PRISON FOR ONE - SHIELD FOR THE OTHER

AIM, Belgrade, January 13, 1995 Based on what has so far been publicized, it would be very easy to establish that the recently completed court trial to a group of officers of the Varazdin Corps headed by general Vladimir Trifuniovic, was primarily a political process. What is incomparably much more difficult to determine is the fact who needed such a political process at all and what was its intention.

According to ones, sending Trifunovic and the group of officers of Varazdin Corps to jail was convenient primarily to the official policy which will soon have to face court trials to war crminals. Such trials are not considered with too much affinity by majority of the public which was for too long a time prepared by stories that the Serbs in this war were guided solely by noble objectives and that they were just victims in it. To be brief, trials to war criminals are not considered desirable. In order to make the whole issue psychologically more acceptable and justifiable, according to this viewpoint, it was necessary to find a "traitor" of a larger calibre. Thus, general Trifunovic was chosen who had, even before the first trial in spring 1992, already been proclaimed guilty of treason by some media and political kitchens.

At the time, many issuers of national certificates on "patriotism" and "treachery" in the state media trained on the "Varazdin case". One could hear at the time, for instance, that a quick trial to Trifunovic could help save the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) from total collapse. In November 1991, Dr. Vojislav Seselj, who was then at the beginning of his idyll with the current authorities, declared in a TV duel: "I think that half of the General Staff should be arrested for not having convicted and shot general Trifunovic". The book of Dobrila Gajic-Glisic, published later with the title "In the Office of the Minister of the Army", revelaed that the writer Brana Crncevic also demanded something of the kind. "The Army is hesistating with the trial to Trifunovic", Crncevic said in the office of the Minister. "I know that they say that they had damaged all the equipment and that the Ustashe will need a whole year to render it usable, but nevertheless... Trifunovic has to be publicly tried. The authority of the JNA has been destroyed. Because of Trifunovic too..."

In the past few days, however, somewhat different opinions could be heard too, according to which the "Varazdin case" was not a "product" of official Serbian policy, but that it is exclusively in the competence of the court martial. Some of them claim that the case of general Trifunovic sentenced to eleven years of imprisonment for treason of the state could mean termination of all discussions and disputes about the role and roaming around of the political and military leadership of the SFRY at the time of the bloody dissolution of the country. The convicted general Trifunovic could allegedly serve as a sufficiently strong shield for those who have, instead of a single corps, lost a few republics, and finally the entire former state.

The others believe that the trial to general Trifunovic and his associates is just one in a row and not the end, and that according to the so-called "domino-effect" those who have played a much more important role in this war than the Commander of the Varazdin Corps could soon come on the agenda. They see the true sense of this trial in opening a break which could bring many originators of the dissolution of the former state into a court of justice, in order to measure out the guilt of each and every one of them in proportion with how they acted or failed to act.

Neither one nor the other presumption seem too logical, however. At the beginning of the war, general Trifunovic might have been used as a shield by those who wished to hide their own incapability and responsibilty behind his alleged treason. But at that moment the two judges of the Military Court pronounced a liberating sentence and thus ruined the hopes of those who demanded that Trifunovic be sentenced as soon as possible. Today, it is truly difficult to convince anyone that this man was the main and least of all the only guilty person of having destroyed the combat readiness of the former JNA and the defensive power of Yugoslavia. The thesis that this is just the beginning ("opening of the break") of new, similar court trials is also not too logical, because it is difficult to believe that anyone in the Army leadeship thinks that the Army of Yugoslavia could finally be stabilized by scratching the newly opened wounds.

General Trifunovic himself, before the third trial and in his concluding speech claimed that the following generals from the former Fifth Military District were responsible for persecution of the officers of the Varazdin Corps and his own: Zivota Avramovic, Andrija Raseta and Dobrivoje Prascevic, and from the Supreme Command, major general Veljko Kadijevic and lieutenant general Marko Negovanovic. After a remark that they are all generals who have retired, Trifunovic answered: "Those who have retired, they have taken care to provide appropriate replacements for themselves who would protect their safe withdrawal and fulfill their wishes."

