Take denazification as a model - Bring all Serb war criminals to justice at last!

All the war criminals still alive in the Serb administered half of Bosnia and Herzegovina must at last be brought to justice on the model of denazification in post-war Germany, demands the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). The General Secretary of the GfbV, Tilman Zülch, welcomed the arrest of the four suspected war criminals suspected of being involved in the massacre at the Vlasic mountain. The human rights worker criticised however the fact that thousands of criminals, are still at liberty and even in office - mainly in the Republika Srpska.

According to statements made by survivors at least 20 Serb policemen known by name were involved in the massacre, of whom only nine have been arrested, said Zülch. One of the organisers of the deadly convoy to the Vlasic mountain, the commander of the Serb concentration camp Trnopolje, Slobodan Kuruzovic, a teacher in the town of Prijedor, lived in freedom as deputy head of a primary school, director of Radio Prijedor and for a short time until his death in May 2005 as a pensioner in the Republika Srpska.

At least 253 Bosnians fell victim to the massacre at the Vlasic mountain on 21st August 1992. They belonged to the approximately 3000 prisoners from the Serb concentration camps Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje and Manjaca, who were brought in buses towards "free territory”. The convoy stopped at the Koricani cliffs on the Vlasic mountain above the Ugar valley near Smetovi. All the men between 13 and 55 years had to get out, go in pairs with their hands behind their backs to the abyss and kneel down. Then the prisoners were shot and cast 300 metres down below.

The GfbV has the statements of twelve survivors, who in spite of their shot wounds were able to save themselves.