According to the residents of Prijedor, problems started on May 1 1992, when the city was "taken over". Muhamed Murselovic, currently the president of the Prijedor municipality and a representative in the parliament of Srpska, now refers to that even as "a coup" and the "day when the SDS took over the local authorities". "During those days force could be felt in Prijedor," Murselovic says explaining that people started being fired and that maltreatment ensued. He personally, via Banja Luka because Prijedor was under blockade, sent his family to Belgrade. Soon afterwards he was arrested for the first time, with another six men, one of whom was the then president of the municipality, and sent to the holding cell in the local police station (normally used as a sobering up cell for the local alcoholics). Murselovic was released the following day, but not for long.
Attack on Prijedor: On May 30 1992, about 1,000 Bosniaks and Croats, mostly from the nearby villages, but also including inhabitants of Prijedor, attacked the city. It is unclear what they were hoping to achieve, because a large number of soldiers was already stationed in the city, as many as 5,000 according to some estimates. Murselovic does not refer to this act as an attack. According to him everything was spontaneous because people were outraged by the situation in the city and intended "to bring everything back to the way it was before May 1". However, other residents of Prijedor disagree. "It was definitely an organized attack," one of them explains requesting to remain anonymous. "Tell me, can you spontaneously dig up a trench in the center of a city, in front of the city hall? They dug a trench there. They attacked the barracks, made it all the way to the center of the city... About ten soldiers died... and the attackers were not exactly outraged citizens. Some of them were local gangsters..."
After that the army on several occasions called on the residents of Prijedor and nearby villages to turn over their weapons. It is unclear how much weaponry was handed over on that occasion, but soon afterwards another two soldiers were murdered in Prijedor.
Prosecutors of the Hague Tribunal describe the events that took place after those murders as genocide and ethnic cleansing, while Murselovic compares them to a slaughterhouse.
After these attacks, on July 20, 1992, the military entered the villages near Prijedor, Hambarine, Carakovo, Biscani, Zecovi, Rizvanovici, and Rakovcani. Accounts of what happened afterwards differ greatly. However, it is undeniable that at the end of the operation there were 1,430 dead, only in these six villages. According to witness accounts, in Biscani (398 households) 278 people were killed, in Hambarine about 370, in Cerakovo about 470, in Zecovi about 150, in Rakovcani about 180, and in Rizvanovici about 190.
Many of the bodies still haven't been located. Out of about 3,500 victims, only 1,800 bodies have been found, but the identification has been very difficult. Lack of financial support is the main reason for the small number of located remains of victims. The largest mass grave in BH has been found in this region, in Jakarina Kosa (Ljubija mines), about which Reporter has already reported. 372 bodies have been found in the mass grave in Jakarina Kosa. Some of the victims include the residents of the abovementioned villages. Most of mass graves found near Prijedor are of secondary type, meaning that they contain bodies that have been moved from the original sites, primary graves, many of whom haven't been found. It is assumed that the bodies were moved late in 1994, after the arrest of Dusan Tadic in Germany, because of the fear that Tadic may "sing". Murselovic explains that primary graves could not be far from Prijedor because the bodies were moved fairly quickly.
Testimonies: One of the residents of Biscani, witness of this gruesome events, showed us in his village a well from which four bodies were recently pulled out.
"On July 20, shooting could be heard from the village (Biscani) and from Hegici. We did not know what was going on," this man says, requesting that he remain anonymous. "The following day, on Tuesday, soldiers came to get me. They took me to the 'line'," he adds whispering, incessantly checking whether someone is listening in to our conversation. "We were told that we were going to pick up corpses. Our neighbors Serbs from the nearby villages, D.S. and M.S. told us that they guaranteed for our lives. If it wasn't for them and a some other Serbs, they would have probably killed us. There were also other good people who helped us a lot. I don't think they could commit all those crimes. Those who did that were probably drugged... we loaded bodies on trucks the following day as well... we found most of them on Thursday, July 23... we wrapped them in blankets because otherwise it was impossible to handle them, because of stench. Those days were very hot and temperature was above 30 degrees Celsius... the bodies were everywhere... I think that in those three days we filled up ten trucks... I can't tell you how many bodies could fit on one truck, but I think that one of the soldiers counted about 60 corpses. I don't know where they took the corpses, but I know for sure that many corpses remain buried in the villages."
One of the residents of the neighboring village confirms this testimony, adding that one woman had told them that "seven bodies had been buried behind the house of E.K. in the village of Biscani", and that they should pick them up as well. "The corpses were buried in a shallow grave, under less than a foot of soil, soaked with blood. Soldiers who were with us told us to leave everything under the knees below and to carry only the corpses on the top. There was a lot of similar situations. The worst was when I had to walk over corpses in order to load other corpses on a truck. One of the soldiers, when he realized that I was nauseous, gave me a gas-mask..."
The stories of the residents of these villages to a large extent match testimonies and parts of indictments issued by the Hague prosecutor.
It is impossible to explain how and why this could happen. Justification "if we did not get them, they would have gotten us" can hardly be accepted.
It is a paradox that in these villages near Prijedor, where most of the victims were killed in 1992, the return is probably more intense than anywhere else in Bosnia-Hercegovina and that there were no bigger problems. 85 families have returned to the village of Biscani and according to them, even though there is no work, they are trying to make ends meet. They discuss forgiveness or forgetting reluctantly: "We must not forget; we may forgive, but to those who did not commit crimes."
Only a few days later, Mr Odobasic, told a journalist from Nezavisne Novine that "all the time during exhumations no one from the media in Srpska found in appropriate to show up."
It is unclear whether this was a mistake of the journalist, or whether Odobasic on purpose ignored our visit. We do not know what he was hoping to achieve with that statement, nor whether he did achieve what he desired, but he, perhaps more than others, because of the nature of the job he does, should know that lies never helped anyone. After everything, do we still need to lie to each other, even regarding the dead?