UNS info

25. 04. 2024.

Author: Jelena S. Spasic ???source???: УНС

UNS’s files on murdered and missing journalists

Death on Medena Glavica

A war reporter for Radio Novi Sad and Radio Foca, he graduated journalism in Sarajevo in 1987, but began seriously working in this profession only when the war broke out. He worked as a journalist for a little over a year.

June 10, 1993, was a Thursday. Journalist Ranko Elez, known as Ziko, was supposed to get engaged to his longtime girlfriend from Foca in two days. But on that Thursday, at the last moment, he grabbed his backpack and jumped into a “Pinzgauer” to report from the location of Medena Glavica, important for the Army of the Republic of Srpska, which they managed to capture on the previous night. It was a journey from which he would never return. A single bullet killed him on the spot. He was 32 years old.

Ranko Elez was born on January 1, 1961, in the hamlet of Borjanice, in Miljevina, the municipality of Foca. He was the first of three children of Milorad, a miner from the coal mines in Miljevina, and Rajka, a housewife.

He loved football since childhood, and he played for the club “Rudar” in Miljevina, earning the nickname Ziko after the famous Brazilian. Even today, when Ranko’s closest relatives, his sister Slavojka and brother Branko, speak of him, they refer to him as Ziko.

- He completed elementary school in Miljevina and attended the traffic-technical high school in Sarajevo. He graduated in journalism in 1987 from the Faculty of Political Science “Veljko Vlahovic” in Sarajevo. After completing his studies, he returned to his hometown of Miljevina, where he worked as a freelancer for Radio Foca - says Slavojka Filipovic, Elez’s sister who is four years younger, to UNS.

- He was also actively involved in politics, especially during the start of the state’s dissolution. In the end of 1990, the first multi-party elections were held in the SFRY. The electorate in the then Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided along national, i.e. religious lines. Ranko Elez, like most Serbs, supported the Serbian Democratic Party.

- Ziko was an active member of the SDS in Foca, as many still talk about today. As such, he knew every corner of the municipal territory because he worked extensively in the field before the first multi-party elections. Later, when the war broke out, it wasn’t difficult for him to report from this area either - says Janko Filipovic, president of the Municipal Organization of Families of Captured and Fallen Fighters and Missing Civilians in Foca, a young man who is Ranko Elez’s nephew but who doesn’t remember him because he was very young when he was killed.

The war in Foca officially began on April 8, 1992. From that date, according to the “Monograph of Fallen Fighters and Civilians in the Defensive-Homeland War in the Municipality of Foca 1991-1995”, Ranko Elez was a participant in the war, in which he was a journalist in his unit, according to the same source.

- He had significant involvement in organizing the defense of Foca immediately after the attack by Muslim forces before the official establishment of the army of Srpska - says Janko Filipovic.

Until the beginning of June 1992, the crisis management committee commanded the Territorial Defense units. The Army of the Republic of Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina, later the Army of the Republic of Srpska, was founded on May 12, and the area of the municipality of Foca and mobilized fighters belonged to the Herzegovina Corps, which covered a front over 300 km long, from Trebinje in the west all the way to Visegrad, i.e., the Drina River in the east.

- Ziko was in the Tactical Group (TG) “Foca”, which was later renamed TG “Drina”, which was actually a command of the Foca Brigade, and he was simultaneously involved in journalism - explains Filipovic, who found information about Elez’s exact deployment in his death certificate.

War reporters were in high demand at the time. Journalist Drago Todorovic, who had been working at Sarajevo’s “Oslobodjenje” since 1980 and also reported for Radio Sarajevo, left the Sarajevo and returned to his native Foca in 1992, becoming a war reporter for TV Novi Sad. He introduced his friend Ziko to the job, who often stayed with him in the apartment during the 1980s when he came to Sarajevo to take exams.

- When the war broke out, I mostly reported from the Gorazde frontlines, from Treskavica, Bjelasnica, and Ziko began his practical journalism career for the first time in war, with me. Since I was a reporter for TV Novi Sad, I suggested he work for Radio Novi Sad - says Todorovic for UNS.

