Defence of Bosnia
I was two years old when my family and I were expelled from my hometown. To remove the traces of our existence on that land, the authorities of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska changed the name of Skender-Vakuf (to Kneževo). They also demolished both our mosques. One of them, Ali-dede Iskender’s, was built in 1643. Until the 20th century, the imams were my ancestors (hence the surname).
Before we escaped, the White Eagles or some similar paramilitary unit came to town. Back then, we weren’t allowed to spend the night in houses, but we slept in the nearby forest. I remember (from later stories) that my father proudly pointed out that he stayed in the house, and that, as he says, if he was attacked by at least one Chetnik, he would take him to the other world. Fortunately, we escaped before it came to that. Defence of Bosnia
Probably the plan was just to expel us. We were an absolute minority. According to the 1991 census, only 7% of Bosniaks and 89% of Serbs lived in the territory of the municipality. The most serious crimes occurred in municipalities, where Bosniaks were the majority or half of the population. Prijedor, Zvornik, Sanski Most, etc.
We, the people of Skender were not killed en masse, but the people of Prijedor were killed in the area of our municipality. The Korićan rocks, where more than 200 Bosniaks from Prijedor were executed, are located on the territory of the Skender-Vakuf municipality.
In the novel The Dog and the Contrabass, one of the most important contemporary Serbian writers, Saša Ilić, writes about the sanitation of the land in Korićani. Someone offered 50 marks for each exhumed corpse to cover up the traces of the crime, but it was impossible to work because of the heat and the flies.
Kamenjar radiated heat that, mixed with the gases of decomposition of human bodies and the buzzing of thick greenish flies, rose upwards. When Topisirević (one of the heroes) reached a body in a blue adidas tracksuit, through which the top of the rock went like a knife, spilling the contents of the stomach out, a swarm of goldfish tried to reach him. Defence of Bosnia
They blinded him for a short time, sticking to the glasses of his mask, under which he found it increasingly difficult. He chased them away in vain, new flies came and stuck to the glass, as if they didn’t want to let go of their prey at any cost, etc. Defence of Bosnia
We escaped with our lives, first escaping to our relatives, to Bešpelj, a mountain village in the Jajače municipality. Once the artillery attack started, we all fled to the shelters, only, as I was told later, my brother went outside to collect shrapnel in the midst of the shelling. I was accidentally cut on the shoulder by a relative on Bešpelje with a motorcycle while he was cutting wood. I was only two years old. It’s a miracle he didn’t cut off my hand. And now I have a huge star scar on my right shoulder.
In the end, retreating further across Busovača, we ended up in Zenica. One of my first memories is listening to the attacks on the Bihać enclave on the radio. I think it was the winter of 1994. I remember the elders saying that if Bihać falls, Bosnia will fall. Its boundaries are really like the boundaries of our skin. Her disappearance would equal the Day of Resurrection, which the Qur’an describes with the words: “On that day, man will cry: ‘Where should he run?’ Nowhere!” There is no refuge!” Defence of Bosnia
Before I became aware of myself and the world around me, before I gained the power of memory, a crucial moment happened, which confirmed that there would be refuge after all. The Seventh Corps liberated Vlašić. It was one of the biggest victories of our army, that is, the biggest defeats of Republika Srpska. “If Karadžić said that Vlašić was the cap of Republika Srpska, I took off their cap,” said then the commander of the 7th Corps, Mehmed Alagić. Defence of Bosnia
In its report on the war in Bosnia, the CIA states that “the capture of Vlašić was strikingly visible evidence of the development of the RBiH Army, and it raised morale to a great extent in the ranks of the Bosnian government.”
As CIA analysts point out, the key moment was when General Alagić captured Paljenik, the highest peak of Vlašić. Defence of Bosnia
“The victory,” says the CIA, “was ultimately the victory of the infantry, who fought their way through terrible terrain to win in hand-to-hand combat – which had been the basic tactic of the RBiH Army since the beginning of the war.” However, the operation differed from the previous ones with visible improvements in equipment, planning, organization and execution.” Defence of Bosnia
“UN military observers and Western journalists,” says the CIA, “reported well-equipped Army units, carrying adequate light weapons, ammunition, body armor, helmets and radios.”
I remember, through the fog – and it could have been during the war, or after the war – that as children we sang:
From Kupres to Vlašić, there is one strong force,
it’s the Alagić army, which the Chetniks don’t like.
On one occasion, relatives, also expelled from Skender-Vakuf, came to Janjići, near Zenica. Since we Skenderans didn’t have our own songs, we sang (I remember well) a refugee song about the neighboring town of Kotor-Varoš, which had the same fate. Defence of Bosnia
Kotor-Varoš, don’t give up, don’t give up,
Hey bazaar, dear friends,
Kotor-Varoš, will punish the enemies,
God willing, we will return…
Until the end of the war, our people hoped that the army would free Skender as well. That hope almost became a reality, in the fall of 1995, during a major offensive by the Army (and Croatian forces) in northwestern Bosnia. The fifth and seventh corps liberated Sanski Most, Ključ and Bosanski Petrovac.
