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.
7 comments:
Too much spin and too much onesided informations based on very monstrous propaganda from the 90s about the Bosnian Serbs as criminals and Bosnian Muslims as good guys. Both sides has made a lot of serious war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnia war and both sides has killed a lot of people during that period and destroyed a lot of churches and mosques and other historical monuments. In this article of yours only one side has presented as criminals, but there are no any bad words about the other side who was a war criminal factory in some other parts of Bosnia. I am talking about Bosnian Muslim military and paramilitary foces and Militarist islamist terorist forces called "Mujaheedins" who have come from the Arabian countries and who killed a lot of Bosnian Serbs including Bosnian Croats who were the victims of Mujahedins and native Bosnian Muslim military forces. About 17 years has passed since the ending of the Bosnia war and, unfortunately, there is a people who are blogging about something that they know only about from the 90s propaganda, and they are creating an image about something and someone based on something that they heard and saw on television. Now something offtopic: I mean, i have watched Big Brother on television, but that doesnt mean that the life is Big Brother, and Big Brother scenes are only just the part of someones life, and not the whole someones life, and the part of just someones life it is a part of someone else peoples life, same with Bosnia war, many victims, killed on the both sides by the various armies, and not just one of them, as someone still want to present to the wide public.
Comment by "Nikola Tesla", a Serbian troll actively engaged in propagating Serbian point of view, which is devoid of any facts, and actively equalizing victims of systematic persecution and genocide with Serbian battlefield losses.
Serbian propagandists want us to believe that everybody was a victim in the war, and since everybody was a victim, it's nobody's fault. Same could be said for World War II if we apply Serbian standards. But the facts tell a different story. Some 20,000 Serbian losses in Bosnia were soldiers; other 4000 were civilians who were IRONICALLY killed by Serb Army; remember -- thousands of Serbs died as a result of Serb shelling of Bosnian multi-ethnic cities!
As for his claim that we're blogging about something we don't know, it is obvious that he is the only one here who is in denial of established facts. I was a war survivor, I was in Bosnia since day one and throughout entire hell, I was experienced war on my skin, so don't tell me that I am blogging about something I saw on TV.
You, the so called "Nikola Tesla"... you're nothing but a despicable Serbian propagandist.
It's important to mention that today, three Serbs were convicted and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in Belgrade for war crimes against Bosniak civilians in Biljeinja. Crimes included rape, torture, and killings.
Thanks for the information about the three Serbs convicted in Belgrade for crimes in Bijeljina. I was not aware of this.
On the point about more than 4,000 Serb civilians killed by the Serb Army, this is only partly true. Of the more than 1,000 killed in the Sarajevo region (according to the Research and Documentation Centre), for example, a significant number were in areas under Serb control and killed by Bosnian Army shelling, sniping etc.
Rory, that is only partially true.
We didn't have tanks or artillery to shell them. Who shell them? Come on.
They were soldiers who died on the battlefield. Some Bosniak and Serb and Croat civilians were killed by criminal elements in the besieged Sarajevo, but overwhelming majority of Serb civilians who died in the besieged Sarajevo were killed by Serb shelling of this city. And that's a fact.
We did not persecute them, they persecuted us. We did not engage in systematic ethic cleansing of Serbs, they engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing to ensure racial purity of Bosnia.
We don't want any kind of racial purity in Bosnia and if needed we will fight for multiculturalism again.
I don’t dispute your point about Serbs killed in besieged Sarajevo, but I am referring to parts of the Sarajevo region, as defined by the RDC, that were under Serb control, such as Hadzici and Ilijas. In these areas there were instances of sniping, shelling and massacres in which Serb civilians were killed. This can be established by cross-referencing the list of names the RDC has compiled for the Sarajevo region with reports from the media, human rights bodies etc. I have been able to establish that a significant number of the 1000+ Serb civilians killed in the Sarajevo region were killed in Serb-controlled areas, but do not know the exact or even approximate figures. If anyone does, please get in touch.
On ARBiH artillery and shelling in the Sarajevo region, see Roger Cohen’s report in the New York Times of 15 June 1995, ‘A Ragtag Bosnian Army Becomes a Credible Force’, and Srecko Latal’s Associated Press report of 9 October 1994, ‘Serbian Sniper Shoots 12 In Revenge For Shelling’.
Srecko Latal is a Serbian journalist, so please don't insult my intelligence by posting him as a source.
As for your allegation of 1000 Serb victims: The RDC does not pinpoint exact locations "where" the victims were killed. The RDC's list of dead is established by the victim's pre-war residence. We know, based on RDC's research again, that some 3,000 or so Serbian soldiers that were listed by Serb sources as being killed in eastern Bosnia have actually died in other parts of Bosnia, but were listed as losses in municipalities in which they lived before the war.
So, for example, if you were resident of Zvornik in 1991, and then you joined the Serb army in 1992 and died persecuting Bosniak population in North-Western Bosnia, you would still be counted as a casualty for Zvornik.
As for the Bosnian Army engaging in some revenge attacks, they are understandable. What did you expect the Bosnian Army to do? They have done pretty good job protecting whoever they could. But human tolerance has limits. Serbs have done so much harm to our people that I could never shed any tears for them.
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