Kill Your Brother
Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, October 12 1998
by Damir Pilic"Seven of us were sitting in front of the house," relates Salko Nurko, "when a car appeared; I think that it was a beige Opel Ascona. I was standing and Nazif was sitting a meter away from me, on a bench. I saw something being thrown out from the back seat and then there was an explosion."
Sakir Kudra continues the story: "There was a parked van in front of us and it provided some protection. When it exploded, the van went up in flames and we quickly pulled Nazif and Salko away. Adem was already dead."
"Adem was sitting with us," adds Nazif Omerovic. He has almost gone deaf from the explosion.
Sakir says that the Capljina police arrived after ten minutes, and an Ambulance immediately after that. Nazif and Salko were transferred from the health center in Capljina to the hospital in Mostar. Sakir was supposed to be transferred as well, as soon as the ambulance came back.
"However, when the driver returned, he told me that the Police had ordered him to wait until I gave a statement. Before that, all the phones in the Capljina health center had been disconnected so that the doctor couldn't call anyone, nor could anyone call him. Then, they took me to the police station and I had to wait there for three hours, past midnight."
They Want To Chase Us Away!
In the police station Sakir Kudra witnessed the beating of the representative in the Federal Parliament Omer Cevra and two Bosniak policemen who escorted him."Representative Omer had come to get me and got me out of the station. They got into a police car, I in a UN vehicle, and we were supposed to start driving towards Mostar. I noticed about ten policemen in front of the station, waiting for something, and that seemed suspicious immediately. Then, I saw that police chief Buntic was pulling policeman Sead Tabakovic out of the other car, although Tabakovic didn't offer resistance, and that a big policeman was hitting Omer from behind. Later, we heard that both Omer and Sead and the other policeman had been beaten up."
"They want to chase us away. They've come from Srebrenica, Iran, they wear beards..." all together, four days after the death of Adem Muminagic about fifty rather angry Croat displaced persons explained to two Feral's journalists in front of Tasovcici.
"I wouldn't," confided one of them, a refugee from Konjic," but one has to. It's who gets who first. Muslims will chase us away from here, my house in Konjic has been burnt down, where should I go?"
We kept quiet; he shrugged his shoulders and added peacefully: "That's what people say."
According to the 1991 census, there were 698 Serbs, 511 Muslims, and 294 Croats in Tasovcici. Wartime migrations have reduced that leopard skin to a single spot, Croats: besides a minority of original inhabitants, today there are several hundred Croatian refugees from Travnik, Kakanj, Zenica, Konjic and elsewhere in Tasovcici. Six years is a long time for refugees, and it is easy to incite misery so that it probably wasn't too difficult to convince these people that the pilot-group of Bosniak returnees was nothing else but a Mujahedeen vanguard of an Islamic Army that would come to exterminate Croats in Tasovcici.
HTV in Action
On Thursday October 1, early in the morning, Bosniak returnees, forty of them, entered the village escorted by SFOR. Already in the early afternoon, Croat refugees blocked the main road and the barricade was "manned" mostly by women and children. Since the locals, after two hours of discussions, refused to clear the road, at about 5 p.m. SFOR soldiers cleared the barricade, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Hercegovina-Neretva canton, Valentin Coric, who tendered his resignation after the murder in Tasovcici, later labeled that action by the Italian carabinieri as the cause of the death of the Bosniak returnee that happened the following day."That intervention was unnecessary and shameful," stated Coric to Sarajevo Oslobodenje, while Bosnian HDZ in its statement condemned violence in Tasovcici, but also emphasized that the violent clearing of the road "disturbed the Croat people".
"Simply, it is not true that SFOR soldiers beat up Croat women; they simply took them by their hands and moved them from the road," claims Chris Riley, spokesperson of the Mostar office of the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia-Hercegovina. "The whole intervention took less than a minute and was done without violence, although the men who stood behind these women were throwing stones at the SFOR soldiers. At one point, the Capljina police chief appeared at the barricade, but he simply turned his vehicle around and left. The [Croat] Police did nothing to prevent the events."
It is interesting that the footage of the SFOR's intervention was shown immediately on Croatian TV, which indicates remarkable professionalism of that institution: HTV knew about the event in advance, since otherwise the cameras would not have been on the spot.
