, from the recruitment of its leaders and soldiers to their training and deployment. The group that secured Milošević with loyal fighters was the Serbian Volunteer Guard which operated under Arkan’s command. The SDB had personally recruited Arkan because he had a reputation of being a disciplined and efficient hit man during the time he worked for the Yugoslav Secret Services. They wanted him to lead the unit because it

381 382 383 384

Naimark, Fires of Hatred, 158. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 26 February 2003, 16954. Gow, The Serbian Project, 79-80. Theunens, ‘Military Aspects of the Role of Stanišić and Simatović’, part I, 94.

guaranteed them that his operations would go as efficiently as possible. They made Arkan head of Delije, where they would help him recruit his soldiers.385 The men of Delije were not only chosen as soldiers because of their violent subculture, but also because Milošević was worried that their aggressive energy could be harnessed by his opposition. The young men were disciplined by Arkan and trained at camp Erdut.386 He attracted soldiers by giving them better payments and opportunities to loot during operations. The material gains that came with joining a paramilitary unit was one of the main reasons soldiers joined.387 Even though the Serbian Secret Service did not agree with the black market dealings the Tigers made of their stolen goods, they had to tolerate it up to a certain degree.388 Loyalty was also ensured by the indoctrination they were subjected to at Erdut, where they experienced severe peer pressure. This gave them a motivation to kill: not only were they capable of doing anything for their peers because they cared for them, they were also scared of being excluded if they did not engage in the killing.389 As the recruits often felt powerless and desperately wanted to belong, they were more susceptible to these kinds of indoctrination, which was exactly why these particular men had been recruited. This shows again how deeply the Serbian government was involved in organizing the structure of paramilitary units with a clear final goal in mind. They put everything in place because they wanted the ethnic cleansing operations to go as efficiently as possible. Another way of enhancing the efficiency of the ethnic cleansing campaign was pairing the paramilitary units with official forces. This cooperation helped to blur the chain of command and conceal responsibility. It also pressured the official forces to act in accordance with Milošević’ genocidal policy. Their role in the ethnic cleansing campaign is evidenced by their involvement in operations in Croatia and Bosnia. In Croatia the Tigers served as a physical force, whenever the official armed forces were troubled in seizing an area. The way that the Serbian government had organized them however, by recruiting specific soldiers and indoctrinating them, shows that their purpose was bigger than just being a physical force. By the time war started in Bosnia, they had also become a psychological force: their rumored terror could cause a population to flee only by hearing about the Tigers coming.390 The Tigers’ power as a psychological force is clearly evidenced during the siege of Bijeljina. Bijeljina was

385 386 387 388 389 390

Thomas, Serbia Under Milošević, 94-95. Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 153. Alvarez, ‘Militias and Genocide’, 27. ICTY, Public Transcript of Hearing 16 April 2003, 19552-19553 Waller, Becoming Evil, 157. Gow, The Serbian Project, 130.

strategically very important for the creation of a Greater Serbia. It was infiltrated by Arkan’s Tigers and other forces on 1 April 1992. The Tigers were ordered to help with the siege by Biljana Plavšić, who was one of the acting presidents of the Republika Srpska, because the presidency wanted the take-over and ethnic cleansing campaign to go as efficiently as possible. Asking the Serbian Volunteer Guard to help with the take-over had a couple of advantages that serve as explanations of the purpose of their existence. First of all, the Tigers were a very efficient and well-disciplined force under Arkan’s command. Misconduct was not allowed, except when it served the purpose of terror as this would make the operation go more efficiently. Terror techniques such as public executions and torture were used during the campaign.391 Whenever soldiers would misbehave without the misconduct having a bigger purpose, they would be punished by Arkan. This way, by terrorizing the population with discipline and a purpose, they efficiently scared a big part of the non-Serb population out of Bijeljina. Those who did not leave on their own initiative were later forced to leave anyway.392 They documented their actions because it was important for them to be visible. People needed to know what could happen to them. Official forces could never be as visible as the Tigers were because it would immediately incriminate the Serbian government. However, the Tigers as well could not be as visible as they liked to be, as links between them and the government had to remain obscured. One way to keep these links secret was by combining units and command structures during the operation. The Tigers worked closely with several forces, official and unofficial ones. One of the paramilitary forces they worked with, the Panthers, were actually a sub-unit of the Tigers. The chaotic web of official units, unofficial units and sub-units made it difficult to establish the chain of command, thus concealing responsibility. This made it possible for the Serbian government to uphold their policy of plausible deniability. The factual knowledge we have about the organization and operations of the Serbian paramilitary units, in particular the Serbian Volunteer Guard, can tell us a lot about the purpose of their existence and why the government decided to use them. The criminal goals of the Serbian government for the creation of a Greater Serbia forced them to look for forces whose links with the state were obscured. The use of official forces for the execution of these criminal goals would incriminate the Serbian state. Sanctions by the international community on extra-territorial activities enhanced the importance of having unofficial forces

391 HRW, ‘Unfinished Business’, 13. 392 Stewart, Hunting the Tiger, 183.

so the government could uphold its facade of innocence. The heritage of the Yugoslav defence system, with its federal character, also made it necessary for Milošević to have a force which would be entirely loyal to him. Loyalty among the official forces was never ensured, which is why they often had to cooperate with paramilitary forces who forced them into following the Serbian line. With the formation of the first paramilitary forces, loyalty remained a problem, even among the paramilitary units as they originated as political party militias of Milošević’ opposition. Therefore, he ordered the formation of one group that would be completely loyal to him: the Serbian Volunteer Guard. This unit occasionally served as a physical force, but more importantly as a psychological one. As a psychological force, this unit was used for ethnic cleansing campaigns and attacks on towns. The psychological power they had over non-Serbs made them very efficient in their conduct. As they publicly engaged in criminal activities, it was important that links between them and the Serbian government would remain obscured. To conceal responsibility, they operated in a chaotic structure of cooperation with official units and their own subunits. This way, it was unclear who was in command and who was responsible, enabling Milošević to uphold his policy of plausible deniability.

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