HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR [Main Title]

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  • Title: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR [Main Title]
  • Film Number: UNT 729
  • Other titles: UNITED NATIONS TELEVISION (UNTV) ZAGREB COLLECTION, YUGOSLAVIA [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Grubor, a village near Knin, now under the control of the Croatian army, is torched and two elderly residents killed. UNTV has exclusive footage from the scene and reaction from the Croatian general in command.
  • Description: Three weeks after the Croatian victory in Krajina, the UN are still finding evidence of human rights abuses in the area. E. J. Flynn, UN Human Rights Officer, says that when visiting the Plavno Valley, they saw a village across the valley on fire. UNTV captured footage of burning buildings and talked to residents of the village. These women said that they had been called to a meeting and had come back to find their houses ablaze and had begun frantically searching for their relatives who had remained. One woman says that she is looking for her husband and her granny who could not run away. Two other women have already found their husbands dead. Inside one house two elderly men lie dead, one has been shot through the head and the other has had his throat cut. Footage of Croatian military vehicles parked up on the side of the road less than a kilometre away. In an interview, General Čermak, subtitled as the Croatian Military Governor, says that there has been a clean-up operation in that area but he denies that people were forced out of their homes and that buildings were burnt. He will submit a report on this but he does not think that UNTV’s information is accurate. E. J. Flynn says that during the last couple of weeks the UN have seen more buildings burning and have come across more and more dead bodies in the region. [In the longer version there is further footage of the old women mourning their dead husbands. One old woman shows UNTV where she found her husband. She takes the camera through a doorway, into a room with a body on the floor. She says that her husband was ill and did not go to the meeting. When she returning, she found him lying there – “Look, you see, he’s been shot, shot in the head”. E.J Flynn says that these women were wailing, grief stricken, because they has found two bodies. Silhouettes of the two old women bent over the bodies and shouting out in grief. The longer version also includes an extended interview with Čermak. He says that “there are still small groups of renegades and terrorists scattered around the area”. Shot of dog sniffing at a corpse, covered with a blue sheet. He denies that burning houses have been a part of the cleaning-up operation but it is “understandable during cleaning-up of war operations, it has indeed happened that some houses or villages were burnt...There are people within our units whose homes have been burnt or whose relatives have been killed “so "they burnt a house or two thinking this would relieve their anguish” but this was immediately stopped. EJ Flynn says that hundreds of buildings have been set on fire.
  • Alternative Title: UNITED NATIONS TELEVISION (UNTV) ZAGREB COLLECTION, YUGOSLAVIA [Allocated Series Title]
  • Colour: Final Cut (Tape Code F)
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: UNT 729
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions:
  • Featured Period: 1990-2000
  • Production Date: 1995-08 1995-09-15
  • Production Country: UN
  • Production Details: Bramford, Richard (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords:
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: Final Cut (Tape Code F)
  • Technical Details: Format: Beta-SP Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Running time: 2 mins 30 secs; Running time: 5 mins 8 seconds
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    UNT 729

  • Related IWM Collections Objects:

    UNT 731 (UNTV PROGRAMME NO 114 [Main Title]) UNT 868 (UNTV PROGRAMME NO 119 [Main Title]) UNT 729 X 1 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 2 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 3 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 4 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 5 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 6 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 7 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 8 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 9 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (UNEDITED RUSHES) [Allocated Title]) UNT 729 X 10 (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: GRUBOR (FOOTAGE) [Allocated Title])
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