| Voćin massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of theCroatian War of Independence | |
Voćin on the map of Croatia. Territories controlled by Serb or JNA forces in late December 1991 are highlighted in red. | |
| Location | 45°37′11″N17°32′52″E / 45.619861°N 17.547813°E /45.619861; 17.547813 Voćin,Croatia |
| Date | 13 December 1991 |
| Target | MostlyCroat civilians |
Attack type | Summary executions,ethnic cleansing |
| Deaths | 43 |
| Perpetrators | White Eagles paramilitary unit |
| Motive | Anti-Catholicism,anti-Croat sentiment,Greater Serbia,Serbianisation |
TheVoćin massacre was the killing of 43 civilians inVoćin,Croatia, by theSerbianWhite Eagles paramilitary unit on 13 December 1991, during theCroatian War of Independence. The massacre was carried out after the unit was ordered to abandon the village before theCroatian Army (Hrvatska vojska – HV) recaptured the area inOperation Papuk-91. All the victims were local Croats, save one Serb, who had tried to protect his neighbours. Gunfire was the leading cause of death, though some of the victims were killed with axes or chainsaws, or were burned to death. The victims exhibited signs of torture and were left unburied. On the night of 13–14 December, the White Eagles dynamited a 550-year-old church in the village.
The HV secured Voćin on the night of 14/15 December, the Serb population having left the previous night. Afterwards, Croatian soldiers torched many homes belonging to the Serbs who had once inhabited the village. The area was toured shortly afterwards by then-US CongressmanFrank McCloskey, who publicised the killings at a news conference held inZagreb the next day, calling themgenocide. He persuaded Dr. Jerry Blaskovich, an Associate Clinical Professor at theUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles County Hospital Medical Center to take part in the investigation of the killings.
TheInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) later chargedSlobodan Milošević with the killings andVojislav Šešelj with the deportation of non-Serbs from Voćin. In 2015, theInternational Court of Justice ruled that the massacre in Voćin was not an example of genocide, and stated that Croatia has not produced sufficient evidence to substantiate its claim that Croats were killed by Serb forces in that locality in December 1991.
Within the1991 Yugoslav campaign in Croatia, the 5th (Banja Luka) Corps of theYugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA) was tasked with advancing north through westernSlavonia, fromOkučani toDaruvar andVirovitica, and with a secondary drive from Okučani towardsKutina.[1] This task was essentially consistent with the line expected to be reached by the main thrust of the JNA advancing from eastern Slavonia in about a week. The linkup was designed to facilitate a further advance west toZagreb andVaraždin.[2]
The JNA was stopped by theCroatian National Guard (Zbor Narodne Garde – ZNG) betweenNovska,Nova Gradiška andPakrac, althoughSAO Western SlavoniaTerritorial Defense Forces (Teritorijalna odbrana – TO) units took positions on theBilogora andPapuk north of Pakrac, near Virovitica andSlatina with no JNA support.[3] The TO was supported bySerbian paramilitaries deploying to the village ofVoćin on the Papuk Mountain in October.[4]
The paramilitaries were theWhite Eagles under the control ofVojislav Šešelj. He visited Voćin in the following month and incited the paramilitaries to persecute the Croat population.[5] According to testimonies of surviving residents of Voćin, the White Eagles and several local Serbs terrorised the Croat population,[6] reduced to 80 by late 1991.[7] Prior to the war, ethnic Serbs formed eighty percent of the village's population.[8]
On 29 October, the ZNG launchedOperation Hurricane-91 against positions held by the JNA and the TO near Novska and Nova Gradiška,[9] andOperation Swath-10 against the TO positions on the Bilogora Mountain south of Virovitica.[10] Aiming to exploit the success of Operation Swath-10 and recapture Papuk area, Croatian forces, renamed theCroatian Army (Hrvatska vojska or HV) on 3 November,[11] launchedOperation Papuk-91 on 28 November.[12]
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The HV began advancing in the area ofĐulovac, located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) west of Voćin, on 12 December,[13] and the TO were forced to retreat from the area.[8] In turn, the White Eagles were to abandon Voćin, but were ordered to take no prisoners.[4] They were also instructed to ensure the evacuation of the Serb population. Those who refused to leave were threatened and one man was killed in front of his home.[14]
