Gordan Jandrokovic – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatian Parliament Declaration On Position of Croats In Bosnia and Herzegovina

December 16, 2018 by inavukic 7 Comments

From Left:Zvonko Milas, State Secretary, Central Office for Croats living outside Croatia,
Zeljko Glasnovic, Member of Croatian Parliament for the diaspora,
Gordan Jandrokovic, Speaker of Croatian Parliament,
Marija Pejcinovic Buric, Minister for Foreign and European Affairs
Photo: Pixsell

The Croatian Parliament has Friday 14 December 2018 adopted the proposed Declaration on the Position of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (PDF Declaration). Votes for were 81, against 11 and abstaining 4. Hence, the desired consensus was not reached, which leaves space for ongoing political manipulation and set backs in the lobbying for strengthening of the power in decision making as far as Croat role is concerned there. Issues that stand out particularly relate to the need to change BiH Electoral Act so that Croats are given the prerogative to vote for their own representatives in Presidency and parliament and those relating to the full and deserved status and recognition of the 1990’s war forces Croatian Defence Council (HVO).

Advocating strongly for equality of Croatian people in that country the Declaration (Link for PDF version of the Declaration and Amendments)calls for changes to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Electoral Act. It states that “The Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are a part of one and indivisible Croatian nation, regardless in which country and in which part of the world members of that nation live.”

In its ascent to parliamentary vote the proposed Declaration had given rise to numerous criticisms from the opposition, particularly Social Democrats, who held that it represented meddling in another country’s internal affairs. Accordingly, the original text discussed in parliament on 12 December has partly been changed.

Croatian people of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are standing on the fence of their survival. Their status as equal people to Bosniaks and Serbs in BiH is continually eroded to the point that, despite protests and attempts to change the Electoral law, their representative in the Presidency of BiH is elected by the Bosniaks. Without a doubt, and based on jurisdiction installed within the 1995 Dayton Agreement and subsequently in the Constitution of BiH, Croatia has an obligation in protecting the constituency, equality and interests of the Croatian people in BiH. Hence, given the developments since 1995 that saw increasing deterioration in the status of Croats in BiH that places their very existence there in jeopardy, the time has arrived when Croatia has no alternative but to formulate its clear political framework that would help achieve and sustain such paramount rights of Croatian people in BiH.

To say that the debate in the Croatian parliament on Wednesday 12 December 2018 on the proposed Croatian Parliament Declaration on the Position of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina was heated would be a monumental understatement. Not only was the debate that lasted some ten hours into the night heated but it clearly demonstrated the fact that a Croatian parliamentary consensus on the Declaration was almost impossible to achieve. The bottom line to the disparity on whether the Croatian parliament should pass such a declaration lies in the evidently irreconcilable views between the governing majority and parts of the opposition on the role Croatia should play when it comes to its direct stand ad activities regarding Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The “liberal” opposition headed by Social Democrats (former communist league of Yugoslavia) considers the declaration to be damaging and an encroachment into internal political affairs of a neighbouring country while another portion of the opposition, e.g. Hrvoje Zekanovic/HRAST who vied for a third entity (Croatian) in BiH, Zeljko Glasnovic/the MP for the Croatian diaspora who especially emphasised the need to cement the recognition of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) which was instrumental in protecting the borders of Croatia during the 1990’s war, considers that the proposed text is lukewarm and demands more concrete solutions favouring the protection of Croats within BiH. Proposed by the Parliamentary Committee for Croats Living Outside Croatia and the ruling Croatian Democratic Union the Declaration seeks to strengthen the position on Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina; to preserve the political subjectivity of the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina particularly because of geostrategic influences being a first class strategic Croatian state and national interest.

The Declaration warns of marginalisation of the Croatian people in BiH and calls for changes to the Constitution and Electoral Act of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Declaration, of course, would have no direct power to make constitutional reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina but a consensus on such a political framework would have been likely to strengthen advocacy for major positive changes that would enable the equality of the Croatian people in BiH.

