E. Detention facilities *55
Since the spring of 1992, the warring factions to the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia operated a variety of detention facilities (camps) throughout the former Yugoslavia.
The Commission received information concerning a total of 715 camps, most of which are now closed. The Commission's information about the exact date of opening and closing of these camps and the number of prisoners is incomplete. *56
Of the 715 camps: 237 were operated by Bosnian Serbs and the former Republic of Yugoslavia; 89 were operated by the Government and army of Bosnia and Herzegovina; 77 were operated by Bosnian Croats, the Government of Croatia, the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council; 4 were operated jointly by the Bosnian Government and Bosnian Croats; and 308 camps for which it is not known with certainty under whose effective control they were.
The camps range in size from small detention centres that temporarily house a few prisoners to camps that house large numbers of prisoners. The duration of their operation varies from days to months. The purposes of the camps vary as well.
Owing to the nature of the several conflicts and the military structure of the warring factions (see paras. 110 - 128 and annex III), the control of camps varies. At different points in time, the same camp may be controlled by the army, the central Government, local and political authorities, the police, various military groups and local armed civilians.
The various groups identified above converted pre-existing structures, such as municipal buildings, administrative offices, schools, sports arenas within the occupied areas and larger facilities on the outskirts of those areas (factories, warehouses, quarries and mines), into camps. Using these pre-existing facilities allows for quick and easy control and displacement of the targeted population of a controlled or conquered geographic region by one of the warring factions. There is no particular distinction between facilities holding prisoners of war and non-combatant civilians.
The camps are frequently used to detain the civilian population that has been forcibly displaced from particular regions. Detention either precedes or follows armed engagements in these regions. Wholesale detention of persons from another ethnic or religious group occurs even when there is nothing to suggest that internment of civilians is necessary for any valid legal purpose (see paras. 129 - 150 and annex III).
Camps are frequently the reported sites of mass executions, torture, rapes and other forms of sexual assault. They are the scene of the worst inhumane acts. These inhumane acts are committed by guards, police, special forces, and others who are allowed to come from the outside to perform such acts.
As the following discussion indicates, the number of camps and the number of reported violations in camps controlled by the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its army are by far the lesser of the warring factions, irrespective of the ethnic or religious background of the detainees they hold. The number of reported violations by the Croatian Government, the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council is larger, particularly against Serbs in Krajina and in eastern and western Slavonia and against Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Herzegovina. The period of time during which those camps were operated in each of these contexts is relatively limited. The two warring factions identified above are however reported to have a much lesser number of violations than those committed by the Serb forces and those working on their behalf, whether in Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina. Camps operated by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are by far the ones where the largest numbers of detainees have been held and where the cruellest and largest number of violations occurred.
The characteristics and patterns of violation in the camps differ widely depending on the controlling authority, the purpose of the camp and the camp commander.
Following is a summary description of camps divided by warring factions in control. *57
1. Bosnian Government camps
Bosnian Government camps are reported to have been the site of cases of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. These allegations include killing and torture of Croatian and Serbian prisoners. The number of reports and allegations are, however, limited. The Commission has not been able to detect any particular pattern or policy of wrongdoing. The Commission has, however, ascertained that the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina has expressed its opposition to these individual violations.
2. Bosnian-Croat, Croatian Defence Council, Croatian Government and Croatian Army camps
The Bosnian-Croat and Croatian Defence Council camps were in Herzegovina. The Croatian Government and Croatian Army operated camps were in the Krajina area, in eastern and western Slavonia and in other parts of Croatia. Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions have occurred in these facilities against Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, including killing, torture and rape. The Commission has not been able to detect any particular pattern or policy in operating these camps. The Commission has information concerning the location and some information about the physical layout and command structure of some of these camps. The Commission also has information concerning the killings and torture inflicted on the interned population, as well as the names of some perpetrators and victims. The largest number of violations reported are in the Krajina and eastern and western Slavonia against Serbs and in Herzegovina by Bosnian Croats and the Croatian Defence Council against Bosnian Muslims. The Government of Croatia has, since late 1993, according to information received by the Commission, condemned these violations and sought to curb their occurrences.
3. ``Bosnian Serb Republic'' camps
The Commission has information that Bosnian Serbs are operating camps where grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law, including killing, torture and rape reportedly occur on a large scale. These camps are mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina and hold Bosnian Muslims for the most part, but also Bosnian Croats. The Bosnian Serbs use camps to facilitate territorial and political control of a geographic region and to expel and eliminate other ethnic and religious populations from that area. The Commission has detailed information concerning some of the locations and physical layouts of some of these camps, including descriptions of the various buildings where prisoners are detained, interrogated, tortured and killed. The Commission also has information about some camp commanders and military units in the areas and individual violators.
