JOSIP JURCEVIC, WITNESS FOR DEFENCE, TESTIFIES IN SAKIC TRIAL

ZAGREB, July 5 (Hina) - The trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the World War II concentration camp of Jasenovac, continued on Monday before the Zagreb County Court with the testimony of Josip Jurcevic (aged 48), a professor of the 20th century history at the Croatian Studies. Sakic is being tried for war crimes against civilian population. "The data on Jasenovac are not scientific data, but a myth the former state used for political purposes", said Jurcevic, the author of a book called "The Creation of the Jasenovac Myth". Jurcevic claims that while investigating the number of WWII victims, he realised that all investigations about the Jasenovac camp and estimates about the number of victims were aimed at creating the "Jasenovac myth". Such a myth, he believes, was a powerful means of propaganda used for repressing national processes in former Yugoslavia. The first one to point to the fact that Jasenovac was a myth was Franjo Tudjman, Jurcevic said. Supporting this claim, Jurcevic quoted a Serb academician Vasa Bogdanov, who, speaking about Jasenovac in 1962, said that "everything is being directed towards an ill-intentioned, slanderous, chauvinist and reactionary generalisation that all Croats are Ustashi". Jurcevic further claims the creation of the Jasenovac myth had already begun during the war, with the setting up of commissions to establish war crimes committed by the occupying forces and their collaborators. "The results of those commissions were used in the country for dealing with the opponents of the regime and for strengthening the political system, whereas on the international scene those results were used so that former Yugoslavia could receive as high war reparations as possible". Jurcevic reminded that after the war, the State Commission for establishing crimes committed by the occupying forces and their collaborators had visited Jasenovac and found only about 50 bodies. On that occasion, members of the commission spoke with several survivors, including Mihajlo Maric, who has testified in the Sakic trial. In his testimony, Maric spoke about 1,400,000 victims. "The State Commission concluded that between 50,000 ad 600,000 people had been killed in Jasenovac, and upon summarising all victims the commission mentioned in flat numbers in their materials, one arrives at a figure of some 50,000 victims". According to the witness, not one of the three post-war lists of victims had been scientifically confirmed. "It is not possible to establish the number of Jasenovac victims in the way it had been done by the former state", Jurcevic said, also dismissing numbers presented by Vladimir Zerjavic. Jurcevic claims that anthropological research and exhumations in the Jasenovac region have not confirmed the "Jasenovac myth" either. Several hundred skeletons were found during several exhumations conducted in the 60's, Jurcevic said, adding the camp had been completely forgotten between 1945 and 1961. Speaking about the camp organisation, Jurcevic referred to a book by Dragomir Djoic called "Ustashi Crimes in Jasenovac Camp as an Example of NDH's Repressive System", which said that the Ustashi had been in charge of securing the camp, while prisoners had been in charge of the camp's internal organisation. There were several categories of prisoners in charge of internal organisation, called "logornik", "grupnik", "stotnik" and "desetnik". According to Jurcevic, a "logornik" was almost completely free and lived in the village of Jasenovac. He carried a gun and was able to move freely, while a "grupnik" was in charge of specialised areas, that is, working groups, Jurcevic said. Jurcevic's testimony was interrupted by an electricity failure and the trial was postponed for tomorrow. (hina) rml