Bihac, 1995

Many people believe that Croatia’s defeat in August 1995 of the Croatian Serb para-state, ‘Republika Srpska Krajina’ (RSK), prevented a repeat of the Srebrenica massacre in Bihac, a besieged town in northwest Bosnia.

This may not be the case. The besieged area around Bihac town was much larger than the Srebrenica enclave had been and was mostly territory that had always been nearly 100% Bosniak (Muslim). The pre-war Serb population in Bihac municipality was significant, but in Cazin, the municipality north of Bihac, it was less than 1%. Further north, the Serbs were propping up Fikret Abdic, a local Bosniak politician who had broken away from the Sarajevo leadership to establish an “autonomous province” around Velika Kladusa, another overwhelmingly Bosniak municipality. These municipalities were of little interest to the Serbs.

Referring to the Serb attack on Bihac of late 1994, the VRS general in charge of the operation, Manojlo Milovanovic, claimed in an interview that he was ordered not to take Bihac town. This is in keeping with the previously stated Serb objective to establish the border of the Serb state on the Una, a river that runs through Bihac. One of the Serbs' main objectives was to control the strategically important railway line that ran from the main Bosnian Serb controlled city Banja Luka to the RSK ‘capital’ Knin via the outskirts of Bihac, and also linked the two limbs of the RSK.

The situation was similar in August 1995 when the Serbs, who had captured Srebrenica the previous month, turned their attention to Bihac. They were again supporting Fikret Abdic, who had been reinstalled in Velika Kladasa in late 1994 having been ejected from the region by the Bihac-based 5^th Corps of the ARBiH (Bosnian Army) earlier in the year. Given that his forces joined the Serbs in their attack on the 5^th Corps, it seems possible that had they succeeded in defeating the 5^th Corps they would have left Abdic in control of Velika Kladusa, Cazin and part of Bihac, including the town. It is possible that the Abdic forces would have massacred soldiers and civilians if they had taken control of Bihac. It is also possible that the Serbs would have preferred to enter Bihac town themselves and committed atrocities worse than the Srebrenica massacre the previous month. Perhaps they also would not have tolerated the presence of a densely populated island of Bosniak territory wedged between the RSK and the Republika Srpska and cast Abdic aside once he was no longer useful to them, emptying Cazin and Velika Kladusa of its Bosniak population. 

But the other possibility, that they may have left Abdic in long-term control of Cazin, Velika Kladusa and part of Bihac municipality, including the town, seems to have been given very little consideration.

Some thoughts on the local elections in Bosnia

A pattern seems to be emerging in the Central Bosnia canton, one of the two “mixed” cantons in the Bosniak-Croat Federation that was established in 1994.


In the 2004 mayoral elections, Jajce, previously a Croat-controlled municipality having been captured from the Serbs by the HVO (Bosnian Croat Army) in the dying days of the Bosnian war, elected an SDA (Bosniak nationalist) mayor. In the 2008 mayoral elections, the SDA took Busovaca and Novi Travnik, previously part of a crescent-shaped sliver of Croat-dominated municipalities surrounded by Bosniak-majority territory.

Yesterday it was the turn of Vitez, which became the fourth previously Croat-controlled municipality in the canton to come under the control of the SDA, although an examination of the voting figures suggests one should not read too much into this particular result. The percentage of the electorate voting for Croat mayoral candidates in Vitez actually rose from 60% in 2008 to 62% in 2012, with the SDA profiting from a split in the Croat vote. The Croat vote also held up at 46% in Busovaca, which was a straight contest between the Croat nationalist HDZ and the victorious SDA, and in Jajce, the Croat vote rose to 46% from 44% in 2008.

But in Novi Travnik, which the SDA held, the Croat vote fell from 56% in 2008 (when the SDA benefited from a split in the Croat vote) to 38% in 2012, while in Kiseljak, which the HDZ won, it declined to 64% from 70%.  In Zepce, a Croat enclave in the Bosniak-dominated Zenica-Doboj canton, 55% of votes went to explicitly Croat parties, compared with 60% last time, although the left-wing SDP, which is seen by many Croats as a party representing Bosniak interests, fielded a Croat candidate rather than a Bosniak one, which may have swung some Croat voters.

The picture is complex, but the dramatic falls in the Croat nationalist vote as a percentage of the total in Novi Travnik, Kiseljak and Zepce point to a weakening of the Croat position in the Central Bosnia and Zenica-Doboj cantons, a trend that is symbolised by the SDA’s victory in Vitez yesterday.

Local elections and ethnic consolidation in Bosnia

It is interesting to note that in the Muslim-Croat war of 1993-1994, neither side was able to capture any municipalities in which the other group had been in the majority on the eve of the war.

The most bitter fighting was over the municipalities in which no group had been in the majority according to the 1991 census, such as Mostar, Bugojno, Zepce and Fojnica. Most such municipalities were by the end of the fighting either like Mostar territorially divided between Croats and Muslims (known as Bosniaks from 1994) or under the control of the group that had made up the largest percentage of its population. The exceptions were two municipalities that prior to the war had a Muslim plurality but fell under Croat control, Zepce and Stolac, and another, Vares, which previously had a Croat plurality but was captured by the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) in October 1993.

In 1995, the Bosnian Croat Army (HVO) captured Jajce, another municipality that prior to the war had a Muslim plurality, from the Serbs,so at the end of the Bosnian war, the Croats controlled three municipalities where Bosniaks had previously been the largest group, while the Bosniaks controlled one where Croats had been most numerous.

Jajce became part of the Central Bosnian canton, one of the two “mixed” cantons that had been established by the Washington Agreement of 1994 that ended the Muslim-Croat war, while Stolac became part of the other “mixed” canton, Herzegovina-Neretva. Although “mixed”, it was quite clear when these cantons were established that the Bosniaks would be stronger in the Central Bosnia canton, while Croats would be the predominant group in Herzegovina-Neretva. Many Bosniaks returned to Jajce, often in the face of opposition from local Croats, and the municipality in 2004 elected a Bosniak mayor, but Stolac remains under firm Croat control.

Jajce is not the only municipality in the Central Bosnia Canton to move from Croat to Bosniak control. In the 2008 local elections, mayoral candidates from the main Bosniak political party, the SDA, won in Novi Travnik and Busovaca, which previously had Croat mayors. This is interesting because prior to the war they both had – albeit marginal – Croat pluralities. Novi Travnik and Busovaca may come to be seen as the second and third previously Croat-plurality municipalities to “fall” to the Bosniaks, 14 years after  Vares. The Croat “loss” of these three municipalities means that the Bosniaks have a 3-2 advantage in terms of control of municipalities where the other group was more populous in 1991. Elsewhere in the central Bosnia canton, Novi Travnik and Busovaca could even eventually be joined by Vitez, the previously Croat-plurality municipality that connects them and possibly even Kiseljak which was 52% Croat and 41% Muslim according to the 1991 census, so would be the first municipality in which one group had been in the majority to come under the control of the other group.

Zepce, which is in the Bosniak-dominated Zenica-Doboj canton, still has a Croat mayor, but this is something of an anomaly, because its borders were altered in 2001 to take in mainly Croat areas of the neighbouring municipalities of Zavidovici and Maglaj. Nevertheless the border alterations may not be enough to secure Croat predominance there permanently.

The SDA is highly unlikely to take control of Zepce, Vitez and Kiseljak in the local elections next month and Dobretici in the central Bosnia canton and Usora in Zenica-Doboj, two tiny Croat municipalities that were created after the Dayton accords, will elect Croat mayors as will Kresevo in the Central Bosnia canton. But the election results are likely to show a gradual consolidation of Bosniak predominance in these cantons.

In the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton, meanwhile, Stolac is likely to remain under firm Croat control despite the previous Muslim plurality and substantial Bosniak returns to that municipality. Interestingly, and perhaps in recognition of which way the wind is blowing, the SDA will not field a mayoral candidate there, or in Capljina, another municipality in the canton that before the war had a large Croat population.