Escape from House
Because of the tense atmosphere, in the early evening Bosniaks left the house closest to the road and hid in the rear part of the village, which later turned out to be a wise move: the deserted house was set on fire that night, in spite of the promise by the police to protect it. The rest of the night was quiet, as was the first part of Friday, until 5 p.m., when a group of about 150 Croat refugees gathered next to the road. Soon, Capljina mayor Krunoslav Kordic and wartime mayor Pero Markovic were seen with them."I don't know what exactly Kordic told them," tells us Musair Penava, former head of Capljina municipality in exile, today head of the office for refugees and displaced persons in Capljina, "but they did give him a strong applause and soon afterwards, the explosions happened. We talked via mobile phone to our returnees, and they told us what was going on."
The first explosion happened a bit after 8 p.m.; Muminagic was killed and three persons wounded in that explosion. Afterwards, another three to four explosions were heard, and at about 10 p.m., after an urgent call from the UN Mission in Mostar, canton's vice-governor Fatima Leho and representative in the Federal Parliament Omer Cevra arrived escorted by two Bosniak policemen who had been told that morning by police chief Buntic to leave Capljina because he "couldn't guarantee their safety".
The wounded were transferred from the health center in Capljina to the hospital in Western Mostar, where they were operated on; the following day, based on the decision by Dr.Alija Suka, deputy canton Minister of Health, they were transferred to a Muslim hospital in Eastern Mostar. Sakir Kudra's wound was light so that he can already walk around on crutches, while Salko Nurko and Nazif Omerovic were seriously hurt and, with shrapnel in legs, are still confined to bed. On Saturday morning, most of the Bosniak returnees returned to Mostar and Konjic, and only the ten most courageous stayed in Tasovcici in two houses on a hill, together with vice-governor Leho.
Do Not Let Them Through!
Our attempt to reach the Bosniak returnees was blocked by angry locals, gathered at the same spot where on October 1 they blocked the main road. While we were parking the car, we could hear angry voices: "Don't let them through!" and "They won't go through!" All our questions were left unfinished because of interruptions; noticing that we were looking towards ten small dots gathered in front of a house on a hillock some hundred meters away from us, one of the locals shouted:"We have to chase those Balijas [derogatory term for Muslims-Bosniaks] away. We must all get together and chase them away to Palestine. And you, if you want to go through, you must come back with the mayor. Otherwise nothing."
By the way, we had tried to reach Capljina mayor Krunoslav Kordic in his office during the whole day, but no one picked up the phone there; this reminded us of the statement by the representative in the Federal Parliament Omer Cevra that the first day after the return of Bosniaks to Tasovcici, representatives of the International Community couldn't find Kordic at all.
We sought the last chance to enter Tasovcici in the International Police (IPTF) building. However, we only managed to get a phone connection with the cantonal vice-governor Fatima Leho, who stayed in Tasovcici after Muminagic's death. It was a few minutes before 8 p.m.
"There is no was for you to get up here; the locals have blocked both entrances," reported Ms. Leho as we translated for a Nepalese policemen and he relayed further. "It started around noon; women and children went first, then they took out tables; later men also came and now the crowd is getting bigger and louder every minute."
Police Demonstration
Our last hope for entry into Tasovcici disappeared after the arrival of one of deputy commanders of IPTF. He explained that it is not in their mission to escort journalists but to control the work of local police which, according to his words, was supposed to take us to Tasovcici. When we explained to him that Capljina Police had advised us to get lost, the deputy commander simply shrugged his shoulders. Later, representative in the Federal Parliament Cevra explained that the members of IPTF had been beaten up several times by the Capljina policemen.However, we managed to enter Tasovcici the following day together with an organized procession of Muslims which started from Mostar; even then we couldn't reach the village and Bosniak returnees: we were only allowed to the cemetery. Among several hundred gathered mourners who saw Adem Muminagic's soul to the other world, we met Mirza Colakovic, the president of the Association of Capljina Refugees.
"They keep talking about spontaneous demonstrations by the local population, but in Capljina this was a demonstration by the local Police. Several days before the return, I had sent a letter on behalf of the Association to the local authorities in Capljina and asked them for a meeting to discuss security arrangements, but I have never received a reply from them. I am convinced that all this was prepared and planned in advance, including the resignation by minister Coric: if there's no minister, there's chaos, and in chaos anything can happen."
