By Maja BJELAJAC and Emir IMAMOVIC
"Naturalized Bosniaks", as the mujahedeen were called in 1998 by the mayor of Maglaj at the time, Ismet Mustajbasic, not only chose to remain in Bocinja, their last oasis, but continue operating training camps in this country, run as an international semi-protectorate. Although the publicly accepted number of mujahedeen is several hundred, it is certain that the actual number is higher: it is believed that in BH today there still exist three training camps for mujahedeen in Kakanj, Visoko and Maglaj. Reporter's sources state that in the region of Visoko, the chief coordinator between the mujahedeen and the local administration is certain Mirsad Sirco, the former president of the municipal Crisis Headquarters and today one of the directors of the Viteks company. Some of the mujahedeen stationed at Konjic moved to the region of Kakanj, near the mines. However, it is claimed that the main training center until recently was on Mt. Bjelasnica. Reporter has acquired exclusive photographs of the training camp near Bocinja taken in spring of this year.
"Naturalization": The road to citizenship for the imported fundamentalists was not simple. Several hundred advocates of jihad arrived at the beginning of the war from Arab countries and Europe by way of Zagreb into BH and the "El-mujaheed" unit was formed. In 1992 some of the Arabs who participated in the "holy war" in BH had problems with the Croat authorities in BH. After arriving in Herceg-Bosna from Croatia, some of the mujahedeen had their passports confiscated, and some of them were even arrested. Those who were most involved fought in Travnik, Visoko as well as on other battlefields throughout BH. After demobilization, some of the members of this unit took up residence in Bocinja, where they married local Bosniak women and took Bosnian citizenship. As many as 1,200 of them are believed to own BH passports today.
The recent roadblock on the Maglaj-Zavidovici road, a rural route which suddenly became very important, had only one goal: to make it impossible to evict the residents of Bocinja and return the pre-war residents of this village. On the day of the operation, Dzevad Galijasevic, the head of Maglaj municipality which also includes Bocinja, provided yet more evidence for this thesis. According to him, the road block was agreed upon following "juma", the main Muslim prayer on Fridays, after which logs appeared on the roadway.
Even though it was well-known that Bocinja, a secluded mujahedeen community, would have to be emptied, its residents did not appear at the road blocks. The road was sealed off by residents of two nearby villages - Bakotic and Dolac - who announced that they were not "fighting" for the mujahedeen but rather for themselves.
Only after the road block was removed it was discovered that not only were there mujahedeen among the organizers but that some of dissatisfied people were happy to help save the imported warriors. One of the women who spent almost five days at the barricades described the police operation by stating that the members of the ministry of internal affairs were very brutal, and that she had been searched by no less than three federal policewomen, while residents of Bocinja, she had heard but did not see, were handled even more brutally. "These Arabs come to us crying," she said, adding that she had never had any problems with residents of Bocinja and that, on the contrary, they were on very good terms with their new neighbors.
Neither she nor any of her brothers in arms from the utterly deliberate five day protest said a single word regarding the move Edhem Bicakcic made when it finally became clear that the mujahedeen must leave Bocinja. The federal Prime Minister, after failing to react in numerous cases of eviction of citizens of Bosnia-Hercegovina, refugees, demobilized soldiers, disabled war veterans - offered a solution for the mujahedeen. According to him, the government will earmark two million marks for alternative accommodation for these strange-looking people and their wives with covered faces.
International tolerance: Representatives of the international community still have not commented on this issue nor explained how the mujahedeen can receive priority in financing for accommodations over the returnees to Srebrenica, Sarajevo or western Mostar. Also horrifying is the silence among the representatives of the international institutions with regard to the violation of the fundamental principles of the peace agreement, which is drastic in the case of the mujahedeen in BH.
True to tell, in last year's report of the International Crisis Group it is said that the mujahedeen represent a source of possible political and ethnic instability in central Bosnia, and that they are "connected with serious terrorist attacks against Croats in the Travnik region and Mostar". The report goes on to say that SFOR does not patrol these villages because it is afraid of attacks on their convoys.
Even last year's arrest of a member of the terrorist group of Osama bin Laden, who was traveling with a Bosnian passport, was not sufficient reason for international officials to put this problem in focus.
Nevertheless, after the recent roadblock in Bocinja, the spokesman of the UN mission in BH, Alun Roberts, announced that evictions under the auspices of the local administration would continue in this settlement. A separate police investigation would be conducted, according to the UN spokesman, as a result of information according to which the mujahedeen encouraged the population to participate in creation of disturbances at the roadblock. In Bocinja, according to Dzevad Galijasevic, 159 families are expected to be evicted. More accurately, two families per day. The "eviction" of the training camps for mujahedeen is still not on the agenda of either the local authorities or international institutions.