The following patterns have reportedly emerged from these camps:
Camps are ultimately intended to achieve ``ethnic cleansing'' (see paras. 129 - 150 and 151 - 182 and annex V);
Groups of camps are established and operated in clusters in various geographical areas and are frequently part of a network. Prisoners are frequently moved from one facility to another. Different facilities often have separate specific purposes like mass killing, torture, rape and exchange and holding of civilian prisoners;
Detainees are sometimes transported from camps within a given region to camps in another region because of overcrowding, anticipated ICRC inspection, visits by the media, exchange of prisoners and as a result of triage for unlawful purposes;
Purposeful humiliation and degradation of prisoners is a common feature in almost all camps;
After a village, town or city is conquered, the local population is rounded up en masse and interned in different locations. During the rounding-up process, members of the population are frequently tortured, raped and killed. Local religious, political, civic, professional, business leaders and prominent personalities are singled out for the worst abuses. On the captors' side, local civil servants, political leaders and particularly the police participate or are involved in the rounding-up process;
Prisoners are forced to surrender their money and valuables to their captors and, if released, these valuables are not returned;
In most instances, captors interrogate prisoners for information about military and strategic information, political affiliation and political belief. Captors also interrogate detainees concerning the personal wealth and family connections of other detainees. Most of the time, the questioning is unrelated to military or security matters. Almost always, interrogation is accompanied by brutality and humiliation and, in many cases, by torture and murder;
The smaller camps house the population temporarily until the captors divide the prisoners into smaller groups and transport them to larger camps or to separate sections of large camps. When prisoners are transported to larger camps, they are often packed tightly into buses, lorries or freight and cattle trains and are subjected to physical and mental abuse. While being transported, prisoners are often killed at random and are denied food, water and access to toilet facilities. When the buses or freight cars reach their destinations, while the prisoners are unloaded, several prisoners are often killed. Sometimes prisoners are transported by car to camps by locals;
Men between the ages of 16 (or younger) and 60, who are considered to be of military age, are usually separated from older men, women and children. These men are transferred to heavily guarded larger camps where killings and brutal torture are prevalent;
At the larger camps, prisoners are subjected to random beatings. Many prisoners are beaten under the guise of being interrogated. Beatings, more severe torture and killings escalate when there has been a Bosnian-Serb military setback and when there are Serb casualties;
Prisoners who are targeted for torture or death at the larger camps include prominent members of the community who are wealthy, educated or politically influential persons in the community. Guards usually have information identifying which prisoners fall into these categories. They obtain that information from their own local population, through coercion and violence from other prisoners or from other detention facilities that are used solely to interrogate displaced populations;
In several instances, prisoners have been forced to inflict injury on each other, sometimes as entertainment for the guards. In other instances, prisoners are mass executed by machine-gun fire;
In most camps (particularly during the second half of 1992 and the first half of 1993), prisoners are killed on a daily basis. Their bodies are sometimes left to rot on camp grounds, disposed of in mass graves abutting the camps and thrown into rivers, ravines, mine shafts and mining pits. The Commission has some information concerning the locations of many of these mass graves (see paras. 253 - 263 and annexes X, X.A and X.B);
Women, children and men over 60 years of age are usually separated from others and taken to separate camps. These camps are guarded and surrounded by fences, but prisoners are usually allowed to walk from building to building within the camp compound. Although fewer killings occur at these camps, torture and particularly rape are commonplace;
Rape is prevalent in the camps (see paras. 231 - 252 and annexes IX and IX.A). Captors have killed women who resisted being raped, often in front of other prisoners. Rapes were also committed in the presence of other prisoners. Women are frequently selected at random during the night. These rapes are done in a way that instills terror in the women prisoner population. The Commission has information indicating that klix as young as 7 years old and women as old as 65 have been raped while in captivity. *58 The group most targeted for rape, however, is young women between the ages of 13 and 35. Mothers of young children are often raped in front of their children and are threatened with the death of their children if they do not submit to being raped. Sometimes young women are separated from older women and taken to separate camps where they are raped several times a day, for many days, often by more than one man. Many of these women disappear, or after they have been raped and brutalized to the point where they are traumatized, they are returned to the camps and are replaced by other young women. There have also been instances of sexual abuse of men as well as castration and mutilation of male sexual organs;
Prisoners in all camps are subjected to mental abuse and humiliation, including barrages of ethnic slurs. Prisoners are detained in unsanitary environments where dysentery and lice epidemics are rampant. Prisoners are often denied the use of toilet facilities. Often, male prisoners of fighting age are packed so tightly in the prison facilities that they do not have room to lie down or sit, or sometimes even to breathe. In addition, prisoners are nearly starved to death and, at best, are given one meal a day consisting of meagre portions of thin soup and bread. In instances where food is delivered to a camp by the ICRC, the food is not distributed to prisoners as intended. Instead, food is retained for the Bosnian-Serb fighting forces or is consumed by the camp guards. Furthermore, medical attention is, for the most part, non-existent at the camps, and often sick and wounded prisoners are buried alive in mass graves along with the corpses of killed prisoners.
The Commission concludes that grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law have been committed over a long period of time, on a large scale, and very frequently in the most brutal, inhuman and degrading manner. These violations are ordered by or known to the camp commanders, the local political leadership and police. Army units may or may not be involved. However, they do not intervene to stop these violations, thereby implying responsibility by omission.
( United Nations Security Council, S/1994/674 - 27 May 1994, Final Report of the Commission of Experts)
Kako ti ruka nije zadrhtala kada se tako olako razbacujes sa ciframa a meni si jucer rekao da podsjecam na cetnika koji laze o zrtvama kada sam napisaop metaforicno da u Drini ima vise bosanskih muslimana nego riba .
