Operation Tango - SAS in Prijedor, Bosnia, 1997 - updated

[2RHPZ]

As U.S. Shifts in Bosnia, NATO Gets Serious About War Criminals

By Richard H. Curtiss

"If there was a heart of the Bosnian darkness, it was Prijedor."?Author Christopher Bennett, Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 1997.

"Fear of casualties is what inhibits NATO and keeps it from hunting down the 70-odd known Yugoslav suspects still at large. But it has to be understood that a demonstrated readiness to take casualties can be precisely the factor that enables soldiers to avoid being shot at." ?Washington Post editorial, July 11, 1997.

"The bad guys know?or think they know?that the United States will not take casualties. They will test us." ?Columnist Richard Cohen, Washington Post, July 15, 1997.

A report attributed to "U.S. intelligence sources" early in July warned, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA had "prepared a secret plan to capture" indicted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and turn him over to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Probably no one took it seriously but Karadzic, who reportedly had surrounded himself with 200 bodyguards as he pursued a power struggle with his former prot?g?, "Republic of Srpska" President Biljana Plavsic.
Plavsic, whose political base is in western Bosnia around Banja Luka, seemed to have forgotten that her role was to govern the Serb half of Bosnia in name only while waiting for U.S.-led NATO troops to withdraw by June 30, 1998. Then, instead of adhering to the Dayton accord for a tri-partite Muslim, Serb, and Croat-ruled Bosnian Republic, Karadzic, whose political base is around Pale in eastern Bosnia, would decide whether to go it alone in the Serb-ruled 49 percent of that republic, or allow it to be annexed by President Slobodan Milosevic, who governs Serbia and Montenegro in the name of the Federation of Yugoslavia.
Therefore tension had soared in July after Plavsic, whose extreme Serb nationalism echoes or even exceeds that of Milosevic and Karadzic, issued a public denunciation of Karadzic, accusing her former mentor of enriching himself through a monopoly on the customs-free gasoline and cigarettes flowing freely into the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.
When it came, however, the strike by NATO troops, called "Operation Tango," was not launched against Karadzic. Instead, at 9:30 a.m. on July 10, British special forces, posing as International Red Cross officials, talked their way into the hospital at Prijedor, 120 miles northwest of Sarajevo, and seized its director, Milan Kovacevic.
Kovacevic had been deputy mayor of Prijedor in April 1992 when he allegedly participated in rounding up the city's Muslim inhabitants and then helped supervise their imprisonment in the notorious Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje internment camps, where many allegedly starved or were beaten or shot to death. Kovacevic surrendered without resistance and was flown in an American helicopter to the U.S. military base at Tuzla and then taken in a U.S. C-130 military transport aircraft to The Hague to face trial.

When it came, the strike by NATO troops was not launched against Karadzic.

At the same time, other British commandos surrounded at a reservoir near Prijedor a party of four fishermen that included Simo Drljaca. Drljaca had been forced to step down as Prijedor police chief on charges that he led the Bosnian Serb takeover of the city in April 1992 and subsequently conducted a campaign of harassment that reduced the city's Muslim population from 50,000 then to virtually none today. As a logistics assistant to the Republic of Srpska's interior minister he continued to spend much of his time with the Prijedor police, and was in charge of providing false documents and safe houses to other Bosnian Serbs wanted on war crimes charges.
Drljaca, who escaped capture once before by pointing a machine gun at Czech troops who sought to detain him, opened fire on the British special forces troops, wounding one in the leg. But this time he was killed in a hail of gunfire and his companions, who included his 17-year-old son and a brother-in-law, were detained temporarily.
The simultaneous raids aimed at Kovacevic and Drljaca, both of whom allegedly had enriched themselves on the property and possessions of ousted Muslims, followed the June 27 capture of Slavko Dokmanovic, the Serb former mayor of Vukovar, by troops of the U.N. Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, an area of Croatia that was occupied by Serbs in 1992 and which is scheduled to be returned to Croatia. Dokmanovic has been indicted in the killing of Croats who took refuge from occupying Serbian forces in a Vukovar hospital.

