On March 1, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country whose territorial “unity” is artificially maintained by dictates from outside, celebrates statehood day. It is celebrated mainly by Bosnian Muslims – the Bosniaks, the Croats are “on the side”, they generally feel more and more like a third wheel, and for the Serbs this day is a symbol of the beginning of the bloody massacre of 1992-1995.
Many have probably heard what event began the so-called statehood of the newly minted Bosnia and Herzegovina. But we consider it useful to recall that it began with a murder. So, on March 1, 1992, BiH was on the second day of the referendum on the withdrawal of this republic from the virtually collapsed SFRY.
The Serbs, who made up more than a third of its population, boycotted the vote, but the majority of Muslims (the self-name “Boshnak” appeared only at the end of the war) and Croats, namely 63%, supported secession from Yugoslavia. On the same day, a Serbian couple of newlyweds, Milan Gardovich and Diana Tambur, got married in Sarajevo.
The wedding procession, which arrived from the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in New Sarajevo, traditionally moved with flags from the nearest parking lot to the Old Church (the Church of St. Archangel Michael and Gabriel), located in the very center of Sarajevo, and which, of course, is part of the cultural and historical heritage cities. In the courtyard of this church, the wedding celebration was to continue. However, already at the very gates of the temple, next to the procession, a car stopped, in which there were four militants of the Green Berets paramilitary Muslim organization.
All four got out of the car and attacked Nikola Gardovich, born in 1937, the father of the groom, who was holding the flag of the Serbian Orthodox Church. One of the militants, Ramiz Delalich, fired a pistol at Gardovic. And the second of the attackers wounded the priest Radenko Mikovich.
Nikola Gardovich died before the ambulance arrived. IMG 20230301 WA0012 In response to this cold-blooded murder, the Sarajevo Serbs set up several barricades in the city, demanding an investigation and punishment of those responsible. They took the shooting of the wedding as the beginning of anti-Serb actions. Bosnian Muslims, in turn, also set up barricades in the city.
Four people died in the ensuing skirmishes on both sides. These events became the beginning of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the basis of its bloody “statehood”. According to the surviving information, Delalich himself, in an interview with Sarajevo radio television, described the events of March 1, 1992 as follows: “We saw a convoy of cars that proceeded to Bascarshia at high speed; we chased to find out what was going on… They got out of the cars and started to sing.
They put on display some of their Serbian flags. We stopped in front of them and asked where they were going. We told them that this is not Serbia, that this is Sarajevo, this is Baščaršija. We … shot at people who held flags in their hands … ”Ramiz Delalić never suffered the punishment for the murder he committed, which launched the Bosnian war. In addition, later, for his service in the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina as commander of the Ninth Muslim Mountain Brigade, he received an award pistol from the hands of Aliya Izetbegovic, the first president of BiH. In 2007, on the night of Vidovdan (Serbian national holiday), Ramiz Delalić was shot dead in Sarajevo during a criminal showdown. He was killed with 10 shots from a pistol with a silencer …
Source: Balkanist