During the trial, the former Head of the JNA General Staff, general Blagoje Adzic admitted (in the role of a witness) that the decision to take criminal action against general Trifunovic was reached by the Army leaders. It was allegedly done in order to prove at court that Trifunovic was innocent and thus, in a fair trial, show the quite agitated Serbian public that this was not a matter of treason, but of saving human lives. Adzic's testimony, just like that of the former Commander of Maribor Corps, general Mica Delic (they both claimed that Vladimir Trifunovic could in no way have got any assistance he had asked for, and that by saving the lives of his soldiers he had made a rational and not a shameful act) did not make much of an impression on the tribunal. It was obviously incomparably more significant for the court what generals Zivota Avramovic, Andrija Raseta and Dobrasin Prascevic had to say, as men who were superior to Trifunovic in the Fifth Army District. They were the chief witnesses of the prosecution, and general Trifunovic turned out to be guilty in the end, among other, even for having obeyed their orders. That is what had put him in a completely hopeless situation.

In his final speech at the trial, the attorney of the defendant, Dr. Jovan Buturovic, presented an interesting detail which speaks a lot about the relation of the court towards the witnesses. Maybe even more about the rating that some of the retired generals have today. Zivota Avramovic who was at a much lower post than general Blagoje Adzic, once the second man of the JNA, arrived at the trial in a military limousine, while Adzic came by public transportation. Avramovic was regularly received by the President of the Military Court in his office, and Adzic was received by noone.

Among the witnesses at the trial were soldiers who had found themselves surrounded by Croatian forces in Varazdin, together with general Trifunovic in September

1. According to the opinion of most of these young men, their Commander was an honourable and brave men who had saved their lives by his wise decision. Neither they nor their parents understand quite clearly the war dictrine of defence "fighting to the last bullet", in a moment when it would have meant just unnecessary sacrifice of human lives. Redzep Selimi from a Romany village near Zrenjanin, who was one of the escorts of the general, claimed that most of the soldiers were ready to surrender after persistent and fierce attacks on the Corps Command. "We were prevented by our commanding officers headed by general Trifunovic who did not leave us even when it was the worst", Redzep says. His father, Zejnulah, would like to shake Trifunovic's hand in gratitude for having brought his son home to him.

Dalibor Nastic from village Zasavica near Sremska Mitrovica, recalls that at the height of the battle in Varazdin, a general whose name he cannot remember, phoned Vladimir Trifunovic and demanded from him to order the soldiers not to use artillery, but only infantry weapons. This young man who was not yet eighteen at the time of the battles in Varazdin and whose mother had found his name in the list of killed soldiers in the Ministry of Defence before he reached home, considers the sentence of the Military Court pronounced to his former superiors unjust and dishonourable.

Sinisa Mrdja, unemployed locksmith from Elemir, reflects similarly. He interprets the Court decision as a true tragedy of people who have saved lives of inexperienced men. Sinisa still remembers how the commanding officers and the soldiers of his corps were received in Belgrade after having left Varazdin in September 1991. "They were telling us that we were traitors. Then they claimed that we should have fought to the last bullet, and they still do. As if Varazdin would have remained in our hands after that. Even if we had survived the battle to the last bullet, we would have remained with the feeling that we had needlessly stained our hands with blood. It all became clear to me when I realized that some people were simply displeased that we have stayed alive", Sinisa Mrdja says with plenty of bitterness.

The fact that he has remained alive is at the same time one of the heaviest items of the charges on account of general Vladimir Trifunovic, which are being expended and supplemented in some newspapers articles and interviews in the past few days. More or less directly they stress that the cult of victim and senseless death are much more important for stability of an army than the act of saving human lives which is denoted as a "shameful act of treason". One of the "chief witnesses" of the third "Varazdin trial", recently retired general Jevrem Cokic, thus remarked a few days ago that the the honour of an officer demanded of general Trifunovic - to commit suicide in the end.

Nenad Lj. Stefanovic (AIM)