Reckless Move: They Wanted to Thank Their Neighbor, So They Exposed Him for Crimes Against Bosniaks and Croats

They didn't suspect that their thank-you note would confirm that their neighbor committed crimes against Bosniaks and Croats in Mrkonjić Grad during the last aggression on BiH from 1992 to 1995.

Residents of the village of Trijebovo wanted to thank the doctor from Mrkonjić, Luka Čulić, for bringing water to the village during the aggression on BiH, so in his honor, they erected a memorial plaque near the Orthodox church in the village, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

However, as documentation from the archives of BiH prisoners of war indicates that the 15-kilometer-long water channel from the place called Rogolj to Trijebovo was dug by Bosniak and Croat prisoners, the memorial plaque in Trijebovo revealed that the doctor from Mrkonjić, Luka Čulić, is responsible for these crimes.

“Residents of the village of Trijebovo, thanks to the initiative and personal commitment of Dr. Luka Čulić, built the water supply system 'Rogolji – Trijebovo' in the period from 1991 to 1996, with a length of 15 km, and brought 'live' water to their homes.”, reads the memorial plaque in this village.

The journalist from Mrkonjić, Ibrahim Halilović, warned that if Čulić has merits for the construction of the Rogolji – Trijebovo water supply, he must also have responsibility for all mobilized Bosniaks and Croats whom he used as free labor. However, Čulić is still at large.

At the beginning of the bloody conflicts in BiH, Čulić was the president of the SDS in Mrkonjić Grad, where he implemented the policies of Hague indictee and the first president of the RS, Radovan Karadžić. According to the testimonies of surviving Bosniaks and Croats, during the aggression on BiH, he was the master of life and death in this place in western Bosnia. He is responsible for the deaths of a large number of non-Serb civilians, as well as for the abduction and forced labor of Bosniaks and Croats, where a large number of prisoners were also killed.

Suad Lepir, a former prisoner of the RS army, describes in his prisoner diary how water was brought to Trijebovo.

- We were assigned a route and the length that each person had to dig daily. Each of us had to dig a canal 50 meters long, excavate soil and stones to a depth of one meter and twenty centimeters, and the canal width was about half a meter…. When you remember working without pay on a job akin to forced labor, only without being tied up, and guarded by armed police – it turns out to be exactly the same as if you were tied up – it is stated in Lepir's diaries, writes Patria.