The funeral was amply drenched by rain, Imams sang above Adem Muminagic's grave, and a young men who stood next to Feral's journalists, at one point said to his friend: "More lives will be lost, ah?"
The friend just nodded his head, as someone who had heard that story before. The dismissal of Stanislav Buntic Capljina police chief, which was announced last Friday, is another well known episode from that old story.
Omer Cevra, Representative in the Federal Parliament and President of the Cantonal Council of SDA
I was Kicked by Ten Policemen
Five days after a brutal beating which took place in Capljina police station only several hours after a death of one and wounding of three Bosniak returnees in Tasovcici, representative in the Federal Parliament Omer Cevra has a big swelling on his nose and many bruises all over his body. Although he fainted as a result of the beating, he tried to remember details in connection with the time spent at the Capljina police station."Vice-governor Leho and I drove to Tasovcici after the UN Mission had reported that our returnees had been attacked. After our arrival to the village, I found out that some of our wounded were at the police station instead of a hospital, so I went there escorted by IPTF and two Bosniak policemen. They let the wounded leave, but they beat us up."
In spite of IPTF escort?
"German policeman protested when they started to pull us from our cars, but Capljina police chief Buntic simply screamed at him. At that moment I felt a strong blow on my back and that's how it started, in the street, in front of the station. I think I was attacked by about ten policemen; they were hitting me with hands and legs, and other things, but I don't recall details because I fainted almost immediately. Then they put me in a cell and let me go after an hour; They kept the two policemen who were with me and had also been beaten up, for another hour."
Any comment?
"If it wasn't for IPTF, it may have been worse. However, I am troubled by something else: how dare a refugee return when he knows that a representative in the Federal Parliament was beaten up? The refugees will naturally wonder who will protect them."
Do you have any information about the explosions in Aladinici near Stolac, which happened only two days after the events in Tasovcici?
"Unfortunately, I don't. It was a missile attack: two anti-tank missiles were fired at an apartment building into which ten to fifteen Bosniak families had moved in a week before. It is fortunate that there was no direct hit, since in that case there would have been casualties."
Who do you hold responsible for the death and wounding of the returnees?
"I don't blame Croat refugees, they live in equally bad conditions as our returnees. The responsibility for the tragedy in Tasovcici lies with the people whose consciousness is not clear; they know that sooner or later they will have to answer for their sins and now they incite refugees to attack other refugees. I must add that Capljina police chief Stanislav Buntic must not ever again work for police, not even as a cook. People like him are simply not suitable for such a sensitive duty."
Pleasant Stay of Feral's Journalists at the Capljina Police Station
Journalists, Get Lost!
At about 6 p.m., once our attempt to reach Tasovcici had failed because of a barricade set up by Croat refugees, we climbed a hill above the village to make a phone call to the spokesperson at the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia-Hercegovina in Mostar, Chris Riley. At the moment when we got him on the phone, a police car appeared on the hill. Four policemen in dark green uniforms without insignia got out of the car and approached us. The biggest one of them ordered Feral's photographer to stop the conversation; after the explanation that we were talking to spokesperson Riley the policeman simply disconnected the phone; then he opened the trunk of our car and, after spotting several copies of Feral, made a knowing nod.The policemen took away our documents and escorted us to the police station in Capljina. One of the policemen got into our car with the photographer, while the journalist had to get into the police car, together with the other three policemen.
The drive was rather uneventful barring a single ironic remark by one of the policemen that "you in Feral, write really nice articles." In the Police station, the journalists were immediately surrounded by about twenty policemen, some in uniform, some in civilian clothes; they looked rather menacing (it should be mentioned that Feral's journalists already knew that the representative in the Federal Parliament Omer Cavra and two Bosniak policemen had been beaten up four days earlier at the same spot).
After several minutes of taciturn and unpleasant atmosphere (the policemen were demanding to know why we hadn't contacted them first and we responded that the Dayton Agreement guarantees freedom of movement and work to journalists anywhere in Bosnia-Hercegovina) the big policeman invited us to another room; two policemen entered the room after us and stood in front of the door.
"Can we call spokesperson Riley?" we asked facing realistic possibility of sufering Cevra's fate; the policeman's response was pretty explicit:
"I don't give a damn for that Riley nor for the whole International Community. Go back to Split and make sure we do not find you here again".
Translated on 11/20/98
