KNEEL DOWN IN AHMICI

by Predrag LUCIC

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, January 24 2000

Three days before the numerous dual citizens of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina rushed to the polls to vote for the Croatian President, "a dramatic response to the process of the de-constitutionalizing of the Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina (BH)", written by the Croatian political leadership, had been sent from west Mostar.

In this "dramatic response" the Croatian political leadership listed everything in which they recognized the tendency of the Bosniaks to dominate other nations, to centralize and unify BH, with the help of the international community. They also stated their ultimatums-propositions for the reconstruction of the Croatian national corpus (only a Croat votes for a Croat, a Croat stares only at his TV program, a Croat doesn't feel like living in a civil society, but a tribal community, one Croatian vote is worth at least three Bosniak votes, everything else is a discriminations, etc.). The last sentence of the "dramatic response" shows that this will not stop with histrionic declarations but that a real drama is yet to come: "If the obvious and negative process of the de-constitutionalizing of the Croats in BH doesn't stop as soon as possible according to our propositions, the political leadership of the Croats in BH and the Croatian people will use their legitimate right to decide independently about the modalities to protect the rights of the sovereign and constituent nation in BH, guaranteed by the Constitution."

ROJS IN YOUR HOME

We still have to see the reaction of the soon-to-become official Zagreb to this unambiguous announcement of the foudning of a third entity in the neighboring country. Of course, if they react at all. Because, judging by what was said during the electoral campaign about redefining of the Croatian politics towards the country in which Croatia not so long ago performed an armed aggression (the term that the Croatian politicians usually cannot even murmur, let alone intelligibly pronounce), it is very possible that, instead of a coherent response to the "dramatic response", someone resorts to a dramatic pause in order to cover up the fact that the new leaders in Zagreb are unable to recall the script. Not because they had learnt it by heart and than forgot, but because they persistently refuse to face the flow of the action that happened prior to their appearance on the scene.

Just as it is not good to reduce all the evil that happened in Croatia during the last decade to Tudjmanistic luxury and tycoons' plundering, it is equally insulting to look at the Croatian encroachment upon BH from the small owner's and economic point of view. If the only aim of redefining the Croatian politics towards Bosnia is to stop the uncontrolled outflow of the Croatian taxpayers' money to the remnants of the "Croatian Republic Herceg-Bosnia", that still function as the potential foundations for another Croatian fortification, than this loudly announced transparency serves only to hide the real problems. If the Croatian taxpayers and the newly elected protectors of their interests miss the chance to admit that Dretelj was not financed only by their money, but their honor too, than they deserve nothing better than that Rojs's 66th Regiment paves over their living rooms and bathrooms, and charge them according to a pricelist determined by Jadranko Prlic.

EMPTY POCKET APPROACH

If they keep moaning about three million marks daily, or a billion yearly, and forgetting that that money was spent to tailor the Croatian Lebensraum at the price of mass murders and all other atrocities that come with a purposeful cleansing, than the average Croatian fool will remain permanently anchored in his belief that the Croatian war in Bosnia would have been completely right, moreover, honorable, if only it could have been cheaper, or, if possible, free of charge.

To tell the truth, not all Croatian views of Bosnia are those of the empty pocket. But, those different views are unfortunately utilitarian too, although not focused on the financial, but political damage that Tudjman's policy in Bosnia did to Croatia. Even if we neglect the truth that what Croatia (and not only Tudjman) did in Bosnia was not politics (unless politics is necessarily a synonym for crime), it is more than immoral to mention the damage done to Croatia, and skip the damage done to the country on the territory of which the Croatian liberation-conquest war was lead. But, if anyone in the new Croatian government wanted to be aware of the proportions of that crime, that everyone keeps euphemistically referring to as the damage, than their electoral promises would include kneeling down in Dretelj and Ahmici, instead of announced penitent visits to Bleiburg and Jasenovac.

Unless Racan and Budisa feel more responsible for the "damages" done in the Second World War? Maybe the problem is of a more practical nature: they would find only journalists and cameramen in Jasenovac and Bleiburg, while in Dretelj and Ahmici they might bump into the current President of Bosnia and Hercegovina, who would, in the best case, politely refuse their apology... And so, while the electoral winners show no effort at all to understand what HDZ did in Bosnia, its Herceg-Bosnian outpost pays no attention to the illusion that the Croatian democratic wind will blow over from Drvar to the central district in Mostar. HDZ of BH, hidden behind the phrase "the Croatian political leadership", completes another stage of the road to catastrophe, routed ten years ago, which might be the reason why the dispirited Rojs's mechanization has moved from Croatia to Hercegovina. Without it, the preparatory works for paving of the vacuum between the edge and the bottom of the abyss are unfeasible (or in the political language: between the formation of a third entity and secession at any price, including the one already paid).

ISLANDERS FROM HERCEGOVINA

The article according to which "parts of the Croatian people in other countries are guaranteed special care and protection by the Republic of Croatia" is still written in the Croatian Constitution. Does this also refer to the protection from the disgrace and ruin to which the "the Croatian political leadership" dragged these parts of the Croatian people? Or will the new Croatian government will protect the BH Croats the way the former Minster of Justice Zvonimir Separovic protects them, by babbling these days about the corrections of the state border near Klek, and about the need to investigate whether a crime was really committed in Ahmici?

Will Budisa and Racan, instead of such babbling about harsh sentences for the members of the Vitez group who allegedly didn't commit the massacre in Ahmici, protect the victims of those "harsh" verdicts by, for example, trying Pasko Ljubicic and Ante Sliskovic? Allegedly everyone in Vitez knows that these two were the leaders of the massacre, and (as one weekly claims and no official has so far bothered to deny) they now enjoy the protection of the Croatian intelligence services on a Dalmatian island. Or, will they consider their discrete presence a mode of revitalization of our islands?

Translated by Feral Tribune