Scandalous: Serbia rehabilitates WWII Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic

14. May 2015.

The Belgrade High Court upheld a motion to rehabilitate WWII Chetnik leader and war criminal Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic. The Croatian government on Thursday assessed that the Serbian High Court's decision to rehabilitate WWII war criminal and Chetnik leader Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic is a wrong and unacceptable attempt at revising history, adding that the Chetnik movement was on the side of evil and that no court decision can change that.

The motion was filed by his grandson, Vojislav Mihailovic, professors at the Belgrade Faculty of Law Smilja Avramov and Kosta Cavoski, and several civil society organisations. They demanded that the court nullify a Yugoslav court judgment of 15 July 1946 that sentenced Mihailovic to death over collaboration with Nazi occupying forces and stripped him of all civil rights.

The rehabilitation process began on 16 September 2010, since when dozens of witnesses and historians had been heard, and tape recordings and other documents examined.

The court found that the judgment against Mihailovic had been rendered at an illegal trial for political and ideological reasons.

The court ruling, which is final, was read out by Judge Aleksandar Tresnjev in a packed High Court chamber, followed by a round of loud applause from most of the audience which included former crown prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party and Hague war crimes tribunal indictee, Vojislav Seselj, an advisor to the Serbian President, Oliver Antic, leaders of far-right organisations, as well as representatives of the nongovernmental organisation "Women in Black".

Despite great media interest, the right to cover the announcement of the ruling had been granted only to the Tanjug news agency and the RTS public broadcaster. Several hundred supporters of the Chetnik movement and far-right organisations gathered outside the court building.

According to legal experts, the ruling makes it possible for the Mihailovic family to claim back all civil rights and have the right to compensation, it creates conditions to officially recognise the existence of two WWII anti-fascist movements and to name streets, schools, sports clubs and other institutions after Mihailovic.

Some Belgrade media describe the ruling as historic, while the SUBNOR association of WWII anti-fascist fighters has strongly condemned Mihailovic's rehabilitation, describing it as "changing the truth, putting salt on an open wound and an insult to our neighbours."

"At the same time, it challenges Serbia's historically undeniable contribution to the defeat of fascism and the unsurpassable victory of the anti-Hitler coalition, of which units of the people's Partisan army were a worthy part," SUBNOR said.

It added that rehabilitating the leader of the movement that committed grave crimes during WWII "is a new act of retribution against hundreds of thousands of victims and their descendants."

tTIn a comment ahead of the announcement of the ruling, SUBNOR had warned that a decision to rehabilitate Mihailovic "would be contrary to the proclaimed state policy, which is founded on anti-fascism as a fundamental principle, and to the EU, which the country aspires to join."

Historians: Mihailovic rehabilitation to negatively affect Serbia's relations with Croatia, Bosnia

The Belgrade High Court's decision of Thursday to rehabilitate WWII Chetnik leader and war criminal Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic was commented on for Hina by historians Slavko Goldstein, Mario Jareb and Tvrtko Jakovina, who said that the ruling would have a negative impact on Serbia's relations with Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where members of the Chetnik movement committed numerous crimes during World War II.

Goldstein, a member of Partisan anti-fascist fighters, led by Josip Broz Tito, said that he had participated in battles with Chetniks in Croatia in the summer and autumn of 1942 and that in an offensive against Partisans, Chetniks burned thousands of houses in Dreznik municipality in September that year.

He added that Chetniks had a garrison near Ogulin and that an Ustasha garrison was located nearby.

"I won't say that they fought together against us, but they were near each other and I can testify that Chetniks collaborated with the occupying Italian army. That is why I regret the Belgrade court's decision to rehabilitate Mihailovic," said Goldstein.

History professor Mario Jareb believes that the ruling should be viewed in two ways.

"It is beyond doubt that Chetniks under Mihailovic's command committed numerous crimes against Croats, Muslims and Serbs who were not their followers, but when we look at his verdict from 1946, despite ample evidence of crimes, the then prosecutors were more set on condemning the policy of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Chetnik movement. In that rigged trial, it was easier to declare Mihailovic guilty as an enemy of the newly founded state than examine concrete crimes that Chetniks committed under his command," Jareb said.

He said that with that in mind, it was not difficult to overrule the original verdict, noting that the judge in charge of rehabilitation had said that the case was not about whether Mihailovic had committed crimes or not but about his not having had a fair trial.