The killing of civilians living in Voćin and two nearby smaller villages began on 13 December at noon. The White Eagles infantry, supported by at least one tank, moved through Voćin bombing Croat-owned houses and killing civilians. The killings and the destruction took twelve hours and claimed the lives of 43 civilians.[8] The bodies of the victims were mutilated and left on display, presumably as a warning to others, outside Voćin itself, to flee or perish.[15] All the victims were Croat civilians, except one 77-year-old Serb who had tried to protect his neighbours from the paramilitaries. Most of the victims were elderly, including twelve women aged 56–76 and eleven men aged 60–84.[16]
Many of those killed were tortured, beaten using chains and burned.[17] Most of the victims were killed by gunshots, but the cause of death proved hard to establish for eight victims whose bodies were severely burned.[18] A couple was bound with chains and burned alive,[7] two women were killed using axes or similar sharp objects,[18] one of them by several axe blows to her head. Another couple was beheaded and their heads were placed in bags.[17] The Serb civilian who attempted to protect the others was also beaten, tortured using lighted cigarettes and heated chains, and thenflayed.[19]
At 3:00 a.m., the paramilitaries demolished theRoman Catholic church of the Pilgrimage to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Voćin. They used the 550-year-old structure as an ammunition depot. In the wake of the explosion, a single wall of the structure remained standing.[8] It is estimated that several tons of explosives were used for the purpose.[20] At the same time, approximately 20 other Croat inhabitants of villages ofBokane, Krašković, Miokovićevo andZvečevo, further to the south, were reportedly killed.[18]
The HV liberated Voćin on the night of 14/15 December,[13] the village's Serb population having withdrawn the night before. Afterwards, Croatian soldiers torched many homes that belonged to the Serbs who had once inhabited the village.[21] Following the withdrawal of the Serb forces and arrival of Croatian forces, crimes against the remaining Serb civilian population took place.[22] According to the Croatian NGODocumenta – Center for Dealing with the Past,40 Serb civilians were killed during the takeover.[23]
One of the first to arrive in the village following its re-capture was McCloskey, in Croatia on afact-finding mission.[24] McCloskey asked an aide to arrange a press conference inZagreb the next day, while the aide persuaded Dr. Jerry Blaskovich, an Associate Clinical Professor at theLAC+USC Medical Center, sent to Croatia to investigate alleged use ofchemical weapons, to take part in the investigation of the killings of Croatian civilians.[7] At the conference, McCloskey called the killingsgenocide.[24]CNN reporter Mark Dalmish refused to attend the press conference as the network mistrusted reports of the killings, and reportedly only became interested in the event once Blaskovich's involvement was announced.[7]
The victims' bodies were taken to the nearby town ofSlatina for forensic examination on 17 December.[18] Mackley contacted Croatian authorities and obtained permission to document theautopsies of the victims, but was denied access by authorities in Slatina. Mackley telephonedCroatian Defence MinisterGojko Šušak asking him to intervene on his behalf, but the local police allegedly disobeyed Šušak. Thespecial police was deployed to Slatina to enforce Šušak's order to cooperate, almost causing an armed clash over the issue. To settle matters, a team was sent to Slatina byZagreb University's Institute for Forensic Medicine to perform autopsies, retrieve bodies and perform the rest of the procedures in Zagreb.[7]
Survivors who took shelter in basements or cornfields, as well as a captured member of the paramilitary forces, later testified about the killings and identified the White Eagles as the perpetrators.[7] In addition, the withdrawing paramilitaries left critical evidence behind, including personnel records, which confirmed that the force had been White Eagles associated with Šešelj. An American war crimes investigator for the United NationsInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Special Agent John Cencich, corroborated the information in an interview with a high-level inside witness linkingSlobodan Milošević, then president ofSerbia to the killings.[17] The ICTY charged Milošević with the deaths of 32 civilians in Voćin.[25] Milošević was subsequently arrested andtried, but he died before his trial was completed.[26] The ICTY also charged Šešelj with involvement in the forced deportation of non-Serb civilians from Voćin.[27] Šešelj was ultimately acquitted of all charges.
In March 2014, Croatia alleged before theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) that the massacre in Voćin was part of a larger campaign of genocide targeting the Croat population of Slavonia. In 2015, the ICJ ruled that although the material presented raises ground for grave suspicion about what occurred in Voćin, it is not sufficient to confirm that Croats were killed by Serb forces in that locality.[28]