At the time, the chief editor of the news program at Radio Novi Sad was Budimir Markovic, originally from Foca.

- We had reporters from all war zones, and we hired Ranko when the conflict reached the Foca-Gorazde front in the spring 1992. He reported objectively, without bias or excessive passion, but professionally. None of his reports from the field were filled by strong nationalism or hatred; it was purely a report on the situation. He was a decent man, a professional, friendly, and peace-loving; such individuals are rarely born - says Markovic for UNS, recalling one incident from the beginning of the war.

- Ranko was having lunch at my place in Novi Sad, and said: “Brother, this will not end well. I fear 1941 could happen again and massacres like the one on the bridge over the Drina River. But most of all, I fear the innocent people on both sides would suffer. They have instilled so much hatred in us”. We looked at each other, unable to eat. He said: “I don’t know what we can do to help, but I’m going back, I won’t run away from Foca, I won’t abandon the people”.

Not all his material could be sent from the front, so he had to bring reports himself to Radio Novi Sad.

- The entire editorial team loved him. Unfortunately, there are no longer any recordings from Ranko from the front because the entire audio library was destroyed in the bombing of the RTV Novi Sad building in 1999 - he emphasizes.

Bloody St. Nicholas Day - Massacre in Josanica Budimir Markovic also clearly remembers the bloody St. Nicholas Day of 1992, a day when members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina killed 56 Serbs, civilians ranging from a two-year-old girl to an 88-year-old man, in the Foca village of Josanica. It wasn’t just “murder”, but a massacre and brutalization of Serbs.

 

- Ranko called me and, with tears, said: “Help, brother, what can be done for those who are still alive” - Markovic says.

In the very beginning of the war, Elez had the opportunity for employment that might have changed everything.

- He was offered to be the director of the Cultural Center in Foca, which was actually Radio Foca. He declined because he already had a salary from RTV Novi Sad, but mainly because it would mean removing someone he respected from that position. “Should I leave the person who taught me journalism without a job?”, he said and rejected the offer - his sister Slavojka Filipovic says, adding that he also reported on the war for the SRNA agency.

The beginning of June 1993 was relatively calm in this part of the front. Nothing significant was happening. It was the lull before the “Lukavac 93” operation, which would start one month later and involve the Herzegovina Corps.

- Foca was ours at the time; we were pushing the frontlines towards Gorazde and we even reached the Drina River. Everything was under our control and peaceful in the municipality of Foca. However, Cajnice was in trouble, so we went to help them, to push the frontline. It was the first time we went to the Cajnice territory, where we stayed for about fifteen days, maybe even longer. We fought on a front about ten kilometers wide. Medena Glavica was one of two important and dominant hills for Cajnice, situated between that place and Gorazde, a 45-minute drive from Foca through rugged terrain. It's actually a ridge, uninhabited, where fortifications and trenches were built during the Austro-Hungarian era - says Dragan Djurovic, known as Djuro, deputy commander of the intervention platoon “Dragan Nikolić”, named after its first commander, who was killed in the very beginning of the war.

Djurovic says that about 120 people passed through his platoon, and they always went to the most difficult places.

- My pre-war friend Ziko was with us in a number of operations. As a journalist, but also as a fighter. In the beginning, he spent some time in his Miljevina, but then mostly with us – Djurovic says.

One day before he came to the fatal Medena Glavica, Elez was in his native Borjanice, at the funeral of his uncle, who was killed.

- He told his mother he would be back by Saturday. He was planning to get engaged to the girl he had been with for a long time. At the time of war, you come a day or two earlier and you are get engaged, married, baptized... Nothing was planned in advance; nothing was made grand - sister Slavojka says and adds that the woman he was supposed to marry had passed away a few years ago.

When he returned to Foca on the evening of June 9, Elez went to his friend Vlado Djajic, with whom he was in Sarajevo during the studies.

