Friends in Need

After two nights spent in the open and in the rain, behind the Serb lines on Mount Vlasic, many of some 4,000 civilian refugees from Travnik were not trying to hide their satisfaction about having escaped with their lives, although the Serbs had taken their cars and DM savings (which some soldiers of the Serb Republic in Bosnia confiscated - for the help offered). Dozens of vehicles crammed with belongings, hundreds of young children, overloaded mules and horses, tractors, sheep, incessant and monotonous rain, and sorrow. Sorrow for so much that was lost.

This is a sight on Vlasic, the mountain 20 km away from Travnik, last Tuesday. Two days earlier some 800 fighters of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), along with civilians and 13 wounded, decided after several weeks of heavy fighting to make a break towards the forces of the 1st Krajina Corps of the Serb Republic in Bosnia, stationed on Mount Vlasic, and to try to find a way out of the almost hopeless situation. According to civilians and soldiers who fled the area, at the time the balance of power around Travnik and in the town itself was 10 to 1, even 97 to 1 on some parts of the front!

"There were a hundred of them on one; our fighters had been left with no ammunition. All of us panicked upon hearing the screams of the mujahedin. When your village, which is being defended by about one hundred people, is stormed by several thousand, all of them screaming, "Allah - ekhbar", heedless that they themselves are falling like flies as well, you freeze, collect whatever you can and run for your life," says Branka Bozic from Travnik. "That alliance with the Muslims was unnatural from the very beginning; somebody took advantage of it, and is benefiting from this as we speak. The pictures we used to see when the Serbs fled their homes can be seen once again. The same thing is happening to us now. As if those who make decisions about us hadn't learnt anything. We've always shared a good life with the Serbs, got intermarried, that's the reason why there was no hesitance as to where we would run away from death. My sister-in-law, whose husband was taken to the Manjaca reception camp along with other fighters, is a Serb and she's here with us. There hasn't really been any serious fighting between us and the Serbs, in most cases those were only skirmishes. They would fire on the Muslims over our heads, and, thus, help us. Our soldiers would visit with the Serbs on their positions and vice versa.

They'd first call each other, then they'd kiss and drink coffee together, talking about the calamity which befell us. But, it has never been like that with the Muslims. Now, even the first neighbors shot at us, as we were leaving Travnik..."

For the whole year the Serb sources in Bosnia have been warning the international public that a large number of fighters from the Islamic countries, the mujahedens, are fighting in the ranks of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is the first time that the Bosnian Croats and their leadership have made the same claim. According to the data available to the HVO units and according to the testimonies of civilians, there are several thousand mujahedins in the region of Travnik alone.

"UNPROFOR has directly cooperated with the Muslims. They have even transported their soldiers form one position to another, provided them with ammunition and arms, while they've refused to transport us who were wounded to the hospital in Nova Bila," a wounded member of the HVO, Dragan Paljuh said, and his fellow colleague, Zlatko Matic, added, "We didn't want them to take us to the hospital in Travnik. We told them that we'd get slaughtered there. We demanded to be taken to Banjaluka, which they refused. Then, our leadership decided that we should set off for Vlasic, towards the Serbs, with whom we had good relations. We went to the people who had helped us throughout our conflict with the Muslims and whom we trusted. The Serbs supplied us with ammunition and weapons. Their artillery shot at the Muslims, over our positions.

In Travnik we took good care of them, not allowing the domestic Muslims and those bearded monsters, the Mujahedins, to mistreat them, and they joined the HVO and police. We left Travnik together. 22 out of 800 of us were Serbs. Unfortunately, several thousand Croats and Serbs did not manage to get out so that they have been left to share the same, difficult and uncertain destiny. The co-existence with the Muslims is impossible. But, it is possible with the Serbs: we've had it and we shall have it. We'll never be able to pay them back for what they've done for us..."

There had been three major assumptions in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina until the latest events took place: Croats and Serbs are enemies, Muslims and Serbs are enemies, while Croats and Muslims are friends and allies in a fight against the mutual enemy - the Serbs. Those who are well informed about the roots, the course and the goals of the war in Bosnia will not be surprised and shocked by the new assumption of the war, for several reasons: Croats and Muslims are enemies, Muslims and Serbs are enemies, while Croats and Serbs are allies in a joint fight against the Muslims. Why?

The beginnings of the Serb-Croat alliance were noted on the Sarajevo front in summer 1992 when the Serbs generously lended mortar throwers along with the personnel and ammunition to the HVO. The Croats would silence the Muslims who were firing on the Serbs over their heads. After the job had been done, the HVO made due payments for used ammunition in the currency favored equally by both sides - in German Marks. The continuation followed when hundreds of civilians were pulled out of the towns under Muslim control, while a whole new business, which made many people rich, developed on Stup, in Sarajevo. Therefore, it was nothing strange to see the soldiers of the HVO sitting together with the members of the Bosnian Serb Army in a pub, drinking and negotiating new deals.

In April of this year a group of Croat soldiers along with Serb and Croat civilians crossed over to the Serb side of the front from the town of Konjic which was seized by the Muslims. The same thing was repeated not even two months later, but more to the southwest, near Travnik.

The roots of the Muslim-Croat conflict should be sought in the military and strategic importance of the part in the province 10 and of the Neretva Valley. It would thus be much easier to comprehend the intensity of fighting there.

Jablanica, which has a system of five hydro-electric power plants on the Neretva and Rama Rivers, represents the greatest energy potential in that part of the former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the artillery projectiles and ammunition factory is situated in Konjic, while the enterprise for technical repairs of combat and non-combat vehicles and the means of communication is in Travnik. The military clothing plant "Borac" should not be neglected either. The factory which (used to) produce(s) heavy artillery weaponry, multiple rocket launchers and mortar launchers is located in Novi Travnik. Vitez is well known as the largest producer of explosive for military purposes, while the entire area from Kakanj to Gornji Vakuf is rich in ore of all kinds.

Muslim forces have already taken control of Jablanica, Konjic, Travnik and Busovaca, the towns with Croat majority population, while heavy fighting for Vitez and Kakanj is underway at the moment when this issue is going into print.

It is quite certain that neither the Muslim nor the Croat units will stop, considering the importance of this territory, which is confirmed by the fact that the fighting has continued despite the cease-fire signed on June 10th.

It seems that the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs have publicly agreed the goals of the war. The fate of the Muslims in these regions is certain. Just as it is in the joke about a division of Bosnia between the Serbs and Croats: the left bank of each river will go to the Croats, the right bank to the Serbs, and the Muslims will be left with the part in the middle.