Word: vitez
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...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...
...well. They and the Muslims cooperated against the Serbs at the very beginning of the war and at the end. In the interval, they conducted horrific battles among themselves. Jasna Hadzimehmedovic recalls how she heard that her soldier fiance had been killed by Croats in the Bosnian town of Vitez. "It was on Christmas Eve" in 1993, she says. "My mother and I were cooking when the phone rang. When they told me, I felt I had aged 50 years." She was then 22. The Hague tribunal charges that Croat militia forces stormed the village of Ahmici, near Vitez, killing...
Elma Ahmic, 17, is haunted by memories of the brutal destruction of her village near Vitez, 37 miles north of Sarajevo, on April 16, 1993. A unit of the Bosnian Croat militia called the Jokers first shelled the mostly Muslim town, then moved in to finish off the men. Relations with local Croats had been good, she said, but after the arrival of the militiamen, "about 20 people surrounded our house, shouting, 'Get out of here! This is Croatia, not Turkey!' My father came out and asked them what they wanted. They took my father and killed him. They shot...
Leaving the area with these pictures, Nachtwey drove southwest and reached Vitez six hours later. Suddenly, machine guns opened fire from both sides of the road. Nachtwey floored the gas pedal and drove through a solid kilometer of gunfire. Miraculously, only one bullet penetrated the car, hitting the passenger-seat headrest. He learned later that the gunners were neither Serbs nor Muslims, but Croats...