yugoslavias implosion

of Serbian newspapers and magazines, including NIN, Borba, and
Vreme.
After several of his fighters were killed, Arkan declared in an
interview in September 1991 that the “Volunteer Guard will have no
live prisoners to exchange because every captured enemy soldier will
be shot.” 277 Arkan was directly connected with General Simović, the
Serbian defense minister. 278 The most telling piece of evidence of this
liaison is provided by Dobrila Gajić-Glišić, who writes that Simović’s
staff watched in trepidation as Arkan spoke in a Studio B interview
and gave a sigh of relief when Arkan, asked who his supreme commander
was, replied “Patriarch Pavle” instead of Simović.
The fact that these paramilitaries were for all intents and purposes
indistinguishable from the regular Army units was publicly
acknowledged by both Arkan and Šešelj. 279 Branislav Vakić, the Chetnik
warlord and federal deputy of the Serbian Radical Party, said
that as violence began to erupt in Croatia, Serbian volunteers and
Chetniks “left for those parts of Krajina” at the invitation of the Territorial
Defense and the Serb people.” 280 According to Vakić, the party
was urged by the ypa at the beginning of 1992 to
dispatch our volunteer units to Krajina. I sent a large group of volunteers
from this part of Serbia to be trained at the ypa barracks at
277 ON, September 20, 1991 .
278 http://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/ind/en/040727.pdf Together with
Milošević, Arkan, Jović, Kadijević, Šešelj, and ten others, Simović was found guilty
by the ICTY of participating in (to quote the indictment) a “joint criminal enterprise
that came into existence before l August 1991 and continued until at least June
1992 . … Tomislav SIMOVIC, in his position as Minister of Defense of the Republic of
Serbia from 31 July 1991 until at least 19 December 1991, formed, deployed, and
provided substantial assistance or support to Serb volunteer units and other Serb
forces involved in the perpetration of crimes specified in this indictment .”
279 Željko Ražnatović Arkan: “We’re not a paramilitary formation, we’re fighting together with the
federal army . We’re fighting for the unification of the Serb lands and the Serb army . We want a
new professional Serb army composed only of real heroes and soldiers . As for me, I don’t want
to become an officer .” Borba, May 30, 1992 .
280 Telegraf, September 28, 1994 .
177
ChApter 2