- I don’t have a brother, Ziko was like a brother to me. Ranko Miloradov Ziko, as we affectionately named him – was a poet, human being, rebel. He was ashamed just to report, so he fought when he had to. In those days, it was rather hard on the front towards Cajnice. The fighting was going on for about ten days, and Ziko left the front near Cajnice two days before his death because his village, at Miljevina, was attacked at the same time. When the attack on Miljevina was repelled, on June 9, 1993, he came to Foca and had dinner with me - Djajic tells UNS and continues.

- He brought me books, including Alija Izetbegovic’s “Islamic Declaration”, and I just returned from Belgrade, and brought him Milovan Djilas’ “Montenegro”. We talked long in the evening, he told me he was going to Cajnice in the morning, to see what was happening and make a report. He followed his heart. It was as if he felt guilty he had previously had to leave that front because of Miljevina.

They were sitting in the yard, Djajic says, arguing heatedly, and his wife asked them to come in the house.

- He didn’t want to, he went to the apartment where he was staying and as if was saying goodbye: “Here, brother, I’m leaving you the gun, since I’m going to take a rifle”. He wanted to give it to me as a gift, but I didn’t take it, I said we would do it after the war. I gave him ammunition. It was actually a farewell, we kissed. In the morning, we met in front of the Foca municipality building, he went to Cajnice, and I went to the Kmur facility since I was in the communications system - Djajic explains.

Dragan Djurovic also met Elez on the same morning.

- I was going to a meeting, it was around 10 a.m. I hurriedly told him: “Ziko, you will go up with us when we return”, and he said: “No, I will hitchhike”. A little later, while going up, towards Medena Glavica, I met a truck with his body in it - Djurovic says.

Miodrag Miso Vujovic, a journalist in “Ekspres politika”, met his colleague the same morning in Cajnice. While Vujovic was reading his report sent on the previous day to the newspaper, Elez was standing next to him in a camouflage uniform. At that moment, the last photograph of Ranko Elez was taken.

- The photo in which Ziko is standing next to me was taken by Rade Bosnjak, a photographer in “Ekspres politika”, less than an hour before Ziko’s death. Ziko’s blank look seemed to foreboding an accident - Miso Vujovic says for UNS.

He met Elez in Miljevina, in the spring of 1992.

- “A big fire will break out here”, Ziko told me when we met. That night, we long talked about the suffering of those regions in the Second World War, about the false brotherhood and unity that never took root in Foca, about the mass liquidations of Serbs by the Handzar division, about the revenge of the Montenegrin Chetniks against the Muslims, about the Ponor pit, for which I heard then for the first time - Vujovic says and adds that Elez told him then: “The continuation of that war began in Sarajevo, with the murder of Nikola Gardovic in Bascarsija, on the first of March. I studied and lived in Sarajevo. It is no longer a city that rejoiced to life, open to all. Sarajevo was populated by the Sandzak folks and some unknown people, fierce and aggressive”.

Vujovic also remembers that Elez was depressed on that Thursday, because of his uncle, but he also told me he scheduled the engagement for Saturday.

- He said to his mother on his farewell: “I will pop to Cajnice, to make a report and will return home tomorrow”. He was in a hurry to meet his friends from Foca on that day, with whom he had come from the Drina to Jahorina and Igman. Everyone loved him. We parted ways, convinced that in the evening, as before, we would exchange information drinking brandy, with lower alcohol, the kind they made in those parts - Vujovic says and adds that Ziko and Rade Bosnjak went to the left, towards Medena Glavica and Potrkusa, and he through Kozara towards Dubiste and the Drina.

As soon as he took the photo, Rade Bosnjak set out, as he says, with a certain Colonel Maljkovic, who is no longer alive, to visit the front line, more precisely Medena Glavica, in the Oglecevo belt.

- Ziko runs after us, throws in his backpack while still running and jumps into the jeep, which was already moving. We got up there. There was an elderly man with a heavy machine gun on the plane, I try to take a photo of him, and Ziko tells me he is a warden in the prison in Foca, and that he also guarded Alija Izetbegovic (he was in the prison in Foca in the 1980s, author’s note). I cannot focus the camera on this old man, I try to catch him next to the Muslim wooden shed, a dug-in fortification made of beech logs and soil, which our soldiers nearly seized. While I am focusing the camera on the old man, someone next to me shouted: “Hey, journalist, be careful, they are shooting”. I turn around and see Ziko falling on the ground. I myself fell backwards, my bag opened, I am trying to collect everything. Someone says: “The journalist got killed”, I thought they were referring to me - Bosnjak says for UNS.

