The death of 180 Kreka miners was sabotage!?

27 years ago, on August 26, 1990, in the Kreka mine, in the Dobrnja-jug pits, a few hours after midnight, in a terrible explosion, the cause of which has not yet been fully clarified, 180 miners of the youngest shift of this mine died.

On the anniversary of this tragedy, a few sentences of remembrance are written, and that's where the story ends. It was the greatest loss of miners in former Yugoslavia. Nihad Halilbegović, a well-known publicist, investigated the background of this tragedy. According to his research, it was an intentionally caused disaster. 

“In order to save the greatest mining disaster and the loss of youth from the Tuzla region from oblivion, I decided to look at the other side of this tragedy. And it exists and is visible in numerous facts,” writes Halilbegović. 

“The day before the great mining accident, on August 25 in Foča, after half a century, more than 150,000 people prayed for the martyrs from World War II. The day after that large gathering, the explosion in the Kreka mine occurred.

180 miners, with an average age of 28, died in this planetary tragedy. 157 Bosniaks, 14 Serbs, and 9 Croats were killed. They left behind 365 children, mostly of preschool and elementary school age. Due to the destruction of several pits, 1421 miners were left unemployed. “Studying the causes of the catastrophe, with the available documentation that is barely accessible to the public, the testimonies of miners and the writings of journalists, I am more and more convinced that this accident was an integral part of the criminal undertaking and aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would later follow with the encirclement and destruction of cities and the killing of innocent people. Through intelligence and counter-intelligence services, they used the most perfidious forms of destruction of human resources and used chauvinism in Bosnia and Herzegovina to act through company managements, workers' councils, and trade unions,” writes Nihad Halilbegović.              

Discontent among miners was artificially created. Working conditions were dire, wages were low, and in Kreka, miners received vouchers instead of wages. Turmoil in the mine began eight months before the strike and the catastrophe. It all started when the President of the Management Board of the Kreka Mine, Enes Hatić, was transferred to the Chamber of Commerce. It was an unreasonable decision because Hatić was a good businessman who increased production and improved the standard of living for miners. Stanislav Živković was appointed in Hatić's place. The change was carried out by the Workers' Council, chaired by Miloš Kupres. This was done with the knowledge of the Management Board of SOUR, headed by Mijo Krešić. The members of this Board were Zvonimir Žlebnik for technical matters, Safet Hamzić for finance, and Mehmed Nurkanović, a miner, for personnel, who was tasked with assisting the work of the Presidency of the Trade Union. According to eyewitnesses, Nurkanović monitored and spied on the work of the trade unionists. The Trade Union gave this Management Board a mandate of three months, but through manipulation, they remained in their positions until the catastrophe.

In 1989, Kasim Delić was elected President of the Kreka Trade Union, Žarko Milanović was elected his deputy, while the members were Ramo Džulović, Tomo Nikolić, Džafer Begović, Mustafa Šabanović...

In 1989, the president of the branch union of miners was elected in the Presidency of the Trade Union in Sarajevo. It was foreseen that this person would be a mechanical engineer by education, a Bosniak by nationality, and from the Kreka mine. The miners' choice fell on Ramo Džulović, who met all these conditions. His father earned his pension as a miner. Džulović recalls:

“During my election, Mehmed Nurkanović was present at the session as the assistant director for personnel. He later submitted a report to the Management Board. The Management Board, in agreement with the Republican Trade Union from Sarajevo, changed the proposal and proposed Žarko Milanović, a Serb by nationality, who only had a secondary vocational education,” recalls Džulović.

The Presidency of the Trade Union of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina at that time became the nucleus of Serbian nationalism and a center for manipulating industrial workers, especially miners. From this nest of Serbian nationalism, workers and miners were called to strikes, protests, and rallies to destabilize the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, writes Halilbegović. 

The Kreka mine trade union demanded improved working conditions and normal wages. Džulović recalls that they considered striking, but the goal was to resolve the demands peacefully.

“Meanwhile, manipulation of the miners began. Without the knowledge of the Trade Union, someone gathered miners at the Mejdan Sports Center. We didn't know who was inciting and preparing the miners for a strike. Later, we discovered that it was Radivoje Milović, a lawyer from the management of the Kreka mine. We then learned that he had previously held a meeting with like-minded people at the monastery on Ozren. Bojo Dragičević, who was later elected president of the mine's Strike Committee, was also present at the same meeting.”

All this was done without the knowledge of the Trade Union Presidency. Bojo Dragičević then sent a letter to the management structures warning that he would “come to the FK Sloboda stadium and there will be a massacre”. Everyone remained silent about these threats. But the strikers gathered in Mejdan and decided to go to Sarajevo to protest in front of the Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was 1989.

“When the miners started towards Sarajevo, we saw that the social standard kitchen was following them with six vehicles, that food and drinks were being brought to them, and it became clear to us who was behind it and who was manipulating the miners and pushing them towards disaster. They were welcomed in Sarajevo. They stayed overnight in Skenderija. People felt sorry for them, applauded them, brought them food, cigarettes, drinks, and the like. They were received by the Vice President of the Republican Government, Jadranko Prlić. They returned with promises,” recalls one witness. 

