European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 7, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Mass murder in the Balkans Borislav Herak s version of ethnic cleansing includes murder rape and looting the bosnian army a women a unit has a reputation for fierceness in combat. Some women captured by the serbs a including Many civilians a have reportedly been raped tortured and murdered. Massacred civilians possibly serbs he in a Street in Vukovan 100 Miles Northwest of Belgrade. The War has been marked by atrocities on both  John f. Burns the new York times of hat Borislav Herak remembers most vividly about the sunny morning in late june when he and two companions gunned Down 10 members of a Muslim family is the Small girl about 10, who tried to hide behind her grandmother As the three serbian nationalist soldiers opened fire from a distance of about 10 races. Quot we told them not to be afraid we would t do anything to them they should just stand in front of the Wall Quot said Herak 21. Quot but it was taken for granted among us that they should be killed. So Shefi somebody said shoot i swung around and pulled the trigger three times on automatic fire. I remember the Little girl with the red dress hiding behind her  As he tells his rambling Story now in a room with potted plants at the Viktor Buban military prison Here Herak stands up from his steel chair shuffles into the open part of the room in his Green Field jacket and faceless Black army boots and demonstrates How he fired from the hip with his Kalashnikov Rifle. With his companions he emptied a 30-Bullet Magazine at a family he had found cowering minutes before in the basement of a Home at aha Ovici a Muslim Village five Miles Northwest of the prison. The particulars Given by the Young serb to investigators and repeated during seven hours of interviews with this reporter amounted to a six month chronicle of the Savage violence that has characterized the bosnian War. Two weeks ago Herak and a serbian married couple now also under arrest for War crimes took the wrong Road while driving their Volkswagen Golf from the suburban town of vog Osca to Lidza in the serbian held outskirts of Sarajevo. At a Roadblock the Trio were stopped by a unit of the bosnian army defending Sarajevo. Almost immediately Herak began telling investigators of his gruesome experiences As a serbian fighter including one incident in which he used a six Inch Hunting knife to Cut the throats of three captured Muslim men who were bosnian soldiers. Until he fled Sarajevo in May and joined the Quot serbian volunteers Quot who have been drafted As auxiliaries to the regular military forces besieging Sarajevo Herak was a primary school graduate who pushed a Handcart for a living at a Sarajevo textile company. Now under article 41 of the old yugoslav criminal code he faces death by firing squad for offences that include genocide mass murder rape and looting. His trial expected to begin next month could make him the first person to be executed legally for crimes committed in Europe s most brutal conflict since 1945. The indictment lists 29 individual murders Between june and october including eight rape murders of Muslim women held prisoner in an abandoned Motel and cafe outside vog Osca seven Miles North of Sarajevo where Herak said he and other serbian fighters were encouraged to rape women and then take them away to kill them on hilltops and other deserted places. The indictment also covers the killings of at least 220 other Muslim civilians Many of them women and children in which Herak has confessed to being a witness or taking part. Although Herak s experiences were limited to a 10-mile stretch of territory immediately North of Sarajevo his account offered new insights into the ways that tens of thousands of civilian victims of the War have died most of them in towns and villages where there have been no Independent witnesses. In addition to the aha Ovici incident a in which four children under 12, two elderly women and four men were killed a Herak described two mass murders of muslims by serbian forces in the Sarajevo area. In the first in Early june Herak said he had watched a serbian unit called the Quot special investigation group Quot machine gunning 120 men women and children in a Field outside vog Osca. Herak said dump trucks had been used to transport the bodies to scrub land beside a railway Yard at Rajkovac near Sarajevo where the bodies were piled in an open pit doused with gasoline and set afire. In another incident with multiple victims that occurred in july Herak said he had seen 30 men from donja biota a Muslim Village three Miles Northwest of vog Osca shot and incinerated in a Furnace at a steel Plant at Loijas a town North of vog Osca. He said some of the men were still alive when they were thrown in to the Furnace. He also described seeing the bodies of 60 Muslim men who he said had been used by serbian forces As a Quot human shield Quot when bosnian forces were trying in August to drive serbian forces off Zug Mountain a 3,000-foot height outside vog Osca. Herak also recounted being taken to a Small farm outside vog Osca where a 65-year-old serbian Volunteer whom he identified As Risto Pusti Vuk had led Herak and three other Young serbs to a Grassy plot one morning in Early june and shown them How to wrestle pigs to the ground hold their Heads Back with their ears and in Zagreb a croatian woman cries at the grave