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.