Ahmici massacre
Encyclopedia
Ahmići massacre was the culmination of the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing
Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing
The Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing, also known as the Lašva Valley case, refers to numerous war crimes committed during the Bosnian war by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership on Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Lašva Valley region of Bosnia-Herzegovina...

 committed by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership on Bosniak civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...

s during the Croat-Bosniak war
Croat-Bosniak war
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia supported by the Republic of Croatia, that lasted from June 19, 1992 – February 23, 1994...

 in April 1993. It is the biggest massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...

 committed during the conflict between Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

 and the Bosnian
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the direct main predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina...

 government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 (dominated by Bosniaks
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...

).

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...

 in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 has ruled that these crimes amounted to crimes against humanity in numerous verdicts against Croat political and military leaders and soldiers, most notably Dario Kordić
Dario Kordic
Dario Kordić is a former Bosnian Croat politician, military commander of the HVO forces between 1992 and 1994, and vice president of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia...

, political leader of Croats in Central Bosnia who got 25 years in prison. The massacre was discovered by United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 drawn from the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, under the command of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 Bob Stewart
Bob Stewart (British Army officer)
Colonel Robert Alexander "Bob" Stewart DSO is a former British Army officer, former United Nations commander in Bosnia, commentator, author, public speaker and Conservative Party politician...

.

Background

Ahmići is a village in central Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

, located in the municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 of Vitez
Vitez
Vitez is a town and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is administratively part of the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-Name:...

 in the Lašva Valley. According to the 1991 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

, 1,178 people lived in the village of them 509 were Bosniaks, 592 were Croats, 30 were Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 and 47 were others.

On April 3, 1993, the Croat leadership met in Mostar
Mostar
Mostar is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the largest and one of the most important cities in the Herzegovina region and the center of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation. Mostar is situated on the Neretva river and is the fifth-largest city in the country...

 to discuss the implementation of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan. The Croats decided to implement the creation of "Croatian Provinces" (Provinces 3, 8 and 10) placing the Bosnian armed forces under the command of the General Staff of the HVO. On April 4, according to Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, the HVO HQ in Mostar set a deadline
Time limit
A time limit or deadline is a narrow field of time, or particular point in time, by which an objective or task must be accomplished.In project management, deadlines are most often associated with milestone goals....

 for President Izetbegović
Alija Izetbegovic
Alija Izetbegović was a Bosniak activist, lawyer, author, philosopher and politician, who, in 1990, became the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served in this role until 1996, when he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving until 2000...

 to sign the above agreement and stated: If Izetbegović fails to sign this agreement by April 15, the HVO will unilaterally enforce its jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

 in cantons three, eight and ten.
In a message from Kordić
Dario Kordic
Dario Kordić is a former Bosnian Croat politician, military commander of the HVO forces between 1992 and 1994, and vice president of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia...

, Ignac Koštroman and Anto Valenta, the Croat people were told to display more Croatian flag
Flag
A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist...

s on buildings.

An organized attack

On Friday, April 16, 1993 at 05:30 hours, Croatian forces simultaneously attacked Vitez
Vitez
Vitez is a town and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is administratively part of the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-Name:...

, Stari Vitez, Ahmići, Nadioci, Šantici, Pirići, Novaci, Putiš and Donja Večeriska. General Tihomir Blaškić
Tihomir Blaškic
Tihomir Blaškić is a Bosnian Croat army officer who was sentenced in 2000 to 45 years imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes as part of the Lašva valley ethnic cleansing...

 spoke of 20 to 22 sites of simultaneous combat all along the road linking Travnik, Vitez and Busovača. The ICTY Trial Chamber found that this was a planned attack against the Bosniak civilian population. The attack was preceded by several political declarations announcing that a conflict between Croatian forces and Bosnian forces was imminent. On the day of the attack, telephone lines had been cut because all communication exchanges in the municipality of Vitez were under HVO control.

Croat inhabitants of those villages were warned of the attack and some of them were involved in preparing it. Croat women and children had been evacuated on the eve of the fighting. The method of attack displayed a high level of preparation. The attacks in the built-up areas, such as those carried out in the Ahmići area were operations planned in minute detail with the aim of killing or driving out the Bosniak population, resulting in a massacre. On the evening of April 15, unusual HVO troop movements had been noticed. On the morning of April 16, the main roads were blocked by Croat troops. According to several international observers, the attack occurred from three sides and was designed to force the fleeing population towards the south where elite marksmen
Marksman
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...

 with particularly sophisticated weapons shot those escaping. Other troops, organised in small groups of about five to ten soldiers, went from house to house setting them on fire and killing the residents. Around one hundred soldiers took part in the operation. The attack resulted in the massacre of the Bosniak villagers and the destruction of the village. Among the more than 100 who died were 32 women and 11 children under the age of 18. The aim of the HVO artillery was to support the infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 and destroy structures which the infantry couldn't. The mosque, for example, was hit by a shot from a powerful weapon. Later the minaret
Minaret
A minaret مناره , sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery....

 was blown up by Bralo and Jukić.

Murders of civilians

Most of the men were shot at point blank range. Some men had been rounded up and then killed by Croatian soldiers. Twenty or so civilians were also killed in Donji Ahmići as they tried to flee the village. The fleeing inhabitants had to cross an open field before getting to the main road. About twenty bodies of people killed by very precise shots were found in the field. Military experts concluded that they had been shot by marksmen. Other bodies were found in the houses so badly charred they could not be identified and in positions suggesting that they had been burned alive. The victims included many women and children.