The promises in Sarajevo were not fulfilled, and dissatisfaction grew. Wages continued to be paid in vouchers printed in the basement of the mine's administration building. It was absurd that the stores that accepted vouchers exchanged them for cash at the mine's cash desk on the same day. The Workers' Council, chaired by Miloš Kupres, decided to go on a general strike. The Trade Union Presidency was neither consulted nor present, as they were not even invited. They demanded that miners' wages be paid in cash, as there was enough of it.

“Other mines are doing this for their miners, in Banovići, Đurđevik, and elsewhere,” says Ramo Džulović. “I was called to the director's office. Stanislav Živković, the president of the Management Board, said not to stir up the miners because there wasn't enough money, so wages had to be paid in vouchers. I saw from his small pocket that a hundred marks were sticking out. I told him that I hadn't seen those hundred marks he was holding in his small pocket for years. The conversation ended there. After that, Bojo Dragičević tried to take over the trade union in new elections. We didn't allow it and elected Fikret Suljić. Dragičević immediately left the hall with his men and threatened that it wouldn't end there. Until the catastrophe in the mine, the incitement of miners, accusations, and insults of trade unionists continued. The Strike Committee announced and began the strike on August 5, 1990, and it lasted for 17 days, until August 22. It would be the longest work stoppage in the history of Bosnian and Herzegovinian mines, writes Nihad Halilbegović. 

The mines remained practically unprotected and empty. Almost nothing was done to ventilate and drain the mines, which posed a great danger. On August 16, miners were offered a payment of 1400 dinars. Only on August 22 did the first shift of Kreka miners start working. The order for wage processing was signed by Mijo Krešić and Bojo Dragičević. Unfortunately, on August 26, in the early morning hours, around 1:25 AM, a horrific explosion occurred in the mine pits.

The mining safety measures were torn down in the pit corridors. Concrete slabs weighing ten tons or more flew like splinters. The wife of the deceased miner Ante was in the yard when the explosion occurred: “First the power went out, and then a terrible explosion was heard, and I saw a large fan fall into our field”.

Shaćir Huremović, a member of the rescue team, said after emerging from the pit: “I have never seen anything like this. Can such a force exist that destroys concrete like foam?” All miners from the third shift were dead. Only one miner survived with severe burns.

Immediately after the accident, miners with longer service whispered that it was sabotage. Mujo Arifović (62) from Dobošnica, who earned his pension after 33 years of service in the mine, says: “An explosion of methane or coal dust would not have caused such a destructive effect at two ends. It is impossible for an explosion to throw a ventilation shaft weighing a ton a hundred meters away, and at the other end - the entrance - to shatter massive metal doors into pieces. Understand that there is a strong air current along that route, and methane could not have been concentrated there. It could have been concentrated at some workplace, it could have exploded, but not two pits would have gone to hell. It's impossible, and therefore it's no wonder that a good portion of the residents in the mining villages believe that it might have been sabotage,” says Arifović.

On the same day after the accident, at 3 PM, Borisav Jović, President of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Chief of the General Staff of the JNA, Lieutenant General Blagoje Adžić, arrived in Tuzla. It is unknown where they came from or why they were in Tuzla, but they were later responsible for the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and the attempt to establish a 'Greater Serbia'. After the catastrophe, a Crisis Staff was formed. It was headed by Mijo Krešić, president of the Kreka Management Board. He was rewarded for his actions with an appointment as deputy president of the Chamber of Commerce of Yugoslavia. He moved to Belgrade with his family, where he lived throughout the aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. His cousin also left Tuzla with the last JNA convoy.

Parallel to the investigation into the cause of the accident, led by judge Rifat Konjić, an inter-republican commission, formed at the suggestion of the SIV, consisting of mining experts, also worked. This commission was headed by engineer Vladimir Jelić, chief mining and geological inspector in former Yugoslavia. Rifat Konjić addressed the journalists on August 28 with Damjan Kaurinović, deputy prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Tuzla. He announced the initiation of criminal liability. Much later, Kaurinović, as president of the Grand Chamber of the Military Court in Bijeljina, would try people captured as civilians, sentenced to many years in prison, and worst of all, who were later used as 'human shields' by the Army of Republika Srpska during their imprisonment. Kaurinović was a captain in the Army of Republika Srpska, decorated by the criminal Radovan Karadžić with the 'Miloš Obilić medal'. Today, he works as the president of the Court of Appeals of the Brčko District.

The Government of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Report of the state commission on the causes of the accident, and determined that there were elements of criminal responsibility in the management of the strike and the commencement of production in the Kreka pits. The investigating judge from Tuzla, to whom the investigation file of the catastrophe in the Kreka pits was assigned, refused to accept the findings of the state commission and initiated the formation of a SFRY court commission in Belgrade to “supplement and correct the report of the state commission of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina”, even though the most prominent Yugoslav mining and geological experts were on that commission. Thus, the case has been shelved to this day in the Municipal Court in Tuzla.   

“150 miners were found, while the bodies of 30 miners were never found. Tuzla was never quieter than on that day. A five-kilometer-long procession left the city. On each vehicle, there was the body of a dead miner. 71 vehicles went towards Srebrenik, 45 towards Lukavac, 32 to Tuzla villages, and 2 dead miners to Kalesija. Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet investigated the extent of the special war, which was a prelude to the horrific aggression from 1992 to 1995,” says Halilbegović.