The shelling of Split and the role of Dragan Samardžić

The former longtime Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Montenegro and a soldier who has so far "made it" to the highest rank in the Montenegrin armed forces - Admiral Dragan Samardžić has behind him an unexplained past from the war operations of the former Yugoslav Navy (JRM) during the war in Croatia.

The least known to the public is Samardžić's role during the war in the former Yugoslavia in 1991-1992. years.

From the beginning of his career in the JRM, Samardžić, an artillery-missile officer by specialty, served in the 18th Flotilla of missile ships of the JRM, based in the Lora war port in Split. On January 22, 1991, the frigate lieutenant Dragan Samardžič assumed his first command duty and became the commander of the RTOP-406 "Ante Banina" missile gunboat. The first conflicts soon began, first political, and then armed, between the opposing parties in the former SFRY and turned into a civil war in which the JNA openly sided with the leaders of Serbia and Montenegro, who, as it was officially announced at the time, tried to "preserve Yugoslavia" and prevented the secession of other republics.

The most dramatic after the short-lived war in Slovenia was in the fall and in the winter of 1991 in Croatia, where the JRM then conducted occasional combat operations against the forces of the new, nascent Croatian Navy, and implemented a naval blockade of the Croatian coast. The third and longest naval blockade officially began on November 8 and lasted until December 3, 1991. The JRM implemented the blockades through specially formed operational formations of its warships called tactical groups, of which there were a total of five.

The strongest and most important of them was the Tactical Group (TG) "Kaštela", which carried out the naval blockade of Split. TG "Kaštela" was under the command of frigate captain Zoran Gilić, and it consisted of a large patrol ship (publicly called a destroyer) VPBR-31 "Split", a torpedo boat TČ-224, a patrol boat PČ-176, and missile gunboats RTOP- 405 and RTOP-406. The commander of the latter was then 28-year-old frigate lieutenant Dragan Samardžić.

TG "Kaštela" operated in Split channel and Split gate. From the ships, the JRM members could see how on the islands of Brač and Solta, and on the Marjan hill above Split, the HRM was already setting up and arranging firing positions for its coastal artillery guns and conducting reconnaissance of the positions and activities of the JRM ships.

The HRM command then decided that, despite the fact that it was supposed to come into force soon, in who knows what order, under the auspices of the EU observation mission, the agreed truce, intensify combat operations and try to drive the JRM ships out of the Split water area and thus break the naval blockade of that area which caused enormous damage to the Croatian economy. Thus, on the night of November 14, the Croatian forces managed to use an improvised small torpedo, which was moving on the surface of the sea, in the bay of Bobovišća on the island of Brač, to hit and severely damage the patrol boat PČ-176 "Mukos", in which case three sailors were killed .

After this attack, the Naval Command of the JNA put all its ships on the highest level of combat readiness. In the early hours of the morning, the commander of TG "Kaštela", who was on board VPBR-31, issued an order to the ships in the TG to begin combat operations, and soon VPBR-31 opened fire from its 76 mm guns on the islands of Šolta and Brač, during which several houses and a church were damaged.

The most difficult, however, is yet to come, because at 6.30:31 a.m. the commander of VPBR-XNUMX, frigate captain Dragan Jovin, orders by radio to all the ships of TG "Kaštela", as well as to the forces of the JNA on land, which at that moment were in the war port of Lora, Divulje and Dračevac, to "act according to already determined targets in the city of Split". For the next hour or so, real hell broke out for the people of Split, because the JRM ships sailing in the Split Channel, just a few miles from the city, launched a barrage of all available calibers at the targets in that city.

Miraculously, the commanders of the ground units did not listen to Jovin's order, so no shots were fired in the city from Lora, Divulje and Dračevac. According to Croatian media, 30, 57 and 76 mm caliber shells from TG "Kaštela" ships, among which was RTOP-406 under the command of the future Chief of the General Staff of the Montenegrin Army Dragan Samardžić, hit strictly civilian targets: the "Pomorac" lighthouse on Katalinić hill, the building of the Municipality of Split, the Technical School, the Archaeological Museum, the ferries "Vladimir Nazor" and "Bartol Kašić" in the ferry port, the Gripe complex, the Institute of Hygiene and many other sights of the city.

