1993 mass killing during the Croat?Bosniak War
The
Ahmi?i massacre
was the
mass murder
of approximately 120
Bosniak
civilians by members of the
Croatian Defence Council
in April 1993, during the
Croat?Bosniak War
. The massacre was the culmination of the
La?va Valley ethnic cleansing
committed by the political and military leadership of the
Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia
. It was the largest massacre committed during the conflict between
Bosnian Croats
and the Bosniak-dominated
Bosnian government
.
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 Kordi?
, the political leader of Croats in Central
Bosnia
who was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
[1]
The massacre was discovered by United Nations Peacekeeping troops of the 1st Battalion,
Cheshire Regiment
,
[2]
drawn from the
British Army
, under the command of Colonel
Bob Stewart
.
[3]
[4]
[5]
Background
[
edit
]
Location of Ahmi?i in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ahmi?i is a village in central
Bosnia and Herzegovina
, located in the municipality of
Vitez
in the La?va Valley. According to the 1991 census, 466 people lived in the village. 356 were Bosniaks, 87 were Croats, and 23 classified as "others".
[1]
On 3 April 1993, the
Bosnian Croat
leadership met in
Mostar
to discuss the implementation of the
Vance-Owen plan
and 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
Croatian Defence Council
(HVO), the military formation of Bosnian Croats.
On 4 April, according to
Reuters
, the HVO headquarters in Mostar set a deadline for President of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Alija Izetbegovi?
to sign the above agreement and stated, "If Izetbegovi? fails to sign this agreement by 15 April, the HVO will unilaterally enforce its
jurisdiction
in cantons three, eight and ten". In a message from HVO leaders
Dario Kordi?
, Ignac Ko?troman and Anto Valenta, Croats were instructed to display more Croatian flags on buildings.
[6]
An organised attack
[
edit
]
On Friday, 16 April 1993 at 05:30, Croatian forces simultaneously attacked
Vitez
, Stari Vitez,
Ahmi?i
, Nadioci, ?antici, Piri?i, Novaci,
Puti?
and Donja Ve?eriska. HVO General
Tihomir Bla?ki?
spoke of 20 to 22 sites of simultaneous combat all along the road linking Vitez,
Travnik
, and
Busova?a
. 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.
[8]
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 Ahmi?i 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 15 April, unusual HVO troop movements had been noticed.
[9]
On the morning of 16 April, 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
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 and destroy structures which the infantry could not. The mosque, for example, was hit by a shot from a powerful weapon. Later the
minaret
was blown up by Bralo and Juki?.
[11]
Murders of civilians
[
edit
]
Overall, 117
to 120
Bosniaks were killed in the massacre. 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 Ahmi?i 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 they had been burned alive. The victims included many women and children.
A
European Community Monitor Mission
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 Ahmi?i.
Destruction of property
[
edit
]
According to the Centre for Human Rights in
Zenica
, 180 of the existing 200 Bosniak houses in Ahmi?i were burned during the attack. The Commission on Human Rights made the same finding in its report dated 19 May 1993. According to the ECMM practically all the Bosnian Muslim houses in the villages of Ahmi?i, Nadioci, Piri?i, Sivrino Selo, Ga?ice, 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 Ahmi?i was destroyed by explosives laid around the base of its minaret.
The troops involved
[
edit
]
The troops involved in the attack included the Military Police Fourth Battalion and, in particular, the D?okeri Unit. The D?okeri (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 Vokovi?, whose mission was to carry out special assignments such as
sabotage
, stationed at the bungalow in Nadioci. Other participants included the Vitezovi, the Vite?ka brigade of the municipality of Vitez, the Nikola ?ubi? Zrinski brigade of Busova?a, together with Domobrani units (units set up in each village in accordance with a decision from Mostar dated 8 February 1993) stationed at Ahmi?i, ?anti?i, Piri?i and Nadioci. Many witnesses in the Bla?ki? case also referred to soldiers in camouflage uniforms being present, wearing the emblem of the HVO. Several Croat inhabitants of these villages also participated in the attack. They were members of the Domobrani such as Slavko Mili?evi? for the Donji Ahmi?i sector, ?arko Papi? for the Zume area, Branko Perkovi? in Nadioci, Zoran Kupre?ki? in Grabovi (an area in the centre of Ahmi?i), Nenad ?anti? and Colic in ?anti?i.
