Dr. sc. Zilha Mastalić Košuta for Oslobođenje
The HVO museum is planned to be in the building where the command of the Heliodrom camp was stationed, along with a museum display consisting of military and cultural-historical collections. It is completely obvious that the construction of the HVO museum at this location is an act of revisionism and the alteration and falsification of established historical and judicial facts.
It is inadmissible and inappropriate to erect a museum at the place where the war crime was committed and judged by the International War Crimes Tribunal, the HVO and the HV of the Republic of Croatia, which participated in organizing and committing crimes against the civilian population, and that in a place where in the period from the second half of 1992 until the middle of 1994, it was the Heliodrom concentration camp. On the other hand, I believe that it is a provocation towards all the victims who went through wartime torture camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1992 to 1995.
In this regard, it is important to recall the historical and judicially established facts about the Heliodrom camp.
Mass arrest
By the decision on the establishment of September 3, 1992, signed by Bruno Stojić, Minister of Defense of the HVO, a short time later, on September 22, the Central Military Prison for the area of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna was established as part of the Heliodrom barracks. In the HVO reports, it was stated that in the second half of 1992, civilians of Bosniak and Serb nationality were imprisoned in Heliodrom, who were taken to forced labor for the needs of the HVO.
The managers of the camp were Stanko Božić and Zlatko Aleksovski, and the deputy manager was Josip Praljak. Other personnel in the camp consisted of: guard commander Ante Smiljanić and interrogators: Josip Marčinko, Predrag Čović, Ivan Škutor, Zvonko Vidović Jež and a dozen other guards.
On May 9, 1993, as part of the HVO attack on Mostar, members of the HVO carried out a mass arrest of the civilian population from the part of the city on the right bank of the Neretva River in Mostar, where, in addition to the resident population, refugees, mostly from the area of Podveležje, were housed and Nevesinja. The civilians were taken to the Heliodrom camp.
According to the data of the Commission for Social Protection and Humanitarian Aid, only until June 30, 1993, 6,000 Bosniaks were arrested and detained. Among them were several hundred Serbs and members of the VRS, as well as "disloyal Croats". Inmates from other HVO camps were also brought to the same camp. Given that the number of inmates was increasing every day, it is difficult to determine the final number.
Regarding the captured Bosniaks, the Prime Minister of Herceg-Bosna, Jadranko Prlić, said at a meeting held on July 12, 1993, that these people were arrested for "security reasons". General Milivoj Petković had a similar attitude.
Camp inmates were imprisoned in the following facilities: two sports halls, a school and the central prison, and women and children were detained on the top floor, while solitary confinement was located in the basement rooms. The camp was poorly secured, the environment was messy and neglected, it was overcrowded with inmates, and the hygienic conditions were unacceptable, causing intestinal and respiratory diseases and infectious diseases such as scabies. Camp inmates received very small and insufficient meals. The entrance to the camp was not properly regulated, so anyone had access to the inmates and anyone could take them out to work.
In the HVO camps, crimes were committed against the inmates. They were used for forced labor, for demining minefields, as human shields during attacks by members of the HVO on the combat positions of the ARBiH, the extraction of injured or dead members during their offensives, the construction of houses and the cleaning of Croat houses, for digging trenches and trenches, digging graves and many other forced labors. They were taken mainly to Buna, Bakina Luka, Raštane, Soviče, Risovac and other places in western Herzegovina. The most difficult places to work were the "Vinko Martinović Štela sector", from the Health Center to HIT, the "Benito Sesar sector" from Šemovac to the Health Center, and work in Šantićeva street. Going to the area of Bijelo Polje was especially critical for the life of the prisoners, where every time one of the prisoners was killed during the works. It also happened that camp inmates escaped, after which other camp inmates would later be mistreated.
One of the methods of abusing inmates was sending them to the front lines with wooden guns so that the ARBiH fighters would think they were HVO soldiers and shoot them. At the beginning of September 1993, HVO and HV forces tried to forcibly move the separation line in Šantićeva street with the help of arrested Bosniak civilians. They made them go in groups of a hundred or more with sandbags to meet the positions of the ARBiH. The unfortunate people were hurried from behind by a cannonade of bullets. Some tried to go back to avoid open death, however, HVO members shot at them. The consequences of such actions were a greater number of murdered inmates. Some were killed in front of the barricade they wanted to reach in order to save themselves. Such situations were frequent, and often led to the death, injury and escape of inmates.
Milivoj Petković issued an order that, when establishing the reached lines, HVO commanders can "use prisoners and detained Muslims". HVO commanders regularly submitted requests to give them detainees, with the aim of "necessary works for the defense of the city." The authority to decide on sending camp inmates to forced labor was given to Vladimir Primorac. After the camp inmate was killed during forced labor, the commanders, in a letter to the Heliodrom camp administration, would send a "notice" that their "protégé" had lost his life "from an enemy bullet" and that they had buried him in the "Balinovac harem."
Members of the HVO physically abused the inmates after returning from forced labor, inflicting severe physical injuries, especially in the head and limbs. Those injuries were visible on a large number of camp inmates.
On July 4, 1993, a decision was made ordering "the release of all Serbs who are in prison." After that, a certain number of persons of Serbian nationality remained in the camps and were used for exchanges with the Croatian population, captured in the Serbian camps. Thus, on July 5, 55 persons of Serbian nationality were prepared for exchange in Livno. Given that the exchange did not succeed, the persons were returned to the camp again.
During the mass deportation of civilians to the Heliodrom camp on May 9, 1993, a number of members of the ARBiH were also taken to the camp due to circumstances. Members of the ARBiH of Croatian nationality who were captured on that occasion were even more mistreated. The statements of the camp inmates confirm that their ribs were broken by terrible blows. One witness says that they were "shown as monkeys", asked to simulate an airplane and to throw themselves head and chest into the sand. They slept on boards, they got food once a day in tiny amounts, and they could use the toilet for a few seconds.
