Croats – Croatia, the War, and the Future

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA REMAINS A TROUBLE SPOT

December 17, 2022 by inavukic 12 Comments

From Hrvatsko Nebo portal 13 December 2022

A political analysis by Dr Josip Stjepandic first published in Zur Zeit.

“Wars of disintegration in the former Yugoslavia gave rise to seven new states, including the former Austro-Hungarian annexation area of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH), which has since been in a permanent state of crisis as an international protectorate.

In addition to a bloated administrative apparatus that promotes corruption, the different political ideas of the three-constituent people (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats) are causing problems for the young state. The Serbs only want Serbia and reject any BH proposal. In terms of foreign policy, they aspire to Russia. The (Muslim) Bosniaks see themselves as permanent victims of Western conspiracies and want a unitary state that they don’t have to share with the Serbs and Croats. In terms of foreign policy, they behave like the western Turkish (or Iranian) province. As the smallest of the constituent peoples, the Croats reject the state in which they are deprived of their ethnic and human rights, as in the former Yugoslavia. With their aspirations to the EU and NATO, the Croats in BH can hardly achieve anything, although most of them are Croatian and therefore also EU citizens.

The elections for the state presidency and the parliaments, which took place on the election day on October 2, should have bring improvement. There weren’t really good conditions for this. The central election commission was composed in an illegal manner without examining the qualifications of the candidates and in the past ruled pro-Bosniak. The electoral register contains 3.3 million names, although the country’s population is only 2.06 million, which is very conducive to electoral fraud. After all, the constitutional court already quashed an important rule for the composition of the Chamber of Peoples in FBH in 2016. The Bosniak leadership used this rule, issued by HR Wolfgang Petritsch in 2002, to squeeze the numerically weaker Croats out of power. The best example of this is Zeljko Komsic, who, despite his numerous anti-Croatian outbursts, has been elected Croatian member of the three-man state presidency with the Bosniak vote against bitter resistance from the Croats since 2006. In 2018, Komsic even wanted to prevent the construction of the Peljesac Bridge, the largest EU project in Croatia, with a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The elections passed peacefully, despite many complaints of irregularities, which OSCE monitors seem to have missed. Among the winners was again Komsic, who outperformed his Croatian competitor (Borjana) Kristo by 43,000 votes. The results from 13 constituencies, where the number of voters is higher than the number of inhabitants and at the same time very few Croats live, show that he got his votes exclusively from the Bosniaks. There he achieved a lead of 43,000 votes.

The star of the election day was HR Christian Schmidt, who followed the Austrian Valentin Inzko in 2021. Since the Bosniak leadership let all Croatian proposals to change the electoral rule in terms of so-called legitimate representation (each ethnic group elects its own representative) come to nothing, Schmidt issued a temporary rule after the polling stations were closed, by increasing the number of seats in the house of the people, so that the Bosniaks cannot circumvent the blocking minority of the Croatian representatives. This temporarily ensures that the Bosniaks, who have been massively incited by Ankara and Tehran, cannot take over 100% of the power in the BH Federation and two thirds in the state as a whole, as desired.

The photo of Ambassador (Martina) Mlinarevic casting her vote in a ballot box made out of a shoe box in the embassy in Prague shows how seriously such an election should be taken. The law prescribes a transparent box. Mlinarevic, a member of the Komsic cadre, is a dental laboratory assistant by trade, although a postgraduate diploma is required by law to be an ambassador and is more conspicuous for her poorly diplomatic choice of words than for her achievements.

HR Schmidt wanted to prevent a deadlock situation by shortening several decision deadlines. However, counting the votes has already taken 3 weeks.

The talks about forming a government are going rather slowly because there is still no clear majority among the Bosniaks. At present, it looks as if the Bosniaks are represented by an eight-party coalition in the government, which is unlikely to be conducive to stability. The Serbs and Croats are likely to be represented by their strongest parties, SNSD and HDZ.