In his war diary Ljiljan i pepeo, Bernar-Henri Levy writes that on September 22, 1995, he met Mehmed Alagić at Vlašić.
After driving along a steep road lined with pine trees, Levy and his team reached the plateau, where General Alagić’s command post was located in a log cabin.
“Will we see him?” writes Levy, “Will he, who is rumored to hate journalists, or despise them, do us the honor, to receive us, to talk?”
Alagić takes them, says Levy, to Babanovac, then to the village of Cisava and finally to Mudrike (where, by the way, my maternal grandmother is from).
“Finally,” writes Levy, “we arrive at Mudrike, the last Bosnian position before the front line. We are a hundred meters from the Serbs – and five kilometers as the crow flies from Skender Vakuf, the last fortified town that defends the approach to Banja Luka, where Mladić has amassed his men and men.”
Levy says that, at one point, he asked Alagić what would happen if, at some point, the government from Sarajevo ordered him to stop the offensive.
“We will do,” says Alagić (quoted by Levy), “like Dudaković in Bihać – we will say ‘the order has not arrived’! It’s a wonder how disorganized our communication system is.”
And then, says Levy, Alagić added with a laugh: “Or [we will] be like the Israelis, who politely listened to their American mentors, but were in a hurry to do what was on their minds.”
That didn’t happen in the end. We did not act like Israel. Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi. Many say unfortunately. I say maybe fortunately. In the fall of 1995, the fighters of the 5th Corps sang:
Dude take, don’t negotiate,
Our army will create borders.
Krajina overcame the crisis,
Now we all know the Drina is close to us.
However, the generals obeyed the authority of our government (as the army should do). As recorded in the film Sana 95 – an unfinished victory, Dudaković and Alagić pretended to be deaf for several days, tried to occupy as much territory as possible, and then, with a bottle of whiskey, they celebrated the end of the war.
Although Skender-Vakuf was not liberated, as well as many other places, our government did the right thing by signing the Dayton peace. Although unjust, it was more just than the continuation of the war. Reality, especially wartime, is too unpredictable. Just as the Serbian authorities could not even dream that, regardless of the fact that they had total military superiority, they would come to the brink of collapse, so we also cannot know what would have happened if we had rejected the American peace process and continued the war ourselves, because (and that is often forgotten) At the end of September 1995, after the drowning of HV soldiers in the swollen Una, Tuđman said that the Croatian forces would not continue.
From the conclusion of the Dayton Agreement until today, the United States has been the most important partner of Bosniak and pro-Bosnian politics in general. However, this does not mean that we should throw ourselves at their feet or allow them to treat us with disrespect.
The American Embassy’s statement condemning the monument’s erection to Mehmed Alagić is an example of disrespect and even unacceptable insolence towards this country.
What else can be said about the Embassy’s claim that “the citizens of this country deserve better than to honor a person accused (sic!) of war crimes by erecting a grandiose monument on Mount Vlašić”?
Speaking about Alagić, who has not been convicted, in the same tone as about those who have been legally convicted of genocide, extermination or persecution (which the American Embassy is doing in this case) is out of place and even disgusting. Especially if we bear in mind that, just a few days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was indicted before the International Criminal Court accused of the systematic starvation of Gaza, was greeted with a storm of enthusiasm in the American Congress. If we are already moralizing, then quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi does not apply.
Unlike Netanyahu, Mehmed Alagić was neither accused of systemic crimes, such as genocide and crimes against humanity nor was he convicted before the court of history, as Milošević was. If he was found guilty, there should not be a monument to Alagić. But even then, he could not be equated with the perpetrators of genocide, extermination or persecution because the first principle of international law is that not all crimes are the same. Defence of Bosnia
However, Ambassador Murphy’s disrespect towards us is not the biggest problem. The problem is that those who should not be able to answer him. Those in charge of defending the dignity of this country have trampled on that dignity. Here, I am primarily thinking of Denis Bećirović, who, as the sponsor of the monument’s erection, first accepted the invitation to participate in the ceremony but, in the end, did not appear. He didn’t even send his envoy. And after the statement of the American Embassy, it is clear why. Defence of Bosnia
The United States helped this country survive, but if people like Mehmed Alagić had not stood up to the aggressor in 1992, there would have been nothing to help three years later. The United States is still helping to preserve the peace and statehood of BiH, but if we throw ourselves at their feet, they will have nothing to help. If the bullet could not kill Alagić, but the humiliation did, why does this country think it will survive in the state it is in now?
HARIS IMAMOVIC Bosnia