The immediate fallout of the Muslim-Croat war was a rigid but very untidy division between the two populations, with areas controlled by each group spattered across territory dominated by other group. Conversely, Croats and Bosniaks are now much more intermingled, but it seems that a neat division corresponding to the Croat- and Bosniak-dominated cantons, including the "mixed" cantons, is emerging. Next month’s local elections could show this trend continuing.

With the benefit of hindsight: Croatian operations in Bosnia in 1995

Croatian Army (HVO) and Bosnian Croat Army (HVO) operations in Bosnia in 1995 helped pave the way for the much-celebrated defeat of the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), the part of Croatia that had been occupied by Serbs since 1991. Other benefits of these operations, which continued until well after the RSK collapse, are less easy to discern.

The first major success of the HV and HVO in Bosnia in 1995 was the capture of Bosansko Grahovo,a town in Western Bosnia, in July. This put the Croats in a position to advance towards Knin, the capital of the RSK, from two directions, which they did the following month during “Operation Storm”, the action that led to the collapse of the RSK. The operation in July also saw the Croats capture Glamoc, a town to the West of Bosansko Grahovo. Though part of an operation that was directed at Knin, the capture of Glamoc also put the Croats in a strong position to advance towards Jajce, from which they had been expelled following the Serb takeover in 1992. Bosansko Grahovo and Glamoc were prior to the war majority Serb towns with negligible Croat populations, so were of no interest from an ethnic point of view, but Jajce had been 35% Croat and was an attractive target.

The Serbs were on the ropes after Operation Storm and the HV/HVO and the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) began advancing in September, the HV/HVO towards Jajce and the ARBIH south and east out of the Bihac pocket, which had been besieged by the Serbs before Operation Storm, and in parallel with the northward Croat advance towards Jajce.

The Croats captured Drvar, Sipovo and Jajce, while the ARBiH’s Bihac-based 5^th Corps captured Sanski Most, Bosanski Petrovac, Kljuc and Bosanska Krupa and its 7^th Corps took Donji Vakuf. The ultimate prize for both the HV/HVO and the ARBiH was Banja Luka, the biggest city in Serb-controlled Bosnia. Capturing Jajce put the Croats in a position of strength vis-a-vis the ARBiH and prevented a link up between the 5^th and 7^th Corps. Nevertheless, the 5^th Corps was still in a possible position to advance on Banja Luka and, following its successes earlier in September, advanced towards Mrkonjic Grad. Further north it was advancing on Bosanski Novi and Prijedor.

Keen to advance towards Banja Luka before the ARBiH, the HV on 18 September opened up a new front, attacking the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) across the river Una at three points along the Bosnia-Croatia border between Bosanski Novi (described Novi Grad on the above map) and Bosanska Dubica. The attack was a total failure, resulting in many HV deaths and a retreat back across the river.

The Croats made a final push towards Banja Luka in October, capturing Mrkonjic Grad, but under strong American pressure failed to advance any further.

The Croats captured six Bosnian towns during 1995. They also pushed the Serbs away from the Western Bosnian border with Croatia, which must have seemed like an advantage at the time, and gained control of Bosnian territory separating the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) heartland around the cities of Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla and the Bosniak-dominated Bihac pocket, which could be an advantage in any future negotiations with the Bosniaks. Eastern Slavonia, the part of Croatia bordering Serbia, was still under Serb control at this time, so capturing Serb territory in Bosnia may have helped to persuade the Serbs that they would have to give it up.

But Croat gains seem meagre with the benefit of hindsight. Five of the six towns they captured, Bosansko Grahovo, Glamoc, Drvar, Sipovo and Mrkonjic Grad, were sparsely populated and had previously had large Serb majorities. The latter two were returned to Serb control by the Dayton agreements.

And the other town they captured, Jajce, had actually been slightly more Muslim (39%) than Croat (35%) before the war. The Washington Agreement that ended the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims in 1994, establishing a Muslim-Croat Federation made up of cantons,  placed Jajce in a “mixed” canton in which Bosniaks were more numerous than the Croats rather than in a Croat-majority canton. Though the HVO capture of Jajce ensured that it was in reality under Croat control in the years after the war, facilitating the return of its Croat population, Bosniaks have also been returning and are now more numerous. The contours of a division between Croat and Bosniak spheres based on cantonal borders within the Muslim-Croat Federation may gradually be taking shape. The Bosnian newspaper Dnevni List earlier this year reported that the Federation’s Prime Minister Nermin Niksic highlighted the financial benefits of merging some of the cantons. Such a reorganisation would merge the “mixed” central Bosnian canton, which includes Jajce, with other Muslim-majority cantons, while the other “mixed” canton (centred on the city of Mostar and in which Croats are more numerous than Bosniaks) would merge with two Croat-majority cantons. So even the symbolically important capture of Jajce may not turn out to be a lasting victory from a Croat point of view.

Aside from the questionable territorial gains the Croats made in Bosnia in 1995, they also seem to have been motivated by the desire to curry favour with the West, which wanted to bring the Serbs to the negotiating table and to confine them to 49% of Bosnia’s territory, and to gain the status of a regional power. Both objectives were met to an extent, although the claim to have achieved the latter looks rather empty in retrospect, particularly in light of the demise of the planned confederation between Croatia and the Federation, which was still on the agenda before the Dayton agreement. To actually gain enough power to redraw the Bosnian map in their favour, the Croats would have had to capture Banja Luka, giving them strong leverage over both Serbs and Bosniaks. But they failed to do this and now see themselves as an oppressed minority in a Muslim-dominated Federation. Many must wonder whether it was worth engaging in military operations after Operation Storm at all.

Serb villages "under the protection of the Bosnian state"

“The Bosnian government is not a mirror image of Karadzic's regime: the mass murder of civilians is not one of its military objectives. Serb villages in reconquered areas of Herzegovina live peacefully now under the protection of the Bosnian state.”

This claim appears in an article by the historians Mark Almond, Adrian Hastings, Branka Magas, Norman Stone and Noel Malcolm published in the International Herald Tribune on 29 November 1994, two months after the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) captured about 100 square kilometres of territory south of the town of Konjic in September 1994.

The focus of the attack was the Bijela, a village that prior to the war had 635 Serb, 1,186 Muslim and 1,492 Croat inhabitants. The Committee for Collecting Data on Crimes Committed Against Humanity and International Law in Belgrade claimed that when the ARBiH took the village on 12 September they found only three people, “a bed-ridden old man and two mental patients”, killed the old man and transferred the other two to a prison camp in Konjic. The name of the old man (Simo Nenadic, born 1910) appears on a large list of names compiled by the Committee of Serbs allegedly killed in Konjic between 1992 and 1995. While this list should obviously be treated with scepticism, many of the same names appear on the widely-respected Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre’s list of people killed in the war in Konjic, though Simo Nenadic’s does not.

The Committee’s implicit claim that the Serb inhabitants of Bijela left before the ARBiH advance is easier to establish. Speaking during a session of the National Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia Herzegovina in Pale in November 1994, General Zdravko Tolimir, Assistant Commander for Intelligence and Security of the Bosnian Serb Army Main Staff,  said: “During the attack on Borci [a Serb-held town in Konjic municipality that was also targeted by the ARBiH in September] we have lost the villages of Bijela, Mladeskovici, Ljubina ... The total number of evacuated Serbian inhabitants is 850.”

According to an International Crisis Group  report of 1998, there were 728 Serbs in Konjic municipality in 1998. The report says that 600 Serbs left the municipality at the end of the war, suggesting a population of about 1,300 Serbs at the end of hostilities. Most of these Serbs probably lived in areas that were under Serb control before being transferred to the Muslim-Croat Federation in line with the Dayton Accords that ended the war. Given that there were no major changes in territorial control between the ARBiH advance in 1994 and the Dayton Accords, it seems reasonable to surmise that the Serb population in the entire territory Konjic municipality was roughly 1,300 in late 1994. If this number and Zdravko Tolimir's estimate of 850 evacuated Serbs are remotely correct, there was clearly a sharp fall in and possibly complete disappearance of the Serb population in the captured territory.

