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Can you tell us more about the pressure [applied by the international community on Croats with the goal of forcing them to participate in the local elections under unfair conditions]? Has this pressure made you change your earlier decision [to boycott the election]?
The pressure was applied and other sanctions were in the making. Certain international circles do not understand that Croatia can not be an object of pressure, but that it has always had consistent policy which has always been in accordance with the interests of the USA and European Union. The most recent pressures didn't affect my decisions nor the decisions of the Croatian leadership. As soon as the Croat leadership made its decision, I suggested to them: I understand your motives, but try to negotiate with the representatives of the OSCE and the International Community; I hope that these people will understand your objections and that we can find a solution. Therefore, based on that I engaged in the talks with Westendorp, Klein, and Frowick; the outcome of the talks was that they agreed to consider our objections; also it turned out that they had already made some changes in the electoral engineering and that the Croat leadership hadn't known about these changes.
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Can you tell us why a part of the International Community whose aim is to discredit Croat policy in Bosnia-Hercegovina has chosen Mostar for the focus of their campaign?
From the start of the implementation of the Dayton Agreement some European representatives sided with the muslim extremists and tried to effectively discredit the Dayton Agreement. They did that because the Dayton Agreement emphasizes the equality of the Croat people in the Federation, states that Croats should be a constitutional nation everywhere in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and definitely equal in the Federation. However, in reality Croats have been expelled or escaped from all other cities in Bosnia-Hercegovina. In the past Croats were 38 percent of the population in Sarajevo [apparently in the 19th century] while today they are only 2 percent of the population. There are no Croats in Zenica, Travnik, Vares, Kakanj etc.
Therefore, Mostar is the only city in which Croats are in majority and where they can have their cultural, political, scientific, health institutions etc. Mr. Izetbegovic has always accepted such arguments and supported such goals. Unfortunately, there are some extremists who wanted to prevent an agreement with Croats, and certain representatives, especially from the EU, wanted to discredit the Dayton Agreement using Mostar as an example.
The decision of HDZ to boycott the local election was not supported by other Croat political parties in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Your comment?
That is the consequence of the local political situation; however, those parties have no influence [among Croats]. All of them together won less then 10 percent of votes in the most recent election.
In his speech, Mr. Izetbegovic said that it should be a goal that not only Bosniaks but also Croats and Serbs become Bosnians; earlier he said that the Bosnian state should accept Islam as its spiritual component etc. Preaching of such unitary Bosnianism or Bosniak identity is the same as the preaching of Yugoslav unitarianism. Therefore, some people forget that they shouldn't repeat old mistakes and try to resurrect unitarianism in Bosnia, where it definitely has no future.
Has the Dayton Agreement superseded the Washington Agreement?
No, it hasn't. True, the Washington Agreement mentions Muslim-Croat Federation and its confederation with Croatia. In that sense it is very definite. The Dayton Agreement is somewhat more vague in that sense, but it essentially says the same when underlining that the two entities, the Federation and the serb republic have a right to establish special relations: the Federation with Croatia, and the serb republic with Yugoslavia. According to the Dayton Agreement Bosnia remains a single state, but it is not referred to as a republic, but simply Bosnia-Hercegovina. Therefore, the goal to keep Bosnia a single state gave grounds to a part of the Muslim leadership, fundamentalists, and extremists, to use the Dayton Agreement for the resurrection of unitary Bosnia, where Muslims would be in majority [and rule other nations].
Are the Americans really implementing what was agreed in Dayton, or are they trying to revise the agreement in the field?
Yes, there is no single approach there, even among the American representatives. Just consider that an American representative is leading OSCE, and that organization produced such an anti-Croat document which had probably originated among the Muslim fundamentalists.
Therefore we could conclude that in Bosnia-Hercegovina there is a clash between those international circles which would like unitary, multiethnic and multicultural Bosnia, and those which understand the reality, that the contemporary world is facing there civilizational opposites which must be taken into account. Among the latter are serious people like Frowick, Klein, and Westendorp.