The Croatian Minister for Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejcinovic Buric rejected criticism by the opposition that the declaration encroaches on internal political affairs in the neighbouring country. “The Republic of Croatia is only asking for the Dayton Agreement to be respected along with constitutional decisions by the Constitutional Court in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Pejcinovic Buric.

While the Declaration would not be binding for Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, the BiH presidency in Sarajevo (for which the Croat representive Zeljko Komsic was recently voted in by majority Bosniak/Muslim vote) already views it as another attack on Bosnia’s sovereignty after the two countries became involved in a previous dispute about the Bosnian general elections in October.

In its current form the Declaration does claim that the election of Zeljko Komsic as the Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency at October’s polls was not in line with the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war because Komsic was elected mostly by Bosniak votes, not by those of Bosnian Croats.

“For the successful functioning of Bosnia at all its levels it is essential that all its constituent peoples [Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs] and citizens be equal, to trust and believe in Bosnia’s future,” the declaration says.

With this declaration the Croatian Parliament seeks, among other things, from the appropriate institutions in the Republic of Croatia the following:

In order to realise the constitutional, legal and strategic documents and the international obligations of the Republic of Croatia in relation to Croats in BiH and towards BiH:

– that the Republic of Croatia, as a signatory and guarantor of the Washington and Dayton Agreements, and a member of the Peace Implementation Council in BiH, report to the UN Security Council and the PIC Steering Board members that the imposed amendments to the Entity Laws and the imposed changes to the Election the Dayton Peace Agreement was severely violated. Since the balance between the constitutional position and the rights of the constituent peoples in BiH at the expense of the Croatian people, but also to the detriment of the stability and functionality of BiH, the Croatian Parliament charges the representatives of the Republic of Croatia to seek before the international organisations responsible for implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement respect for the Dayton Peace Accords and that the imposed changes be removed via changes to the Constitution and the Election Law of BiH;

– that the Republic of Croatia, as a member of the Peace Implementation Council and as a member of NATO and EU in multilateral and bilateral capacities, advocates and supports the urgent changes of the Constitution and the Election Law of BiH, which would lead to the harmonisation and standardisation of the equal constitutional position of the three constituent peoples in BiH, in an institutional and administrative territorial view;

– the appropriate institutions of the Republic of Croatia are invited to increase their assistance to institutions of education, health, culture, media and Catholic Church institutions in BiH;

– to include institutions of strategic importance for Croats in BiH in the form of financial assistance from the Republic of Croatia, with full respect for their program and personnel independence and the principles of project business aimed at realising real needs and solving specific problems;

– to establish financial instruments for investment in development and employment in the majority Croatian areas, in areas where Croats lived in significant numbers before the war and from which they were forcefully deported or displaced and thus prevent departure and support the return of deported Croats to BiH;

– to stimulate new investments of Croatian companies operating and investing in BiH, especially in places with the Croat majority, where the number of Croats has been drastically reduced due to the war, due to the discriminatory policy of national majority in the Entities and counties on whose territory they are, their access to employment is disabled;

– to encourage cooperation with all local, county and state entities and representatives of the Republic of Croatia who have experience in using funds from European and other programs in the design of future projects and cross-border cooperation that would respond to the real needs of all media in BiH, especially in the areas of to which economic, scientific, academic, cultural and other subjects fulfilling the needs of Croats have capacities for the purposeful and efficient use of available resources, but also in areas where parts of the Croatian people are in a state of inadequate meeting of the needs in these areas;

– to fully valorise the role of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) in the defense of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian territories in BiH, but also in the preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the whole of BiH, and to support the resolution of the status and the existential questions relating to the defence population, especially the disabled and the victims of the Homeland War;

– to give equality to Croatians outside Croatia in exercising their right to vote with other citizens of the Republic of Croatia in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, by introducing postal, preferably electronic voting, and by considering harmonisation of the number of representatives representing Croats outside the Republic of Croatia with the proportion of that population in the total number of voters.
Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Croatian Defence Council, Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Declaration on the position of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gordan Jandrokovic, Hrvoje Zekanovic, HVO, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, Zeljko Glasnovic, Zvonko Milas

