Goran Hadžić

Goran Hadžić (Serbian: "Горан Хаџић"; born 7 September, 1958, Vinkovci, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia) is an ethnic Serbian politician from Croatia who is a suspected war criminal, currently at large.

Prior to the Croatian War of Independence, Hadžić worked as a warehouseman. He became politically active in his youth as a member of the League of Communists. In the late 1980s, Hadžić joined the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and quickly rose through the ranks.

On June 25, 1991, a group of Serbs of eastern Slavonia organized a congress ("Velika narodna skupština Slavonije Baranje i Zapadnog Srema") where they decided to constitute a "Serb Autonomous Oblast" (SAO) of the region, the SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem, and decided to separate the region from the Republic of Croatia which has still been part of Yugoslavia. Goran Hadžić was elected as a candidate to lead the entity's government.

Soon afterwards, this SAO joined with two others and formed the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK).

On February 26, 1992, the Assembly of the RSK replaced Milan Babić with Hadžić as the Premier of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Babić was deposed because he argued against the Vance peace plan, unlike Milošević, so Hadžić took Babić's place as he was reported to have boasted that he was merely "a messenger for Slobodan Milošević". He held this position until December 1994.

In September 1993, when Croatia started Operation Medak pocket, Hadžić sent an urgent request to Belgrade to send reinforcements, arms and equipment. The request was ignored by the Serbian officials, but around 4,000 paramilitaries under the command of Vojislav Šešelj (the "White Eagles") and the notorious "Arkan" (the "Serb Volunteer Guard") arrived to bolster the army of RSK.

In February 1994, Hadžić's presidency ended as Milan Martic was elected President. In 1995, he threatened to have Eastern Slavonia secede from Krajina because of plans to unite Krajina with Republika Srpska. [http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/serbian_digest/192/t192-6.htm]

After Operation Storm in August 1995, parts of RSK in eastern Slavonia remained outside of Croatian government's control. Between 1996 and 1997, Hadžić was the President of the Srem-Baranja district, and after that the region was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia under the provisions of the Erdut Agreement. Hadžić's whereabouts were unknown after that.

Hadžić faces 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in the forcible removal and murder of thousands of Croatian civilians from the Republic of Croatia between 1991 and 1993. His indictment specifically names the 1991 Vukovar massacre of 250 civilians, most of whom were Croat, from the Vukovar hospital in one of the first atrocities of the war.

In 2004, as he was about to be arrested, Hadžić disappeared from his home in Novi Sad, Serbia. In 2005 Serbian media began reporting that he may be hiding in a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Irig, Serbia or in Bijela, Montenegro. [ [http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2005/02/03/feature-02 Goran Hadzic Still Evades Justice] ] He is also said to be hiding in Belarus.

References

External links

* [http://www.mup.hr/1190/1.aspx Wanted for genocide by Croatian authorities]