DOCUMENTARY ON SERB MASS KILLING OF CROATS AT OVCARA PRESENTED IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB ZAGREB, July 14 (Hina) - "True Stories - The Graves", a documentary shot during the exhumation of the Ovcara mass grave near Vukovar (eastern Slavonia) and produced by the London-based Soul Purpose Productions was presented in Zagreb on Monday. In four 40-minute parts, the film documents the tragic fate of more than 200 civilians and wounded people from the Vukovar Hospital, who were brutally killed on 20 November 1991 by members of the then Yugoslav People's Army, on the order of Major Sljivancanin. The film is interspersed with testimonies by family members of the killed and missing, and bears witness to the tough work international experts faced in order to find out about the mass murder and the exhumation of the remains. The scale of the crime is described by international community representatives who took part in the exhumation. The victims were taken out of the hospital, beaten, and then killed. Some had their hands tied and were forced to stand above the grave so that, when killed, they could immediately fall into it. The whole filmed material is an official piece of evidence of the international war crimes tribunal's prosecutor. The screening was organized by Apel, an organization of families of killed, imprisoned and missing Croatian defenders and civilians, and was attended by family members of the killed, imprisoned and missing, representatives of Croatian ministries, of the Croatian Parliament, church dignitaries, of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, and of the UN rapporteur on human rights' office. Ambassadors accredited in Croatia were not present, despite having been invited. The exhumation of the Ovcara mass grave was completed late last year, said Ivan Grujic, the president of the Croatian Government's Commission for Imprisoned and Missing Persons. In the ensuing identification, 79 persons were identified, he said. Thirty hours of documentary material was filmed at Ovcara and it will be submitted to The Hague war crimes tribunal, Grujic said, adding that Ovcara is one of 63 mass graves from which more than 1,350 bodies have been exhumed to date, and unfortunately, it is not the only one in the Danube region of eastern Croatia. According to Belinda Giles, a representative of Soul Purpose Productions, she came to Croatia to spend time with the mothers of the victims, who gave them strength to make the documentary. The trust of the families whose testimonies are part of the film was most important to us, she said. (hina) ha 142134 MET jul 97