The bullet, he says, came from close range, maybe even from only 50 meters. He is convinced and 99% sure it was fired from the enemy’s side, because it was fired from the forest.

- In order not to be caught in the crossfire, Ziko was carried on a stretcher behind the water tank, where I hid myself. I heard that he breathed in or breathed out, I’m not sure what it was, I said “He is alive”, when the doctor from Banja Luka shook her head – no, he is not. The doctor took off his clothes, a small-caliber bullet from the factory “Pobjeda” from Gorazde, entered under his left armpit, and tore his loin on the right side. Colonel Maljkovic said: “This was your bullet. But it killed the only child”. And now I learn from you that Ziko, whom I met on the front line, was not an only child – Bosnjak says.

In the scanty information about the death of Ranko Elez in these three decades, it is also mentioned that at the time of his death the recorder was on and it recorded a statement.

- Possibly, he was always doing something. But at that moment, I was focusing on that old man, and I didn’t pay attention to Ziko – Bosnjak says.

Nedjeljko Pantovic, a fighter of the intervention unit, was also at Medena Glavica at the time.

- Ziko brought a bottle of brandy and a bottle of pear brandy to the front line to congratulate us because we made a great achievement and we seized the hill Medena Glavica in a battle on the previous night, which was important for further progress. Muslims had put pressure on Cajnice, raiding villages, and even killing the weak ones, so we had to stop it and create a corridor towards Zidine, which was the next hill, and which we conquered after Ziko’s death. He came to take statements, and a cameraman or photojournalist was with him”, Pantovic tells the story to the UNS and continues:

- We were joking, laughing, Ziko was in a half-lying position on a military bag. And just as he was getting up, he fell. There was a shot, it sounded like a muffled sniper shot, it didn’t come from far away, maximum 100 meters. If it had been an M48 rifle, the shot would have been louder, so I think it was a sniper. We thought we were under attack, so we jumped up.

Pantovic also remembers there was a water tank a little above them, at 300-400 meters”.

- There were Krajina troops from Banja Luka (the 1^st Krajina Corps of the Army of the Republic of Srpska had its headquarters in Banja Luka, author’s note). They had been trying for two days to seize those walls. Medics were with them as well as this water tanker. Our guys immediately told us that Ziko was shot under the armpit and the bullet came out on the other side. Although we jumped up immediately, there was no more shooting or clashes”, Pantovic says.

Vlado Djajic was already on the hill Kmur, where the radio-relay center for the entire Herzegovina Corps was located. He could, as he states, listen to all the developments within the responsibility area of ​​this corps.

- When I entered the building, I heard only one sentence through the communication system: “Ziko got killed!” And I heard celebrations on the enemy’s frequencies on the other side: “We killed a big Chetnik”! In the Foca brigade, they still didn’t know about it, so I immediately called, using a short radio transmitter, down to the intervention unit, and Coso (Branislav Cosovic, commander of the intervention unit, author’s note) and Djura. They said when they were leaving the position of Medena Glavica to Cajnice for ammunition replenishment, they met Ziko, who had gone up to the unit. And obviously, as soon as he climbed up, the enemy opened fire and he was killed by a bullet. He was in a hurry, going after the bullet”, Djajic says.

Bosnjak helped to put Elez’s body, which was on stretchers, into the truck and we set off towards Cajnice.

- The stretchers were a bit longer; we could barely fit them into the truck. At one point, the driver saw a snake on the road, he abruptly stopped, and Ziko fell off the stretcher. Somewhere halfway down, we met a vehicle with Coso, Zuro, and Rada Elez, a nurse, and Ziko’s relative; they were heading up to Medena Glavica. They stopped, Rada was crying for Ziko”, the photographer says.

