Action for Human Rights (HRA) recalls that on December 6, 26 years ago, the unjustified attack by soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Montenegrin reservists on Dubrovnik escalated.
"Only on that day in 1991, 19 people were killed by shelling, 60 were wounded, the library of the International University Center with 20.000 books was burned and the old core of the city under UNESCO protection was significantly damaged. The siege of Dubrovnik began on October 1, 1991 and lasted nine months. For the war crimes committed during the attack on Dubrovnik (attacks on civilians and civilian objects) in the last 25 years, only two people, the former general of the JNA, Pavle Strugar, and his subordinate commander Miodrag Jokić, were convicted before the international court - The Hague Tribunal , although it is generally known that during the siege of Dubrovnik and the occupation of the surrounding area, numerous war crimes were committed against the civilian population in the form of murder, abuse, destruction and looting of property," HRA said.
The announcement adds that the citizens of Dubrovnik lived in a land and sea blockade for a full 240 days, 138 days without electricity and water, they spent more than four months in shelters.
"In the area of Konavle, Dubrovnik County and the coast near Dubrovnik, the JNA forces destroyed village after village, demolishing, looting and burning civilian buildings. Part of the population fled to Dubrovnik, northern Dalmatia and the islands, and the villages remained mostly older residents from many of whom were killed or taken to the JNA camps in Morinje in Montenegro or Bileća in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result of the war in the Dubrovnik area, 116 civilians died, 194 Croatian veterans and 165 members of the JNA from Montenegro died, 443 people were imprisoned in the camps Morinj and Bileća, 33 people were displaced and 2.071 residential buildings were destroyed. Montenegrin state officials have already accepted responsibility for the robbery of cattle from a farm in Grude and negotiated compensation for the equipment seized from the Dubrovnik airport. The State Attorney's Office of the Republic of Croatia announced in 2011 that in 2009, accused eight high-ranking officers of the former JNA of war crimes against the civilian population and destruction of cultural and historical monuments, and that it was proposed to order custody and issue a warrant against them," the announcement states.
HRA adds that new data on the processing of this case is not available.
"The expert of the European Union, Mauricio Salustro, who analyzed and criticized the actions of the State Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro in the investigation of war crimes, suggested in December 2014, in a report submitted to the Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stanković, that state prosecutors proactively approach the investigation of war crimes committed on area of Dubrovnik, because a large number of Montenegrin citizens participated in the war in that area," HRA said.
The announcement adds that Salustro suggested using information on proceedings conducted in other countries, archives of the Hague Tribunal, NGO data, interviewing witnesses in the field, available official documents, etc., for this purpose.
"Although the Special State Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro informed a year ago that its representatives visited the Hague Tribunal in November 2016, "where they searched the database of the Hague Tribunal, in order to collect data and evidence related to the investigation procedures conducted in to the Special State Prosecutor's Office, as well as data and evidence that would indicate that Montenegrin citizens committed criminal acts of war crimes during the armed conflicts on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and among other things in the Dubrovnik area", until today it has not been announced that a single criminal investigation has been initiated because of the crimes committed during the siege of Dubrovnik. We invite the Special State Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro to announce what it has undertaken to date to prosecute war crimes committed on the Dubrovnik battlefield, in accordance with the Strategy for the Investigation of War Crimes from 2015 and the recommendations of EU experts," they said from HRA.
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