One should therefore differentiate between the Chetnik crimes, which are indisputable, and the 1946 verdict that sentenced Mihailovic to death, said Jareb.

Historian Tvrtko Jakovina stressed that Mihailovic's rehabilitation was a logical consequence of the 20-year-long Serbian advocacy of his rehabilitation.

"He has already been rehabilitated in local textbooks. (His rehabilitation) made it into textbooks earlier than it made it into historiography," Jakovina said, adding that advocates of Mihailovic's rehabilitation were advocates of the Serbian monarchy, a part of anti-communists and a part of those who tried to link the developments of the 1990s with those in the 1940s.

He noted that the ruling would negatively affect Serbia's relations with Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As for broader foreign policy, by rehabilitating Mihailovic Serbia is moving towards recognising two anti-fascist movements and will try to use it to its benefit, Jakovina noted.

However, Mihailovic was convicted in 1946 not only as a political loser but also for crimes committed by Chetniks. The question is what the ruling says about that and how that fact will be viewed, Jakovina concluded, recalling that Chetniks had been removed from the then Serbian royal army in 1943 and that King Petar started negotiations with Josip Broz Tito in 1944.

The motion to rehabilitate Mihailovic was filed by his grandson, Vojislav Mihailovic, professors at the Belgrade Faculty of Law Smilja Avramov and Kosta Cavoski, and several civil society organisations. They demanded that the court nullify a Yugoslav court judgment of 15 July 1946 that sentenced Mihailovic to death over collaboration with Nazi occupying forces and stripped him of all civil rights.

The rehabilitation process began on 16 September 2010, since when dozens of witnesses and historians had been heard, and tape recordings and other documents examined.

The court found that the judgment against Mihailovic had been rendered at an illegal trial for political and ideological reasons.

The indictment against Mihailovic was written by then Serbian communist official Milos Minic. The figures that accompanied descriptions of Chetnik mass crimes, which were actually an attempt of genocide against Croat and Muslim populations, were horrific and the then regime draconically administered death sentences for much less serious crimes than those with which Mihailovic was charged.

Mihailovic's grandson was supported by several rightist Serbian parties, primarily Vojislav Seselj's Radicals and Kosta Cavoski's Liberals, as well as various pro-Chetnik organisations and anti-communist associations, and public figures such as legal expert Smilja Avramov.

According to research by demographer Vladimir Zerjavic, during WWII Chetniks killed, mostly by throat-cutting, 33,000 Muslims and 32,000 Croats. Researchers in Bosnia and Herzegovina maintain, however, that Mihailovic's followers killed around 100,000 Muslim civilians, mostly women, children and elderly people, of whom half were identifiable.

Some of those massacres, such as those in Foca, Gorazde, Vlasenica, Rogatica, Visegrad and Pljevlja, with thousands of victims who did not even put up any resistance, belong to the most horrible episodes of the Yugoslav war history.

The Croat population was most affected by Chetnik crimes in eastern Herzegovina and western Bosnia, as well as in the area between Srb (Croatia) and Drvar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), according to Zerjavic's research.

Gov't, NGOs condemn Serbian court decision on Mihailovic

The Croatian government on Thursday assessed that the Serbian High Court's decision to rehabilitate WWII war criminal and Chetnik leader Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic is a wrong and unacceptable attempt at revising history, adding that the Chetnik movement was on the side of evil and that no court decision can change that.

"The decision by the Belgrade High Court to rehabilitate war criminal Draza Mihailovic is wrong and unacceptable. The Croatian government strongly condemns such an act of historical revisionism because the Chetnik movement, led by Draza Mihailovic, was on the side of evil and injustice, collaborated with Fascist and Nazi forces, was defeated in World War II and no court decision can change those facts," the government said in a press release.

The government concludes that rehabilitating war criminals is in contradiction of anti-fascist values, democracy and cooperation on which modern Europe is founded.

The Anti-Fascist League of Croatia, a recently established association that promotes values of anti-fascism, also condemned the decision to rehabilitate Mihailovic, stating that it was morally and legally dubious.

In a press release the association underscored that the court ruling practically declared Mihailovic innocent and that his collaborationist and criminal Chetnik organisation had been completely rehabilitated.

"The decision represents a direct act of historical revisionism and negates the nature and moral choice of the true anti-fascist struggle of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia against occupying forces and domestic collaborationists, including the Chetniks," the press release says.

The Anti-Fascist League consists of Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past, the Serb National Council, the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Croatia, Jewish associations, a Roma association and other civil society organisations.

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