of her son killed in the unrelenting ethnic fighting in the former country of Yugoslavia. A Day after another deadly artillery attack on Sarajevo cemetery workers Bury five civilian casualties. Borislav Herak a serb is accused of 29 murders. Cut their throats. Days later Herak said he used what he described As Quot this skill Quot to Cut the throats of three Muslim men captured fighting for the bosnian army near donja biota the Village outside vog Osca. In effect Herak a Story was the first account Given by a perpetrator to outsiders of How the serbian nationalist forces have carried out Quot ethnic  this is the policy under which serbian leaders seeking to carve out much of Bosnia and Herzegovina for an exclusive serbian enclave have sanctioned the killing of Large numbers of bosnian muslims and croats and their forcible eviction from their towns and villages creating a tide of More than 1.6 million refugees that has created the worst crisis for International Relief agencies in Europe since world War ii. Herak his head shaven by his captors used the Serbo croatian word i scene meaning cleansing frequently to describe his activities As a serbian fighter for which he was paid the equivalent of $6.50 a month. Referring to the killing of the Muslim family at aha Ovici for instance he said serbian commanders called the serbian operation in the Village i scene Prostor or the cleansing of the Region and had told the serbian fighters to leave nobody alive. Quot we were told that aha Ovici must be a cleansed serbian territory that it was a strategic place Between Lidza and Rajkovac and that All the muslims there must be killed Quot he said. Quot we were told that no one must escape and that All the houses must be burned so that if anybody did survive they would have nowhere left to return to. It was an order and i simply did what i was  throughout much of his account which was Given partly in the presence of prison officials and partly with nobody from the bosnian government or army present Herak appeared almost nonchalant. He described details of the killings without any apparent emotion and spoke remorse fully Only when he was pressed for his feelings. Then he appeared conflicted saying at one Point that Quot if there was a god i would not have been caught Quot and at another that he was haunted by the recurring images of the people he had killed. Quot All these things have Fried my conscience Quot he said. But even the threat of execution seemed not to hold his attention for Long. Quot i am sure that i am guilty and even if i am sorry i will be executed Quot he said at one Point. Quot they will stand me in front of a Wall and shoot  later he said he would like to be exchanged for Muslim prisoners held by the serbian forces. On another occasion he suggested that he should be freed to fight on the bosnian Side. Quot i Don t suppose that s possible Quot he said. Quot but if its possible id like  looking pallid with sunken eyes and with fingernails so deeply bitten that some have virtually disappeared Herak said he was haunted at night by the recollection of some of his victims in particular the three Muslim men whose throats he had Cut. Quot i have pictures in my mind of Many things i did and they return every night Quot he said. Quot i sleep i Wake up in a sweat i sleep again i Wake up and smoke and Osman is always there. I have dreamed at least 10 times of Osman saying please Don t kill me. I have a wife and two Small children Quot but mostly his account was offered in a matter of fact manner and always with a keen attention to detail. As he shifted Between one killing and another and Between rapes the Young serb gave the names of Many of his victims. He described where they were killed what they were wearing and what they said immediately before they died. In hours of talking he never changed a detail and fell silent a few times Only when pressed for his feelings. When asked what he would have said to the Mother of one girl he raped and killed he replied  asked repeatedly if he had been put under pressure to talk or promised a fighter sentence or Relief from harsh treatment for confessing to said he had not. At one Point when a reporter asked to Sec his upper body to pulled up his shirt to show that he had not been bruised. But to appeared deeply frightened and asked after one Long session if a visitor would seek the prison governor s Assurance that the guards mostly muslims would not beat him once he had finished telling his Story. The governor bosom muder Zovic gave assurances that he would not be harmed. According to investigators much of what Herak has told them has been echoed by the serbian couple who were with him in the car when he was arrested. The second Man in the car Sreten Damjanovic 31, is said to have been a companion of Herak s at Many of the killings. After investigators confronted him with statements by Herak and Damjanovic s wife Nada 46, implicating him in the aha Ovici killings Damjanovic is said to have replied Quot is that what he said if you put me in a Coll with him i la kill  among those who appear satisfied that Herak is telling the truth is his fatties Sretko Herak a welding technician who is one of about 50,000 serbs who have remained in Sarajevo during the siege. Milica Herak his wife is a serb who was visiting Belgrade the serbian capital when continued on Page 16 Page 14 the stars and Stripe monday december 7,1992 the stars and stripes Page 15