SLOVENE WEEKLY PUBLISHES ARTICLE ON MASS CRIMES AFTER WW II

LJUBLJANA, June 4 (Hina) - There are probably still living witnesses of a mass post-war crime committed by partisan forces from Serbia and Bosnia against Croatian solders and civilians near Maribor in May and June 1945, reads an article in the latest issue of the Slovene weekly 'Nedeljski dnevnik'. The Slovene State Attorney's Office has started an investigation concerning the discovery of a mass grave in old anti-tank trenches during the construction of a ring-road in Maribor. The Office suspects that a war crime had been committed against prisoners of war but it also believes the perpetrators cannot be identified after 54 years. According to the weekly, despite the fact that the archive in Belgrade is not accessible, the names of units which had been stationed in Maribor at the time the crimes had been committed, as well as their chain of command are known. It is only uncertain whether written documents on the dimensions of mass executions can be found in Slovenia. A retired major of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), a Slovene Marjan J. Kranjc, testified that JNA commanders had known about the crime. In 1982, Kranjc was entrusted with counter- intelligence protection of an "Ustashi grave" in Maribor, the weekly claims. It also claims the decision on executions had been made secretly and without any written commands, in the narrowest leadership of the then Yugoslav Communist Party's Central Committee. "According to our information, at the time the crimes had been committed, in May and June 1945, the 16th (Vojvodina) Division had been in Maribor, with its commander Kosta Nadj, and the 17th Division, with commander Blaza Jankovic. This division also included the 2nd Krajina Brigade, the 15th Brigade from Majevica and the 6th Proletarian Brigade, all from Bosnia. Officers and soldiers from that brigade were mostly Serbs. The majority of crimes were committed by the 6th Proletarian Brigade, led by Captain Rade Colak. The commander of the brigade's 1st Battalion was Captain Bozo Hinic, its commander and political commissary was Petar Milenkovic and his deputy was Petar Kuznic. "They were all Serbs and they knew very well about the executions in the woods near Tezno because it was a well-organised, major operation, which lasted from mid-May to mid-June 1945. That is why the above-mentioned persons could testify about the organisation and implementation of the crime is they are still alive", reads the article titled "Decades Hide Executioners in Dust". According to the article, which quotes a partisan who emigrated from Yugoslavia 30 years ago and who had been present at the executions, Croatian soldiers and civilians were taken to the execution site in Red Cross vehicles, tied with wire, in groups of hundred. They were executed in groups of several dozen. "The executioners included minors, women and armed civilians", the weekly quoted the unidentified witness as saying. He also claimed that according to statements by the then commander and the commissary of his unit, 24,000 people had been killed in Tezno, seven kilometres from Maribor. A former Slovene political emigrant now living in Slovenia, Dr Ljubo Sirc, published four years ago a book in which he offered an estimation that about 150,000 persons who belonged to the so-called defeated armies and civilians accompanying them on their flight to Austria, including 15,000 Slovene regular army members, had been killed immediately after World War II in mass executions. (hina) rml