by Vildana SELIMBEGOVIC
That is actually the only way to get the local judiciary again engaged in the Grabovica case. However, it should not be forgotten that the judiciary has good reasons to resuscitate the whole case and that that is the biggest problem of all: the judicial institutions in Bosnia-Hercegovina (BH) modified the indictment for war crimes that had been issued a long time ago for this massacre to a much milder qualification, then orderly filed the documentation away and waited for a political signal. But they did not know that Carla would be around.
While on Zuka's side are inhabitants of Jablanica who admit that they were scared after the arrival of units from Sarajevo, claiming that exactly the soldiers of the Ninth Motorized Brigade carried out a terror against the town and even wounded certain Ilija Kaleb among the local prisoners, on the other hand Celo's troopers admit that it was crazy to order them to set a camp between inhabited houses and emphasize their impression that they were actually set up in the whole story?!
The truth is, however, merciless and it is only the question of time when the massacre in Grabovica will receive a conclusion in the Hague. Of course all the minute details will be examined there and all the witnesses, who have already been invited on several occasions in front of Hague investigators in Sarajevo, will again be questioned.
Those knowledgeable about the work of the Tribunal, as far as Bosniaks are concerned, announce a transfer of another domestic trial to the international scene in the near future, the one regarding Kazani. They also expect that two cases for which the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina is blamed will be opened, the ones in Bugojno and Srebrenica. More specifically, the destruction of a Serb village near the enclave that became a synonym for a global tragedy. No one is fooled here. The actual culprits are not the real target of Carla del Ponte. The prosecutor is seeking responsibility, and Grabovica is only one test in which the system of command in the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina turned out to be rife with private warriors. For example, all participants have orders defining who their superiors are and their own reports but the Chiefs of Staff have no reports?!
The commander of the Federation Army, Army General Rasim Delic, rejects this version because, simply, the premises visited by SFOR on that occasion belonged to the Army Information Service and were only used for the storage of texts and video-recordings. The dossier from October 26 is kept at the Military Security Headquarters and has been turned over to the Hague a long time ago. However, even Delic understands that exactly that dossier hides the saddest and at the same time most controversial part of the history of the Army BH.
Simply because there are facts that Zuka did not have to nor need to point out to Celo, by tearing together with Sefer Halilovic a paper allegedly signed by Alija Izetbegovic, nor does Zuka need to today explain to anyone that Izetbegovic would have never written such a paper! The reality of the Army BH in the autumn of 1993 was the need for a whole series of "Trebevics" [operation in which soldiers who committed crimes in Kazani were put under control, and their commander killed] to destroy smuggling, paramilitary forces, and organized crime in its ranks. The fact that "Trebevics" waned and lost in intensity as they brushed against politics clearly indicates the true source of army trouble as well as the fact that "Trebevics" started with a domestic siege of Sarajevo, spectacular arrests and murder of the key culprit, but also the key witness, in the Kazani case, Musan Topalovic Caco.
Besides, is it at all necessary to list all the problems produced by the formation of special units whose reports instead of to superior commands were sent directly to the cabinet of the president of the presidency [Izetbegovic]? Is it necessary to emphasize the fact that the Army BH for a long time did not have the Chiefs of Staff, but only the seven-member Commander-in-Chief, and it obeyed and recognized only two of its members [Izetbegovic and Ganic]? Is it actually necessary to explain to anyone in this country miraculous paths of Halid Cengic's logistics that could have been most concisely described as blackmail? And is it at all necessary to ask the question whether anyone in this country hopes that the story about the crimes of the Army BH will end up on the back of Ramiz Delalic Celo, Naser Oric, Zulfikar Zuka Alispago or, for example, Dzevad Mlaco?
"(...) Caco's and Celo's soldiers arrived, about three hundred of them. We were with them for three days. They shot a lot! On the third day Celo and Caco ordered that everyone be killed. Three men came to our house. One of them wore a white T-shirt, had short hair, another one wore a white vest, a flack jacket and a brown knife, while the third one had a blue flack jacket. They asked if we had a donkey. We said that we did. Then they asked us if we were Croats. We said we were, without thinking. Then they told my father to take them to see the donkey. Since he was afraid to go on his own, grandmother and grandfather went with him. We could hear a heated discussion and shouting from there. I did not watch. They probably lined them up. Then we heard a burst of fire from an automatic rifle. They killed them. If my brother did not listen to me, they would have killed us as well. I told him: 'Let's get away'. And we did. They killed my grandmother Matija, grandfather Ivan, father Mladen. I also told my mother that we should get away, or at least that they (mother, sister and brother) should get away, and that I would go and check whether they had killed them. The mother did not want to. Instead she said: 'Let it go, this will also pass. You know how many soldiers we've hosted so far, more than two hundred. All of them came, drank coffee and talked.' When the soldiers killed the father, grandfather and grandmother, they came back for my mother and sister. My mother's name is Ljubica and sister's Mladenka. They took the two of them next to the stable. We heard shooting for a long time. We then slipped away and later went even further away to the hills. My sister had just turned four..."