That these villages were unlikely to come “under the protection of the Bosnian state” in any meaningful sense is certainly suggested by previous actions of the ARBiH in Konjic municipality. When Muslim and Croat forces captured the village of Bradina in May 1992, inhabitants were taken to the Celebici prison camp and beaten, raped and murdered. Units of the ARBiH were then involved in atrocities against Croat civilians in Konjic during 1993, including the Trusina massacre in April of that year. During 1993, military units including the “Black Swans” and the 4th Muslim Brigade of the ARBiH’s Mostar-based 4^th Corps, or “Muderis”, commanded by the cleric Nezim Halilovic, gained notoriety in Konjic.

The 4^th Muslim Brigade  “played a key role” in the successful 1994 attack on Bijela and other villages, according to the journalist Sefko Hodzic in his book ‘Bosnian Warriors’. Elsewhere in Bosnia, in October 1994, the month before the publication of the Herald Tribune article, some 2,000 Serb civilians fled before the ARBiH 7^th Corps advance towards Kupres, according to the UN.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that in 1995 the much more extensive ARBiH capture of territory was preceded by the flight of the Serb inhabitants, wisely given the treatment of those who were unable to leave. In northern Bosnia, the majority Serb village of Vozuca was taken by the ARBiH in September 1995, to provide a road link between its 2^nd and 3^rd Corps, but also, according to some sources, to house refugees from Srebrenica, which had recently fallen to the Serbs. The attack, assisted by foreign “Mujahideen” fighters, resulted in war crimes and the exodus of Vozuca's Serbs.

The actions of the ARBiH obviously have to be seen in the context of the much worse atrocities committed by the Serbs, but the idea that the Serb villages it captured came “under the protection of the Bosnian state” – and the implication that Serb civilians remained there and were left unharassed – is not credible.

Ethnic cleansing in Bijeljina

Bijeljina is an interesting case study because it was one of a handful of municipalities in Bosnia that, except for a few days of fighting at the beginning of the war, the Serbs took over without opposition.

Examining what happened there during the war sheds light on the long-term political aims, as distinct from short-term military aims, of the Bosnian Serb leadership, because, unlike in other areas, the ethnic cleansing visited on the Muslim population cannot simply be dismissed as a side-effect of the fighting.

And Bijeljina was by the end of the war in 1995 thoroughly ethnically cleansed of Bosnian Muslims – much of this cleansing having been accomplished in 1992 – suggesting that an ethnically pure Republika Srpska (RS) was indeed the political aim of the Bosnian Serb leadership.

The ethnic cleansing was facilitated by killing, some of it during the takeover of the town when Serb paramilitaries did face opposition from the Muslim ‘Patriotic League’, but most of it when the town had already been secured and the Muslim population could not meaningfully be perceived as threatening Serb control of the town. A report by the influential Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, ‘Bijeljina’s Strange Silence over War Crimes’, notes that the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre found that 1,040 people were killed in Bijeljina during the war. The report fails to note that a large majority of this figure was actually Serb, presumably soldiers from the municipality killed on the nearby frontline, but still, some 300 Muslims were killed, which at about 1% of the municipality’s pre-war population is a substantial figure, probably enough to scare the rest of the population into leaving.

The ethnic cleansing of Bijeljina’s Muslims is described in the 2005 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judgement against Momcilo Krajisnik, a senior member of the Bosnian Serb leadership.

According to this judgement, Serb paramilitaries, together with local MUP (Interior Ministry) forces, terrorised Muslims and some Serbs in Bijeljina in the months following the takeover. On 15 June the paramilitary leader Ljubisa Savic, known as Mauzer, stated that the presidency of SAO Semberija-Majevica (the region including Bijeljina and neighbouring municipalities) had decided that all Muslims in managerial positions would be fired if the “genocide” continued against Serbs elsewhere in the country. From July, Muslims in the town were subjected to looting and expulsion by the SDS. In this, Vojislav “Vojkan” Durkovic of the Bijeljina SDS was aided by Mauzer’s men. Muslim houses were then allocated to Serbs in exchange for a fee. “The Bijeljina SDS was determined to rid the municipality of its remaining Muslims”by killing a Muslim family on each side of town. The plan was implemented in September 1992 by a special police unit led by Dusko Malovic at the instigation of Drago Vukovic of the MUP. The Serb plan to rid Bijeljina of its Muslims also involved cutting off electricity, water and telephone lines to the homes of Muslims who refused to be mobilised and firing them, as well as forcing prominent Muslims to perform menial tasks. At least 52 people, mostly Muslims, were killed between April and September, on top of the at least 48 civilians killed during the takeover of the town.

This account of events in Bijeljina during 1992 is almost wholly taken from the witness statement and testimony of Milorad Davidovic, a policeman working for the Yugoslav Federal SUP (Secretariat for Internal Affairs) who was called in by the SDS leadership in July 1992 to help deal with problems caused by paramilitaries in Bijeljina, but soon forced out, probably because he was seen as being to rigorous.

The description of Djurkovic as “of the SDS” comes from Davidovic’s account. According to Davidovic’s witness statement Djurkovic “worked for the SDS as a field operative.” But the Krajisnik judgement does not explain Djurkovic’s role in the SDS in Bijeljina and fails to note that he was actually a member of the Party of Serbian Unity, which was headed by Arkan, the paramilitary leader active during the takeover of Bijeljina in early April 1992, setting in train the reign of terror continued by Djurkovic and Savic. Savic was a member of the SDS, but the relationship of both of these characters with the Bijeljina SDS leadership and the SDS leadership for the whole of RS is not fully explained.

The Krajisnik judgement also draws heavily from Davidovic’s account of a three-part SDS plan to ethnically cleanse Bijeljina of its Muslims. The plan involved: killing Muslim families in different parts of the city to scare the remaining Muslims away; firing Muslims who refused to respond to the call for mobilisation from their jobs and cutting off their utilities; and forcing prominent Muslims to perform menial tasks. The first and second parts of the plan were conducted by Drago Vukovic and his colleague Predrag Jesuric, while the third part “was the SDS policy,” thought up by a member of the SDS municipal main board. The link between the SDS and the first two parts of the plan is not explained, although Davidovic does say that he attended a meeting of the local SDS and crisis staff where the whole plan was discussed. Predrag Jesuric was according to Davidovic, “the main ideologue in the Bijeljina SDS”, but later in his witness statement Davidovic says, “I do not know if he was a member of the SDS.” Drago Vukovic’s connection with the SDS is not explained.

Those inclined to swallow Davidovic's account of events in Bijeljina whole should note that he  has described Mirko Blagojevic, a local Serb Radical Party and paramilitary leader who is named as one of members of the Joint Criminal Enterprise in the Krajisnik judgement as a “very positive character during the war in terms of protecting Muslims”. He also stated that the conflict in Bijeljina was “started by the Muslim forces that tried to provoke a clash.”

Nevertheless, Davidovic’s account is valuable and it is still the case that the SDS was the main political force in Bijeljina and presided over the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 1992. There is little reason to doubt Davidovic’s claim that Milan Novakovic, an SDS deputy from Bijeljina elected in 1990, was close to the paramilitaries operating in Bijeljina, aware of their activities and unwilling to do anything about them. (Davidovic says that another elected SDS deputy from Bijeljina, Dragoljub Micic, was sympathetic to his attempts to halt the ethnic cleansing activities of the paramilitaries in Bijeljina.) His claim that members of the Bosnian SDS leadership such as Radovan Karadzic and Momcilo Krajisnik benefited from and knew about the looting activities of the Serb paramilitaries in Bijeljina is also very credible.

That the SDS leadership was heavily implicated in but not in full control of the ethnic cleansing of Bijeljina is also suggested by an Amnesty International Report from 1994, which describes Vojkan Djurkovic’s“Commission for the Exchange of Population”, established in 1992 to conduct ethnic cleansing operations, as “semi-official”, but later vying for power with other Serb factions in the area.