The old historical core of Split was also hit - the medieval stone houses near the Golden Gate in Diocletian's Palace, and the protected monumental heritage, the popular suburb of Veli Varoš, suffered the most, while several missiles also fell on the eastern suburb of Lučac. Three projectiles hit the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the intersection of Spinutska and Bakotićeva Streets, where the projectiles penetrated through the roof and south wall and pierced the book of the Gospels. In addition, the churches of the Holy Trinity near the Split airport and St. Bartula in the village of Kaštel Štafilić also suffered minor damage. In addition to the monumental heritage, the attack from the ships of TG "Kaštela" that day also suffered numerous civil institutions.

According to Croatian media reports, the "Dalmacijavina" facility in the ferry port, the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, the Health Center building in Antuna Gustava Matoša Street, the "Jadran - Koteks" hotel in Zvončac, as well as about thirty apartments in several residential buildings suffered damage from the shelling. building in the streets of Split and a dozen parked cars, while a grenade hit the roof of the Port Authority building, which luckily did not explode.

In addition to great material damage, the attack from the ships TG "Kaštela" on Split in the early morning of November 15, 1991, unfortunately, also caused human casualties. Engine manager Dinko Maras and engine manager Jure Kalpić died when a shell hit the ferry "Vladimir Nazor", which was tied up in the ferry port at the time. In addition to them, the helmsman of the "Vladimir Nazor" Ante Vidović was injured in the shelling, as well as six civilians - citizens of Split, and the only member of the Croatian Army wounded in this attack - Guardsman Drago Češkić.

On the day of the attack, the Split Clinical Hospital Center, where the injured were brought, had to briefly transfer the work with the wounded and sick to the basement of the hospital for reasons of protection and safety. Croatian forensic experts later determined that the ferry "Vladimir Nazor" was hit by 57 mm caliber shells, which are exclusively used by JRM rocket gunboats in their high-speed "bofors" guns with which these ships are armed.

Croatian investigators officially announced that the ferry was hit, and its crew members - civilians killed and wounded by shells fired from RTOP-405, not its twin RTOP-406 with commander Dragan Samardzic, which was also operating on the pipelines in Split at the time. After the HRM's coastal batteries from Brač, Šolta and Kašjuna intensified their fire, and their shells, the so-called "destroyed" the JRM ships, and the Croatian army shot down two fighter planes of the "Hawk" type that the JNA command sent to help TG "Kaštela", this conflict ended. JRM ships retreated towards Vis and Makarska.

Even today, in commemoration of these events, HRM solemnly commemorates November 15 as the Day of Defense of Split in the Homeland War.

Difficult, painful and full of propaganda

"Vijesti" spoke to several actors of these events who insisted on anonymity, but who more or less identically confirmed the development of the events of that day, disclaiming that it was a very difficult, painful and tense time in which a great country was falling apart, and the actors of the conflict on both sides were exposed to uncertainty and a lot of propaganda, and without the possibilities of fast and multifaceted information available today via the Internet or social networks. Some of the people who were on some of the ships in the composition of TG "Kaštela" and the nearby TG "Vis", which came to her aid, confirmed that Dragan Samardžić's RTOP-406 also opened fire at that time according to the received order.

They claim, however, that the civilian targets in Split were not deliberately targeted, but that it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances - poorly trained operators of certain weapons, and failures, i.e. shifting of the originally set targets. Our interlocutors emphasize that the families of some of the crew members of the ships from the TG "Kaštela", as well as Vice Admiral Mile Kandić himself, the commander of the Naval District of the JNA, were still in Split at the time, which is why, according to them, there is no story that they were deliberately ordered to target each other civilian objectives.

