Word: skopljak
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...Lugars of the war were tools--often enthusiastic ones, to be sure--in a deliberately orchestrated campaign of extermination devised by political leaders and executed by hired gangs and local authorities. Instead of soldiers killing soldiers, civilians murdering civilians was the main act of the war. Pero Skopljak was one of that sort too, a Bosnian Croat who apparently succumbed to authority--or peer pressure or the hysteria of the moment--to enforce Croatian dominance over his neighbors...
...Croats indicted for complicity in the vicious ethnic cleansing that took place in 1993 around Vitez in central Bosnia. The tribunal says that local civilians, including Skopljak, together with Bosnian Croat General Tihomir Blaskic, were in charge when Croats sacked the village of Ahmici, tossing grenades into cellars where villagers sought to hide. To dislodge holdouts in downtown Vitez, Croats filled a tanker truck with explosives, tied a Muslim to the steering wheel and propelled the vehicle into a block of houses, killing and maiming dozens...
...Skopljak was the police chief back then, and he acknowledged to TIME last November after being indicted that bad things happened. "I am not denying there were crimes on our side," he said, "but I am honestly innocent, as stupid as it sounds." While the Croats of Vitez rallied round, denouncing the Hague, Skopljak charged that "the tribunal believes stories invented by the Muslims. This is a staged process, a dirty political game." The former Franciscan monk insists that he "protected Muslims by hiding them, and I tried to find out who did Ahmici, but I didn't succeed." Confident...
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