The Amnesty report also cites the claim by the human rights group the Humanitarian Law Fund that in 1993 the Bijeljina authorities said that they were implementing a policy of to reduce the municipality’s Muslim population to 5%. There is no smoking gun evidence of this kind in the ICTY account of events in Bijeljina in 1992, however.

The appeal judgement in the Krajisnik case adds to the impression that events in Bijeljina in 1992 may not have been the result of a plan to drive out the entire Muslim population. It notes that since each of the Serb crisis staffs included at least one Assembly deputy among its members the Bosnian Serb leadership exercised “a substantial amount of control over” the crisis staffs, but also that the initial judgement against Krajisnik “did not reach any general finding on the link between the Bosnian-Serb leadership and crisis staffs.”

Many far-fetched claims have been made about the wars in the former Yugoslavia, by all sides. Among these are the Serb claim that the exodus of Serbs from the Croatian Krajina region was part of a Croat plan for an ethnically pure Croatia and the Croat claim (outlined in Charles Shrader’s “The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia") that there was a Muslim plan to drive the Croat population out of central Bosnia. The claim that what happened in Bijeljina in 1992 was wholly the result of a plan to create an ethnically pure “Greater Serbia” also belongs in this category.

Karadzic acquitted of major count, media not interested

Radovan Karadzic: Courtesy of the ICTY

I think both sides of the debate can agree that the decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to acquit former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide in 1992 is momentous.

Serbs and Bosniaks alike are vexed by the media's concentration on the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, Serbs because they say it was a reaction to crimes against Serbs in the region in 1992, Bosniaks because it distracts attention from the brutal ethnic cleansing they experienced all over Bosnia in 1992.

The focus on the symbolically-important Srebrenica massacre may explain why the decision has, judging by BBC, Sky and ITN TV news programmes this evening, received scant coverage so far.

But the lack of coverage of this momentous decision is surely not just due to this. It seems to me also due to a reluctance to present the public with news that calls into question widely held assumptions about the war. Today’s decision does not sit well with the Western perception of Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb leadership in general. Where it has been covered on English-language news websites, the headline has often been about the predictable failure to have some of the charges dropped, rather than the real story, the ruling on Count One, the charge of genocide in various municipalities in Bosnia from March to December 1992.

Surely his his monstrous reputation is what makes the headline “Karadzic acquitted...” all the more newsworthy? The ruling is particularly interesting given that it would seem much easier to connect Karadzic with the events of 1992 than with the Srebrenica massacre. As James Gow writes of the massacre  in the excellent 'The Serbian Project and its Adversaries': “Mladic’s bloody determination in this situation almost certainly means that the Bosnian Serb political leader Karadzic was not involved and knew nothing about it – potentially creating significant problems for the prosecution, if he faced trial for genocide in The Hague, based on events at Srebrenica.”

That today’s news is of interest to audiences outside the Balkans is suggested by the wide attention given to the ruling by RT, the English language TV station funded by the Russian government.

As with all RT’s news on the former Yugoslavia, the coverage is undoubtedly due to the channel’s strong pro-Serb bias. But I think the Western media’s lack of coverage of the decision is also for the wrong reasons.

The Battle of Bijeljina

“The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War.

There are few English-language accounts of the “Battle of Bijeljina.”  This is because, according to most observers of the outbreak of war in this northeastern Bosnian town in early April 1992, there was no such battle. It was a massacre, the beginning of a genocidal campaign to create an ethnically pure “Greater Serbia.” Clausewitz’s insight is redundant, because in Bijlejina, as in the rest of Bosnia, violence was not a means for the Serbs to achieve political ends, but an end in itself.

Yet Hase Tiric, who commanded the Patriotic League (PL), a Muslim paramilitary group, in Bijeljina, is quite clear about what took place there: “We lost three men in the battle in Bijeljina,” he says.

And another PL commander, Vahid Karavelic, acknowledges that, while the PL could not prevent a Serb takeover of Bijeljina and the neighbouring village Janja, it was nevertheless engaged in a holding action that helped the defence of other parts of Bosnia, such as Tuzla.

According to the International Criminal Tribunal For the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judgement against Momcilo Krajisnik, the wartime president of the Bosnian Serb Assembly, fighting began in Bijeljina on March 31, when Arkan, (Zeljko Raznjatovic) and his Serbian Volunteer Guard entered the town and took control of town structures in cooperation with a local paramilitary group under the command of Mirko Blagojevic. On 1 or 2 April JNA reservists surrounded the town and despite some resistance Serb forces quickly took control of the town. By 4 April, Serb flags were flying from the town’s mosques. Arkan’s men were installed in the SDS (Serb Democratic Party) building and were involved in arresting members of the local Muslim SDA (Party for Democratic Action) presidency. At least 48 civilians, including 45 non-Serbs, were killed. Bodies were moved by the Serb forces ahead of a visit by a delegation of officials including Biljana Plavsic of the SDS and Fikret Abdic of the SDA. Many Muslims were then detained in barracks by the Serb authorities. In the months following the takeover, Serb paramilitary groups terrorised Muslims and in September, Serb forces, implemented a plan by the SDS, which was determined to rid the municipality of its remaining Muslims, to kill a Muslim family on each side of the town to scare Muslims away.

Witness testimony in ICTY trials such as those of former Serb Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and former Republika Srpska president Radovan Karadzic reveals more about the outbreak of war in Bijeljina. In late March, a Serb threw a grenade into the “Cafe Istanbul”. On 31 March at 8.15 pm, Alija Gusalic, a Muslim, attempted to throw a grenade into the nearby “Cafe Srbija”, where he said Serb paramilitaries had gathered, in retaliation and in the belief that they were about to attack Bijeljina, but was shot and wounded by one of the paramilitaries. Shooting broke out between Muslims in the Cafe Istanbul and Serbs in the Cafe Srbija. Fighting erupted elsewhere in the town between PL and Serb paramilitary groups, both of which had set up barricades.

This account is in line with Vahid Karavelic’s description of the events in Bijeljina. There was a significant PL presence in the town and it took the Serb paramilitaries four days to take it over. The Bijeljina PL was part of the Tuzla regional PL, which had been formed in November 1991. We cannot know how the Serb takeover would have transpired if there had been no resistance, but it seems highly plausible that there would have been less violence and therefore less ethnic cleansing of Muslims. Following the takeover, the Serb paramilitaries then moved south to the Muslim village of Janja in Bijeljina municipality, where there was much less resistance and a much less violent takeover. To an even greater extent than in Bijeljina, a significant Muslim population remained in the village after the Serb takeover and it was, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, used by the Serbs to showcase peaceful coexistence between “loyal” Muslims and Serbs. The exodus of Muslims from Bijeljina was much less extensive than in municipalities where the PL resistance was stronger, such as Zvornik, though there were several waves of ethnic cleansing in Bijeljina in the years following 1992.

In the neighbouring municipality of Ugljevik, which had a Serb majority and a substantial Muslim minority, Muslim villages were, according to a report by Serb authorities from 16 April 1992, blockaded and forced to express loyalty to the “Serbian Autonomous Region of Semberija” in northeast Bosnia, which had been declared by the Serbs in 1991. According to one anonymous prosecution witness in the Milosevic trial, an Interior Ministry employee who witnessed the events in Bijeljina in April, “the inhabitants of all these villages voluntarily moved out in the direction of Teocak (a Bosnian government-held village in Ugljevik municipality)” in July. The HRW report describes how displaced Serbs from the villages of Potpec and Tinja in the Tuzla region moved into villages in Ugljevik, such as Janjari and Atmacici, putting pressure on the Muslim inhabitants to leave. Many of these Serbs were from areas that had been captured by Bosnian government forces in combat. Potpec, for example, was among several villages where, according to a Bosnian Army report “in the first half of July strong Chetnik strongholds were liquidated.”