Croatia: Distressing Taste Of Red

August 6, 2017 by inavukic 30 Comments

Celebrating 22 anniversary
of Croatian Operation Storm
in Knin 5th August 2017
Photo: Dusko Jeremez/Pixsell

As far as many are concerned, wearing a red dress (red being the colour symbol of communism that has mass murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Croats until 1990) scored no positive points but those of unease for the president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, at the official state celebration 5 August in the town of Knin of Croatia’s victory over Serbian aggressor and communist Yugoslav forces in 1995. This non-point-scoring of the red dress becomes particularly pertinent and offensive when, on the same day, arrests were made in the same town, at the same celebration, of several Croatian men including veterans, who fought in the 1995 liberating Operation Storm under HOS (Croatian Defence Force) insignia “Za Dom Spremni”, for calling out in pride “For Home Ready” (Za Dom Spremni) – the salutation persistently and wrongfully being associated with WWII Croatian Ustashe regime, by the former communists especially, even though its roots reach far beyond WWII into Croatian proud history!

While generally a red dress may look good and glamorous, on occasions like this one, where pride in victory over communism and bloody Serb aggression is celebrated, those in power must display absolute and thorough political and moral sensitivity to their people’s plights, to the plights for which thousands lost their lives while hundreds of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their homes and Croatia devastated. Evidently this was not the case in Knin on Saturday 5 August 2017. And that is sad and distressing!

5th August 2017 – 22nd anniversary of Croatia Victory Day also celebrating Day of Homeland Gratitude and Croatian Defender’s Day. Croatia’s entire political leadership, war veterans and about 8,000 people officially celebrated in Knin its victory over Serb rebels and Serb forces in 1995’s military Operation Storm.

Operation Storm was the time when Croatian defence forces proved to the world that David could still defeat Goliath.

And that is what the sentiment of these celebrations should have emanated.

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and parliament president Gordan Jandrokovic laid wreaths and paid their respects at the monument dedicated to the victory on Knin’s central square. Grabar Kitarovic said that Croatia hopes that one day even Serbs will celebrate Storm as the operation that “ended Greater Serbian aggression”. She said in her speech that she wishes to express her regret for the Serb victims of Operation Storm, continuing: “Croatian people did not want war and does not revel in anyone’s suffering. That’s why Croatian state makes an exemplary effort, with its own resources, to secure the return of all those who want to return. It does that despite the fact that the initiators of aggression against Croatia have not paid a single kuna or, more to the point, a single dinar for the restoration of everything that the Chetniks and the so-called Yugoslav People’s Army destroyed during the four years of artillery shelling, pillage and plunder. Hence, with full protection of national interests Croatia will give its full support for Serbia’s entry into the European Union.”

Croatia’s president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic
in Knin on 5th August 2017
Photo: Net.hr

While reconciliation is a noble pursuit, in the case of celebrating Operation Storm, the end of Croatia’s horrific suffering at the hands of Serbs, talking of self-imposed victims on the side of the aggressor as if they were innocent victims is something that Croatian victims and defenders would find hard and painful to take. Particularly when it means that Grabar-Kitarovic’s talk of Serb victims in Oluja in effect gave a certain validity (undeserved) to Serbia’s commemoration for Serb victims of Operation Storm held in several towns and cities across Serbia on Friday 4th August, which commemoration denies Serb aggression, continues to promulgate lies about forced deportations of Serbs from Croatia and justifies Serb genocide and ethnic cleansing over the Croatian people when they set out to break away from communist Yugoslavia.

