The Night the Minarets Fell

The daily BORBA was the first in Yugoslavia to report that five mosques had been destroyed in the Bosnian town of Bijeljina in the vicinity of the Drina River, in the night of March 12-13 (Friday to Saturday). One of the mosques was several hundred years old. Two nights later, the demolition of the last, the sixth mosque was prevented by Serb refugees, said BORBA. The mosque remained standing, and was looted.

It is still a mystery as to who ordered the destruction of the mosques. The rubble was cleared away immediately. The fact that this was a planned and synchronized operation is underscored by the fact that during the night of destruction, all telephone lines with Bijeljina were out of order. As far as is known, this is the first time that so many places of worship have been blown up in such a small area and in one night! All this happened in a town which is not directly threatened by war. VREME has learned that there were no casualties - people in the neighborhood of the "condemned" mosques were told earlier that there would be explosions during the night. The same thing happened in the summer of 1992 in Vlasenica, but then the mosque was destroyed during the day. The considerate dynamiters, warned the people in the neighborhood to open all the windows, so that the glass wouldn't shatter. But some houses in Bijeljina were damaged by the falling minarets.

Belgrade Mufti Hamdija Jusufspahic heard of the destruction independently of BORBA and Radio Sarajevo.

"The vandalism in Bijeljina is proof of madness, which knows neither faith nor honor. This could not have been done by honest Orthodox Christians. This reign of terror is unheard of. What will happen once the mosques have been destroyed. Crimes must be condemned, no matter what the cost," said Effendi Jusufspahic. "Events in Bijeljina are further proof of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's gangsterism. There are no doubts regarding his guilt, i.e. of the responsibility of the leadership waging such a criminal war. These are the same people who destroyed Aladza Mosque in Foca, an architectural masterpiece. It's not just the people who are being killed, but as we see, the faith and culture. It's the Serbs who must put an end to this, in order to save face," said Jusufspahic. He also told us that in Yugoslavia, all the Islamic facilities were untouched.

As could be learned from Serbian, Moslem and foreign sources before this number went to the press (Thursday afternoon), "the night the minarets fell in Bijeljina," is an independent action by Serbian Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina soldiers from Bosnian Krajina, i.e. the vicinity of Banja Luka. According to one version, after the bodies of 11 of their comrades who had been bestially massacred in battles for the famous corridor were brought back, the soldiers decided on revenge. According to another version, the six mosques in Bijeljina, compared to the one Orthodox and one Catholic church, were a thorn in the eye from the beginning, to the Bosnian Serb soldiers and local Serbs.

It seems that the sixth mosque was not saved by Serbian refugees, but by the neighbors and friends of those Moslems in Semberija who were fighting on the Serbian side.

On March 13, when the mosques were being blown up, JAVNOST (Bosnian Serb weekly) brought an interview with Ratko Adzic the new Bosnian Serb Interior Minister. "Considering the times we are living in, in the last 11 months there have not been many cases of disturbing peace and order, threats on the life, security and property of citizens, or criminal acts of other kinds," said this professor of Physics and Mathematics, adding that the percentage of solved crimes was 50%-70%, depending on the police station. Problems arise because "in some places the judiciary are, unfortunately, still not functioning properly." With Bijeljina, the minister has been given the chance to prove from his police point of view, to what extent the "state abides by the law," even at the price of the police coming into conflict with one of the local lords over life and death (judging by things, from the police echelons). But chances are that the destruction of five (or all six) mosques in Bijeljina will be explained with the "times we are living in...', so that the efficiency of the Bosnian Serb police will not be greatly tested.

There were over 2,000 mosques in the former Yugoslavia, most of them in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro etc. Of this number, some 800 were built or renewed after 1945. At a meeting of some 15 intellectuals from the former Yugoslavia in late February, Reis-el-Ulema Jakub Selimovski said that "850 mosques had been destroyed, including the one in Belgrade." The head of the Islamic community was obviously thinking of mosques which had been attacked, because Belgrade's Barjakli Mosque is whole, even though there were several unsuccessful attempts at blowing it up and burning it down. In September 1992, the Riyaset (the Islamic community's top body) published a list of 314 demolished or greatly damaged mosques. Some 50 mosques from this list were in Sarajevo, so that every second mosque in the city has been destroyed. At the time, Gazi Husrevbeg's Mosque had been hit by shells in 70 places.

The victims of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina are not only the mosques, and mesiji (places of worship without a minaret, where the main Friday prayers are not held) and other Islamic facilities. Some 50 Catholic facilities including the Mostar cathedral have been destroyed. Director of the Serbian Orthodox Church Museum Slobodan Mileusnic told the daily POLITIKA a few days ago, that in the territories of the former Yugoslavia 157 Serbian Orthodox churches had been completely destroyed by mines, arson and artillery fire, while 128 were seriously damaged and had been looted. In Bosnia-Herzegovina the Zvornik-Tuzla and Zahumlje-Herzegovina eparchies have suffered most with over 100 destroyed or damaged churches, including the old monastery of Zitomislic.

After the main mosque in Visegrad had been destroyed, eyewitnesses told us that in seven days' time the foundations of a House of Culture had been laid. Will Orthodox churches rise out of the ashes of the mosques in Bijeljina, or will the center of Semberija get new Houses of Culture? Serbian ones? The latest reports say that the Moslems are fleeing Bijeljina in great numbers. All are trying to reach places where the chances of five mosques being destroyed in one night are nil.