On the other hand, the Croatian side recorded several intercepted radio communications of ships from TG "Kaštela" and TG "Vis", and later published them in the media. From those recordings, it is clear that some civilian targets such as the "Pomorac" lighthouse and the area of ​​Katalinič brijeg were deliberately targeted on orders. Also from the communication it can be seen that the ships tried to correct each other's fire and correct overshoots and undershoots, and that they were aware that they were hitting civilian areas: "Komar (radio call sign for one of the missile boats that participated in the action ), pay attention to the elevation, everything goes over you, there in Varoš. Who is shooting?" - is heard among other things in that communication.

The fact remains that the city of Split suffered significant material damage that day, that numerous civilian and not military facilities were hit, and that two civilians lost their lives, five more were wounded, and only one Croatian soldier was injured.

War crime indictment

In 31, the Croatian Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against 1992 members of the JRM, led by Vice Admiral Milo Kandić, accusing them of war crimes against civilians in the area of ​​Central Dalmatia, carried out from the end of summer 1991 to January 1992.

"By directly commanding, transmitting or executing orders, they are responsible for the death of five civilians and 22 wounded, as well as enormous material damage to civilian, residential and economic facilities of 32 million marks" - it was written in that indictment, on which most of the accused were also found for attacking ships TG "Kaštela" to Split on November 15, 1991 and shelling of civilian targets in that city and on nearby islands.

Among the accused, most of whom were unavailable to the Croatian judiciary because after the war in SFRY they continued their careers and lives in Serbia and Montenegro, there were also several commanders of warships who participated in the attack on Split and nearby islands on the 14th and 15th. November 1991: Commander VPBR-31 Frigate Captain Dragan Jovin, Commander VPBR-34 Frigate Captain Ilija Brčić, Commander TG "Kaštela" Frigate Captain Zoran Gilić, as well as RTOP-404 Commander, Battleship Lieutenant Dragutin Horvat.

Although the list of accused, of whom 31 were found guilty and sentenced to long prison terms, included even a few non-commissioned officers who served on land and to whom no combat-strong units were subordinated, and even the commander of a small and unarmed auxiliary ship of the JRM - of the harbor tugboat, and even an officer of the mechanical and technical profession who was the engine manager on VPBR-31 and as such could not have been an actor in the fire action of that ship around Split, the name of the commander of RTOP-406, the then lieutenant of the frigate, was not found on the list Dragan Samardžić, even though on November 15, 1991, his ship fired 57 mm caliber guns at targets in Split.

When asked whether the State Attorney's Office of the Republic of Croatia (Supreme State Prosecutor's Office) was investigating the role of today's retired admiral Dragan Samardžić as a JRM officer in the attack of TG "Kaštel" on Split, DORH spokeswoman Martina Mihordin told "Vijesta" that "the State Attorney's Office The Republic of Croatia does not act in the first instance and it is not within the competence of that state attorney's office to conduct investigations and file indictments".

"Consequently, we do not even answer the questions "has the DORH ever investigated" anyone" - pointed out Mihordin, recommending to the "Vijesti" journalist to "specify his inquiry with the data necessary to determine the case in question (when a criminal complaint was filed, to whom filed, which police department carried out its part of the proceedings, against which persons a criminal report was filed, who is the filer of the criminal report)", and that we should then turn to the "competent state attorney's office."

They were much more specific in the County State Attorney's Office of Split, whose spokeswoman Rene Laura said that she personally "checked through the records of the County State Attorney's Office in Split and found that Dragan Samardžić does not go through these records, that is, that no criminal charges have been filed against the named person for the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population from Article 120 paragraph 1 of the Basic Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia".

Laura reminded that the County State Attorney's Office in Split "raised the indictment number KT-5/92 of July 7, 1992 against thirty-one (31) defendants for the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population under Article 120 paragraph 1 of the Basic Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia." .

"The factual description of this criminal offense refers to attacks by combat units of the occupying Serbian-Montenegrin army, the so-called "Yugoslav People's Army" in the wider area of ​​the municipalities of Split, Trogir, Kaštela, Solin, Brač and Ploče in the period from September 14, 1991 to January 28, 1992," explained Laura.