In Bijeljina and Ugljevik, it is likely that the Serbs, in line with Clausewitz’s dictum, preferred to achieve their objectives unopposed. They engaged in extensive ethnic cleansing, but this was in the context of the fighting that erupted in Bijeljina town as they faced armed opposition, and later fighting elsewhere in the country that led to a large influx of Serbs into Serb-controlled areas.  The claim that they were trying to create an ethnically pure state – and deliberately provoked violence to bring this about – is not borne out by events in the Bijeljina in the early stages of the war.

Combating revisionism, controlling the past: the ICTY and the Srebrenica massacre

In a previous post, The trial of Herceg Bosna, I pointed to the assertion by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that its judgements have “contributed to an indisputable historical record, combating denial and helping communities come to terms with their recent history.”

In a variation of this rather grandiose claim, the ICTY’s head of outreach Nerma Jelacic wrote to the Swedish state broadcaster in November last year saying that the tribunal had “contributed to creating a historical record, combating denial” and – deploying language worthy of a Tito-era communist functionary – “preventing attempts at revisionism.”

Ms Jelacic’s letter was in protest at the broadcaster’s decision to show the documentary A Town Betrayed, which is about events in Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. By my reading, the letter contains only one real factual correction. But, through a series of vaguely worded criticisms related to the “underlying theme” of the documentary, it seeks to discredit the whole film in a manner likely to lead to its suppression.

The letter begins by accusing the documentary of running “counter to rulings made by the ICTY” and of contradicting these rulings. The first specific criticism, which, to be fair, is linked to the letter's only factual correction elaborated on later in the letter, is of the documentary’s depiction of events during the fall of Srebrenica as part of a “conventional military operation." 

But she then enters much shakier ground, criticising the claim by the Bosnian journalist who appears in the documentary, Mirsad Fazlic, that the Bosnian president Alija “Izetbegovic is bearing responsibilities” for the fate of the Muslims who were massacred in Srebrenica. Her letter does not demonstrate how the latter quotation contradicts the ICTY’s ruling that the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) committed genocide in Srebrenica. The point being made is that Izetbegovic sacrificed the town by refusing adequately to defend it, but accusing him of bearing some responsibility for what happened, does not in any way lessen the blame of the Bosnian Serbs, unless you believe that blame can only be apportioned into percentage units. It is quite worrying that the ICTY seeks to shield Alija Izetbegovic’s reputation in this way, even against criticism that is compatible with the tribunal’s judgements.

Next, the letter refers to the claim by the film’s narrator that an attack by the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) on the village of Visnjica on 26 June 1995 was a “marching order” to the Serbs for their attack against Srebrenica on 6 July. The letter goes on to say that “Proceedings before the Tribunal have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Srebrenica was a planned killing operation and not a spontaneous act of revenge”, failing to explain how the use of the term “marching order”, which can be interpreted in many ways, implies this.

It then criticises the documentary for saying that the delivery of arms to the ARBiH in Srebrenica was “connected to its ultimate fate.” This is very dangerous territory. Is it really not legitimate to suggest that the flow of arms into Srebrenica may have had a connection with what happened in the enclave? If this is the case, then Allies and Lies, a previous documentary by A Town Betrayed‘s maker David Hebditch, which was shown on the BBC in 2001 before any genocide convictions had been delivered by the ICTY in relation to Srebrenica, is now beyond the pale. Since it contains the assertion that “Defence analyst Tim Ripley believes that the US plot to train and equip the Bosnian Muslims directly led to the terrible death-toll at Srebrenica later in 1995”, it is quite possible to imagine that material such as Allies and Lies can no longer expect to be aired on mainstream television.

Ms Jelacic’s letter then takes issue with A Town Betrayed‘s implication that the male inhabitants of Srebrenica may have been spared had they agreed to lay down their arms and points out that “Evidence from the exhumations that the Trial Chamber reviewed in the Krstic case shows that most of the victims were not killed in combat but in mass executions.” But again, the evidence she cites does not refute the documentary’s claim. It is at least possible that the failure of the Bosnian Muslims to lay down their arms influenced the VRS’s actions following the capture of the town, including against unarmed male civilians.

Then we come to the only factual correction in the letter relating to claim by one of the film’s interviewees “That only c.2000 individuals were executed in the first 48 hours following the fall of Srebrenica and the implication that the remaining numbers killed afterwards were killed as military targets.” The letter then cites the first instance judgement in the case of Popovic and others that “at least 5,336 individuals were killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica.”

Unfortunately, this is a minor part of the letter’s criticism of the documentary. As can be seen from the rest of the letter, the ICTY does not just wish to refute explicit contradictions of its rulings but to suppress any kind of discussion that could be construed as not being wholly in accord with its rulings.

Ms Jelacic concludes the letter on a conciliatory note, reiterating that she is “not questioning any decision as to whether or not to broadcast this documentary” and asking that the ICTY be allowed to respond to any further material contradicting its rulings that the Swedish broadcaster should decide to broadcast. But it is difficult to believe that this is the real intention of the letter. A much more likely consequence is that other broadcasters who may have been considering showing the film will simply decide not to do so and that filmmakers considering exploring the Yugoslav wars will conclude that if they don’t want their production confined to a few independent cinemas and Youtube, they’d better not deviate from ICTY orthodoxies. This is what Ms Jelacic means by “preventing attempts at revisionism.”

Confusion over Konjic

Judge Treschel: Courtesy of the ICTY

In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) trial of Bosnian Croat leader Jadranko Prlic and others accused of war crimes against Bosnian Muslims, lawyers for the defence took exception to comments judge Trechsel made about “Herceg-Bosna”, the controversial entity established by the Bosnian Croats.


During questioning on 28 April 2009 of Dragan Juric, a former deputy commander of the Bosnian Croat Army, HVO, in the municipality of Konjic, Hedveg Moe, for the prosecution, presented a map “that shows the Croatian Communities of Herceg-Bosna and Bosanska Posavina in 1991” to the witness and the following exchange ensued:


Moe:  “This map shows that Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna, doesn't it?”


Juric: “That's what it says on the map.  According to this map, the map I'm looking at, that's how it's surrounded.”


Moe: “And Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna, wasn't it?”


Juric:  “Let me say again, that's what would follow on the basis of this map, but who drew up this map and who conceived it, I don't know.”

At this point Judge Treschel intervened:

Treschel: I'm sorry, witness, I find this a bit difficult. Are you telling us that you do not know whether Konjic, your place, was part of Herceg-Bosna or not?  Do you want us to believe that you ignore even this?

Juric: “I said that judging by this map here...”

Treschel: “Please answer my question.  I am asking you, as a high military officer who worked in Konjic, were you ignorant of the fact that the municipality of Konjic formed part of the Croat Republic of Herceg-Bosna; yes or no?  You knew or you did not know?”

Juric: “Your Honour, yes, I did know.”

At this point defence lawyer Karnavas intervened to say that it was a fallacy that the entire municipality was part of Herceg-Bosna and asked whether it was the bench’s position that the whole municipality of Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna. Mr Treschel did not answer the question, but went on to say that “The witness has clearly answered that he knew that Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna, full stop.”

Then defence lawyer Nozica intervened to observe that Treschel’s question “’ Do you want us to believe that you ignore even this?’... is not commensurate with this stage of the proceedings.” She added that the comment “is a conclusion that the Prosecutor may be allowed to make in his closing arguments” implying that the comments did not appear appropriate for a judge.

The defence should also have pointed out that the word “Republic” was not used in relation to Herceg-Bosna until the second half of 1993, some time after the period that was being discussed at the hearing. But what is more interesting is judge Treschel’s assumption that whether Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna or not is a completely black and white question. This gives rise to his  questionable assertion that Juric “clearly answered that he knew that Konjic was part of Herceg-Bosna, full stop.”

In fact, there is much ambiguity about what being part of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna (HZHB) meant.

