Waiting for 27 long years.

Jandrija and Zorka Slavuj got married in 1960 in Gvozdansko, in Dvor na Uni. That same year, they were delighted by the arrival of Pero. Two years later, their son Đuro was born, and on their fifth wedding anniversary, they welcomed Draga. Jandrija worked in construction and agriculture, while Zorka was known as a hardworking and respected housewife. Both nurtured and lovingly cultivated the word – community. Subtly, around their little ones, they wove golden threads of mutual appreciation and respect.

When Pero started first grade, Đuro could not wait for his turn to come. The two boys made a pact. Whenever Pero went to school, he would “forget” his notebook or book at home, prompting Đuro, in a rush to help his brother, to carry it to school. And once he was already at the classroom, why not stay for the lessons? Unsurprisingly, Đuro excelled as a student. Many say he even had a talent for the arts. He studied history and geography at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.

Then came the year 1991. In that difficult and tense situation, Đuro tried to remain rational, to “calm people when the war fervor took hold,” his family would remember. In Dvor na Uni, he knocked on the door of the newly established local Radio Banija. The gate swung wide open before his literacy and eloquence.

“Storm” scattered the Slavuj family. Pero fled to Jagodina, Draga to Beška. The politics of the then authorities in Belgrade drove refugee columns toward Kosovo. Đuro and his wife Sofija ended up in Pristina. He effortlessly and unobtrusively won the waves of Radio Pristina.

– Đuro Slavuj stood out from his surroundings. He hosted the morning program on the radio. He had an excellent accent, which was a rarity in Kosovo, a radio-friendly voice, and he prepared well for his shows; he was a true professional – recalls Milivoje Mihajlović, then editor of Radio Pristina and journalist for the BBC, in an interview with Novosti.

– Since I also arrived early for work, Đuro often stopped by for a morning coffee. He spoke wistfully about his hometown Dvor na Uni, life in Zagreb, and very little about the war and the hardships of being a refugee. He was a good worker, and despite administrative difficulties, he began receiving a regular salary, which helped him economically stabilize his family – adds the then-director of the Media Center, through which 2,800 foreign journalists passed during those years.

Slavuj built his refugee nest between the narrow corridors of the Božur hotel in Pristina.

– They lived in a small room. I had the impression that he was happy, and he raised his child with great care and loved his wife – Mihajlović recalls with sadness.

That August 21, 1998, was dry, blisteringly hot, sticky, and mournful.

– That was a time when the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) controlled a good part of Metohija. We knew there was a danger of attacks on journalists. Whenever someone from the radio or foreign media in the Media Center intended to go out into the field, I would call the police and ask about road accessibility and safety. I would ask my friends and acquaintances who were on the “other side” as well. I had been a trainer in a Pristina karate club where many future policemen and members of the KLA passed through, and I maintained good relationships with all of them, which allowed me to receive reliable information – recalls Mihajlović.

The Radio Pristina team, Đuro Slavuj from Dvor na Uni and Ranko Perenić from Lipljan, set out with a tape recorder, a notebook, and a pencil to the monastery of St. Vrača in Zočište to report on the return of the abducted monks. They traveled in a blue flag car, number 128. Since then, they have disappeared without a trace. The ominous news spread like lightning through the ominous war ether.

Mihajlović was outside Kosovo when the team of journalists went to the field. The next day, editor Rako Delibašić, worried and scared, informed him that they had not returned.

– For me, it was a great shock; my workers, my friends, good people were missing. We notified the police. I knew that chaos reigned in Kosovo and that the police were in constant conflict, so I began a private investigation. I called friends from Orahovac, asked if they had seen them and where, reconstructing their movements. I called local police chiefs who provided me with information about what time the two of them had passed police checkpoints – continues Mihajlović.

Every call narrowed the hellish circle toward the worst outcome.

They did not spend the night in any motel in the area. They were not in any clinic or in the hospital in Prizren. There were no cars along the road. They did not have a traffic accident. Kati Marton, the president of the American Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the wife of diplomat Richard Holbrooke, promised to do everything possible. The CPJ immediately issued a statement, reacting several times and seeking information.

– I also called Adem Demaći, a Kosovo politician who had been imprisoned for 28 years due to his ideology. He was very influential in the KLA and promised to help. He told me that the KLA was not united and that there were many fragmented armed groups. He sincerely stated that the kidnapping of journalists was damaging to them as well. This was the first case of a journalist’s disappearance. There had been attacks before, but they ended without consequences. Demaći told me he had done everything to obtain any information about them – shares Mihajlović.

It is an understatement to say that he replayed that day a million times in his mind, every hour, every trace, every option. He hoped, he emphasizes, that publicity in world media could help secure their release.

At Mihajlović's request, Mike O’Connor from The New York Times, a prominent global name in journalism, went to Orahovac and visited the villages near where Slavuj and Perenić were last seen. He spoke with KLA members and returned with important news.

– He entered my office and asked me what kind of tape recorder Slavuj and Perenić had. I said a Sony R3. He pulled a paper from his pocket that read Sony R3 and the number of the tape recorder. In the village of Bele Crkve, he found their car, which was undamaged, and saw the tape recorder inside. Local Albanians had no information, nor did local KLA commanders. They told him they did not know how the car ended up there. Adem Demaći cautiously told me in those days that he feared for their fate. The police had not come up with any useful information – explains Mihajlović.