BiH exists today only through external pressure because the external powers do not want the state of Bi H to be divided. Nevertheless, the cohesion between the three peoples is extremely low. There are only two common holidays: New Year and Labor Day. The often invoked EU perspective lacks any practical basis. In addition, after January 1, 2023, BiH will be separated from Croatia by the iron Schengen border. If external pressure were to ease or even disappear, then the next war for BiH’s legacy would be at hand. The only question is whether this would come from the Serbs or the Bosniaks.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks, Break up of former Yugoslavia, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croats, Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Josip Stjepandic, Political trouble spot, Serbs

Croatia: Roll Up Roll Up – Political Circus Still In Town

December 11, 2021 by inavukic 3 Comments

President Zoran Milanovic (L) Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic (R)

The circus is still in town!

Its tapestry is tragic, widespread political despair and divisions.

Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen, open up your wallets and come and see the biggest show in town. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Grab a ringside seat while they last.

See the fearless Andrej Plenkovic and intrepid Zoran Milanovic high wire double act. Hold your breath as Andrej tries to keep his balance while Zoran vigorously shakes the wires and – vice versa. They both defy gravity, somehow keep their grip. How many days can they stay up on the wire? Will they fall and tumble to the ground? There is no safety net. Or is there? They are both very experienced at mudslinging, offloading own incompetence and biases to keep walking the wire of power.

Croatia has been in a political crisis ever since the former communists grabbed power in 2000. And the crisis is turning into a political circus unseen anywhere else and painful to watch. Prime Minister against the President, the President against the Prime Minister.

But there are times when one needs to step back and see that some things the President says are the things many in Croatia think but dare not say. The issue is here will the President follow his statements and ensure that changes needed are put in place or will all this talk be just another round of empty rhetoric that brings scores on the proverbial daily political points popularity chart.

Zoran Milanovic appears to be increasingly positioning himself as shooting from the hip, straight-talking man of the people and appears to have lost all caution in choosing words to highlight problems Croatian people are having both in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with regards to the 1990’s Homeland War and war of Serb aggression. He is certainly overshadowing the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic whose patriotic phrases, if they by some seeming accident roll off his tongue, are laboured and insincere. Milanovic has picked up on a significant anti-government mood in Croatia that has become highly politically inflammable and the feeling that anti-government mood with his daily comments and statements keep the media and the public wondering where all that will end. Whether President Milanovic will do a backflip on his current public appearances that in some aspects give overdue credence to the values of the Croatian Homeland War is yet to be seen. He has done backflips before.

There is a significant anti Covid-19 vaccination movement in Croatia and vaccination levels are relatively very low even in this fourth pandemic wave with thousands of new cases every day and dozens of deaths from or with Covid. Picking up on this “anti- vaxxer” movement Milanovic burrowed his way into the public heart, and often in seems that public has forgotten that Milanovic stands for every painful anti-Croat breath communist Yugoslavia has ever made. President Milanovic has for many weeks now been criticising the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing it of imposing repressive restrictions on the people, regardless of the fact that Croatia’s measures are in fact not among the strictest in the European Union. Milanovic has supported Covid-19 vaccinations but the fact that he is scathing various elements of Covid-19 measures such as wearing face masks for the vaccinated, the Certificates of Vaccination or Covid passes or the powers that the Civil Protection Board that brings the decisions related to Covid measures there is no doubt that vaccination levels are low because of the daily circus that goes on every day between the Prime Minister and the President.

Zoran Milanović, gave a statement to the media during this week and severely attacked Milorad Pupovac (One of Members of Croatian Parliament representing Serb Minority and leading activist in Croatia denying Serb aggression and genocide over Croats) and the representative of the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina Sefik Dzaferovic for whom Milanovic said was a “UDBa activist from Zenica” (communist Yugoslavia Secret Services activist)…

Such an attack is both politically and morally justified for a great many Croatians in both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and it is high time someone so high on power ladder has brought it into the public arena.

“We hear in Parliament from Milorad Pupovac, Andrej Plekovic’s coalition partner (who was also my coalition partner five or six years ago) that the Croatian army committed ethnic cleansing at the beginning of the war and after the war. Things like that bother me. I was in Srb in 2008, I never saw Pupovac come to Bacin, where 70 elderly Croats were murdered in 1991, to Promin, where 40 people were killed in mid-1993… He is a man without any moral principles. He is like a jukebox, the more you insert five kuna coins, 25 kuna, the more you get.

