Rich Foreigners from Serb Positions Killed Civilians in Besieged Sarajevo

The film "Sarajevo Safari" by director and screenwriter Miran Zupanič is a story about rich foreigners who paid for the opportunity to shoot civilians in the besieged city from the positions of the Republika Srpska Army.

Author: Jasmin Agić

Whoever thought that there was nothing more to be said about the four-year siege of Sarajevo, that there are no more secrets about the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be surprised by the discovery of new facts and details. Sarajevo Safari, a film by the Slovenian director and screenwriter Miran Zupanič, is one such story, shocking, incredible, and at the same time dark and pessimistic. The truths about the siege of Sarajevo presented in this honest and brutal documentary, which will be shown at this year's AJB DOC, push the boundaries of what one can bear when it comes to understanding war.

Sarajevo Safari talks about the little-known phenomenon of "manhunting", that is, to be more accurate and precise, about rich foreigners who came to the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska near Sarajevo and from there fired shots on the city, killing civilians.

The starting point, the one from which the "adventurers" set off on a manhunt, was Belgrade, Zupanič says in an interview with Al Jazeera Balkans: "At the time, Belgrade had regular flight connections with other countries, and special logistical arrangements were made after the flight. One source says that they were taken from Belgrade by a helicopter of the Army of Yugoslavia to Pale, and according to the second source, they were transported by road. Those higher in rank, more powerful and rich probably had more comfortable conditions while traveling to Sarajevo."

What is the "Sarajevo Safari"?

It was a specific, to a normal person an unimaginable type of hunting - manhunt. During the siege of Sarajevo, rich foreigners who paid a certain fee were allowed to shoot people in the free part of the city from Serb positions. The victims were civilians who, at that moment, found themselves in the sniper's crosshairs of those cruel foreigners.

How many people, according to your knowledge, participated in that "game" of killing?

That phenomenon, of course, was and still remains shrouded in secrecy. We have removed that veil of secrecy to the maximum extent possible, and I cannot give you any concrete answer, because I do not know. But in any case, a whole chain of those who offered those hunting arrangements, those who went on the "safari" and those who took care of logistics and organization in the field was needed.

When did you first encounter this phenomenon?

My producer Franci Zajc first told me about "safari" in February 2019, and I found that story absolutely shocking. We had filmed in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Franci and cameraman Božo Zadravec at the beginning of 1993. Eyes of Bosnia was the first and, I think, the only Slovenian documentary filmed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. They also went to Sarajevo and filmed even more material in late '93 and at the beginning of '94.

Except for the shooting of Faruk Šabanović, all archival footage in the film Sarajevo Safari was filmed by our team. Actually, Franci is most responsible for that film, because he was the one who searched for years and then found people ready to talk about the safari in front of the camera. Unfortunately, there were also those who first agreed to be interviewed in front of the camera, but then changed their minds. After almost 30 years, fear is still present

How involved were the authorities in Pale in organizing the "Sarajevo Safari"?

According to the testimonies, some members of the Army of RS and the Army of Yugoslavia participated in the organization of the "safari". Who specifically and at what level of command, or perhaps even political decision-making level, I do not know. I have no information about the role of the authorities in Pale. I have to say that our intention was not to identify specific people, because, considering how delicate this topic is, that information was not even available to us.

As far as I know, our film is the first to reveal this horrific story to the public. If anyone has programming interest and production resources, they are free to continue looking into this, but I must mention right away that collecting authentic and credible material is extremely difficult.

Who were the participants of the "safari", from which parts of the world, which nationalities?

One source mentions Americans, Canadians and Russians, and another talks about Italians. In any case, they were wealthy and powerful people, with a very specific psychological profile.

Were there people from the former Yugoslavia among them?

No one has confirmed that information.

Was Belgrade a rallying point for transporting foreign adventurers to the Sarajevo battlefield?

At the time, Belgrade had regular flight connections with other countries, and special logistical arrangements were made after the flight. One source says that they were taken from Belgrade by a helicopter of the Army of Yugoslavia to Pale, and according to the second source, they were transported by road. Those higher in rank, more powerful and rich probably had more comfortable conditions while traveling to Sarajevo.

The testimony of a Serbian volunteer from Paraćin reveals that they wore hunting gear. What was the profile of the people who came to kill the citizens of Sarajevo - rich, politically influential, psychopaths, adventurers?

Our film raises more questions than it answers. It is quite certain that in that laboratory of evil that we call the Planet there is also a special kind of people who are, without any apparent reason, ready to shoot anyone who comes across their sights: a child, a mother, any anonymous man or woman. What urges them to do so? What pleasure do they get from that? What kind of power do they have to have someone organize that for them? Where do they come from and where do they go back?

There are countless questions to which I have no answers. But that is not all: foreign intelligence services followed that phenomenon and it seems that no one from the international community intervened to stop this "safari". Why not? That is the most important question for me.

Did they pay for all that and do you have any knowledge of how much it cost, what was the rate for participating in the "safari", where they had the opportunity to kill people as game?

Yes, foreigners paid large sums of money, but no one could tell me exactly how much. One witness claimed that the rates were higher if they shot a child. The same witness, who himself was present several times during that manhunt, says that most of the shots were fired from the Grbavica area.

Let me say something else: I have made a lot of movies in my career, but none are nearly as dark as this one. So dark and so pessimistic. But, on the other hand, it seems extremely important to me that all of us who have the possibility to do so should spread knowledge about the phenomenology of evil in the human being in order to know how to fight that evil. But not with our own evil, but with individual and common good.