The document declaring the decision on 18 November 1991 to establish the HZHB declares that it:

“Consists of the following municipalities: Jajce, Dobretici (Skender Vakuf), Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez, Busovaca, Kiseljak, Fojnica, Kresevo, Kakanj, Vares, Kupres, Bugojno, Gornji Vakuf, Konjic, Jablanica, Prozor, Mostar, Citluk, Ljubuski, Siroki Brijeg, Posusje, Stolac, Capljina, Neum, Grude, Livno, Tomislavgrad, Ravno (Trebinje) and Kotor Varos.”

And that:

“The Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna represents a political, cultural, economic and territorial entity.”

But the fact that Herceg-Bosna consisted of a list of municipalities including Konjic, according to a very vaguely worded decision of the Bosnian Croat leadership in 1991, does not show that Konjic was thereafter unquestionably part of Herceg-Bosna; Juric’s reluctance to give a precise answer to a very imprecise question is understandable.

The belief that HZHB was a rigidly-defined territorial entity gives rise to completely distorted interpretation of the descent into war between Croats and Muslims in the Konjic area, which in reality was caused by extreme behaviour on both sides.

The descent into Croat-Muslim war in northern Herzegovina

As in the rest of Herzegovina, Konjic’s Croats and Muslims were in the early stages of the Bosnian war in 1992 united in opposition to the Serbs, who threatened to overrun much of the country. In southern parts of Herzegovina, the counterattack against the Serbs was led by the Croats, aided by the Croatian army, but in the Konjic area the Croats were much weaker due to the larger Muslim population.

According to Dragan Juric, ”Muslims attempted to have a leading role” in Konjic and in early June 1992 did not allow the equitable distribution between Muslims and Croats of weapons from the Ljuta facility which had been seized from the Serbs in April.

Relations were strained later in June by the refusal of the HVO to join an attack on Serb forces in Nevesinje, because the aim of that attack, to ease the pressure on Bosnian government forces seeking to break the Serb siege of Sarajevo, was not perceived to be in the Croat national interest, in contrast to previous joint operations between the Muslims and Croats. After this, the joint command between Muslim and Croat forces ceased to function.

The Bosnian government had appointed Zejnil Delalic, a wealthy businessman, to act as a coordinator and later commander of “Tactical Group 1” with the aim of coordinating the activities of the Croat and Muslim forces operating in Konjic to help the forces trying to lift the siege of Sarajevo.

This role was slightly contradictory, because, as we have seen, the Croats did not view lifting the siege of Sarajevo as one of their aims and for this reason there was much distrust between Delalic and the local Croats. The Croats saw him as the “so-called” coordinator.

In October 1992 the first clashes between Muslims and Croats in Bosnia occurred in Prozor, a municipality that borders Konjic to the West. At this time, Zahir Hrnjica, commander of the 1^st Klis Battallion in Konjic, failed to carry out an order from the Main Staff of the Supreme Command of the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) to escort a company from Gornji Vakuf, a municipality bordering Konjic, to the village of Parsovici on the border between Konjic and Prozor, because he did not want to provoke a conflict with local Croats. The deputy commander of the ARBiH, Jovan Divjak, ordered that the refusal to carry out the order be investigated. Divjak also signed an order on 25 October removing Salko Zerem as the commander of the Jablanica municipal defence staff for failing to carry out an order assisting ARBiH forces in Prozor.  Zerem was replaced by Safet Idrizovic.

By January 1993, tensions had heightened and the main command of the ARBiH remained suspicious of local Muslims’ cooperation with Croats in the Konjic area. On 28 January, ARBiH commander Sefer Halilovic warned the commander of the 4^th Brigade of the ARBIH, which covered Herzegovina, of “cadres” from the ARBiH and the MUP (interior ministry) in the Konjic region who had put themselves in the service of “Greater Croatian” politics. He named Rusmir Hadzihuseinovic, the mayor of Konjic, Jasmin Guska, the head of MUP in Konjic, Refik Tufo, the commander of the MUP in Hadzici, a municipality between Konjic and Sarajevo, and ARBiH 7^th Konjic Brigade commander Midhat Cerovac. He ordered the 4^th Brigade to coordinate with Zulfikar Alispago, who commanded the “Zulfikar” special purposes unit.

The view that Hadzihuseinovic, Guska, Tufo and Cerovac were collaborating with Greater Croatia is of a piece with Judge Trechsel’s assertion that Konjic in 1992 was unquestionably part of Herceg Bosna. As well as a growing role for the Zulfikar unit in military operations, this view resulted in the removal of Hadzihuseinovic as president of the war presidency in Konjic in late March and his replacement by Safet Cibo, viewed by Croats as a Bosnian Muslim hard-liner, at the behest of the Sarajevo leadership.

Safet Idrizovic, who commanded the municipal defence in Jablanica, which was also brought under the control of Safet Cibo, offered a different perspective on cooperation with the Croats when questioned in the Prlic trial. Though critical of Croat actions in northern Herzegovina, Idrizovic said that his forces did not “feel any consequences of the HVO authority” adding that “there was a parallel power structure and apparently that was unacceptable because they [the Sarajevo government] thought we had accepted HVO authority.” Describing Bosnian Muslim forces that arrived in Jablanica from outside the municipality, he said that he and his men “were terrified of those people.”

On March 23, following an order dated March 20, ARBiH forces from Konjic, Jablanica and Hadzici began attacking the HVO in Konjic with the aim, among others, of taking the “Zlatar” military facility that was under Croat control. The attack was unsuccessful, but restarted on April 14 and succeeded. On April 16, the 45^th Konjic-based Neretvica Bridgade of the ARBiH and the Zulfikar detachment attacked the village of Trusina. The commander of the Neretvica Brigade, Hasan Hakalovic, Zulfikar Alispago and others are currently on trial at the Bosnian war crimes court, accused of killing 19 civilians and three captured Croat soldiers during the attack. The commander of the Hadzici-based 9^th Mountain Brigade, which though under the control of the Sarajevo-based 1^st Corp of the ARBiH, was involved in actions in Konjic, Nezir Kazic, and the speaker of the Hadzici municipal assembly and subsequently president of the Hadzici war presidency, Mustafa Dzelilovic, are also on trial at the Bosnian war crimes court, accused of crimes against Serb and Croat captives in the “Silos” facility in Hadzici municipality.

 The day after the ARBiH attack on Trusina, April 17, the HVO attacked the villages of Sovici and Doljani  in the Jablanica municipality. Mladen Naletelic was convicted by the ICTY for war crimes committed against the Muslim population in these villages as commander of the “Convicts Batallion”, an independent unit under the direct command of the HVO main staff. The events in Sovici and Doljani are included in the indictment against Jadranko Prlic.

The full truth about the descent into war between Croats and Muslims in Herzegovina – and the involvement of political leaderships on both sides – has yet to emerge, but Judge Treschel’s uncompromising insistence that in 1992 and 1993 Konjic was undeniably “part of Herceg Bosna” does not help us arrive there.

Land bridges, idiots in Usora and the Croat-Muslim conflict




30 municipalities of Herceg-Bosna (shaded) according to a decision of 18 November 1991.

 

Last year, the prosecution in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) trial of Jadranko Prlic and other former Bosnian Croat leaders accused of war crimes against Bosnian Muslims made an interesting claim.

In its final brief, the prosecution stated that the Croats “brazenly” included the central Bosnian municipality of Kakanj as part of their "Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna" in 1991 “transparently for the purpose of providing a land bridge to Vares”, a municipality to Kakanj’s east, where Croats were according to the 1991 census the largest ethnic group.

This is one of many questionable assertions  about Herceg-Bosna that have contributed to a simplistic caricature of events in central Bosnia between 1992 and 1994.

The use of the word “transparently” suggests that you only need to glance at the map to see that Kakanj’s inclusion in Herceg-Bosna arose from its geographical position between Vares and other Croat territories.

