Although this was a major turning point in the Bosnian war, it has received surprisingly little coverage in English language accounts of the conflict. It is also covered only briefly -- and innaccurately -- by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in its judgement convicting the former Bosnian Croat political leader Jadranko Prlic and five others of crimes against Bosnian Muslims during the Muslim-Croat conflict of 1993 to 1994.
The Prlic judgement notes that in the early hours of 30 June 1993 the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) launched an attack on the HVO in the north of the town of Mostar in cooperation with Muslim members of the HVO 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades who had deserted to join the ARBiH. It goes on to observe that on the day of the attack and the following days, the ARBiH took control of the Tihomir Misic barracks in the northern zone of Mostar as well as a group of villages and other locations within a 26km radius to the north of Mostar. But few details of how the rebellion was planned and executed are given and, as will be shown below, the ICTY's brief account of the events is not even accurate.
The rebellion was the culmination of a long-held plan by the Bosnian Muslim political and military leadership in the region to turn the large number of Muslims in the HVO to its advantage. To fully understand the events of 30 June 1993, it is necessary to examine the course of Muslim-Croat relations in southern Herzegovina from the early stages of the outbreak of the Bosnian war in 1992.
Allies against the Serbs, 1992
In contrast to other parts of Bosnia, when the war reached southern Herzegovina in April 1992, it was the HVO that led the fight against the Serbs rather than the ARBiH, which was late to develop in this area. The war in southern Herzegovina was closely linked to the conflict in the southern part of Croatia that had begun in 1991 and continued into 1992.
Muslims in the municipalities of Mostar, Stolac and Capljina joined the HVO in large numbers from its formation in April 1992. In other areas, including more heavily Muslim-populated municipalities in neighbouring northern Herzegovina, they generally joined the ARBiH.
Aside from their proximity to Croatia, Mostar, Stolac and Capljina were more ethnically mixed than the Muslim-majority municipalities of northern Herzegovina, Konjic and Jablanica. Of Mostar's 126,067 citizens recorded in the 1991 census, 35% registered as Muslims and 34% as Croats. Stolac, with a population of 18,845, was 45% Muslim and 32% Croat, while of Capljina's 27,852 citizens, 54% were Croat and 28% were Muslim.
As noted by the Prlic judgement, although Capljina was majority Croat, several villages in the Dubrave Plateau straddling Capljina and Stolac had a Muslim majority, a factor that would play an important part in shaping the Muslim-Croat conflict in 1993.
In Bosnia's first democratic elections in 1990, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) candidate Pero Markovic was elected mayor of Capljina, while in Stolac, despite the Muslim plurality recorded in the 1991 census, the HDZ's Zeljko Raguz was elected mayor. In roughly evenly divided Mostar, an executive council and municipal assembly were established after the election, with the executive council presided over by Ismet Bajric, a Muslim.
Following the outbreak of war in April 1992, the HVO, assisted by the Croatian Army (HV), successfully pushed Serb forces out of Mostar and other areas of southern Herzegovina in May and June of 1992, securing military control over a large region stretching from the right bank of the Neretva river to the Croatian border. As noted by the authors of the CIA book Balkan Battlegrounds, Bosnian government forces "were confined to a largely defensive role most of the time" during these events (Balkan Battlegrounds, Volume 2; p 359).
It was only later in 1992 that the first brigades of the ARBiH were established in the region. In Stolac, for instance, the Bregava Brigade (later known as the 42nd Mountain Brigade of the ARBiH) was formed in August 1992. The Bregava Brigade was one of five brigades to form the ARBiH 4th Corps when it was established in November 1992. (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 709). The Croat attitude to the establishment of these ARBiH brigades was ambivalent, because although they could strenghten the common resistance against the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), they might also threaten Croat military and political control in the region. The HDZ had designated the Croat-populated municipalities of southern Herzegovina as part of the "Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna" (HZHB) in November 1991.
The military dominance of the Croats in southern Herzegovina was in contrast with the demographic situation in the region. In the months following the ejection of Serb forces from Mostar and the rest of Western Herzegovina, the Croat political and military leadership tried to consolidate Croat control of the region while the Muslims tried to challenge it.