The following persons were killed in the night between September 8 and 9, 1993:
Based on the autopsy conducted at the pathology department of the Firule Clinical Hospital Center in Split, witness testimony, and after the fact reconstruction of the events, it was concluded that most victims were murdered in a very cruel manner:
After the massacre was carried out, Vehbija Karic issued the order to Zulfikar Alispago Zuka to block the whole region around Grabovica and make sure that no one finds out about the committed crime. The following excerpt was taken from a statement given by a member of the so-called Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina who was present at the time in Grabovica:
"I was personally present when Vehbija issued orders that checkpoints be setup on both entrances to Grabovica, to make sure that the news about the massacre do not leak out. He gave the orders to Zuka and I know that he immediately sent three men to each of the checkpoints with orders to prevent the police, UNPROFOR, journalists, or anyone else from entering the village."
The members of the so-called Army BH were ordered to throw the corpses in the Neretva River. The intention was to hide the evidence of the massacre. Consequently, only 11 corpses of the Croats murdered in Grabovica were exchanged after the end of the clashes. A statement given by one member of the so-called Army BH, present in Grabovica at the time of the crime, describes the tossing of the corpses in the Neretva River:
"The next morning, there were no Croats in the village. I saw their corpses in the Neretva."
Also, some of the highest officers of the so-called Army BH demanded that the two boys who witnessed the crime be executed in order to hide the evidence. Ramiz Delalic Celo talks about that in his statement to the Sarajevo weekly Dani published on October 24, 1997:
"... Then I put the two of them in a car and drove straight to Zuka's base in Donja Jablanica. I told him everything I had heard from the boys. Other officers, Sefer Halilovic, Zuka, Vehbija, Zicro, Bilajac, Nihad Bojadzic, Zuka's deputy, were also there.
"Some of them said that the kids should be 'put away' as otherwise the information about the offensive would leak out. I was adamant that the kids should be sent to their aunt and uncle and be moved to safety. I do not want to say who proposed that the kids be 'put away', because I had already said that in my statement to the Military Security Service."
On September 10, 1993, a meeting of senior military and civilian officials took place in Konjic. The officials learned at that meeting about the crime in Grabovica. Among the participants of the meeting were Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, Safet Cibo, Bakir Alispahic, Sefer Halilovic and Vehbija Karic. Reports about the crime committed in Grabovica were sent from this meeting to Alija Izetbegovic and Rasim Delic.
Officer of the Military Security Service Namik Dzankovic took statements from the culprits immediately after the committed crime. Later a Military Security Service team initiated an investigation in the crime. However, the only goal of the investigation was to hide the responsibility of the members of the Chiefs of Staff of the so-called Army BH, especially General Vehbija Karic. According to later statements published by the media, members of the so-called Army BH who were present in Grabovica at the time of the crime claim that "the Security Service knew all the details in connection with the massacre in Grabovica."
Another piece of evidence confirms that the massacre in Grabovica was premeditated. Immediately before the start of the massacre, a member of the 44th Hilly Brigade from Jablanica came to Grabovica in order to save Stoja and Ivan Pranjic, relatives of his wife. The mentioned soldier, with the approval from Zulfikar Alispago Zuka managed to take the two mentioned elderly persons from Grabovica.
About 40 Croats from Grabovica, the survivors of the massacre, were taken to the camp "Muzej" [museum], supposedly for their own safety. The imprisoned Croats were kept in the prison in Jablanica until they were exchanged in March 1994.
On September 9 in the afternoon, I arrived to Jablanica from Konjic and Dobro Polje. I was immediately informed by Namik about what had happened. The very same moment I ordered him to inform the Security Service and Rasim Delic, to request the assistance of the Service. He and the security of the 44th Hilly Brigade (Jablanica) were to participate in the police investigation; also they were ordered to immediately demand that the head of security for the Sixth Corps immediately come to Grabovica, since the tragic incident took place in the territory under jurisdiction of the Sixth Corps. He told me that he had already done most of these things, based on the authority he had as a security official, and that he was going to carry out the remaining tasks as soon as possible. I ordered the commanders to continue with preparations for the operation, while the security forces continued their work with the goal of finding the culprit.
On September 10, in the early morning I went to Dobro Polje with the whole team (minus Dzankovic). At the meeting attended by the commander of the Sixth Corps, the commander of the Operation Group "West", and commanders of brigades, we concluded our preparations for the operation. That evening, in the military base in Konjic, there was a meeting attended by Bakir Alispahic, Rusmir Mahmucehajic, Dr. Safet Cibo, and Vehbija Karic. We discussed the continuation of the operation. Alispahic advocated that the operation be stopped. The unanimous conclusions of the others was to continue the operation. Rasim Delic approved the continuation of the operation.