If one wants to achieve true and lasting reconciliation then it is essential to clearly delineate between the aggressor and the victim. The events around marking Croatia’s victory over Serb aggression, whether those in Croatia (where accent is given to the victim-hood of the aggressor) or those in Serbia (where Serb victim-hood is accentuated even though such was self-imposed), all give the sense of the undying political exercise of equating the aggressor with the victim. In every war there are victims on the side of the aggressor but it needs to be recognised and maintained that those victims would not be so if the aggression and the need to defend oneself did not occur in the first place. In that sense any Serb victims deserved no mention at Croatia’s victory celebration. The intention of Serb aggression in Croatia was to destroy Croatia and Croats and both the fighting forces and many Serb civilians participated in that destructive energy.

Croatia’s minister for veterans’ affairs
Tomo Medved (Second from R) in Slunj
Photo: Dnevnik 2017

Hence, when it comes to this year’s celebration of Operation Storm 1995 in Croatia I (and multitudes) place my preference on the one held in the town of Slunj where the Croatian minister for veterans’ affairs, Tomo Medved, said that the Croatian forces, in that magnificent military operation, succeeded in destroying the bloody feast of aggression and brought back the citizens from a four-year deportation.

“We succeeded, we liberated all of the occupied regions, we made it possible for people to return to their homes, but we paid an enormous price for our freedom, 352 lives, in this area alone, of Croatian defenders and civilians,” Medved said before some 10,000 people.

Yes, Croatia has succeeded in winning the 1990’s military war imposed upon it by Serb and communist Yugoslavia aggressor, however, Croatia stands forced into decades long, largely unyielding, distressing battles against the remnants of communism that suffocate strong democratic progress and keep the distressing and utterly unfair push for equating the aggressor with the victim thriving. No more red dresses or shirts on occasions of official celebrations of Croatian victory over its aggressor, please! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 22nd anniversary of Croatian victory, Andrej Plenković, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Gordan Jandrokovic, Knin, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Operation Storm, Serb aggression in Croatia, Slunj, Tomo Medved

Fumbling For Croatian National Strategies

June 4, 2017 by inavukic 6 Comments

Second from Left:
Gordan Jandrokovic, president of parliament;
Centre Kolonda Grabar Kitarovic, President of Croatia
Photo: Screenshot, Vecernji List

Branding has been the buzz word for decades in the world of successful (and unsuccessful) marketing a product, constructing its reputation – upon which many things depend in life, to those that matter but it seems the same word has picked up on speed in the world of Croatian politics during the past few months. Branding a whole nation is indeed a task that requires the input of all stakeholders, just like a strategic plan would – which, by the way, Croatia as a nation still does not have in its post-Homeland War era. I cannot say with certainty that that is what happened in Croatia last week when one of a series of conferences on the need to brand Croatia occurred in Zagreb, that all stakeholders were represented. Perhaps representatives of all stakeholders will get a chance of input when/if the process of actual national branding of Croatia gets on the way (?). It is good to note that talk of the need for national strategy as far as branding is concerned is being heard. Croatia has no national strategy for anything and so every new government and president has no blueprint to follow with actions that fill the pattern of a strategy and, hence, directional chaos rules in politics and the grassroots bandwidth. I do cross my fingers with hope that any national strategy in branding will include the Croatian diaspora input.

Croatia needs a unique and comprehensive national strategy to brand itself, said Croatia’s president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic at the “What kind of Croatia do we want” conference on 29 May in Zagreb. “Branding of a nation encompasses the definition of a comprehensive strategy whose enactment includes state authorities, domestic and foreign policies, but also the non-government sector, various agencies, cultural and sports and other sectors… One can conclude that the reputation of a nation cannot be constructed, it has to be earned,” Grabar Kitarovic said.

Sorry President – whoever told you the latter part of your vocalisation (and you believed it) is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Reputation in essence is an image and it usually is mimicked through exhibited behaviours/factors and these can and usually are constructed or steered via branding and marketing. Building a brand is just like building a reputation in that you need to prove yourself again and again in order for people to put their trust in and become loyal to you. This holds true for individuals, small companies and nations as a whole.

Nation-branding professionals and activists in essence have one goal – the goal of endowing the nation with specific qualities in the minds of the target audience, so that it is identified with those qualities. In other words, they are constructing an identity for the country that emanates, produces and constructs a reputation.