Approval at the Highest Levels
The June 10 raids by British forces with U.S. logistical support were said to have been approved three months earlier and again just before they were carried out by President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Apparently timed to take advantage of the absence of Drljaca's usual police escort, they came just one day before the second anniversary of the July 11, 1995 capture by Serbs of Srebrenica, which had been under the protection of Dutch troops in the United Nations force that subsequently was replaced by NATO forces. Some 9,000 male Muslim residents and refugees who had been in the city were massacred, allegedly under the direct supervision of Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic. Mladic and his erstwhile civilian commander and political rival, Karadzic, are the two most notorious of the 76 mostly-Serb alleged war criminals indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Of these, according to Human Rights Watch, "only 10 have been taken into custody."
The top-level approval for the raids was not the only U.S. policy reversal in Bosnia. Neither of the two Serbs targeted on July 11 were among the 76. Instead, they were among subjects of additional secret indictments. News that "many more" such secret indictments had being issued elicited two reactions.
Karadzic activated his Srpska Radio and Television (SRT) to incite Serbs to reprisals against NATO forces, warning that "anyone who carried a gun" in Serb forces during the three years of fighting might be seized. Meanwhile NATO officials said that the secret indictments served notice that henceforth no one who participated in war crimes against NATO forces, warning that "anyone who carried a gun" in Serb forces during the three years of fighting might be seized. Meanwhile NATO officials said that the secret indictments served notice that henceforth no one who participated in war crimes in Bosnia could rest easily.
More significant reversals took place in the rhetoric of American officials. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shalikashvili have maintained that it was not the mission of NATO forces to detain war criminals, and that the 8,000 U.S. troops remaining in the 31,000-member NATO force in Bosnia would be out of Bosnia by June 30, 1998. Now, after the reversal on the ground regarding war criminals, Pentagon rhetoric concerning withdrawal has become more flexible, as State Department language has been all along. President Clinton also opened the door to discussion of a further U.S. presence. He told reporters on July 12, "I believe the present operation will have run its course by then [June 30, 1998] and we'll have to discuss what, if any, involvement the United States should have there...I think it's been a very good thing we've done and I hope the American people would be very proud of it."
Although the rhetoric emanating from Congress remained characteristically overblown, the words were not matched by action.
The Senate put the Clinton administration on notice July 11 that it wants U.S. troops out of Bosnia next June, but it did not include a cutoff of funds for the operation in the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 1998. The train of events, which reflects Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's tougher approach to foreign affairs, especially in Bosnia, also shows careful planning. Since Britain and France have been allied with the Serbs through two world wars, the Bosnian Serbs have considered those two powers their advocates within NATO. Conversely, the Serbs consider the United States, because of its long-standing ties with Muslim Turkey and Saudi Arabia and its more recent alliance with largely Muslim Egypt, Serbia's principal NATO adversary.
The use of British troops in "Operation Tango" obviously was designed to signal the Serbs that the NATO allies are united on the question of arresting war criminals. Initial Serb retaliatory acts were aimed at both British and U.S. forces in Bosnia. There were explosions but no injuries where British troops are stationed. One American was stabbed outside his residence, and another was wounded by one of a series of attacks with grenades or other explosive devices. However, neither American was seriously injured.
Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom remains that the United States was so traumatized by the loss of 18 soldiers in an unsuccessful mission to hunt down a Somali warlord in 1993 that, faced with military casualties, it will withdraw from peacemaking or peacekeeping operations as it did then. As a result, Karadzic almost certainly will orchestrate Serb reprisals against U.S. forces, knowing that if they leave, so will the remaining NATO troops.
It seems from its latest actions, however, that the Clinton administration understands this. Statements by U.S. officials indicate that Serb reprisals will trigger further direct NATO action. Such reactions might include a major strike to seize Karadzic despite his heavy personal security, or perhaps the destruction of the radio station Karadzic is using to stir up reprisals against the NATO forces.
However the immediate situation plays out, a new and more coherent American policy finally is emerging. The U.S. now seems prepared to stay in Bosnia as part of a NATO peacekeeping force. It presumably will continue to lavish aid on the Muslim-led multisectarian Bosnian government, withhold all aid from the Serbs until they cooperate on apprehension of war criminals, and condition aid to the Croats on their performance in allowing displaced Muslims and Serbs to return to their homes in Croat-held parts of Bosnia, and in Croatia itself.
Already economic conditions in the war-devastated but foreign aidsaturated Bosnian government areas are far superior to those in the less damaged Serb-held areas. The latter are paralyzed by Karadzic's corruption and the dearth of foreign aid. With the U.S. now seemingly prepared to "stay the course" laid out by the Dayton accord, it's not only possible but even likely that the long-expected "next round" of fighting in Bosnia will be postponed from next year to never.


BTW, there was strong discussion in Europe afterwards on the way how SAS operators get Kovacevic - as they possed as Red Cross officials.