But I see Sefik Dzaferovic, a sponsor of the mujahedin in Kakanj (Bosnia and Herzegovina), coming to Vukovar to provoke Serbs. He does not come out of reverence for Croats because he calls those same Croats and their country war criminals. That is the problem, and we will talk about it,” Milanovic said.

“Then Mr. Bakir Izetbegovic, who incited that UDBa operative from Zenica against me, called. There are always people who will shout at me, but people spit on Croatia. So then Bakir tells me that I should think a little more. I think and I have an attitude…

“No one will shut my mouth, not only me but not a single well-meaning man. I will always fight against manipulators and petty souls. The only thing they have in common is that they like to implant and parasitize, including the team from Sarajevo and Mr. Pupovac, who dishes out lessons on morality with everyone, but acts like a jukebox. The more you put in, the more you have. A man without any principles, moral and political “, said Milanović.

“I receive 80% of Croatian Serb vote, there are ten thousand of them, I have a right to say something about what bothers us…where are the war veterans now, to defend the people from Pupovac, where is the HDZ community of war veterans now … immoral people for whom the truth means nothing, who are corrupted because they have secured a job in government companies, who are paid for not working … and they easily walk over the insults that Croatia had committed ethnic cleansing, Knin was not ethnically cleansed, people fled from Knin and then 30% returned to Croatia…”he said, reiterating that Milorad Pupovac was playing dirty.

Incitement of chaos in Croatia has become a political circus and its main performers are the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and President Zoran Milanovic. While Kolinda Grabar-KItarovic was President of Croatia similar circus played out between the Prime Minister and President and Grabar-Kitarovic had often said in public that she has had no success in establishing a good working relationship with the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his government.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic keeps replying to some of President Milanovic statements, however his replies are an act of composure and seriousness one couldn’t metabolise even with huge blobs of the softest butter. He just does not seem sincere, and he has never pulled Milorad Pupovac over for his insulting threats and innuendoes against Croatian war veterans who defended Croatia from Serb aggression. Plenkovic has often said in public that the truth of Croatian Homeland War and its righteousness are not disputable but he keeps keeping close company in government coalition with the Serb minority that constantly criminalises that war, that constantly reeks of hatred for Croatian victory over Serb aggression in that war so, really, one cannot take Plenkovic as truly meaning his own words that the War truth is indisputable.

He has never acted on his words and defended that truth in front of the Serb aggressive lobby within his own parliament. What a travesty of justice towards own people and independence built on the foundations of that war!

This is a tragic reality for Croatia.

This time around though the difference is that this President, Zoran Milanovic, is not even complaining about the lack of good working relationship with the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. Milanovic appears focused on specific matters that may uplift values of the Homeland War, place Serb aggression where it belongs, do away with the cruel Serb-led equalisation of victim and aggressor, prop the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina to avoid the threat of being removed as one of three constitutional people and treated as an ethnic minority by the Bosniaks (Muslims).

Or – the political circus in Croatia may linger in town for quite some time. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej PLenkovic, Bakir Izetbegovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Croats, ex-communist in Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Milorad Pupovac, Political circus, political crisis in Croatia, Sefik Dzaferovic, Ser Aggression. Croatian Homeland War, Zoran Milanovic

Croatians Under Islamic Terrorism Attack

March 14, 2021 by inavukic 24 Comments

It was in July of 2014 when US Congresswoman Janice Hahn submitted to the House of Representatives a resolution demanding that President Barack Obama appoint a special representative for the Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) of the country’s delays in its Euro-Atlantic path and drew attention to the consistent reduction and erosion of rights of Croats in BiH because of which there’s blockades and a political deadlock. I wrote an article about that.

In the Resolution Congresswoman Hahn had noted that the number of Croats in Bosnia has halved from 820,000 to about 460,000. “It is unacceptable that this negative demographic trend is reflected in the reduction of constitutional rights of Croats in BiH, as that reduction directly causes political and administrative dysfunctionality of the country,” Hahn stated in the resolution.

