YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett

I never managed to figure out what the story was behind that wedding shooting, just that it seems to have provided a convenient pretext for the Karadzic et all to claim that aggression was self-defence.
 

It was a very weird incident, I too find that story inexplicable. Maybe the death of this man has to do with that story though. Just a thought.
 

The shooting was done to make Serbs fear living in Sarajevo. Also, the Serbian man killed was carrying a Serbian flag as the group was traveling between Serbian churches at the wedding. It was a custom of many Serbs. There were problems and threats for many months before war finally broke out.

Nonetheless, the killer was promoted by the Bosniak government and a commander of the army.

He later was involved in massacres of Croats. Funny that his murder sprees on Croat civilians is not mentioned.

This is testimony of a Croat boy who survived a massacre ordered by Ramiz Delalic (Celo):

_____________________

In the night between September 8 and 9, 1993, 32 civilians, ethnic Croats, were tortured and massacred in their homes. The only living witnesses of the crime are two brothers, Goran and Zoran Zadro, at the time boys aged 11 and 13, respectively, who witnessed the murder of their family: mother Ljubica, father Mladen, sister Mladenka, grandmother Matija and grandfather Ivan. The boys also saw several dead bodies of the murdered neighbors. The following excerpt from the statement given by the boys describes the murders:

"(...) Caco's and Celo's soldiers arrived, about three hundred of them. We were with them for three days. They shot a lot! On the third day Celo and Caco ordered that everyone be killed. Three men came to our house. One of them wore a white T-shirt, had short hair, another one wore a white vest, a flack jacket and a brown knife, while the third one had a blue flack jacket. They asked if we had a donkey. We said that we did. Then they asked us if we were Croats. We said we were, without thinking. Then they told my father to take them to see the donkey. Since he was afraid to go on his own, grandmother and grandfather went with him. We could hear a heated discussion and shouting from there. I did not watch. They probably lined them up. Then we heard a burst of fire from an automatic rifle. They killed them. If my brother did not listen to me, they would have killed us as well. I told him: 'Let's get away'. And we did. They killed my grandmother Matija, grandfather Ivan, father Mladen. I also told my mother that we should get away, or at least that they (mother, sister and brother) should get away, and that I would go and check whether they had killed them. The mother did not want to. Instead she said: 'Let it go, this will also pass. You know how many soldiers we've hosted so far, more than two hundred. All of them came, drank coffee and talked.' When the soldiers killed the father, grandfather and grandmother, they came back for my mother and sister. My mother's name is Ljubica and sister's Mladenka. They took the two of them next to the stable. We heard shooting for a long time. We then slipped away and later went even further away to the hills. My sister had just turned four..."

The following persons were killed in the night between September 8 and 9, 1993:


Pero Culjak, born in 1913
Matija Culjak, born in 1917
Cvitan Lovric, born in 1936
Jela Lovric, born in 1940
Mara Mandic, born in 1912
Ivan Mandic, born in 1935
Ilka Miletic, born in 1926
Anica Pranjic, born in 1914
Franjo Ravlic, born in 1917
Pero Maric, born in 1914
Ivan Saric, born in 1939
Dragica Maric, born in 1914
Josip Brekalo, born in 1939
Luca Prskalo, born in 1939
Andrija Dreznjak, born in 1921
Mara Dreznjak, born in 1921
Dragica Dreznjak, born in 1953
Ilka Maric, born in 1921
Ruza Maric, born in 1956
Martin Maric, born in 1911
Marinko Maric, born in 1941
Luca Maric, born in 1944
Marko Maric, born in 1906
Matija Maric, born in 1907
Ruza Maric, born in 1935
Ivan Maric, born in 1906
Matija Maric, born in 1923
Mladen Zadro, born in 1956
Ljubica Zadro, born in 1956
Mladenka Zadro, born in 1989
Zivko Dreznjak, born in 1933
Ljubo Dreznjak, born in 1932


http://www.ex-yupress.com/dani/dani50.html
 

Because this is an anonymous post, I almost didn't publish it. The main reason I did is that it is forgotten by many how many Croats died in the war because of ethnic cleansing.

I do not this the fact I included this comment to be an occasion of a flame war. I should point out that the other groups in the region also commonly displayed national flags at their weddings.
I think the act of Celo was evil, and that it was wrong to promote him to anything important. There were similar promotions on all three sides. It's important to remember that fact.
 

You've made the right judgment. There's always something suspect about the motives of an Anonymous post. But at the same time this was a legitimate issue to raise. The Grabovica killings were vicious, even though they seem to have been acts of brutality and indiscipline rather than performed as a matter of military/political strategy.

The so-called "Neretva 93" operation to relieve the blockade of Mostar was investigated by the ICTY in the Halilovic trial. http://www.un.org/icty/halilovic/trialc/judgement/index.htm

Delalic/Celo was in charge of the 9th Brigade which seems to have gone on a killing spree that horrified some of the soldiers from other units that had been in the area.

"The Trial Chamber finds that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Ivan Zadro, Matija Zadro, Mladen Zadro, Ljubica Zadro and Mladenka Zadro, were killed in Grabovica on 9 September by members of the 9th Brigade. The Trial Chamber takes particular note of callous way in which these killings were carried out." (para 464)

Although there was a contemporary note reporting that Celo had been said to be responsible for the soldiers who killed the Maric family, this was considered hearsay evidence and so wasn't accepted as putting responsibility beyond reasonable doubt.

The ICTY acquitted Halilovic as it didn't find that his command responsibility for the Grabovica killings was proven.

Celo gave testimony and apparently suggested that he had been responsible for guaranteeing the safety of the two boys. The evidence doesn't suggest that he was likely to have been too concerned for them.

I'm not clear why he wasn't tried unless it was to do with a bargain struck over his giving evidence against Halilovic. The judgment is pretty dismissive of him and the behaviour of the 9th Brigade under his command in Sarajevo as well as the Neretva Valley.

The question still remains though - and this is where the unwillingness of Anonymous to identify himself as a regular poster who we might know to trust or distrust is significant - was the wedding killing part of a campaign of intimidation or were there other motives?