CAG 147

[2RHPZ]

A little bit more on the background for this operation. At the time of releasing this report Mr. Drljaca didn´t know what will go on in July. ;)

Helsinki Watch on Prijedor's War Criminals

From Human Rights Watch / Helsinki Report (vol.9, No. 1 Jan. 1997)
The Prijedor opstina, or administrative district, includes at least seventy-one smaller towns and villages. The names of some are now familiar due to the atrocities which took place there; among them are Kozarac, Omarska, and Trnopolje. While the towns and villages within the wider prijedor district have their own officials, they are governed by the opstina. Thus, the Prijedor authorities wield influence over a considerable area. Prijedor was considered strategically important town by Bosnian Serbs, who wanted to create a corridor between Serbia proper and the Croatian Krajina, which was until 1995 controlled by rebel Serbs in Croatia. as early as 1991, the sebs organized a Serb-only alternative administration in orstina Prijedor, under the guidance of a central administration in Banja Luka. The designated Serb "mayor" was Milomir Stakic, a medical doctor who functioned as deputy mayor under the duly elected Bosniak mayor of the town, Muhamed Cehajic.
After the Serbs took power on April 30, 1992, they opened at least four detention camps in the Prijedor opstina. Two of the concentartion camps, Omarska and Keraterm, were places where killings, torture, and brutal interogations were carried out. The third, Trnopolje, had another purpose; it functioned as a staging area for massive deportations of mostly women, children, and elderly men, and killing and rapes also occured there. The fourth, Manjaca, was reffered to by the Bosnian Serbs as a "prisoner of war camp", although most if not all detainees were civilians.
"Despite the absence of real non-Serbian threat, the main objective of the concentration camps, especillay Omarska but also Keraterm, seems to have been to eliminate the non-Serbian leadership," the U.N. Commission of Experts found. "From the time when the Serbs took power in the district opf Prijedor, non-Serbs in reality became outlaws. At times, non-Serbs were instructed to wear white arm abnds to identify themselves...according to Serbian regulations, those leaving the district had to sign over their property rights and accept never to return, being told their names would simultaneously be deleted from the census."
According to Ed Vulliamy, the first journalist to report from the Omarska camp, "Omarska was a monstrosity: an inferno of murder, torture and rape. It was a stain upon our century."
During the period when many persons were interned in the concentration camps, family members sometimes tried to obtain information from the police station in town. "Instead of receiving nformation concerning the whereabouts of their family members, they were in some cases offered the alternative of paying for an "exit visa" for the family at large. In order to receive an "exit visa", sums of money had to be paid to various municipal authorities and to the local "red Cross", run by the Bosnian Serb authorities, and real property had to be signed over to the municipality.
The Commission of Experts determined that the systematic destruction of the Bosniak community in the Prijedor area met the definition of Genocide.
The persecution of non-serbs in Prijedor did not ease after international pressure succeeded in forcing the Bosnian Serbs to close the concentration camps in 1992, as evidenced by the ICRC's attempt to evacuate all remaining non-Serbs from Opstina Prijedor in March 1994.
As documented by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, a final wave of mass expulsions of non-Serbs from Prijedor and many other towns in Serb-controlled territory occured in September and October 1995, when the infamous Zeljko "Arkan" Raznatovic joined local forces to conduct "ethnic cleansing" operations. Forced expulsions in Prijedor began on October 5 during which those expelled were again forced to finance their own "ethnic cleansing" by paying transportation fees to the local "Red Cross" and were harassed, robbed, and threatened while waiting for the buses which would later dump them at the confrontation line.
One woman told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki during a 1995 investigation of the expulsions, "All the Muslims from the city [Prijedor] were expelled. We went to the [local] Red Cross, gave them seventy DM for each family member and got on the buses...There were thirteen buses in the convoy leaving from Prijedor and Teslic. Men were taken off my bus...My husband was taken off the bus in Blatnica, a Serbian village in the woods." She had not seen her husband since.
Many draft-age males were separated from their families during round-ups in other Bosnian Serb-controlled areas, and transferred to Prijedor, where they were interned at the "Autoprevoz" facility or pther locxal detention centers. Following the officil closing of the camps in 1992, and until the present, rumors have abounded about the reopening of the Omarska, Manjaca, and Keraterm camps, but Human Rights Watch/helsinki was unable to confirm them. prisoners released from "AUtoprevoz" in an exchange told the Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that when the International Comittee of the Red Cross tried to visit them, they were moved by bus onto the Kozara mountain and hidden until the visitors had gone awy.
Oppression of the now minority Bosniak and Bosnian Croat populations throuout Republica Srpska continues today through restrictions on freedom of movement; evictions and expulsions; arbitrary arrest and detention; ethnicxally motivated harassement and direct physical attack; denial of employement, humanitarian assistence, medical care, and socil insurance; discrimination in acces to education; and restrictions on religious freedom.
