The nongovernmental association Documenta on Tuesday paid its respects to the victims of the 1991 war atrocities committed by Serb rebels and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in Vukovar and Skabrnja and presented data on the prosecution of war crimes.

The NGO underscores that no one from Serbia’s state leadership, except middle-ranking military officers, were convicted of war crimes perpetrated in Croatia from 1991 to 1995.

It recalls that the fall of Vukovar into the hands of the JNA and Serb paramilitaries on 18 November 1991 marked the end of a three-month siege during which over 6.5 million shells had fallen on that eastern Croatian city.

“The 18th of November is an occasion to remember all the victims in Vukovar and its environs. During those three months, more than 3,000 Croatian soldiers and civilians, including 86 children were killed,” it recalled adding that after the fall of Vukovar, hundreds of defenders and civilians were exposed to torture in camps, including camps in Serbia.

Calling for a more efficient prosecution of crimes, Documenta recalled that JNA Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin and Vojislav Seselj were convicted of war crimes in Vukovar by the Hague tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and that the trials of wartime Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, Slavko Dokmanovic and Goran Hadzic were discontinued after they died.

In Croatia, more than 80 persons have been convicted of the Vukovar crimes, mostly in their absence, while Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office has filed a number of indictments for crimes committed in Lovas, Sotin, Ovcara, Bogdanovci and Vukovar, Documenta said.

For the crimes in Skabrnja, the Hague tribunal’s prosecution accused Milosevic, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, two former Yugoslav security officers. The latter two are being retried by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

The Stanisic-Simatovic trial could represent a form of reparation for victims’ families and it is also important because it may redress the fact that no one from Serbia’s state leadership, with the exception of lower ranking JNA commanders, has been convicted of crimes committed in Croatia, Documenta said.

The Hague tribunal convicted Croatian Serb rebel leaders Milan Martic and Milan Babic for the crimes in Skabrnja and Nadin, but not one JNA or Territorial Defence member has been held to account for those crimes by a Serbian court.

In 2018, Belgrade’s Humanitarian Law Fund requested the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office to launch an investigation on a criminal complaint filed by the fund in 2017 against JNA or Territorial Defence members for the killing of 48 Croatian civilians in Skabrnja and Nadin in November 1991.

In the Skabrnja case, Croatian courts have delivered two convictions against 16 persons, two of whom were present during trial at Zadar’s County Court, Documenta said.