In Mostar, following the outbreak of war in April, the municipal assembly and executive council were replaced by the municipal crisis staff, composed of four Croats, three Muslims and two Serbs. However, the crisis staff was dissolved in May and replaced with a municipal war government presided over by the HVO. According to the Prlic judgement, the Mostar Municipal HVO "implemented a policy that sought to introduce a distinction between Croats and Muslims and to disadvantage the Muslims in the municipality" (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 709).
The policy involved measures such as raising the Croatian flag on public buildings and imposing the Croatian language in schools. The judgement also notes that from May 1992, the Mostar municipal HVO implemented a policy in relation to refugees who were coming to Mostar from other parts of Bosnia, which "although not specifically aimed at the Muslims, greatly disadvantaged them in respect of housing and access to humanitarian aid." (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 747).
Despite these findings in relation to Mostar, the Prlic judgement rejected allegations in the indictment that the HVO attempted to "Croatise" Stolac municipality (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 1908) during 1992. The judgement notes that the ARBIH Bregava Brigade in Stolac "worked together with the HVO to defend the common front lines against the Serb forces between December 1992 and February 1993 (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 1895). The judgement also declined to make any ruling on the indictment's allegations relating to persecutution of Muslims in Capljina in 1992. At the end of 1992, Muslims still made up a large percentage of HVO units in Mostar, Stolac and Capljina.
The alliance breaks down, 1993
Notwithstanding the growing tensions towards the end of 1992, the Muslims and Croats in southern Herzegovina at the beginning of 1993 remained allies against their common enemy, the VRS. Tensions grew in the early part of 1993 as Muslims increasingly challenged the imbalance between their weak political and military position in the region and the demographic reality demonstrated in the 1991 census figures.
While many Muslims had joined the HVO, towards the end of 1992 Muslim political and military leaders began questioning whether they should remain members of this nominally Croat army. Testifying in the Prlic trial, Radmilo Jasak, an HVO commander active in the region in 1992 and 1993, said that from late 1992, Muslim political leaders in Mostar including Zijad Demirovic, the recently installed head of the regional council of the main Muslim political party, the SDA, said Muslims in the area should not be members of the HVO (Prlic Trial:21/01/10).
Antipathy among Muslim political and military leaders to Muslims being members of the HVO can also be seen in a report from 26 January 1993, signed by Bregava Brigade commander Bajro Pizovic. The report bemoans the fact that "inadequacy" among the Muslim leadership in the Stolac area had caused Muslims to join the HVO. It also noted that the Bregava Brigade had been arming "by way of dispossession from ex-JNA members and later on from HVO units" (Prlic trial 2D00281. This document and other documents cited in this text can be found by searching on the ICTY court records website).
The Muslim military leadership also targetted Muslims serving in the police. On 2 January 1993 a report by the head of police in Stolac, Mehmed Dizdar, reported being ordered by Mirsad Mahmutcehajic, assistant chief of logistics in the ARBiH 4th Corps, the previous month to inform members of the police "loyal to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina" to put themselves at the disposal of the ARBiH Bregava Brigade. The order was in response to pressure on the policemen to sign a loyalty oath to the HZHB (Prlic trial: 4D00929).
In February, Zijad Demirovic and other Muslims, including the ARBiH 4th Brigade commander, Arif Pasalic, outlined their vision for Muslims in the region in a letter to SDA leader Alija Izetbegovic. They were, they said, seeking to establish "a unified political and national front in Herzegovina." They were engaged in a "project of strengthening the political and military front of Muslims in the Neretva River valley" (Prlic 2D01210).
The following month, efforts to encourage Muslims to leave the HVO had begun taking effect. On 16 March 1993 HVO 1st Brigade commander Nedjeljko Obradovic sent a message to the Bregava Brigade complaining that Muslims had deserted the HVO with their weapons and equipment to join the ARBiH. Obradovic complained that this went against an "agreement with Bajro Pizovic that you would not include a single solder without consent." On March 30, an HVO report said that pressure was being put on Muslims to leave the HVO and police in Stolac to leave "or they might be killed or their houses set on fire" (Prlic: 4D0069)
Attempts to bring Muslims from the HVO to the ARBiH were in line with the policy encouraged from Sarajevo. A document from 16 April, signed by Fikret Muslimovic at the ARBiH Supreme Command headquarters calls on the 4th Corps to "make Muslims within the HVO as passive as possible and influence their transfer from the HVO to ARBiH" (Prlic: 2D00288)
A report signed on the same day by Huso Maric, head of security of the Bregava Brigade, complained that "Certain members of Muslim ethnicity are standing shoulder to shoulder with representatives of the HVO" and called for introduction of guards in villages with a Muslim population. It was time, he said, for "Muslim members of the HVO to place themselves on the side of their people" (Prlic: 4D00033).