But Kakanj, which according to the 1991 census was 30% Croat and 55% Muslim, was demographically similar to other municipalities that were also included in Herceg-Bosna or the Croatian Community of Bosanska Posavina in northern Bosnia, none of which was needed as a “land bridge” between Croat territories. Kotor Varos, for example, which was 29% Croat, was on the outer fringes of the group of municipalities that comprised Herceg-Bosna.

The claim that Kakanj was included in Herceg-Bosna to provide a land bridge seems to be based on the assumption that the Bosnian Croat leaders needed Herceg-Bosna to be territorially contiguous so that it could secede from Bosnia. There is, however, no real evidence that the Bosnian Croats actually took any meaningful steps to attach the 30 municipalities that had in 1991 been claimed as part of Herceg-Bosna to Croatia.

More convincingly, the prosecution has argued that the Bosnian Croat leadership abandoned Vares to the Muslims once they realised that it could not be defended, preferring its Croat population to resettle in Croat-controlled parts of Bosnia rather than remaining in Muslim-ruled territory.

The Bosnian Croats clearly prioritised certain Croat-populated areas over others, with western Herzegovina (including Mostar, which Bosnian Croats considered to be their capital) favoured over areas in central Bosnia such as Vares, Zepce and Usora.

In a copies of war diaries seized from former Bosnian Serb Army leader Ratko Mladic’s wife’s flat in Belgrade in 2010, the Bosnian Croat leaders are shown to be dismissive of Croats occupying enclaves outside the core of Herceg-Bosna, for instance, deriding the “idiots in Usora”, a Croat enclave surrounded by Serb and Muslim territory, where the Croats maintained their alliance with the mostly Muslim Bosnian Army (ARBiH). They also discuss the possibility of withdrawing the Bosnian Croat Army (HVO) 108^th Brigade from the Tuzla region.

According to the prosecution in the Prlic trial, former Herceg-Bosna president Mate Boban requested the assistance of international peacekeepers in moving Croats out of Sarajevo, Tuzla, Vares, Bugojno, Zepce and Zenica.

And as the former commander of the HVO, Milivoj Petkovic, who is on trial alongside Prlic, pointed out in the court, in Kiseljak and Kresevo there was resentment at the Bosnian Croat leadership because they were not included in the Croat majority provinces established by the Vance Owen Peace Plan of 1993. In ‘The Muslim Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia: A Military History, 1992-1994’ Charles Shrader writes that HVO leaders in Zepce, Kiseljak and Vitez, were at the end of 1993 “somewhat disappointed in the support they were receiving from their compatriots in Herzegovina, who appeared to be more concerned with establishing the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna than the with the very real threat to the continued existence of the Bosnian Croat enclaves in central Bosnia.”

The Bosnian Croat leadership, who were nationalists, clearly valued some territories more than others, depending on how many Croats lived there and how they were positioned in relation to the Croat heartland in Herzegovina.

But before blaming this for the war between Croats and Muslims, it is worth considering whether the Bosnian Muslim leadership’s stance wasn’t simliar. Was its commitment to Bosnian unity really more important than its desire to defend and liberate areas that had large Muslim populations prior to the Serb offensive in 1992? Did it value Kupres for example, which had a large Croat population, as much as neighbouring Muslim-majority Donji Vakuf, which had also been occupied by the Serbs in 1992? The answer in both cases is no. Both Croat and Bosnian Muslim leaderships failed to act in the spirit of brotherhood and unity and one-sided attempts to demonstrate how one side’s intransigence was provoked by the other are futile. This reality is not compatible with the “Greater Croatia” thesis that has already been advanced by the ICTY.

The Greater Croatia thesis also rests on the assumption that the Bosnian Croat leaders wildly exaggerated the threat to Croats in Bosnian government-controlled areas such as Travnik and Bugojno. No doubt this is true, but when the prosecution in its final brief cites a report by international observers detailing “Croat propaganda” about “mudjahidins slaughtering women and children” which was “totally without justification”, there is a real danger of downplaying the horrendous crimes that were also committed by Bosnian Army (ARBiH) troops. The version of the Greater Croatia thesis that has already been advanced by the ICTY in previous trial judgements depends on a completely sanitised view of the Bosnian government side that depicts every ARBiH crime as an isolated reaction to HVO aggression. It will be interesting to see how the thesis is developed when the ICTY reaches its judgement in the Prlic trial.

Brcko unchanged

Multi-ethnic veneer: a Croat war memorial in Brcko city centre

     

Many people see Brcko  as one of the few multi-ethnic successes of post-war Bosnia. To others, paradoxically, it is a potential flashpoint that could trigger renewed conflict. Both views are wide of the mark. This is because, despite the unified political apparatus and the veneer of multi-ethnicity in the city centre, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats live in different parts of Brcko District and have little reason to provoke a conflict over territory that they do not inhabit.

Brcko District is neither part of the Muslim-Croat Federation nor the Republika Srpska (RS) [Correction: it is part of both. See comments below] and has a single political structure, despite containing large numbers of each of the three ethnic groups. The Serbs gained control of Brcko city in the early stages of the Bosnian war in 1992 and expelled its Muslim (now known as Bosniak) and Croat inhabitants. But the multi-ethnic make-up of Brcko District today is not due to successful returns of non Serbs to Brcko city, but to the fact that most of the territory of Brcko District, which was established by Bosnia’s international supervisors in 1999, had not been under Serb control during the war.

Results from the 2010 general election show that the area that was under Serb control during the war, including the town and the rest of the “corridor” that linked the eastern and western arms of Serb-controlled territory, is still overwhelmingly Serb, though modest numbers of Bosniaks and Croats have returned to formerly Serb-controlled areas. Although it is not part of the Federation or the RS [see above correction], Brcko District’s inhabitants are citizens of one of the two entities. Most Bosniaks and Croats in Brcko District are citizens of the Federation and most Serbs are citizens of the RS, though a significant number of the Bosniaks who have returned to formerly Serb-controlled areas such as the city are citizens of RS. Citizens of the Federation and RS voted for identifiably Bosniak parties in substantial numbers in areas that had been under Serb control during the war, but the data shows that these areas are still dominated by Serbs. This may be one of the reasons why, as related by a report by the International Crisis Group last month, “Brcko Unsupervised”, Serbs often still use maps that ignore the existence of Brcko District and show Brcko city and the former corridor as parts of RS.

The Bosniak and Croat areas of Brcko District are also ethnically divided, though this dates back to before the war and was not caused by ethnic cleansing between the two groups. While many Muslims were expelled from Brcko city, most Croats even before the war lived in cohesive areas outside the town. Despite making up 25% of Brcko municipality’s pre-war population (against the Muslims’ 44% and the Serbs’ 21%) Croats were by far the smallest group in the city. During the war (as I described in a previous post, “Unintended Consequences in Bosnia-Herzegovina”) the Croats in Brcko municipality sought to establish two of their own municipalities, Ravne-Brcko and Gornje Ravne, around the Croat villages, but abandoned these plans after the war when it was agreed that Brcko would become a district. Nevertheless, the 2010 election results show that they still occupy very cohesive areas, which is likely to be an important  factor in any future negotiations over the district.

I pointed out in my previous post that any attempt to link these Croat areas with the Orasje enclave in northern Bosnia, which remains under Croat control, would bring the Croats into conflict with the Serbs as it would encroach on the former corridor between the two halves of the RS. I should have added that, while linking all of these territories with the Orasje enclave would cut the Serbs’ corridor, the part of Brcko District that abuts the Orasje enclave is largely Croat, so it would still be possible for the Serbs and Croats to agree a delineation of territories that would result in some of Croat-majority Brcko District joining an expanded Orasje enclave. This is hypothetical given the international community’s support for the continued existence of Brcko District, but in light of recent co-operation between Serbs and Croats, is a real possibility. That said, most of the Croat areas in Brcko District fall south of the former corridor, so barring the creation of a new corridor south of the previous one, could not be attached to the Orasje enclave without cutting the corridor.