Protested official Zagreb, Krivokapić...

When the then rear admiral Dragan Samardžić was appointed as the Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Republic of Croatia in 2008, the member of the Council for Defense and Security - the then President of the Parliament of Montenegro Ranko Krivokapić (SDP) - publicly opposed it due to, as it was announced, "Samardžić's unclear role in the aggression against the Republic of Croatia". .

Some time earlier, when Samardžić was first appointed as the deputy head of the GŠ VCG, the official Zagreb protested at the Government in Podgorica, even though Samardžić's name is not found in the publicly available documents on suspects for war crimes in Croatia either then or today. It is also indicative that when Samardžić, as the then Assistant Minister of Defense of Montenegro Bor Vučinić for Material Resources, was supposed to visit the USA in 2007 as part of a delegation from the Croatian Democratic Republic, it did not approve it precisely because of unexplained circumstances from his wartime past.

Since the acquisition of Montenegrin independence, which found him in the rank of captain of a battleship at the position of commander of the then Navy of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro, Samardžić has held a number of high-ranking positions in the Croatian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense. Although the law allows a maximum of five years, Samardžić was the Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Republic of Serbia for a total of nine years, after which he was the military-diplomatic representative of Montenegro on a resident basis in Austria, in charge of the OSCE and the United Nations. On a non-resident basis, Samardžić also covered the duties of the military attaché of Montenegro in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

In March 2020, the former DPS state leadership appointed him the official military representative of Montenegro to NATO and the EU in Brussels, from which he was finally retired in January of this year by the former Minister of Defense Dr. Olivera Injac. After his retirement, Samardžić became active on social networks and in public, fiercely criticizing the former government of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić, the until recently Minister of Defense Injac and political dissidents of the DPS, and he publicly advocated the formation of a "new, real Montenegrin party".

"Vijesti" invited retired admiral Dragan Samardzic and offered him to answer our questions regarding his role in the attack of JRM ships on Split on November 15, 1991. He resolutely refused to do so. "I don't want to answer any of your questions," Samardžić pointed out, even though only a day earlier on Twitter he called out the "Vijesti" journalist and announced that he was ready to publish everything related to all controversial aspects of his career and service, especially in the last 15 year.

In the mission of "ironing" the relationship

Samardžič was almost invisible to the public after the scandal broke out when his colleague from the combat operations around Split and the central Dalmatian islands in the fall of 1991, the former commander of VPBR-34, captain of the battleship MVCG Iija Brčić, was arrested in Italy on the basis of an Interpol warrant issued by Croatia on the basis of a final verdict for a war crime from 1993.

Brcic, who was accused of shelling Split, Brac and Solta during the war campaign against Croatia, was arrested in November 2007 as a member of the official Montenegrin state delegation that was supposed to attend military exercises of NATO forces in Naples. Croatia requested the extradition of officer Brčić, but the Italian authorities did not grant it, and after spending several months in prison, he was released and returned to Montenegro, where he lived until his death in 2010.

Brčić's arrest in Italy based on the war crime verdict from Croatia then caused a real scandal in the Montenegrin military and political elite, because the arrest in Rome of a high-ranking officer of its army was an unprecedented humiliation for the state of Montenegro with possible other very unpleasant political and legal implications.

A well-informed interlocutor of "Vijesti" said that the long-standing Montenegrin authorities, led by the DPS, were aware that in recent years there was a chance that Croatia would prosecute or arrest some Montenegrin army officers somewhere abroad on secret charges because of what these people were up to. were involved during the war in the former SFRY.

This was then, especially after Milo Đukanović's famous official "regret" expressed in Dubrovnik for the aggression of the JNA and Montenegrin reservists on that city in 1991-1992, tried to be "ironed out" in various political ways in relations with official Zagreb.