According to the Geneva Convention, civilians are protected. Article 23 of the Third Geneva Convention states that under no circumstances may prisoners of war be sent or held in areas where they may be exposed to fire from the combat zone. Article 50 excludes any work of a military nature or purpose in which prisoners of war would be engaged. Working on the front line is contrary to both of these prohibitions. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) responded several times in writing and never received a response. The Herceg-Bosna authorities violated international and humanitarian obligations by using prisoners to work on the front line. Violations of international humanitarian law have been numerous since the beginning of the war in RBiH and resulted in hundreds of killed, injured and wounded. The International Committee of the Red Cross demanded that Herceg-Bosna authorities "immediately" order forces under their command to stop using detainees to work on or near the front line, or to carry out any other tasks that put detainees at risk.
However, relevant sources show us that this practice continued even after that. Some of the prisoners detained at the Heliodrom were released by the HVO, on the condition that "they agree to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina and go to another country". There were also other methods, the so-called more humane solutions, implemented by the HVO towards the Bosniaks, who lived in the part under its control, so through the emigrant community from Prijedor, its headquarters in Zagreb and a private carrier from Karlovac, they were offered emigration to Sweden and Norway at certain prices. According to one of the SIS reports from July 22, 1993, several cases of organized "emigration of Muslims to Norway" were recorded, with 400 DEM per person being charged from the camp inmates from Heliodrom. In addition to Sweden and Norway, there was emigration to Cyprus and Germany.
And that was part of the plan for "humane resettlement", where many residents of Mostar accepted that salvation card in order to save their own lives. Bosniaks were forced to sign a statement renouncing all movable and immovable property in favor of the HVO. It is interesting, for the sake of comparison, that Bosniaks were also forced in the territory under the control of the Serbian aggressor to sign a statement that they renounce all movable and immovable property in favor of the authorities of the Republika Srpska before persecution. In RS, Croats also had to sign it.
In August 1993, several journalists from Western European and American news TV companies and a group of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, with the permission of the HVO, entered the Helidrome. Among them were journalists from Sky News and The Times, who were allowed to visit one cell, the size of an average office, which housed 61 prisoners and 18 beds. The emaciated, drunken-faced prisoners did not want to make statements. In the announcement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, it was pointed out that 15,000 Bosniaks were imprisoned in camps held by the HVO.
At the meetings of the leaders of Herceg-Bosnia held on December 11 and 13, 1993, in order to implement Mate Boban's order to dissolve all concentration camps and detention facilities by December 17 at the latest, they discussed what to do next with the inmates. Berislav Pušić thought it was important to make preparations for sending camp inmates abroad. Ivica Lučić then stated that women, children and the elderly should be freed first. That statement testifies to the fact that women, children and the elderly were still kept in the camps. Lučić stated that most were arrested and detained because their apartments were robbed and the perpetrators moved into them. He suggested that these persons be sent to the part under the control of the ARBiH, and considering that they are pressed there by the problems of accommodation and food, these persons would be a "burden" for them, which would be a good reason for them to move away.
At the next meeting on December 14, it was pointed out that part of the detainees should be distributed so that 10% of the inmates can remain in Herceg-Bosnia. On March 1, 1994, 1,001 inmates were recorded in the Heliodrom, although Boban pointed out that all "detention centers" were closed by December 17. Spomenka Cek from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia pointed out that according to ICRC data, there are still between 4,000 and 4,500 inmates in these camps, of which 1,000 should go to "the Muslim side on the left bank of the Neretva, between 100 and 200 to Jablanica, additional 400 to Zenica and Žepa, and 1,000 to third countries". The other inmates were supposed to be kept in the camps. Camp inmates were kept in those camps even after the Washington Agreement.
Although a certain number of inmates were released from Heliodrom in the period from December 19 to 24, 1993, a large number of them were kept. The authorities of Herceg-Bosnia qualified those inmates as "captured soldiers of the ARBiH" and, as stated by the authorities of Herceg-Bosnia, "they remain in prison until further notice". However, the list included captured civilians, people over 60 years old and children. On March 1, 1994, 1,001 "detainees" were recorded in Heliodrom. The number of prisoners on March 19, 1994 was 882, and there were 216 inmates on forced labor that day. This is especially worrying if we know that the Washington Agreement was signed on March 18, and Boban promised to release all inmates by December 17, 1993. In the order of February 5, 1994, General Ante Rosso asked for "100 green ants", and after the completion of the work, the commander of ZP Mostar "orderly returns the ants to the anthill".
Tuta and Štela
According to the reports of the Military Police Administration, the inmates were in Heliodrom even after the signing of the Washington Agreement, and according to the Report of April 17, 1994, a number of 228 inmates were recorded. Camp inmates were regularly taken to forced labor on the orders and approvals of Ante Rossa, Željko Šilje, Minister Perica Jukić, Marijan Biškić and others, where deaths, escapes and injuries were recorded daily. They were often taken to forced labor for the Croatian army, for the Tigers and Gromovi brigades.
The leaders of Herceg-Bosnia, Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić, Berislav Pušić, Mladen Naletilić Tuta, Vinko Martinović Štela, who knew about the camps and torture in them, were convicted before the International Court in The Hague. did nothing to prevent it, but encouraged actions that led to crimes against humanity. Before the domestic courts, several HVO members were also sentenced to several years in prison for crimes against humanity in the Heliodrom camp.
After all the presented historical and judicially established facts, the question remains: Should this be made a monument by building a museum?
Source: Oslobodjenje.ba