UDIK Udruženje za društvena istraživanja i komunikacije
The Association for Social Research and Communication (UDIK)reminds the public of the anniversary of the closure of the Sušica camp, which was established in the former warehouse of military equipment in Vlasenica by Serbian forces, including members of the JNA, paramilitary forces and local military personnel who occupied the city, and which was run by the military and local police. According to the Dossier: Svetozar Andrić, published this year by theHumanitarian Law Center Belgrade, the former general of the Republika Srpska Army ordered the establishment of Sušica on May 31, 1992. The first detainees, women, children and the elderly, were brought to the facility by members of the army and the police. In the following period, people were brought from Kalesija, Rogatica and Šekovići, as well as prisoners from Vlasenica. In the first days of the camp, there were over a thousand Bosniaks. On average, there were about 100-150 prisoners every day. From the end of June, the prisoners were transferred in groups to the Batković camp.
In 2005, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Dragan Nikolić aka Jenki, the commander of the camp, to twenty years in prison after pleading guilty to participating in the 1992 killings, rape and torture of Bosniak prisoners at the Sušica concentration camp.After serving two-thirds of his sentence, Nikolić was released in 2013, and five years later he died in Vlasenica. Dragan Nikolić was the first person to be indicted by the ICTY for crimes committed in SFR Yugoslavia.
Trials for war crimes committed in the area of Vlasenica are also conducted before domestic courts. Several proceedings are ongoing before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. UDIK’s publication “War crimes in Milići and Vlasenica– Verdicts”included three cases brought before the state court for crimes committed in the pre-war municipality of Vlasenica. The court sentenced Predrag Bastah and Goran Višković to a total of forty years in prison for crimes in Vlasenica, while Dragan Marinković was sentenced to eight years in prison for the crimes against the Bosniaks of Milići.
According to the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 955 Bosniak victims went missing in the municipalities of Vlasenica and Milići between 1992 and 1995. Their disappearance is not related to the genocide committed in July 1995. The largest mass grave found in the Vlasenica area is the Ogradica mass grave, from which 232 remains of victims were exhumed in 2003, and the largest mass grave in the Milići municipality is the Zaklopača mass grave, from which 81 remains were exhumed.Thirty-seven victims were exhumed from the Sušica mass grave. The oldest victims are Mujo Begić and Mujo Bektašević, both born in 1903.
Although the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended almost three decades ago, the families of the murdered civilians are still looking for the truth about the fate of their loved ones. We appeal to the state institutions to work more intensively on the issues of finding missing persons and on the prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes. We also appeal to all citizens who have any information about the fate of the missing to finally speak up. Do not be complicitin the politics of forgetting and division. We should try to heal the wounds from the recent war past with joint efforts. This is the only way we can create a healthy democratic society in which the tragic past of the nineties will not and must not be repeated.