Trial
[
edit
]
The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) 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 Kordi?
, political leader of Croats in Central Bosnia who was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
[1]
Based on the evidence of numerous HVO attacks at that time, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the
Kordi? and ?erkez case
that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the La?va Valley. Dario Kordi?, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and
instigator
of this plan.
[18]
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
.
[19]
Former Croatian president
Stjepan Mesi?
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. During the trial against
Tihomir Bla?ki?
, who was the HVO commander for the Central Bosnian Operative Zone, for the crimes in Ahmi?i, the defence argued that there was a parallel line of command surpassing Bla?ki? that went to the political leadership of Herzeg-Bosnia. There were reports in the media that Tuđman himself participated in the coverup. The appeals chamber of the ICTY ruled that Bla?ki? did not have command responsibility for the massacre and lowered the initial sentence (in 2000) of 45 years to nine years of imprisonment.
[20]
He was released after serving 8 years and 4 months of his sentence.
[
page needed
]
[22]
The ICTY initially indicted sixteen Croats and convicted eight of them by now of their roles in the
La?va Valley ethnic cleansing
.
[23]
Ignac Ko?troman and Anto Valenta were never charged by the ICTY.
[
citation needed
]
Dario Kordic wass released in June 2014 after having served two thirds of his sentence.[2] Kordic glorified his crime and showed no regret for his part in the massacre."He asked me privately if the prison, the war, was worth it. I told him I would do it all over again, I wouldn't change a second, every second was worth it," he said.
[2]
Tribute
[
edit
]
Croatia's president
Ivo Josipovi?
alongside Islamic and Catholic religious leaders paid tribute on 15 April 2010 to victims in Ahmi?i and
Kri?an?evo selo
.
[24]
None of the accused of the sentenced criminals ever paid a tribute to the victims. Even today local Croats see this as legitimate action and that all trials against perpetrators are sabotaged.
[3]
President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), Judge Graciela Gatti Santana paid tribute to Ahmici.
[4]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
ICTY Kordi? and ?erkez 2001
, p. 310.
- ^
Stephen Badsey; Paul Chester Latawski (2004).
Britain, NATO, and the lessons of the Balkan conflicts, 1991?1999
. Routledge. p. 35.
ISBN
0714651907
.
- ^
Colin McInnes, Nicholas J. Wheeler (2002).
Dimensions of Western military intervention
.
ISBN
9780714682488
.
- ^
Welsh, Paul (14 August 1999).
"Return to the land he never really left"
.
The Independent
. London, UK.
Archived
from the original on 4 November 2012
. Retrieved
23 April
2010
.
- ^
Charles R. Shrader (12 June 2003).
The Muslim-Croat civil war in Central Bosnia: a military history, 1992?1994
.
ISBN
9781585442614
.
- ^
ICTY Kordi? and ?erkez 2001
, p. 200.
- ^
"The Lasva Valley: May 1992 ? January 1993"
.
www.icty.org
. Retrieved
16 December
2022
.
- ^
ICTY Kordi? and ?erkez 2001
, p. 610.
- ^
ICTY Kordi? and ?erkez 2001
, p. 208.
- ^
ICTY Kordi? and ?erkez 2001
, p. 216.
- ^
"Case Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: LISTING OF CASES INCLUDED"
.
archive.hrw.org
.
- ^
"Prosecutor v. Tihomir Bla?ki? Judgement"
(PDF)
. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
- ^
Hoglund, Kristine; Oberg, Magnus (May 2011).
Understanding Peace Research: Methods and Challenges
. Taylor & Francis.
ISBN
978-1-136-80914-9
.
- ^
"Statement of the Office of the Prosecutor in relation to the judgement in the case Prosecutor vs. Jadranko Prli? et al. | International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia"
.
www.icty.org
.
Archived
from the original on 11 July 2021
. Retrieved
5 July
2021
.
- ^
Aida Cerkez-Robinson (15 April 2010).
"Croatian president honors war victims in Bosnia"
.
The Guardian
. London, UK.
Associated Press
. Retrieved
16 April
2010
.
References
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Books
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Other
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External links
[
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Related films
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