UDIK Udruženje za društvena istraživanja i komunikacije
The Association for Social Research and Communication (UDIK)reminds the public of the anniversary of the war crimes against the Bosniaks of Čajniče. During May 1992, Bosniak civilians who were previously captured in the town or surrounding villages, as well as on the road to Pljevlja(Montenegro), were killed at the hunting lodge in Mostina near Čajniče.
According to the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a total of 138 missing persons were reported in the area of Čajniče. Victims from the Čajniče area were exhumed at a total of 32 locations, where nine mass graves were discovered.The largest grave was found inMostina, from which the remains of 18 victims were exhumed in September 2002.Also, six more mass graves were found in Mostina, from which the bodies of a total of 60 victims were exhumed.
The most monstrous story was revealed by a mass grave found in the Čudanj forest in 2006, where the remains of an entire family were exhumed. This was the Mahmutović family from the village of Mahrevići. The remains of Hajrija and her two children, one and a half year old Amrudin and four-year-old Amra, were first found. A bundle containing baby bottles and clothes was found next to them. Just a few hundred meters further on at this location, in a single grave, the remains of Amir Mahmutović, Hajrija’s husband, were also found.
In 2021, UDIK published the book “War Crimes in Čajniče– Verdicts” which documents the verdicts of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for crimes committed against civilians in Čajniče and its surroundings. The Court has sentenced Milorad Živković, Milun Kornjača, Milosav Jovanović, Marijan Jovanović and Slavko Jovanovićto six to eleven years in prison. Duško Tadić and Stevo Jovanović were acquitted.
In June 2015, the Court of B&H confirmed the indictment charging the accused Duško Kornjača with having planned and ordered the persecution of the non-Serb population from the municipality of Čajniče, as the president of the Crisis Staff, later the commander of the War Staff of the Serbian municipality of Čajniče, and the president of the Municipal Assembly and Minister of Defense in the Government of the Serbian Autonomous Territory of Herzegovina, as a conscious participant in a joint criminal enterprise, in the period from mid-April 1992 to the end of June 1992.
Although it is widely known that Duško Kornjača lives in Novi Sad, he remains inaccessible to the judicial authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This year too, we appeal to the Republic of Serbia to stop providing protection to war criminals. By ignoring their crimes and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s efforts to prosecute all those responsible for the war crimes of the 1990s, Serbia is only slowing down the already difficult process of dealing with the past, and is deepening the pain and inflicting new trauma on the families of the victims.
On the occasion of the anniversary, we remember the murdered Bosniak civilians of Čajniče and the surrounding area.