"I know for sure that the late Vukašin Maraš once went to Zagreb with an express order to get the Croatian authorities to abandon the criminal prosecution and prosecution of Admiral Milan Zec and Admiral Dragan Samardžić, because their incrimination for the war events around Dubrovnik and Split in 1991 would was very unpleasant and with serious long-term political and legal consequences for the state of Montenegro. It seems that Maraš succeeded in this because the Croats never prosecuted these two", said the interlocutor of "Vijesti", who was once in a high position in the JNA.

Vukašin Maraš (DPS) was the director of the State Security Service of Montenegro for many years and the man most trusted by Milo Đukanović.

He registered a gift gun on himself

During the visit to Montenegro in April 2014 by the then Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army, General Drago Lovrić, Samardžić, after a meeting with his Croatian colleague in Tivat, received from Lovrić as a protocol gift a copy of the new Croatian semi-automatic pistol HS2000 (Croatian Self-Crossing), caliber 9 mm.

According to the claims of "Vijesti" sources, although it is a protocol gift that he received as the then Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army and which by law belongs to the state because it is worth more than 50 euros, Admiral Samardžić kept the HS2000 for himself and managed to register it in his own name as privately owned weapons. Samardžić did not want to answer the questions of "Vijesti" regarding this either.

"I don't admit that anyone at that time hated NATO more than me"

In the spring of 1999, Dragan Samardžić, the then captain of the Yugoslav Navy frigate, fought against the NATO forces that attacked and bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Samardžić then, as retired rear admiral Boško Antic, who was sent from Belgrade to the RMVJ Command in Kumbor during the NATO bombing on a special assignment, distinguished himself in combat operations against NATO aircraft that flew over the area of ​​responsibility, according to his book "War Diary of the Navy". RMVJ.

"The news that the anti-aircraft defense of the Republic of Moldova was effective and hit an enemy plane over Bar quickly spread along the entire coast. Pleasure was on every face. The commander of the tactical group of missile ships, captain of the frigate Dragan Samardžić, gave a vivid description of the event to the journalist of the "War Bulletin of RM". "Well, we showed them yesterday! It was a real struggle. Their fiercest attack yet. They flew to Podgorica, shot the hills around Bar. The bursts lasted for a full hour. They also had hunting protection. We welcomed them readily. Our artillerymen gave them a lot of trouble. The sky was hot, we warmed their wings, some of them were even trying out their parachutes!" - wrote Rear Admiral Antić on May 4, 1999 in his "War Diary of the Navy" (published by Media Center "Defence", Belgrade, 2019, page 143 -144).

By the way, the Montenegrin civil authorities called out the RMVJ, which they could not influence, that it was allegedly deliberately trying to provoke the reaction of NATO pilots and challenge them to bombard targets in Montenegro. As an example of such behavior, the Montenegrin authorities then cited this particular case in which two missile destroyers RMVJ under Samardžić's command, tied to the operational coast of Port Bar, opened fire on NATO planes even though they were flying at heights that were beyond the range of the guns of those ships.

Only a few years later, when the Montenegrin authorities appointed him to high military and political positions after gaining independence, Samardžič transitioned into a staunch supporter and promoter of NATO.

In the campaign for Montenegro's entry into the Alliance, the admiral visited Montenegrin cities and spoke at promotions, so in September 2015 he explained the advantages of NATO membership to citizens in Tivat. In response to the remark of the "Vijesti" journalist that it is distasteful that among the NATO promoters in Montenegro today are those who fought against the Alliance in 1999, Samardžić then said that it was true that he, as an officer of the then Yugoslav Army, participated in that conflict .

"I did go to war in 1999 against NATO, and I don't admit that anyone hated NATO more than me at that time. I'm a soldier and I don't decide when the country will go to war with whom, but the moment we go to war, I don't care who's on the other side and I'll do my best to defend the country and that's what I did in 1999. You know well, where I was then, but I don't think with emotions, but with reason. In this story about integrations, we also need to turn off emotions and decide with reason", said on September 23, 2015, the then Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army, Dragan Samardžić.