The massacre hasn’t hurt his career any: four days later, he was promoted to colonel. Bozic rose to power when hard-line HVO officials fired moderate Croatian leaders in the area, even jailing the mayor and police chief of Vares when they insisted on treating the Muslim minority fairly, says a U.N. source on scene.
Stupni Do, Bozic claims, was a well-armed enclave which engaged Croatian special forces in fair battle. “In this fight, both sides had a total of 40 dead, of which most were soldiers,” he says. And what of the unarmed villagers? “There were civilians killed,” says Bozic, “but only in the cross-fire.” Gunfire alone, he maintains, set fire to all the houses. Bozic scoffs at the charges by Muslim women of sexual abuse: “I don’t believe it,” he says. “No HVO soldier would rape a woman.” An investigation, he says, will clear up all misunderstandings: “We will release the results to the press. The whole world will know the truth.”
Bozic maintains his cool until an orderly announces that an official of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is waiting to see him. “Tell him a brigade commander has more important business!” he snaps. “When we had 12,000 Croatian refugees, he didn’t show his face here.” Bozic was just as testy about the identity of the mysterious attackers of Stupni Do: “That’s a military secret.”