But while the national and local Muslim leadership viewed Muslim membership of HVO brigades negatively, they also saw opportunities in this situation. A document from 18 April 1993 signed by Bregava Brigade commander Pizovic, rather than demanding Muslims leave the HVO in Mostar, Capljina and Stolac, calls for "a plan for informing ... the Muslim solders in the HVO" in these municipalities of actions the ARBiH is taking (Prlic: 4D00035). Although the ARBiH and HVO were still allies in the region at this time, they were increasingly arguing other over matters such as movements of the other side's troops around the area, with both sides accusing the other of provocative behaviour.
ARBiH plans for the area south of Mostar are indicated by another document from 18 April, signed by Huso Maric, in which he proposes that the Bregava Brigade should "establish cooperation with the inhabitants of Dubrave and Stolac through the organs of the civilian authorities." (Prlic: 4D00034) As noted above, the Dubrave plateau between Stolac and Capljina municipalities contained several Muslim majority villages, while Stolac town was 62% Muslim according to the 1991 census (Prlic initial indictment; paragraph 154), so it is not difficult to guess which "inhabitants" this proposal had in mind. The document also calls for the ARBiH to "establish cooperation with our soldiers in the HVO and point out the seriousness of the situation to them" (my emphasis).
By this time the ARBiH and HVO had already descended into open warfare in central Bosnia and northern Herzegovina and the two sides were clashing in Mostar, where the HVO was increasingly seeking to assert its authority in the face of the growing presence of the ARBiH. A ceasefire was signed in the city on 20 April (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 757). Capljina and Stolac remained relatively peaceful at this time.
Nevertheless, relations were still worsening and the ARBiH continued outlining plans to put the Muslim HVO soldiers in the area to good use. On 2 May ARBiH 4th Corps commander Arif Pasalic signed a document saying that "linking up with our men in the HVO was carried out" adding that they have the task of taking the village of Tasovcici (just west of Capljina town, on the road to Stolac) and the bridge in Capljina. The document also refers to plans for the "taking the town of Stolac with our men in the HVO" (Prlic: 4D00036).
Notwithstanding ARBiH plans for some kind of action in coordination with Muslim members of the HVO, it was the HVO that initiated the outbreak of large scale clashes in Mostar on 9 May 1993. During these clashes the HVO captured the Vranica building where the ARBiH in the city had been headquartered. Following this fighting, which is blamed on the Croats by the Prlic judgement, some Muslims left the HVO brigades in Mostar and elsewhere in southern Herzegovina to join the ARBiH, taking their weapons with them, though a large number stayed.
According to an HVO document from 9 June 1993, the Capljina-based 1st Brigade of the HVO still included 1,659 Muslims, comprising 35% of the 4,686 soldiers in the brigade. The 2nd Brigade based in the northern part of the city of Mostar and adjacent areas of the municipality had 500 Muslims, or 20.8% of the total, while the 3rd Brigade in southern Mostar had 201 Muslims, 13.6% of the total. The 4th Brigade, based in the overwhelmingly Croat majority municipality of Ljubuski, had 200 Muslims or 4.8% of the total, roughly in line with the Muslim percentage in the municipality according to the 1991 census. (Prlic: 2D00150)
The continued existence of a large number of Muslims in these units following the May clashes meant that an ARBiH attack in coordination with Muslims in the HVO was still on the cards. Although the documents cited above relate to plans to enact such an action to the south of Mostar, in Stolac and Capljina, when the attack did come it was launched in the north of Mostar town and neighbouring parts of the municipality further north.
The mutiny of 30 June 1993 and after
As the Prlic judgement correctly notes, between 0300 hours and 0345 hours, the ARBiH launched an attack on the Tihomir Misic barracks in the north of the the town of Mostar before targetting neighbouring territory, succeeding in the following days in capturing the villages of Bijelo Polje, Rastani, Vrapcici and Salakovac, "as well as other locations within a 26-km radius in the north of Mostar".
However, the judgement then goes on to inaccurately state that the attack was launched "in cooperation HVO soldiers of Muslim ethnicity who had deserted" the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades of the HVO. (Prlic judgement, Volume II: paragraph 882).