Croatia needs to find areas which make it different to other countries in order to achieve successful branding the President continued, “It’s important to ask what makes a nation different and attractive … we must emphasise differences.”

The importance of promoting differences was also emphasised by Gordan Jandrokovic, president of Croatian parliament, who said that “it is the duty of politics to secure political framework and political stability as a precondition of everything else, clearly define political and economic goals, strengthen the international position and reputation and define areas which separate us from other nations, which are our added value and advantage.”

Croatia should compare itself, as Bozo Skoko from the Faculty of Political Sciences said, to other smaller countries comparable in size to Croatia who built a good image – Denmark with Lego, design or Hans Christian Anderson, the Netherlands with windmills, tulips and orange colour, or Switzerland with immediate association with cheeses watches and banks, not allowing the image of Croatia to be created by others such as happened to Kazakhstan after the movie Borat.

Can you believe this rhetoric of aloof and textbook-like lip-service to an essential ingredient in what makes a country special. “Not allowing the image of Croatia to be created by others” – well, Croatian key politicians and diplomats have been doing just that since the 1990’s; hardly ever bothering to publicly assert the truth about Croatia and its fight for democracy through and including the Homeland War on the World’s stage; almost never demanding that untruths published by others be condemned and truth asserted. And the frightening thing to me personally is that some individual politicians who have contributed to this tragic modus operandi of shaping Croatia’s image through neglect as well as purposeful negative actions and inactions were actually a part of this conference on branding Croatia and some are most likely acting as advisers to the country’s President.

Clean up your act politicians and leaders of Croatia – branding or shaping or permitting a reputation to be formed is either an act of love or its opposite disposition. And the biggest problem Croatia has had with asserting its rightful reputation of a nation striving for freedom from communism, a nation seeking to thrive on patriotic love and dedication to justice for all including victims of communist crimes, is plucking out at all levels the communist mindset and its destructive practices including those responsible and/or associated with communist crimes and their justification. Once that’s asserted the wealth of Croatia’s excellence characterised by the individual innovators and achievers, its defensive and amazing Homeland War that ushered in freedom through much human sacrifice and the country’s breathtaking natural beauty will shine through as selection of material from which the formula for branding can benefit.

“We need to carry out research in countries that are important to us in order to test out what are the associations with Croatia, what are the prejudices, and base our strategy on that,” said president Grabar Kitarovic.

Oh dear! Prospects of actually having national strategies do seem distant for Croatia. What a shame.

It is a given that branding of a nation is an extraordinarily complex task. The stakeholders are legion (politicians, businesses, industries, citizens, etc.) as are the potential target audiences (investors, tourists, immigrants, emigrants, business and political leaders, etc.). It is extremely difficult to control a nation’s image because of all of factors that can influence that image. Because so many factors contribute to that image and because brand building is such a long term process.

Impressions are created by foreign policy including diplomatic and military strategy, participation in multinational discussions and agreements, immigration, emigration and trade policy, foreign aid, alliances and media briefings. Impressions are also created by exports (especially exported media and high profile product brands), tourism, study abroad, exchange programs, friends, relatives, and business associates residing in (or visiting) the country, the hosting of international events (cultural, sporting) and the domestic and foreign press. The culture itself is a significant contributor to brand identity as is the nation’s brand building capacity (resources and marketing savvy). A brand’s perceptions will also be influenced by how long the nation has been an active part of the world community and known by the world community. Put another way, industrialised countries that export have more brand awareness and “country of origin” associations than developing countries that do not.

Countries also have distinctive personalities and Croatian personality’s trump card is the personality embedded in the 1990’s forces that plucked Croatia out of communist Yugoslavia. So, Croatia – stop fumbling around and get to the business of merging Croatia’s personality into strategic plans for governments to follow. Decommunise the country via a strategic plan focusing on what Croatia wanted to achieve from the beginning of its modern sovereignty. Ina Vukic