THE ROLE OF THE PRIJEDOR AUTHORITIES DURING THE WAR AND AFTER THE SIGNING OF THE DAYTON PEACE AGREEMENT
The "Crisis Committee" and Co-Conspirators
In 1992, the "Crisis Committee of the serbian District of Prijedor" (Krizni Stab Srpske Opstine Prijedor) was established to organize the takeover of the town by Serbs and to eliminate the non-Serb popuilation through a systematic "ethnic cleansing" campaign coordinated with Serbian and Bosnian Serb army and paramilitary units. The goal of the "Crisis Committee" was to establish complete Serb control over the Prijedor opstina, to arm Serbs within that area, to block communications of non-Serbs, to destroy multi-ethnic relations in all sectors of the community through the use of propaganda (to instill the local Serb population with the fear that they were under threat from non-Serbs), to provide logistical support and production for the army through the atkeover of industry and production units, and to conduct the organized and meticulous larceny of funds from non-Serbs through control of the bank, appropriation of property, and burglary.
Crisis comittees were formed in a number of towns and villages i Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to facilitate the takeover by Serb forces and authorities. The "Crisis Committee" in Prijedor, aided by many othrs, targeted non-Serb community leaders and bussiness owners, many of whom were summarily executed or intimidately rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps, particularly in Omarska camp. During the preiod when such committees were being set up in various towns in 1992, the Prijedor Bosnian Serb authorities secretly began developing nine new police stations. In early April 1992, Serb police officers in Croatia amd Bosnia and Herzegovina simultaneously left the established police forces to form their own police. Simo Drljaca headed the secret effort in Opstina Prijedor to create such a force. The local Prijedor police, according to numerous witness accounts and independent investigations, played a mojor role in violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during and after the war. Local police were often involved in para military-type activities, suh as armed attacks on civilians in and around Prijedor, and in interogations and torturw in the concentration camps.
A number of current officials in Prijedor were members of the Crisis Committee, including the recently-ousted but still powerful police chief Simo Drljaca; current Mayor Milomir Stakic; the president of the local (self-designated) Serbian Red Cross, Srdjo Srdic; and Prijedor Hospital Director Milan ("Mico") Kovacevic (previously) president of the Prijedor Executive Committee, or city council). According to the U.N. Commission of Experts, Slobodan Kuruzovic, now director of a local nespaper, was an officer in the Bosnian Serb Army, a key military figure on the "Crisis Committee" and the commander of the Trnopolje concentration camp.
Other alleged abettors in the "ethnic cleansing" include Deputy Mayor Momcilo Radanovic (nom de guerre "Cigo"), who has been accused of atrocities in Kozarac and in the concentration camps; Marko Pavic, director of the PTT (Post Office, Telegraph and Telephone); and Milenko Vukic, director of the electric company.
Several police officials and numerous police officers have been accused of participation in war crimes. The civil, secret, and military police provided the camps with guards and interrogators. Joint police and miliotary "intervention units" were used to trace and capture the non-Serb leadership. These units participated in mass killings.
According to the Commission of Exp[erts, "members of the 'Crisis Committee' ran the community in which all these violations occurred. They participated in administrative decision-making. The gains opf the systematic looting of non-Serbian property were shared by many Serbs on different levels."
A local resident of prijedor recently told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that the "Crisis Committee" "got rich during the war through theft and looting of those killed, and through bribery [i.e. freedom offered for cash]. They alsos tole businesses of those killed. That is how they got dsome of the bussinesses they now have in Prijedor. Othres took that money and opened bussinesses and companies. Only those with connections to these guys can have bussines because that is the only way to be sure you are protected." Those without connections or those who refuse to pay protection money run the risk of having their bussiness destroyeds or worse.
A survivor of Keraterm and Trnopolje told Jadranka Cigelj in November 1992:
I blame the following for atrocities that were committed: 1. The entire county authorities -- [includin] president of the county Milomir Stakic, medic by profession; 2. The local police forces -- chief of staff Simo Drljaca, a lawyer, and head commander Zivko Jovic; 3. Simo Miskovic, leader of the Serbian democratic party, a policema from the communist era, now retired and successor to Srdjo Srdic, now president of the Prijedor Red Cross; 4. An army representative, Colonel Arsic...who was in charge of the brigade which destroyed Pakrac and other Slavonian and Banian towns and villages, he particpated in the events annd gave orders; he and Major Radmilo Zeljaja practically controled all the evnts until now, therefopre, the destroyed town of Kozarac is now called Radmilovo in honor of Major Zeljaja."
Another survivor of Keraterm also mentiones the names of some of those responsible for "etnic cleansing":
I have not [yet] described here the horrible sufferings of famished , sick and beaten people, who died in the worst pain imaginable,