IZETBEGOVIĆ GUARANTEED THE SAFE EXIT OF JNA MEMBERS FROM BISTRIK TO LUKAVICA

EAST SARAJEVO, MAY 30 /SRNA/ - On the day when the final showdown with the JNA began in Sarajevo, the then President of BiH, Alija Izetbegović, landed at Sarajevo Airport together with his entourage, returning from Lisbon from peace talks organized by the European Community.

By decision of Milutin Kukanjac, Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Military District, it was decided that Izetbegović and his entourage would be detained at the airport, and then taken to the Sarajevo Corps Command in Lukavica.

On April 5, 1992, the airport was placed under the control of the Yugoslav People's Army /JNA/ after it was captured by the Sarajevo Corps under the command of Vojislav Đurđevac. Colonel Vidoje Magazin was appointed commander of the airport. This enabled the organization of an "air bridge" that evacuated a large number of women, children and foreign citizens from Sarajevo during April, which lacked the spark to start an avalanche of war.

The delegation with Izetbegović included his daughter Sabina, a bodyguard, and Zlatko Lagumdžija as a representative of the opposition parties in the Parliament of the RBiH.

The commander of the Sarajevo Corps Vojislav Đurđevac testified that General Kukanjac ordered him to receive Izetbegović and his entourage at the airport and bring them to Lukavica, because the roads were blocked and it would be difficult to reach the city, and that it was safest for him to come to Lukavica.

"After a certain time, a transporter from the airport arrived at the Slobodan Princip Seljo Barracks in Lukavica, from which Alija Izetbegović, his daughter Sabina, his companion called Žićo, and I think his last name is Imamović, and Zlatko Lagumdžija emerged.

THE ARRIVAL OF ALIJA IZETBEGOVIĆ AND HIS ENTOURAGE IN LUKAVICA WAS HIS SALVATION

Alija greeted me and asked me: 'General, does this mean that I am a prisoner', to which I replied: 'No, you are saved'. I took Izetbegovic and his entourage into the office of Colonel GagoviĆ, the assistant for background at the Corps Command, and there I offered them coffee, juice...

Alija Izetbegović was visibly frightened and it was obvious that he feared for his life. By the way, General Kukanjac issued a strict order that no one should be harmed and that the reception of these people should be organized in a dignified manner. They spent that night in the barracks in Lukavica," Đurđevac said.

Kukanjac said that in the midst of the terrible fighting around the District Command building and other military facilities in Sarajevo, he ordered General Đurđevac and the airport commander, Colonel Magazin, to take Izetbegović and his entourage to the port building, to provide him with good security, and to treat him as a head of state until a decision was made on what to do next.

"Given that none of his people met Izetbegović at the airport, not even UNPROFOR, and the airport was under our command, there was a danger that armed groups around the airport would capture or liquidate him, with very serious consequences that could arise, first of all for us and for me personally, since the airport was under my direct command.

The option of letting him go was immediately ruled out, because they would kill him. If that had happened, he would have been proclaimed a saint, Muslims and Croats would have remained 'clean hands', and we /Serbs/ would simply have been declared beasts.

I will remind you that at that time the Muslim-Croat leadership in Sarajevo declared Izetbegović a traitor, since on May 1 or 2 he signed the three-way division of BiH in Lisbon, which was otherwise very favorable to the Serbs...

My decision was firm, and it was approved and accepted by the Supreme Command, that I should not negotiate personally and directly with the Muslim-Croat leadership, but rather work through UNPROFOR - that UNPROFOR would be a one hundred percent guarantee for us to leave the city, and a guarantee to the Muslim-Croat leadership that we would leave the city peacefully.

Based on this decision, activities began from 7:00 to 15:00. The leader of all activities related to the exit plan was Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie. Alija Izetbegović was in Lukavica, I was in Bistrik in the District Command, the Muslim-Croat leadership was in the building of the Presidency of BiH, and the Serbian leadership was in Pale...

In order to understand things, it must be borne in mind that all approaches and passages outside the city of Sarajevo for the District Command were blocked, closed and destroyed. The only thing left was Dobrovoljačka Street, through which all our movements were carried out from April 10, 1992," Kukanjac stated in his testimony about the events of May 2 and 3, 1992.

Given that Colonel Đurđevac had serious health problems that day, the initiative in the conversation with Alija Izetbegović regarding the relocation of the 2nd Military District Command was taken by Milosav Gagović, his deputy in the Sarajevo Corps, who proposed that he issue an order through Ejup Ganić to his subordinate units to cease combat operations in the city area, to extract and care for the wounded, to evacuate the dead from the streets, which had been impossible until then, to unblock the Military Hospital, the 2nd Military District Command building and all barracks in Sarajevo, and thus create the conditions for the 2nd Military District Command, headed by General Kukanjac, to relocate from Bistrik in Lukavica.

Izetbegović accepted these proposals and telephoned Ganić, instructing him to do so. It was planned that the next day, 3 May, UNPROFOR representative MacKenzie, the European Community representative Colm Doyle and Radovan Karadžić, who was in Pale, would arrive in Lukavica.

In the morning, 3 May, after MacKenzie and Doyle arrived, Izetbegović gave a guarantee for the JNA Command to leave on the condition that Mackenzie and he would come to the Command with the UNPROFOR members and take them out safely. /to be continued/