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| War Crimes | |
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| Directed by | Michael G. Thomas, Nick S. Thomas |
| Written by | Michael G. Thomas, Nick S. Thomas |
| Produced by | Michael G. Thomas, Nick S. Thomas |
| Edited by | Michael G. Thomas, Nick S. Thomas |
Release date |
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Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Languages | English, Serbo-Croatian |
War Crimes is a 2005 film starring John Jenner and Earl Palmer. It was written and directed by Thomas Bros.
War Crimes is a low budget ($10,000) British feature film made in the UK in 2005 and set in 1992, during the traumatic events of the split up of Yugoslavia. The film is based in Bosnia, and 40% of the dialogue is in Serbo-Croatian language. This project was shot on Digital Video and is currently being distributed by ITN. This film was shot on location in Wales and England, and features a multinational cast from Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Greece, the UK, and the USA.[ citation needed ]
Storyline
A group of six friends, recently graduated in the UK travel to Bosnia in 1992. As fighting breaks out around the capital Sarajevo the friends are forced to escape overland to the border whilst the fighting spreads. After witnessing a horrific massacre in Bosnia they are pursued by a ruthless Yugoslav People's Army Officer and his brutal Chetnik fighters. With the weather worsening, limited supplies and murderous soldiers behind them, will they ever make it out of Bosnia alive?! Written by Spearhead Films" [1]
Željko Ražnatović, better known as Arkan, was a Serbian mobster and head of the Serb paramilitary force called the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars.
The Siege of Sarajevo was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army, the city was then besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska. Lasting from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996, it was three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad, more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad, and was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of earlier violent incidents. The war ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, the latter two entities being proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.
The Serb Volunteer Guard, also known as Arkan's Tigers or Arkan's men, was a Serbian volunteer paramilitary unit founded and led by Arkan that fought in Croatia (1991–93) and Bosnia (1992–95) during the Yugoslav Wars and was responsible for numerous war crimes and massacres.
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs and other ethnic groups. As Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbia's President Slobodan Milošević and Croatia's President Franjo Tuđman began pursuing nationalist politics. In 1990, an armed insurrection was started by Croatian Serb militias, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups, who seized control of Serb-populated areas of Croatia. The JNA began to intervene in favour of the rebellion, and conflict broke out in the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia in May 1991. In August, the JNA launched a full-scale attack against Croatian-held territory in eastern Slavonia, including Vukovar.
The Washington Agreement was a ceasefire agreement between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, signed on 18 March 1994 in Washington, D.C. It was signed by Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdžić, Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić and President of Herzeg-Bosnia Krešimir Zubak.
The Republika Srpska was a self-proclaimed statelet in Southeastern Europe under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War. It claimed to be a sovereign state, though this claim was only partially recognized by the Bosnian government in the Geneva agreement, the United Nations, and Yugoslavia. For the first six months of its existence, it was known as the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the "Homeland War" and also as the "Greater-Serbian Aggression". In Serbian sources, "War in Croatia" and (rarely) "War in Krajina" are used.
The Višegrad massacres were acts of mass murder committed against the Bosniak civilian population of the town and municipality of Višegrad during the ethnic cleansing of eastern Bosnia by Republika Srpska police and military forces during the spring and summer of 1992, at the start of the Bosnian War.
The Ahmići massacre was the mass murder of approximately 120 Bosniak civilians by members of the Croatian Defence Council in April 1993, during the Croat–Bosniak War. The massacre was the culmination of the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing committed by the political and military leadership of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia. It was the largest massacre committed during the conflict between Bosnian Croats and the Bosniak-dominated Bosnian government.
Radovan Karadžić is a Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He was the president of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War.
The Siege of Srebrenica was a three-year siege of the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina which lasted from April 1992 to July 1995 during the Bosnian War. Initially assaulted by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG), the town was encircled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in May 1992, starting a brutal siege which was to last for the majority of the Bosnian War. In June 1995, the commander of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) in the enclave, Naser Orić, left Srebrenica and fled to the town of Tuzla. He was subsequently replaced by his deputy, Major Ramiz Bećirović.
Operation Vrbas '92 was a military offensive undertaken by the Army of Republika Srpska in June–October 1992, during the Bosnian War. The goal of the operation was the destruction of a salient around the central Bosnian town of Jajce, which was held by the Croatian Defence Council and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The intensity of fighting varied considerably and involved several major VRS offensive efforts interspersed by relative lulls in fighting. Jajce fell to the VRS on 29 October 1992, and the town's capture was followed by the destruction of all its mosques and Roman Catholic churches.
Ratko Mladić is a Bosnian Serb former military officer and convicted war criminal who led the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Yugoslav Wars. In 2017, he was found guilty of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The Kravica attack was an attack on the Bosnian Serb village of Kravica by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) from the Srebrenica enclave on Orthodox Christmas Day, 7 January 1993. During the Bosnian War, the Srebrenica enclave was besieged by the Serb forces who rarely allowed humanitarian aid to enter the area, creating hunger and lack of medicine among the Srebrenica inhabitants. It is alleged that the ARBiH attacked, among other objectives, in order to find food, but also to acquire weapons, ammunition and military equipment. The attack was organized to coincide with the Serbian Orthodox Christmas, leaving the Serbs unprepared for any attack. 43-46 people died in the attack on the Serb side: 30-35 soldiers and 11-13 civilians. The event is still marked by controversy. Republika Srpska claimed that all the homes were systematically torched by Bosniak armed group, but this could not be independently verified during the trial of Naser Orić by the ICTY, where the judges concluded that many houses were already previously destroyed during the war. The civilian casualties in the village led to allegations by Serbia that Bosniak forces had carried out a massacre. Orić was acquitted of the charges relating to the killings, and later acquitted of all charges on appeal.
The Stupni Do massacre was a massacre committed by Croatian forces on Bosniak civilians during the Croat–Bosniak war in the village of Stupni Do in Vareš municipality. It was committed on 23 October 1993 by Croatian Defence Council (HVO) units called "Apostoli" and "Maturice" led by Ivica Rajić, who pleaded guilty before ICTY for war crimes in October 2005. The Croat forces took control of the village and massacred most of the captured people. They raped the women before killing them and looted all houses before setting them on fire. The confirmed number of victims is at least 37.
The Bijeljina massacre involved the killing of civilians by Serb paramilitary groups in Bijeljina on 1–2 April 1992 in the run-up to the Bosnian War. The majority of those killed were Bosniaks. Members of other ethnicities were also killed, such as Serbs deemed disloyal by the local authorities. The killing was committed by a local paramilitary group known as Mirko's Chetniks and by the Serb Volunteer Guard, a Serbia-based paramilitary group led by Željko Ražnatović. The SDG were under the command of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which was controlled by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.
Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries. Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"". According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".
Around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, 1 March 1992, a Bosnian Serb wedding procession in Sarajevo's old Muslim quarter of Baščaršija was attacked, resulting in the death of the father of the groom, Nikola Gardović, and the wounding of a Serbian Orthodox priest. The attack took place on the last day of a controversial referendum on Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence from Yugoslavia, in the early stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars.
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