An ECMM
ECMM
The European Union Monitoring Mission is a program initiated by the European Union in July 1991 to monitor borders, inter-ethnic relations, refugee traffic, and political and security developments in the former-Yugoslavia area of the western Balkans...

 observer said he had seen the bodies of children who, from their position, seemed to have died in agony in the flames: "some of the houses were absolute scenes of horror, because not only were the people dead, but there were those who were burned and obviously some had been burned with flame launchers, which had charred the bodies and this was the case of several of the bodies". According to the ECMM report, at least 103 people were killed during the attack on Ahmići.

Destruction of property

According to the Centre for Human Rights in Zenica
Zenica
Zenica is an industrial city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the capital of the Zenica-Doboj Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity...

, 180 of the existing 200 Bosniak houses in Ahmići were burned during the attack. The Commission on Human Rights made the same finding in its report dated May 19, 1993. According to the ECMM practically all the Bosnian Muslim houses in the villages of Ahmići, Nadioci, Pirići, Sivrino Selo, Gaćice, Gomionica, Gromiljak and Rotilj had been burned. According to ECMM observer "it was a whole area that was burning". Several religious buildings were destroyed. Two mosques were deliberately mined and given the careful placement of the explosives inside the buildings. Furthermore, the mosque in Donji Ahmići was destroyed by explosives laid around the base of its minaret.

The troops involved

The troops involved in the attack included the Military Police Fourth Battalion and, in particular, the Džokeri Unit. The Džokeri (Jokers), an anti-terrorist squad with twenty or so members, were created in January 1993 from within the Military Police on the order of Zvonko Voković, whose mission was to carry out special assignments such as sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

, stationed at the bungalow in Nadioci. Other participants included the Vitezovi, the Viteška brigade of the municipality of Vitez, the Nikola Šubić Zrinski brigade of Busovača, together with Domobrani units (units set up in each village in accordance with a decision from Mostar dated February 8, 1993) stationed at Ahmići, Šantići, Pirići and Nadioci. Many witnesses in the Blaškić case also referred to soldiers in camouflage uniforms being present, wearing the emblem of the Croatian Army. Several Croat inhabitants of these villages also participated in the attack. They were members of the Domobrani such as Slavko Miličević for the Donji Ahmići sector, Žarko Papić for the Zume area, Branko Perković in Nadioci, Zoran Kupreškić in Grabovi (an area in the centre of Ahmići), Nenad Šantić and Colic in Šantići.

Denial

After the massacre, Croat leaders, supported by propaganda efforts, tried to deny the massacre or to blame other sides in the Bosnian War. Dario Kordić
Dario Kordic
Dario Kordić is a former Bosnian Croat politician, military commander of the HVO forces between 1992 and 1994, and vice president of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia...

 denied to Payam Akhavan, an investigator with the United Nations Centre for Human Rights, that the HVO were involved in the Ahmići massacre; indeed, he said that his men, as good Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s, would never commit such acts and blamed the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 or the Muslims themselves: according to him, no investigation was necessary. A similar response was given by general Tihomir Blaškić
Tihomir Blaškic
Tihomir Blaškić is a Bosnian Croat army officer who was sentenced in 2000 to 45 years imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes as part of the Lašva valley ethnic cleansing...

 to British Colonel Stewart in Kordić's presence.

The former Croatian president Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian politician and former President of Croatia. Before his ten-year presidential term between 2000 and 2010 he held the posts of Speaker of the Croatian Parliament , Prime Minister of Croatia , the last President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia , Secretary General...

 revealed thousands of documents and audio tapes recorded by Franjo Tuđman about his plans during a case against Croat leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina for war crimes committed against Bosniaks. The tapes reveal Tuđman's involvement in atrocities against the Bosniaks in Bosnia including the Croatian president covering up war crimes at Ahmići.

Trial

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague has ruled that these crimes amounted to crimes against humanity in numerous verdicts against Croat political and military leaders and soldiers, most notably Dario Kordić
Dario Kordic
Dario Kordić is a former Bosnian Croat politician, military commander of the HVO forces between 1992 and 1994, and vice president of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia...

, political leader of Croats in Central Bosnia who got 25 years in prison. Based on the evidence of numerous HVO attacks at that time, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the Kordić and Čerkez case that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley. Dario Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan. Further concluding that the Croatian Army was involved in the campaign, the ICTY defined the events as an international conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

.

The ICTY initially indicted sixteen Croats and convicted eight of them by now of their roles in the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing
Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing
The Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing, also known as the Lašva Valley case, refers to numerous war crimes committed during the Bosnian war by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership on Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Lašva Valley region of Bosnia-Herzegovina...

. Tihomir Blaškić
Tihomir Blaškic
Tihomir Blaškić is a Bosnian Croat army officer who was sentenced in 2000 to 45 years imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes as part of the Lašva valley ethnic cleansing...

, who was the HVO commander for the Central Bosnian Operative Zone, was initially (in 2000) sentenced to 45 years in prison for command responsibility over Ahmići. However, in 2004 the appeals panel dismissed that claim and commuted his sentence to 9 years, as he was deemed responsible for inhumane treatment of prisoners of war etc. He was released after serving 8 years and 4 months of his sentence.

Tribute

Croatia's president Ivo Josipović
Ivo Josipović
Ivo Josipović is a Croatian politician who has been President of Croatia since 2010. Josipović entered politics as a member of the League of Communists of Croatia , and played a key role in the democratic transformation of this party as the author of the first statute of the SDP that replaced the...

 alongside Islamic and Catholic religious leaders paid tribute on April 15, 2010 to victims in Ahmići and Križančevo selo.

External links


Related films

- Part III. The Struggle for Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK