The Washington Post
October 25, 1992
PROZOR, Bosnia – The mechanic paused as he fixed a flat tire and cast a nervous glance at the carloads of gun-toting militiamen thundering past his garage.
“The show is about to begin,” he whispered. He was right.
Within 15 minutes, the streets of Prozor were emptied of civilians and filled with mortar shells and tracer bullets. Croat and Muslim militias — which fought side by side as they defended this central Bosnian town against Serb insurgents for the past five months — were fighting each other, creating a war within a war.
The combat that erupted in Prozor illustrated an explosive trend in the war among Bosnia’s three communal groups: Spared of the occupation and forced relocation — known as “ethnic cleansing” — that Serb militia forces have visited upon other areas of the republic, one central Bosnian town after another is being engulfed in Croat-Muslim strife.
At about 3 p.m. Friday, Prozor was quiet but on edge after a tense night when the sound of gunfire crackled through the valley. Muslim and Croat militiamen roamed the streets, passing within arm’s reach of each other.
Suddenly, a rumor broke out that a Muslim patrol had ambushed two Croats outside of town. Just as quickly, more than a dozen Croat fighters jumped into cars and sped off to the alleged hot spot, the tips of their weapons sticking out of the windows. Within minutes, the town’s outnumbered Muslim militiamen vanished from the streets.
At the Croat fighters’ headquarters in a bicycle factory on the edge of town, militiamen released the safety catches on their weapons and prepared to move out. There was an eerie calm. Then all hell broke loose.
The Croats started firing with everything they had, which was quite a bit. Mortar shells arched through the sky and crashed down into the southern part of town, where Muslims were suspected of hiding out. Fist-sized bullets from antiaircraft guns pounded into the hillsides. Heavy shells from mobile howitzers shook the valley like thunder.
It was a one-sided battle. Although most central Bosnian towns are dominated by Muslims, Prozor has a large Croat population, and the Croatian Defense Council established an ample militia force here. The Muslims, wherever they were, fired back with machine guns and a rare bazooka shot.
After three hours of non-stop shelling, the Muslim commander called his Croat counterpart and asked for a cease-fire. The response, according to a soldier at the Croat headquarters, was blunt: The shelling will stop when you surrender. This was a war, not a misunderstanding.
And so, throughout the evening and past dawn today, the Croats continued blasting away at the town center and the hillsides. Commando squads fanned out of the militia headquarters, outfitted with black masks, sniper rifles and serrated hunting knives. They were hunting Muslims.
The fighters looked incongruously like crack troops from a U.S. Special Forces team — because many wore surplus U.S. Army uniforms that still had American names sewn above the right breast pocket. Croat fighters stalked the charred streets of Prozor with uniforms identifying them as Cpl. Porter or Lt. Velasquez.
As the shells rained down on Prozor, a local Croat political leader slapped militiamen on the back and answered a few questions. Was he surprised that the Croats were fighting the Muslims? No, he said. Did he expect it? Yes.
“The Croats and Muslims are separate nationalities,” he explained. “They cooperated for a while because they had common interests. There was never any love.”
The disintegrating Croat-Muslim alliance was formed to prevent Bosnia’s Serbs from seizing control of the entire republic from its Muslim-led government. After six months of fighting, the Serbs have taken about 70 percent of Bosnia, and now the Croats appear to be consolidating their hold on the territorial leftovers. The big losers are the Muslims, who are Bosnia’s largest communal group but now control little territory beyond Sarajevo, the besieged capital.
In addition to fighting the Muslims, the Croats have cut off food and fuel supplies to Muslims, fighters and civilians alike. Since Tuesday, the militia fighters are prohibiting Muslims’ vehicles from using a dirt track called the “road of salvation,” which is a vital humanitarian lifeline into central Bosnia.
The closure has the effect of depriving Muslim civilians of desperately needed supplies at a time when the international community is trying to stave off sickness, exposure and starvation as winter descends on central Bosnia.