The investigative authorities never found the blue flag car, number 128, that Slavuj and Perenić took to the field. If any investigation was even conducted.

When Veran Matić years later, as president of the Commission for Investigating the Murders of Journalists in Serbia, requested access to the documentation, he could hardly find any data.

– I thought this would be the easier part of the job, as there were indications that the kidnapping could have been observed from military positions. However, I was told that no witnesses had been found. There is not much willingness to share information in these cases. On the other hand, I get the impression that the archives are very disorganized, if anyone even made any documentation about this case – says Matić for Novosti.

As early as the beginning of 1998, Snežana Perenić had long discussed with her husband Ranko in their apartment in Kosovo Polje all the dangers of going into the field. He was not afraid. For he reassured her – he was not guilty or indebted to anyone. After all, he knew the Kosovo area like the back of his hand. Upon hearing the news of his disappearance, in complete shock and with two boys at her side, she set out on her own search. The locals of Orahovac told her that Ranko and Đuro had stopped by a store to ask how to get to Zočište. The police had previously told them that the main road was blocked.

Snežana contacted all international organizations. An important man of that time, the head of the American observation mission in Kosovo (KDOM) Sean Burns, personally engaged to help her. “When we were surveying the area, we came into contact with KLA soldiers and through them with their commanders. We always asked them about the missing Radio Pristina team, but we never received a satisfactory answer,” Burns would explain many years later.

– Ranko was calm, reserved, responsible, and a family man. An excellent worker, reliable, and extremely honest. He spoke little, never mentioned his problems; we mostly talked about the family to which he was very attached – will emphasize Milivoje Mihajlović, concluding even more heavily:

– Many foreign journalists became involved in the search and showed solidarity. Unfortunately, we could not find them.

As August 1998 transitioned into September and an even more terrifying October, the situation in Kosovo worsened day by day. After the war, the responsibility for investigations was taken over by international missions. First, the United Nations mission, UNMIK, and then the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, EULEX. Regardless of the prefixes of jurisdiction, the wall of silence remained impenetrable. It was only in 2017 that Snežana Perenić received a letter that had traveled four years from Pristina to reach her. The first official information that there had been any investigation, dated 2013, coldly stated – the investigation has been suspended; you have three days to appeal. Signed, the EULEX prosecutor. She never received a response to her appeal. The Slavuj family did not receive any notification about the suspension of the investigation. In this case, as well as in another 15 cases of murdered and missing journalists in Kosovo from 1998 to 2005, the perpetrators of the crimes have not been identified.

The way those investigations were conducted illustrates the complete collapse of human rights. If there were even symbolic acknowledgments, they did not lead to any information about the fate of the missing journalists or the possible perpetrators of the crimes, whether they were Albanian or Serbian journalists. Only one case made it to court. The murder of Professor Šaban Hotij was prosecuted within a broader process before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Describing the complete failure of international missions to protect civilians, including journalists, Marek Novicki, an internationally recognized human rights lawyer, as the chairperson of the Advisory Committee on Human Rights of UNMIK (HRAP) in the final report of 2016 emphasizes the following – these are double victims. They were both victims of the perpetrators of the crimes and victims of non-existent investigations.

– These opinions are not just expert statements, as HRAP was an independent quasi-judicial body established by the United Nations. However, it is difficult to find examples of the practical effects of our recommendations. There can be various reasons for this, including the fact that the responsibility for investigating these cases at one point was transferred from the UN mission to Kosovo institutions, which did not feel obligated to follow HRAP's recommendations – emphasizes Novicki for Novosti.

In the fight against impunity for crimes against journalists, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has adopted three resolutions calling for an immediate investigation into the crimes, primarily demanding the formation of an International Commission of Experts: in Lisbon (2018), Zagreb (2021), and Pristina (2024). The commission is still nonexistent.

Perenić and Slavuj have become symbols of justice for journalists, resistance of free speech against fear, and the fight against oblivion. Demanding the truth, the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS) erected a memorial plaque in 2012 near Orahovac, between Zočište and Velika Hoča, at the site where the Radio Pristina team disappeared. It is inscribed in Serbian and Albanian: “Here, on August 21, 1998, our colleagues were abducted. We are looking for them.”

The plaque has been destroyed eight times. The ninth time, it was erected in May 2022. Once, the Kosovo police found the culprit. He confessed to having uprooted the plaque with an excavator and explained that he was motivated by ethnic reasons. He was fined 200 euros.

– The conspiracy of silence shows that the villains are still here, watching and monitoring us – stated this year at the anniversary commemoration of the journalists' disappearance Živojin Rakočević, president of the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS).

Gathered around him, journalists once again widely spread the message in Serbian and Albanian: “Return our colleagues to us.” Snežana Perenić is always among them. With her, as a great support and anchor in recent years, is her grandson Matija. “My Ranko got dressed, went to work, and I have been searching for him ever since,” she has repeated many times.

The family of Đuro Slavuj cannot sever the deeply ingrained threads of community. Even today, in the house in Gvozdansko, where the Slavuj family is mentioned in records from 1772, they say “Đuro's book,” “Čika's room.” He is there, in memories, alive.

– You will shape all of this as you think is best. I only ask that you note that his mother waited for him for 13 years, his father until last December, 26 years, and we and our children will strive to welcome the day when the truth, sooner or later, is revealed and awaited – said Pero Slavuj for Novosti.

Author: Jelena Petković

Source: Portalnovosti.com