War in Yugoslavia

The main initiator and leader of persecution of the non-Serbian population in the valley of the Vrbanja river and Bosanska Krajina, including Čelinac, was a member of the radical currents SDS - Radoslav Brdjanin, a native of the nearby village of Popovac.

Brđanin was a leading political figure in Autonomous Region of Krajina (ARK). During The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, was the key positions at the municipal, regional and "republic" level. Among other things, he was the first vice president of the Assembly of the ARK, president of the ARK Crisis Staff and later as Acting Vice Minister for Production, Minister for Construction, Traffic and Utilities and acting Deputy Prime Minister Republika Srpska (RS). International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) condemned him for various crimes to 30 years in prison.^[1]

During the War in Bosnia, along with other generally known reprisals, local authorities have introduced the original limits of Bosniaks and Croats, i.e. non-Serb population. In addition to those who have experienced this, among other things, bears witness to the indictment against Radovan Karadžić to tribunal in The Hague. At the hearing, Nikola Poplašen, 2013, one of the questions to the witness for the defense, was:

"Since he stated that there was no ethnic discrimination in the Republika Srpska, the prosecutor presented the decision of the Čelinac municipality authorities from July 23, 1992, in which Croats and Muslims are prohibited from going out into the street from 4 p.m. till 6 a.m., bathing in the river, fishing, gathering in larger groups, and the only thing they are expressly allowed to do is - leave. And this only on the condition that the entire household leaves the municipality. According to Poplasen, with these restrictions, the municipal authorities wanted to "protect" the population and "save people's heads".^[2]

Population

Ethnic composition