Much has been made of the possibility of Bosniak-Serb clashes in Brcko District. In an article last year, “Croat Crisis Pushes Bosnia Towards Endgame”, the analyst Matthew Parish noted that Bosnia’s three ethnic groups have “become used to living apart in the 15 years since the war ended” and so are unlikely to want to go to war to capture territories with which they have no connection. However, he advanced Brcko as a caveat, saying that there is “a real risk of ethnic confrontation there if the transition to Republika Srpska domination of the town is not managed smoothly.” But if the Bosniaks have given up on formerly Bosniak-majority municipalities that are now in RS, such as Srebrenica, they are unlikely, leaving aside economic considerations, to care much about Brcko, which was not a Bosniak-majority municipality before the war. Notwithstanding the much-praised multi-ethnic advances that have been made in fields such as education in Brcko, election results define politics. These show that Brcko remains rigidly divided, which is why ethnic conflict is as unlikely there as in other parts of Bosnia.

(Apologies for the lack of maps. You can see the map of Ravne-Brcko and Gornje Ravne here http://www.dubrave.ba/images/main/ravne-brcko-l.gif , and the International Crisis Group report also has a useful one http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/europe/balkans/bosnia-herzegovina/B66%20Brcko%20Unsupervised.pdf. You can browse the 2010 election results in detail here: http://www.izbori.ba/Finalni2010/Finalni/ParlamentBIH/Default.aspx)

The indivisibility of citizenship (a diversion)

This print from the 1790s, “French Telegraph Making Signals in the Dark”, shows the British statesman Charles James Fox signalling to a French fleet heading towards an undefended south coast of Britain. It is not difficult to imagine a modern day politician being similarly pilloried in a newspaper cartoon, this time over the issue of the European Union. And it is not just EU-enthusiasts whose attachment to Britain might be called into question. Scottish and Irish nationalists would openly acknowledge their indifference or antipathy to Britishness, as would many among ethnic minorities who remain attached to their homelands and continue to participate in politics there. Less obviously, many “Euro-sceptics”, supposedly the most patriotic Britons, are emotionally attached and committed to causes that do not always coincide with Britain’s interests. 

Hardly any of the last group, who see their adherence to the Anglosphere and the special relationship with the United States as an extension of their British identity, would accept that their Britishness is in any way compromised by their outlook. It would be absurd for an American to insist that the United States’ history begins with the American Revolution. Many American traits of which its citizens are so proud can be straightforwardly traced back to the former mother country; the two countries have a common history. It would be just as foolish for people in Britain to deny this fact, which is why so many here see in the United States the expression of all that is (or was) best about Britain. Largely because of this common history, the two countries’ interests often coincide, so when Brits express strong support for America, they are often doing so because they see it as a means to further Britain’s interests.

But pro-American Atlanticists do not always see the special relationship in terms of Britain’s interest. It is often seen as a friendship, a relationship that pretty much by definition cannot be based on selfishness.  They may not advocate a political union of the kind supported by Euro-federalists, but clearly the idea of the special relationship and close ties with other Anglosphere countries goes beyond a simple alliance of convenience. The potential for the special relationship to damage British interests while advancing those of the United States becomes apparent when one considers that the Americans have been among the most enthusiastic proponents of European integration; the gulf between Euro-enthusiast Atlanticists and “Euro-sceptic” Atlanticists may not be as wide as is sometimes suggested. In both cases there is a strong commitment to the defence of “the West” and an internationalist strand with the potential to clash with Britain’s narrower interests.  NATO, the military alliance that arose at the beginning of the Cold War but seems to have become permanent, against George Washington’s famous advice about avoiding permanent alliances, is more or less the military wing of the European Union. So the European integration so loathed by the most vociferous Euro-sceptic Atlanticists, is in fact an important aspect of the special relationship.

The potential for the special relationship to damage Britain’s interests becomes even more apparent when you consider that the United States’ foreign policy is often influenced by the many ethnic lobbies that are active in that country and so cannot even be seen as acting in America’s, let alone Britain’s, interest. In some cases these lobbies’ aims are so integrated into the general thrust of US foreign policy that few question whether there is any divergence with America’s national interest. Cuban Americans get a free pass thanks to their staunch anti-Communism, which dovetails nicely with mainstream American patriotism, but whether America would still pursue the same policy toward Cuba if there wasn’t such a large Cuban community in America is an interesting question. American support for Israel is tied up with the defence of “the West” in general but is at least in part a consequence of the large Jewish population in the United States. These cases do not obviously affect Britain, but consider the following. The United States played a significant role in shaping the 1990s “peace process” in Northern Ireland and this was largely due to the influence of Irish America. Americans’ equivocation and –and in some cases support – in the face of Irish Republican terror has been well documented, but worrying aspects of their role in shaping the peace process are sometimes overlooked.  Before the September 11 atrocities, the New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now feted as an enthusiastic supporter of the special relationship, welcomed the Sinn Fein president Gerard Adams to New York’s City Hall. According to the New York Times: “’I think President Clinton should greet him,’ declared the Mayor, joining the Irish visitor's own campaign for the Clinton Administration to honor him with a personal White House visit, which would add to the pressure on London for peace talks open to leaders of Northern Ireland's militant republican movement.” You might think that Americans were right about Northern Ireland and that we benefited from their prodding, but the damaging potential of their influence, not just over our foreign policy but in our internal affairs, is clear.

The most obvious impediment to Britishness is dual citizenship. While many dual nationals simply have a foreign nationality for convenience or because they haven’t bothered to renounce it, others see it as an important part of their identity and play an active part as a citizen of the foreign country. Even Michael Portillo, the former Conservative politician who used to dream of being prime minister of Britain, used his Spanish nationality to vote in that country’s last general election. How does a dual national decide how to vote if the interests of one of his countries of citizenship are in conflict with those of the other? (An example in Mr Portillo’s case would be over the issue of Gibraltar.) Countries have many areas of common interest, but there are other spheres where they can only be in competition and where competition – as in the corporate world, for example –adds to human prosperity. Such competition can only thrive when states command the full loyalty of their citizens.

Some British citizens who are not dual nationals act as if they are.  When the Conservative politician Daniel Hannan, ahead of the 2008 election in the United States, wrote: “I am a lifelong Republican, and have, over the years, felt a far more uncomplicated loyalty to that party than to my own,” was he not calling into question his loyalty to Britain in the same way as Mr Portillo? A more blatant example of loyalty to foreign causes entering British politics is the success of the JFK (Justice for the Kashmiri Community) party in Birmingham, which in 2000 successfully pressured the city council to pass a resolution supporting the self-determination of Kashmir. More recently, in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, which has a large Bangladeshi population, the council has also waded into the foreign policy arena, calling for a boycott of “the pariah state” of Israel. In 2009 elections for the European Parliament, a candidate campaigning on the issue of Tamil rights in Sri Lanka won nearly 3% – in some boroughs more than 7% – of the vote in London.

Britishness does not preclude support for foreign causes as long as these are not in serious conflict with the interests of Britain, but if we accept the contention that one can have many different loyalties and identities but can only have one national loyalty, the above examples are problematic. The political scientist Samuel Huntington in a book about American identity compares dual citizenship to bigamy. That is not as harsh as it first appears if one considers that in a free country, citizenship is just one part of a person’s identity, independent of religion, family and many other aspects of life. To expand on the familial analogy, isn’t it best for Britain to be a family of peoples with a common loyalty rather than a vague geographical and political arrangement whose citizens are only there for convenience and feel little affinity with the soil they inhabit? The family unit, in which parents are devoted to their children but also encourage them to behave with compassion towards others,  has over time been a source of immeasurable human happiness. The same may be true of states. Perhaps a better analogy is religion; as Huntington writes, it is difficult to be half Muslim and half Catholic. The divisions between countries are equally rigid. The author Noel Malcolm points out in his pamphlet ‘Sense on Sovereignty’, “sovereignty cannot be divided up into percentage units.” Sovereignty, like religions, is indivisible. Perhaps the same should be true of citizenship.