Hahn recognised the poor functionality of the Federation of BiH entity in which Bosniaks (Muslims) are seen as oppressors of Croats and their constitutional rights and that this dysfunctionality only fuels the separatist tendency of Serbs within the Serbian Republic entity, which of course threatens, as she said, the very integrity of the country (BiH) as a whole.

Despite Hahn’s submission former Democrat US President Obama appears to have done the opposite by distancing the US further from issues affecting BiH, thus enabling in my view further fermentation of Islamic threat to Croats in BiH as well as Europe.

Helsinki Commission Chairman, US Senator Roger Wicker (Republican) on September 12, 2018 urged the United States for greater engagement in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 2021 the situation with obstructing and oppressing Croats’ rights within the Federation of BiH by Muslims (Bosniaks) is by all accounts no better than in 2014 or 2018. In fact, it is becoming worse by the day as pressure to control and rule grows, thus further eroding one of BiH’s constitutional people – Croats. The earned rights through the 1990’s bloody war where defending life was paramount, the given equality rights to all three constitutional people through the 1995 Dayton Agreement have all just about collapsed for Croats under the smothering, evidently nastily power-hungry Muslim or Bosniak counterpart in the Federation.

While the so-called Croat – Muslim conflict that erupted in 1990’s in Bosnia and Herzegovina has (unfairly and devoid of the truth) largely been depicted in the international media (as well as the ICTY) as an attack on Bosnian Muslims one must sit back today and re-look the truth and reality in the eye. That is, it was in no way an attack against Muslims by Croats but it hid the Muslim agenda to take over the country, especially the part that is post-Dayton agreement in 1995, known as Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks and Croats). It is clear that is why the Muslims/Bosniaks sought to employ in the war, on their side, Mujaheddins from North Africa, Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan.

The foreign Islamic fighters invited by Bosnian Muslims to their battlegrounds as killers, firstly against Serbs then against Croats during the course of the 1992-1995 war, have clearly been reaping their payment for their efforts to help Bosnian Muslims in war all these years since the war ended with the Dayton Agreement. One would be within the realm of absolute truth if one says that such payment was agreed upon in advance, at the start of Mujaheddins’ engagement. Their payment evidently comes in the form of strengthening the Islamic position in Europe while at the same time helping Bosnian Muslims in their abominable building up of superiority over Croats. An example of this is that Muslims rather than Croats elect Croat representatives in the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency, parliament and people’s assemblies and other places of power. Muslims do not permit Croats to elect their own representatives and only Muslims can elect Muslim or Bosniak representatives (as well as Croat!). All this is happening at the same time as everyone, including Muslims, is saying that all three constitutional peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, viz. Croats, Muslims and Serbs, are equal and have equal rights! Yet, Croats are denied the basic and constitutionally guaranteed right to elect their own representatives! The Serbs have made sure they have their own entity in BiH, Republika Srpska (Serbian Republic) and the path to that meant genocide and terrible widespread destruction of both Croats and Muslims in BiH. In asserting their rights in accordance with the Dayton Agreement they do not depend nor are they impeded by the Muslims there as far as “the eye” can see.

On March 10, 2021 the Croatian World Congress has released its letter to members of US Congress through which it raises awareness of Nino Raspudic’s (Independent Member of Croatian Parliament; born in Bosnia and Herzegovina) recent speech in the Croatian Parliament with a detailed description of the development of Islamic terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, its connections to the ruling Bosniak-Muslim establishment, and the threats it presents to Croatia and Croatian Christians in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Please access Mr Raspudic’s 12 February 2021 speech with link provided above.

Please distribute both the Croatian World Congress letter and Mr Raspudic’s speech as much as you can.

Please act, write you own or share the Croatian World Congress letter and Mr Nino Raspudic’s speech in Croatian Parliament, 12 February 2021 on the threat of Islamic terrorism against Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sharing of those can simply be done by sharing this article or downloading the letter and the speech and sharing them independently. It is hoped that many others around the world will write the same or a similar letter as the Croatian World Congress has to their members of Congress and Parliaments. It is our duty to protect the rights of all people and it is, in this case, to be active and make sure the world is aware of the dire position Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been placed in and continue to painful endure under the aggressive Muslim or Bosniak control in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ina Vukic