In fact, it was only Muslim soldiers in the HVO's 2nd Brigade, concentrated in the North of Mostar town and neighbouring settlements, that were involved in this attack. The 1st Brigade was based in Capljina and the area it covered did not extend to Mostar town, while the 3rd Brigade was based in the south of the town and adjacent areas of Mostar municipality.
The judgement's errors in relation to the HVO brigades involved appear to derive from a misreading of one of the two documents it cites and an error in the second document.
The first document is a report by UN military observers filed on 5 July 1993. The report notes that the HVO was "very concerned that the Muslims were deserting from 1st and 3rd HVO Bdes and joining BiH units" (Prlic: P03206) but does not make any mention of them having participated in the 30 June attack. Muslims deserting from these brigades had been a general concern for the HVO since the 9 May clashes in Mostar (see for example Prlic trial: 19/01/10) and possibly earlier, but the coordinated desertion and attack by Muslims on their fellow HVO soldiers on 30 June happened within the 2nd Brigade only.
The other document the judgement cites is a report from Spanish peacekeepers in Mostar, which notes that Muslims in the 3rd Brigade of the HVO, based in the Tihomir Misic barracks, deserted with their weapons to join the ARBiH. This appears to be a basic error that has not been picked up by the judgement, because it was the 2nd Brigade of the HVO, not the 3rd Brigade, that was based in the Tihomir Misic barracks. The document is under seal but is referred to in testimony in the Prlic trial on 23 November 2006.
Notwithstanding the Prlic judgement's brief and inaccurate account of these events, testimony in the trial and documents submitted to the court do shed interesting light on the events of 30 June and after.
Questioned by the judge during testimony on 17 February 2010, Prlic's co-accused, the former HVO chief of staff Milivoj Petkovic, notes that the Tihomir Misic barracks were guarded by Muslim and Croat members of the HVO on sentry duty. Although his testimony is slightly disjointed and difficult to follow, he appears to be saying that Muslim sentries disarmed their Croat colleagues "at gunpoint", enabling the ARBiH to enter the barracks and seize the weapons in the barracks. According to Petkovic, once the Croat soldiers who had been asleep realised what was happening "half of them swam across the Neretva with no clothes and managed to reach the other bank." The ARBiH was able to take the Tihomir Misic barracks because most of the HVO soldiers there were Muslim, according to Petkovic's account.
Another account of the events, in a report by the Mostar Police Adminstration dated 15 July 1993 (Prlic: 2D00887), says that 444 Muslims who were "hitherto" members of the 1st and 2nd battallions of the HVO 2nd Brigade went over to the "Muslim side" and participated in the 30 June attack. The report accuses the Muslim deserters of a series of acts in the Potoci area around 10 kilometres north of Mostar city, including arresting Croat members of the HVO, setting houses on fire and shooting at civilians.
A separate report by a district military prosecutor dated 10 August 1993 (Prlic: 2D00857) accuses another group of Muslims, also members of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the HVO 2nd Brigade until they deserted on 30 June with their weapons, of attacking Croat homes in the village of Lisani, capturing some residents and forcing some to swim across the Neretva, and of attacking homes and civilians in Vrapcici and the Rastani area.
In coordination with these actions by defectors from the 1st and 2nd battalions of the HVO 2nd Brigade, the ARBiH was able to advance north out of the area it already controlled in Mostar and south from northern Herzegovina. According to an ARBiH report on combat operations dated 1 July (2D01389), the attack resulted in units of the 4th Corps linking up with the 6th Corps, based in Konjic; the result of the attack is illustrated in the above maps showing the situation before and after 30 June.
Although this attack successfully achieved the ARBiH's aims north of Mostar, it also meant that it would not be able to put its apparent plans for similar operations in Stolac and Capljina into effect. This is because, following the attack, the HVO, fearful that similar actions could occur elsewhere in southern Herzegovina, arrested remaining Muslim members of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Brigades of the HVO as well as ARBiH soldiers and civilians across Mostar, Stolac and Capljina municipalities.
