Size 500–1,000 | Nickname(s) Arkan's Tigers | |
 | ||
Active 1990–1996 (became part of the JSO) Type Paramilitary organization Garrison/HQ Belgrade, Serbia
Erdut, Croatia Engagements Yugoslav Wars;
Battle of Vukovar | ||
The Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG) (Serbian: Српска добровољачка гарда, Srpska dobrovoljačka garda) also known as Arkan's Tigers (Арканови Тигрови, Arkanovi Tigrovi) was a Serbian volunteer paramilitary unit founded and led by Željko Ražnatović (known as Arkan) that fought in Croatia (1991–93) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–95) during the Yugoslav Wars.
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History and organisation
The Guard was created on 11 October 1990 by twenty members of the Red Star Belgrade football club Ultra group Delije Sever. The Guard's headquarters and training camp was in Erdut, SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia, a part of the Republic of Serbian Krajina between 1991 and 1995. The Guard was under the command of the Territorial Defense, a regular military in charge of the territories of Croatia populated predominantly by Serbs during the first half of the 1990s.
The Serb Volunteer Guard set up their headquarters and training camp in a former military facility in Erdut. It saw action from mid-1991 to late 1995, initially in the Vukovar region of Croatia. It was supplied and equipped from the reserves of the Serbian police force during the War in Croatia and Bosnia.
War in Croatia (1991) & Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992)
After war broke out in the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia in the fall of 1991 and in Bosnia in April 1992, Arkan and his units moved to attack different territories in these countries. In Croatia, the Tigers fought in various locales in SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia.
In autumn 1995, Arkan's troops fought in the area of Banja Luka, Sanski Most and Prijedor where they were routed. Arkan personally led most war actions, and rewarded his most efficient officers and soldiers with ranks, medals and eventually the products of the lootings. The Serb Volunteer Guard was officially disbanded in April 1996. Besides Arkan, a notable member of the Guard was his right-hand man, Colonel Nebojša Djordjević, who was murdered in late 1996. Another notable member was Milorad Ulemek, who is now serving a 40-year sentence for his involvement in the assassination of Serbia's pro-Western prime minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003.
Several Golden Dawn members participated in the Bosnian War in the Greek Volunteer Guard (GVG), which was part of the Drina Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska. A few GVG volunteers were present in Srebrenica during the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, and they raised a Greek flag at a ruined church after the fall of the town. Spiros Tzanopoulos, a GVG sergeant who took part in the attack against Srebrenica, said many of the Greek volunteers participated in the war because they were members of Hrisi Avgi. Chrysi Avyi members in the GVG were decorated by Radovan Karadžić, but — according to former Chrysi Avyi member Charis Kousoumvris — those who were decorated later left the party.
War crimes charges
Željko Ražnatović was indicted in 1997 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his command of the Guard, as the unit was allegedly responsible for numerous crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention and violations of the laws or customs of war, including active participation in the ethnic cleansing in Bijeljina and Zvornik in 1992.
The ICTY charged the Serbian Volunteer Guard, under the command or supervision of Željko Ražnatović with: