The Washington Post
August 22, 1992
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia – At least one Muslim resident of the Bosnian town of Celinac had no trouble waking up one day a week ago. Serb soldiers fired a rocket-propelled grenade into his bedroom.
As the man dove to the floor about 1 a.m., several more grenades shredded the bedroom wall, blasting plaster into the air and shards of glass into his ankles and arms, he said. Pinned down for hours, he did not know whether his wife and two children were still alive.
“There was no warning at all,” the man said. “They just started shooting” from short range. “I tried crawling to the corridor, but I couldn’t because of the bullets.”
The violence subsided at dawn, and the man crept downstairs to rejoin his unharmed wife and children. Their house was a wreck, as were more than a dozen other Muslims’ homes in Celinac, located just a few miles from here in northwestern Bosnia.
The attack in Celinac is part of a pattern that indicates that Serb soldiers in Bosnia-Hercegovina are not deterred by the international censure of their efforts to seize control of territory in the former Yugoslav republic. Just 35 miles from Celinac, Muslims in the city of Bosanska Gradiska said they too are caught in a noose of killings, which appear to be retaliatory.
Survivors and relief officials are certain that people died at Celinac, but they have not had a chance to search the destroyed houses. Celinac was sealed off by Serb militia forces two weeks before the attack last Saturday, and it is still off-limits to reporters and international relief officials.
For several days before the attack, according to Muslim officials and escapees from Celinac, about 20 to 30 Serb soldiers had roamed the town threatening to execute Muslim civilians. The soldiers were angry about the recent battlefield deaths of fellow Serbs and vowed to kill several Muslim civilians for every Serb who had died at the front.
The problems started in Bosanska Gradiska on Aug. 8, when Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians, fought a battle with Croats, who are Catholics, and Muslim forces. The Serbs said 16 of their soldiers were killed.
According to more than a half-dozen Muslims, Serb soldiers went on a rampage the day after the victims were buried. They said the soldiers executed at least eight civilians, mostly by machine gun, although at least one of the Muslims is said to have been knifed to death.
“When I arrived, the bodies were covered in blood,” said a man whose son was among the dead. “I could see the outlines of a line of bullet shots across my son’s back. But I couldn’t look closely. He was my only son.”
The Muslims’ accounts of Serb soldiers rampaging through Bosanska Gradiska like storm troopers are treated as credible by relief officials — and have been implicitly confirmed by Serb authorities. Glas, the Serb-controlled newspaper in Banja Luka, reported this week that the 16 battlefield deaths had provoked “uncontrolled behavior” among some soldiers in Bosanska Gradiska. The newspaper said “63 explosions of grenades and mortars were reported and eight people were killed.”
Bosanska Gradiska’s 15,000 Muslims live in fear. The men, most of whom have been fired from their jobs, rarely venture outside. Just the sight of a distant police car sent several of them scurrying away during a conversation with an American journalist. All of the Muslims who talked about the troubles in the town refused to give their full names.
For the past week, Bosanska Gradiska’s Muslims, who are barred from leaving, have made furtive telephone calls to friends or relatives in Banja Luka, the regional center for northern Bosnia. The calls usually are made from public phone booths and last just long enough to communicate the callers’ sense of desperation. Nikola Gabelic, a Croat leader in Banja Luka, received one of those calls from a friend.
“He was scared and wanted to get off the phone as quickly as possible,” Gabelic recalled.
In the wake of the attacks, most of the dozens of Muslim-owned shops throughout Bosanska Gradiska, which has a population of about 60,000, are either boarded up, burned out or bombed beyond use. The soldiers are said to have entered Muslims’ houses at will and carted away televisions, stereos and other goods. The local police apparently did not intervene.
“None of us dared to watch,” said a Muslim whose cafe was vandalized. “We hid in our houses. We were helpless. We just hoped we wouldn’t be killed.”
Mirko Dajic, the burly deputy commander of Serb forces in Bosanska Gradiska, said in an interview that nine soldiers have been arrested for looting “six or seven” stores. Dajic also said the soldiers killed three Muslims but that the Serbs will not be punished because the dead men were “extremists.”
Throughout Serb-controlled territory, Muslims and Croats said they feel trapped. Reports of Serb killings, lootings and harassment are streaming into international relief officials. Battered or emaciated corpses are found in rivers; bodies are dumped in morgues. Relief officials said Bosanska Gradiska and Celinac are just two examples of an epidemic of unchecked violence and “ethnic cleansings” still taking place across northern Bosnia. In some settlements, Muslims and Croats are being forced out at gunpoint. In others, they are being kept in at gunpoint, possibly for use as hostages.
“If the authorities announced that the road to Zagreb was open, but that we could only go on foot, everyone would leave,” said Muharem Krzic, the Muslim leader in Banja Luka. “The Muslims would go, the Croats, the women and children and grandmothers.”
Celinac was a source of deep concern for relief officials even before last week’s burnings and bombings. The town has about 1,500 Muslims in a total population of 18,000, and they are being treated like internees.
On July 23, the local Serb authorities posted a decree that prohibited all non-Serbs from leaving their homes between 4 p.m. and 6 a.m. The decree listed 34 prominent Muslims who were banned from leaving their homes entirely.
All Muslims are prohibited from leaving Celinac unless they receive special permission from the local militia. They are barred from swimming in the local river, from driving cars or gathering in groups of more than three. They also are prohibited from having any communication with outsiders unless they receive a “special permit.”
Serb officials describe the restrictions as being necessary for the “protection” of local Muslims — from other Muslims. According to a Serb officer, Milovan Milotinavic, the Muslims are confined to their homes because they had sons fighting with the Serbs, and, as a result, “Muslim extremists” want to kill them.
Milotinavic said journalists and international relief officials are being kept away from Celinac because of heavy fighting in the area. But escapees from Celinac, as well as a local Serb journalist and soldier who has been there, said there was no fighting.
According to the escapees and relief officials, several hundred Muslims are being held in the primary school at Celinac. Information about them is sketchy, and it is unclear why they are being held and under what conditions. Relief officials said they are concerned, largely because of recent disclosures of ill treatment of Muslim prisoners at Serb prison camps.
“The authorities said they wanted to control us,” recalled the Muslim who was jolted awake by the grenade and fled Celinac with his family the morning after the attack. Standing in line here at an office registering the names of Muslims who want to leave Bosnia, he added, “but they had no reason to do it. They had already searched our houses and found no weapons. They knew we were not dangerous.”
