“Srna”, “RTRS”, “Sputnik” and other media continue to spread conspiracy theories about secret plans to attack Republika Srpska. This time, they used the discovery of weapons found during the demolition of the house in Matuzici, and added a few keywords to the original news – “mosque”, “warehouse,” and “military equipment”.
In the village of Matuzici (municipality of Doboj Jug), a weapon was found during the demolition of a private house that was empty for about twenty years, which was then reported to the police. According to the head of the department of the Federal Administration of Civil Protection for the destruction of explosives, Sead Vrana, the police searched the area to determine if there were more weapons nearby, and the found explosives were destroyed on Friday, June 22.
The news was first published on June 22, 2018, on the website of Tesanj radio station ZOS, and in the original, it looked like this (the photo features the house where the weapon was found):
Doboj Jug; Grenades and ammunition found in Matuzici
As we unofficially find out today, June 22, 2018, in Matuzici, the municipality of Doboj Jug, during the demolition of the old house, grenades and ammunition were found, and it is assumed that it was from the last war.
As the commander of PS Doboj Jug, Sejo Kadribasic, confirmed this information for ZOS radio, an investigation is underway and what is most important is that the population is not in danger, so they will try to solve the problem in the simplest and safest way possible without any consequences. The ZOS radio team is on the site, and we will soon have more official information so that the residents of this area can be better informed about the current event.
Two days later, the same information was published by Srna agency, who interpreted the news as the following:
WEAPON STORAGE FOUND IN MATUZICI
MATUZIC, JUNE 24 / SRNA / – Police discovered a warehouse of weapons and military equipment near the mosque in the upper part of the village of Matuzici, Doboj Jug municipality, Srna has found.
An investigation is underway, and members of the police and Civil Protection are on the site.
There is no trace in Srna’s news that the weapon was found during the demolition of a de facto abandoned house, and there was no information that the first presumption of the police was that it was a weapon leftover from the war. Instead, the dilapidated house was described as a “military equipment depot”, and was noted to be located near the mosque – apparently to give the impression that there was a link between the mosque and the “warehouse”, implying religious radicalism, terrorism and/or paramilitary formations.
The further development of the story shows that this was precisely the author’s intention. From the moment it was presented as news about a “weapons depot near the mosque”, the information about weapons found in an abandoned house in just one day grew to the story of an armed attack on Republika Srpska, both in “Srna’s” and in other media articles:
WEAPON FINDING – A MESSAGE THAT CONFLICT OPTION IS CONSIDERED IN FBiH (SRNA, June 25, 2018)
SARAJEVO IS PREPARING AN ATTACK ON SERBIA! The hidden arsenal near Doboj is a clear message to Banja Luka, IZETBEGOVIC is behind everything ?! (Informer, June 25, 2018)
This development of the story is not only a consequence of its tabloidization nor of sensationalist reporting. The news, in fact, fit perfectly into the conspiracy theories that have been published for months by the public news agency and public media service of Republika Srpska, and which are zealously transmitted by numerous online media from BiH and surrounding countries, with an emphasis on tabloids from Serbia. We have the opportunity to follow their culmination in a series of incredible “news” based on “intelligence agencies documents” published by the entity’s public service in the past few weeks, including the alleged exclusive discovery of arming paramilitary structures around the SDA (more on this in RTRS: “ Authorized dealer” of non-existent documents”).
None of the media outlets that published the agency’s news with this “supplement” stated in the vicinity of which of these two mosques weapons were found, or what exactly the “proximity of the mosque” that was highlighted in the reports meant.
(White circles represent the locations of mosques, and black lines the territory of the Matuzic settlement)
As Arnes Grbesic, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe in the Doboj region, told us, most of the houses in the village of Matuzici can be said to be “near” one of the two mosques:
“The finding of the weapon, that is, the house in which it was found, has nothing to do with the mosque or the Islamic community. The house is located about fifty meters from the mosque, but in Matuzici we can say that each house is “near the mosque”, given the size of the village. The house where the weapon was found has been empty for at least 20 years. It has also been in a dilapidated condition since the end of the war. As stated by the FUP, during the construction works, more precisely the demolition of the remains of the house, the weapons left over from the war were accidentally discovered”.