The memories of Radmila Rada Susnjevic, née Elez, today differ from others in detail, which perhaps isn’t surprising.

- He was on the front line, he just arrived from home, and we lost an uncle. She was sitting with his friends, and Ziko asked: “Is this my sister’s bag?” and he lay down on that military bag. On that day there were no operations, a stray bullet hit him in the heart. He just bent forward. He was hit right in the middle of the chest. While I was taking the bandage that goes to the lung area in case of injury, he died. There was no exit wound; I think the distance from which the bullet came was big.

Dragan Djurovic, however, remembers that the encounter of their group with the vehicle containing Elez’s body was halfway down.

- We climbed to the position in a van, I even remember the guy who was driving the truck with the body. As we later analyzed, he was killed by a sniper, from a distance of no more than 150 meters, from a slope. And we are 99% sure that the Muslim positions did it - says Djurovic, who today is not sure who else was with him in the van apart from Cosovic.

Drago Todorovic wasn't with Elez on that fatal day.

- I was one kilometer and a half away from Medena Glavica the whole day, and I didn’t know anything until I came to Cajnice in the evening. They told me he was shot and wounded; they didn’t immediately tell me he was dead - Todorovic remembers.

Identification was done at the hospital in Foca by his brother Branko Elez.

- The bullet hit him below the heart, slightly to the side, which I saw when we dressed him for burial. I didn’t turn him over, so I didn’t see if he had an exit wound - Branko Elez tells the UNS.

In the hospital in Foca, there is not a single document about Ranko Elez, as his sister Slavojka Filipovic, who officially requested it, was told.

- The certificate of death, which I found in the office of the Veterans and Disabled Protection Office of the Municipality of Foca, says: place of death Medena Glavica, Cajnice, killed by a Ustasha sniper, unit TG “Drina” The certificate was signed by Colonel Mirko Broceta,- says Janko Filipovic.

The place where Elez was killed was later mined, as Vlado Djajic says, so they weren’t allowed to go up, and he doesn’t know if it has been completely demined to this day. He knows that his name was immediately carved on a tree under which he was killed.

The funeral was held in his native village of Borjanice.

- The battles started, few people attended the funeral because we had to work, send materials. And it wasn’t easy to go there; we had to go around, via Pljevlje -  Bosnjak says.

But Budimir Markovic, who delivered a eulogy, attended the funeral.

- When I was told he was killed, I was stunned. We immediately organized in the editorial office to go to Borjanice. And the funeral was devastating for me - says Marković, tearfully.

Memorial football tournament – in honor of Ziko The memorial football tournament “Ranko Elez Ziko” in Miljevina has been held 26 times already in honor of their fellow citizen who died young. - When the war ended, we established a football tournament in Ranko’s honor in Miljevina, the organization of which was later taken over by the veterans’ organization. And they still organize it today, never forgetting their Ziko - Budimir Markovic says. Before the tournament, everyone lights candles at the grave in Borjanice. There, in past summers, Elez’s parents, brother, and sister welcomed them. It won’t be the same anymore. The mother passed away in the beginning of November last year, three decades after her son’s death. She was buried next to her firstborn, according to her final wish.

 

Posthumously, Elez was awarded the Order of Njegos, third class, by the President of the Republic of Srpska.

The name of Ranko Elez, as a journalist killed in the war, is mentioned at several places - in the UNS Dossier on journalists and media workers killed or abducted since 1991, on the list of killed journalists by the International Federation of Journalists, OSCE, Balkan Insight, Independent... The Committee for Protection of Journalists states that he was “killed by a Muslim sniper during the fighting between Muslims and Serbs near Foca”.

No investigation into the journalist’s death was conducted - just one more casualty in the war and on the front line.

- As we were told, he was at the front line, there were several fighters sitting there, and a bullet came from somewhere and killed him. He was dead on the spot. A stray bullet”, says brother Branko, while sister Slavojka adds:

- A few days before he was killed, a bullet passed above his head. Where, how, why, I don’t know, but he avoided one, the other he didn’t.