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Croatia: U.N. war crimes tribunal experts dig at alleged mass grave site |
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April 19, 2000
GOSPIC, Croatia, APR 18 (AP) - Investigators for the U.N. war crimes tribunal began digging Tuesday at a suspected mass grave site outside this central Croatian town, searching for bodies of ethnic Serbs allegedly killed during the 1991 Serbo-Croat war.
Between 60 and 120 people - mostly Serbs, but also some Croats disappeared in late 1991 and were presumed killed and buried near Gospic, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, Zagreb.
Croatia's minority Serbs took up arms in 1991 to oppose Croatia's independence from the former Yugoslavia. Backed by Slobodan Milosevic's government in Belgrade, Serb rebels slaughtered thousands of Croats. Rights groups believe Croats killed Serb civilians in this small town in revenge.
Tuesday's investigation comes three years after a former military intelligence official, Milan Levar, and two colleagues told the tribunal and Croatia's media about what happened in Gospic. Most of the victims were local Serbs, but also Croats who disapproved the killings, they said.
Levar and his associates blamed the wartime military commanders in Gospic, Gen. Mirko Norac and Col. Tihomir Oreskovic, for orchestrating the murderous campaign. They also claimed that former top government officials - including the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and late Defense Minister Gojko Susak - knew about the killings.
Norac and Oreskovic, as well as former government officials, have denied any wrongdoing.
Tudjman's government had banned tribunal investigations in Gospic. After his death and the ouster of his party from power, Croatia gave U.N. investigators permission to investigate the slayings.
Digging began Monday and is "focused on discovering a suspected mass grave and on exhumation of bodies that may be found" in the village of Obradovic Varos, which is near Gospic, Croatia's government said in a statement.
Reporters are not allowed to approach the site.
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