The first explicit connection with the alleged conspiracy against Milorad Dodik and/or Republika Srpska was made by RTRS itself, in the article “Doboj Jug – weapons depot found”, published on the same day as the news of the Srna agency. At the end of a very brief text, there is a link to the already mentioned articles on “intelligence agencies documents”:
As we find out, the police found a large warehouse of weapons and military equipment. Last night, our television published data from a document on armaments in BiH.
The same treatment was repeated a few hours later, in the article “WEAPONS IN MATUZICI – Rocket launchers, bombs, mines found”, with a recording of Dnevnik 2 in which a report on “paramilitary structures” was broadcasted:
“Six RPG7 rocket launchers, two 64-millimeter M80 hand-held rocket launchers, three trombone mines, two hand grenades, one improvised war-produced mine and 1,350 7.62-millimeter bullets were found,” Vrana specified.
(…)
RELATED NEWS:
Doboj Jug – weapons depot found
Details from a document of foreign intelligence services – on the arming of paramilitary structures around SDA
Thus, in just one sentence, without any cause-and-effect connection, the discovery of weapons was connected with the illegal arming of “Bosniak paramilitary formations”.
The thesis was soon accepted and elaborated by other media. According to the already established principle, none offered any proof for that. Instead, statements were made and published by several prominent SNSD members who added inevitable accusations to the story at the expense of Republika Srpska opposition parties; and statements by standard interlocutors of the media close to this party when it comes to topics that encourage fear of armed conflict and terrorism.
Dzevad Galijasevic, who in most of the media mentioned here, regularly presents himself as a “security/terrorism expert”, whose unsubstantiated statements have been the subject of analysis by Raskrinkavanje several times, was once again given a prominent place in several such articles.
WEAPON DISCOVERY – A MESSAGE THAT CONFLICT OPTION IS CONSIDERED IN FBiH
Finding an arsenal of weapons in the village of Matuzici, in the federal municipality of Doboj Jug, is not harmless and the message is clear that conflict options are being seriously considered in the Federation of BiH (FBiH), said security expert Dzevad Galijasevic to Srna.
“Now we have the discovery of weapons and equipment, rocket launchers, explosive devices, bombs and ammunition in the settlement on the border with the city of Doboj. All this shows that the threats that Bakir Izetbegovic once made about the abuses of the purpose-built industry were not baseless”, Galijasevic said.
“Now we see that finding weapons is not harmless at all, that the threats that Izetbegovic constantly makes are not harmless and that we should be afraid of how much they are part of the broader political strategy of certain Western countries, primarily the British secret service and their actions”, warns Galijasevic.
“You have a private house where it was found, and no one has been arrested. There are no announcements from the police about such an important event, which only shows in which direction the political society governed from the top of the SDA is moving, and that is in the direction of conflict and armaments”, stated Galijasevic.
Among Galijasevic’s speculations about the “real meaning of weapon discovery” was a completely incorrect claim regarding who was the first to publish information about finding a weapon during the demolition of an abandoned house:
He pointed out that it is good that the media from Republika Srpska were the first to publish the news and detect Matuzic, because it is obvious that the entire activity was hidden from the public.
– You have a private house where it was found, and no one was arrested. There are no announcements from the police about such an important event, which only shows in which direction the political society governed from the top of SDA is moving, and that is in the direction of conflicts and armaments – stated Galijasevic.
As we have seen, the first media outlet that published this news was not from Republika Srpska – it was a local radio station from Tesanj, which published the news two days before “Srna”. However, ZOS radio did not, as it is said here, “detect Matuzici” – it only transmitted information that was known at the time, without additional interpretations or speculations. The “detection” followed after a series of incendiary, inflammatory and completely unverified allegations were added, which were presented as facts.
