GRABOVAC: GENOCIDE COMMITTED AGAINST SERB CIVILIANS IN BROD IN 1992

BROD, OCTOBER 6 /SRNA/ - Genocide was committed against Serb civilians in Brod in 1992, and despite an expert report on the crimes being submitted to the Hague Tribunal and the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, no one has yet been held accountable for them, even more than 30 years after the end of the war, President of the Organization for the Search for Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians from Brod Marko Grabovac told SRNA.

He said that members of the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defense Council, acting in coordination with Muslim forces, occupied Brod for seven months, during which time there were seven camps for Serbs through which several hundred detainees passed.

After the Republika Srpska Army entered Brod, Grabovac said, seven mass graves were found, one of them at the City Cemetery, where the bodies of 88 murdered civilians and soldiers were discovered.

Grabovac said that an expert report on the genocide committed against Serb civilians in the area of the former municipality of Bosanski Brod in 1992 had been prepared and submitted to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office and the Hague Tribunal.

"The expert report contains evidence of mass graves of Serbs, the bodies of murdered Serbs and Roma, Serb women who were raped, the torture of Serb detainees, burned Serb property and villages, as well as signs that were displayed on buildings where members of the Croatian-Muslim forces were stationed in the Brod area," Grabovac said.

He said it was completely unacceptable that, even more than 30 years after the end of the war, no one had been held accountable for war crimes committed against Serbs in Brod.

"In addition to Nijaz Čaušević, known as Medo, from Slavonski Brod, a large number of those who ordered and carried out war crimes against Serbs in the Brod area were also named in the criminal complaint we forwarded in 2001 to the Hague Tribunal, the BiH Prosecutor’s Office and the Croatian judiciary," Grabovac said.

Brod will tomorrow mark Municipality Day and the 34th anniversary of its liberation in the Defensive-Patriotic War, when the Republika Srpska Army ended the seven-month occupation by the regular Croatian army and Croatian-Muslim paramilitary units.

Units of the Republika Srpska Army entered Brod on October 6, 1992, and General Slavko Lisica declared October 7 the Day of Liberation.

The liberation of Brod was part of Operation Corridor, one of the largest and most significant operations carried out by the Republika Srpska Army, together with members of the Ministry of the Interior, during the Defensive-Patriotic War.

More than 2,500 soldiers from the Brod municipality took part in the Defensive-Patriotic War, 244 of whom were killed and more than 500 wounded.