The Criminal Law Aspects of the Massacre in the Area of Slatina on September 4th 1991

Original scientific article

Abstract

In the period from 1990-19995 the members of the Serb Democratic Party of Slavonia on the territory of the Republic of Croatia had stimulated Serbian people to implement civil disobedience towards the legally elected authorities of the Republic of Croatia; to show national intolerance against Croats and other non-Serb persons. In co-operation with the YNA, they provided arms supply and organized armed rebellion of the Serbian people. The main goal was to disconnect the state territory of the Republic of Croatia, where the RSK was stretching, and to integrate the same into the integral concept of the common state of the Serb people, into Greater Serbia.
There is an indisputable fact that the domicile Serb extremists and terrorists, “Šešelj’s men”, “Arkan’s men”, the “White Eagles”, the YNA and other armed rebels and war criminals had committed a criminal offence against humanity, international humanitarian law and criminal offence against the Republic of Croatia, according to the then applicable legislation: the Criminal Code of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, according to the Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, according to the General Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia.
In the course of war the actors of armed rebellion did not respect the provisions of the international humanitarian law, in particular the provisions and the protocols of the Geneva Conventions. In addition, their aggression continued to be contrary to the positive legislation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and it went on even after the international recognition of the Republic of Croatia.
In addition to the war criminals who have been extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, Netherlands, a significant number of perpetrators of various war crime offences in the Republic of Croatia have been tried and sentence in absentia. The largest number of war crime perpetrators is located on the territory of the Republic of Serbia and the Republic Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a certain number of them has fled to the countries of the European Union as well as to the overseas countries (the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia).
The war criminals from Slatina area escaped mostly to the Republic of Serbia, where they all where they all acquired citizenship, and a smaller number of them fled to the Republic Srpska or to third countries. A very small number of these war criminals has been accused of the crimes committed and there is very little chance that they will be extradited to the judiciary of the Republic of Croatia and legally convicted. This perception is the reality that has been lived by the victims to the Greater-Serbian violence and by the families of the dead Croatian soldiers and of dead persons of other nationalities in this area every day.