The claim that the weapon was found “in a private house and no one was arrested” really seems suspicious when essential information is left out – that the weapon was found at the time of house demolition, and that no one lived in it for more than two decades. It was the owners of the house who reported the weapon to the police). However, formulated in this way, the statement leads to the conclusion that it is a matter of intentional concealment of the identity of people who had the illegal weapon in their possession, and that the police are protecting them because they were not arrested.
An identical article was published on the same day (June 25, 2018) on RTRS website under the title “Galijasevic: The weapon is the message that the option of conflict is being considered in the FBiH”, which appeared in a report broadcasted in another Dnevnik of this television. The next day, the website “Sputnik” joined in spreading the panic, with the statements of another regular commentator on conspiracy theories, Andjelko Kozomara. Kozomara for Sputnik, just like Galijasevic for Srna, completely unfoundedly connects the finding of weapons in Matuzici with the “planned arming of Bosniaks”. The ruined house here has grown from a “big” to a “huge” warehouse. The article was also presented on RTRS and “Srna” websites, under the title: “Planned armament means that Bosniaks will try to stifle Srpska with weapons”.
The latest discovery of a warehouse featuring various types of weapons and ammunition near the mosque in the village of Matuzici near Doboj is a confirmation of information about the planned armament of paramilitary structures directed by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), believes Sputnik’s interlocutor, analyst from Banja Luka, Andjelko Kozomara.
“However, yesterday, a huge warehouse was discovered right next to the mosque in the village of Matuzici near Doboj, with various types of weapons and ammunition. So, it is obvious that they secretly produced and stored weapons in locations that they thought would remain undiscovered”, says Kozomara and adds that it means only one thing, that they will try to stifle Srpska with weapons.
“They tried it with various measures, financial, political, trials, and when they didn’t succeed in all that, and because of those perfidious pressures, RS became even stronger, they are obviously thinking that, as Bakir Izetbegovic said, if one day they need it, they will take up arms and again try to forcibly expel Serbs from these areas. It is difficult to predict what is possible and what will happen”, this analyst points out.
To summarize – the discovery of weapons in the now-demolished house is presented as the discovery of a “large” or “huge” warehouse of weapons and military equipment, which we rate as disinformation. The emphasis on the proximity of the mosque while omitting key information about the location where the weapon was found, we rate as biased reporting and manipulation of facts. A series of reports that “emerged” on this formulation of the original news, which linked it to current conspiracy theories about the formation of paramilitary formations and secret plans to attack Republika Srpska, and/or Milorad Dodik (which in this type of report is often equated with each other), we rate as publishing unverified information, biased reporting, manipulation of facts and conspiracy theory. Among the numerous articles that transmitted the information presented in this way, in several, it was stated that the “media first published them from Republika Srpska”, which we rate as fake news.
Note, June 29, 2018: MUP ZDK
After the publication of this analysis, Raskrinkavanje’s newsroom received a response from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Zenica-Doboj Canton, where we received confirmation of our writing and the statement of our interlocutor:
MUP ZDK:
“Respected. Regarding your inquiry, we would like to inform you that this is not a weapon depot, as some media reported, but in an abandoned house – where the owner did not live before or during the war, nor did anyone live in it after the war, more precisely, the building was abandoned all the time – unexploded ordnance, two hand grenades and rifle ammunition were found, which was seized and destroyed by the Special Demining Team of the Federal Civil Protection Administration. According to the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office of Zenica-Doboj Canton, operational measures and actions have been taken in order to establish the identity of the person who can be linked to the disposal of the disputed weapon at the location where the old house was demolished during construction works. The information published on certain websites, which suggests that this discovery invention can be connected with the local mosque is not true. That is incorrect and unverified information”.
(Author: Tijana Cvjetićanin, Raskrinkavanje.ba)