From its establishment in April 1992 and for the first half of 1992 the HVO had been the most multi-ethnic of the main forces fighting in the Bosnian war. Figures compiled by the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre show that non-Croats comprised nearly 10% of the total HVO war dead over the whole 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Non-Muslims comprised nearly 3% of ARBiH war dead, while non-Serbs made up just over 1% of the VRS losses. (Bosnia's Paralysed Peace, Christopher Bennett; p68). Following the 30 June attack and subsequent arrests, the number of non-Croats in the HVO was neglible, except in a few areas of northern Bosnia.
The arrest of Muslim soldiers in the HVO after the 30 June attack prevented the mutiny spreading south of Mostar. But the ARBiH still had plans for operations south of the town and, although these would not involve serving Muslim members of the HVO, its actions did to an extent follow a similar pattern to the events of 30 June.
As noted in Balkan Battlegrounds, the ARBiH began attacking to the south of Mostar on 13 July "possibly aiming to cut the Croat-held road from Capljina to Stolac." While the ARBiH did not make it as far south as this road, it did capture the towns of Buna and Blagaj, about 10 kilometres south of Mostar. UN peacekeepers also recorded shooting as far south as Capljina -- well beyond the extent of the ARBiH gains (Balkan Battlegrounds, Volume 1; p200). The reason for this was that the arrest of Muslim members of the the HVO had not managed to completely forestall operations of the type that had aided the ARBiH advance north of Mostar. Although there were now no active Muslim members of the HVO to enable the ARBiH to launch a similar attack to the 30 June operation, Muslim ex-HVO members engaged in sabotage operations in Stolac and Capljina in coordination with the ARBiH push south of Mostar.
A record of a statement taken from a captured Muslim ex-HVO member by the Capljina Crime Prevention Department on 15 July quotes him as saying that he left the HVO on 30 June with his rifle and ammunition and joined a group of Muslim fighters acting in cooperation with the ARBiH. The group's aim was to capture the Masline checkpoint between Stolac and Capljina and gain control of the road between the two towns. However, before they achieved their objective they were forced to retreat to the woods where they were found and captured by the HVO, according to the statement (Prlic trial: 4D00910).
A witness statement given to the Prlic trial by a Muslim HVO soldier in Capljina who was arrested following the 30 June attack north of Mostar but managed to escape, describes being part of a group that made contact with the ARBiH 4th Brigade and was ordered on 12 July to cut off the road between Capljina and Stolac. "Although our action was successful, it was not recognised as such and we recieved no back-up," the witness statement says, adding that many inhabitants of the Dubrave plateau were rounded up and expelled following the failed action. (Prlic trial: P10145)
The account of acting in co-ordination with the ARBiH 4th Brigade ahead of their expected arrival in the region tallies with an HVO report on 13 July based on a statement by a captured member of a group of armed Muslims who had been acting in coordination with the ARBiH. According to the report, around 50 Muslims were tasked with capturing the Gubavica barracks in the Dubrave plateau "in a way similar to the scenario in Bijelo Polje" (The 30 June attack north of Mostar.) The group were then to receive reinforcements from an ARBiH battallion from Mostar "creating the preconditions for advancing towards Stolac and Capljina along with obtaining full control over Dubrave Plateau." (Prlic trial: 4D01042)
The events south of Mostar in mid-July 1993 are also described in the Prlic judgement, which notes that on 13th July, "the ABiH and the HVO were exchanging fire in and around the village of Bivolje Brdo" (Prlic judgement, Volume II; paragraph 2111), just north of the main road between Capljina and Stolac. However, whether it is really accurate to describe the Muslims exchanging fire with the HVO in this area as "ABiH" soldiers is doubtful. As noted in a witness statement cited by the judgement, from a Muslim civilian who who was in Bivolje Bolje during the events, "This formation of Muslim soldiers were not properly BiH Army. There was a period of transition from the HVO to the BiH Army. In Dubrave, the HVO Muslim soldiers gathered and organised a defence against the Bosnian Croats (HVO).They were expecting some support from the BiH Army what did not happen." (Prlic trial: P09937)
Had these operations behind the HVO lines been successfully coordinated with the ARBiH attack south of Mostar, the ARBiH would have taken a major step forward in its goal to connect central Bosnia with the far south of Herzegovina and possibly the Adriatic coast. However, the HVO, in a joint operation involving the 1st and 3rd Brigades (Prlic trial: 09/11/09) recaptured Buna and stopped the ARBiH's advance. The front lines in southern Herzegovina would remain broadly unchanged until the end of the Muslim-Croat civil war in February 1994.
