ANNOUNCED CROATIAN COMMUNE IN SARAJEVO

DIVISION OF THE CITY AGREED UPON?

AIM SARAJEVO, January 26, 1995

That the HDZ leader of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dario Kordic, recently visited Sarajevo, is indubitably seen by the latest initiative of his party - they have made public the proposal to try to establish a Croatian commune in Sarajevo, naturally, they claim, for the purpose of making the Croats of this city ethnically happy. After the proclamation of similar one-national communes in the canton of Tuzla - Podrinje, which are as such now an additional reason for confrontations between the partners in the federation, the announced creation of a Croatian commune in Sarajevo seems to be a dupliated absurd of national - party homogenization.

Namely, to proclaim, for instance, the Croatian commune of Ravne - Brcko in the mentioned canton, Kordic's followers had enough favourable circumstances to maintain such an unconstitutional act as the alleged relevant expression of the will of the local Croats: the law on the constitution of communes, i.e. criteria for their establishment in the federation have not yet been passed; the powers of communes, cantons or of the federation are still unknown; the obstruction of the Federation and of its Constitution are still the prevalent trend in the ruling parties, while the idea on national statelets ranks in national oligarchies much better than the Washington creation. It was in such an environment that the proclamation of Croatian communes in the territory of the B&H Federation could be done in the name of "loftier national objectives", although their final result - territorial and political strengthening of the phantom para-state of Herzeg-Bosnia - poses an increasing threat to the fragile federation peace between the B&H Army and HVO formations.

But, the constitution of a Croatian commune in Sarajevo will, in addition to opposing the signed federation coalition, be additional nonsense on the part of Kordic because of the very fact that this city, like Mostar, does not fall under federation territory, but as "the district of Sarajevo" (as labelled in the Washington Agreement) waits for its UN protectors. What does the establishment of "one's own" national commune mean at all in a city awarded international administration, except unless such moves conceal precisely the wish to prevent the indicated solution to the problem of Sarajevo.

Nevertheless, despite its glaring illegality, Kordic's project for a "Croatian piece of Sarajevo" - which is actually nothing new, because his predecessor Mate Boban tried to do the same thing in the area of the Sarajevo settlement Stup at the beginning of the war in B&H - has neither political nor military foundations. Political, because it is known that unless they are totally loyal to Kordic's party, the local Croats become "no one's people" who suffer the consequences of the common interests of the SDA and HDZ on pure party states of loyal people. On the other hand, agreement to advocate and promote Kordic's idea under Izetbegovic's "nose" is a green light to SDA extremists for the further inauguration of a purely Moslem state, where every ruling party will, in keeping with its needs manipulate the destiny of the Sarajevan Croats.

The idea on a multinational, multiconfessional, multicultural Sarajevo as the capital of such a European and also world civilization is in that case, merely a skilfully staged deceit. There is no need to speak about the military stronghold of proclaiming a Croatian commune in a city in which most of the pre-war urban territory is still held by Karadzic's forces (the B&H Army controls only four urban communes). This all the more because Kordic's followers, in putting forward their demand for a Croatian part of the city do not even mention the possibility of previously settling the division of Sarajevo, either through negotiations or liberation by military force.

As Ivan Vidovic, President of the Sarajevo Committee of the HDZ, decisively stated "that the process of establishing a Croatian commune in the city will evolve strictly in conformity with the law, when such a law is passed", it would be interesting to hear who will and on which basis draw up such a piece of legislation. Is this not actually an announcement of the final solution to Sarajevo as seen by the ruling national parties? For, the law on a Croatian commune in a part of Sarajevo would see the light of day only when SDA leaders are enabled to bring the four urban communes under their control in the Bosnian part of the federation. Is in this way the coalition dream of the SDA and the HDZ about a federation as the peaceful national delimitation of the Croats and the Bosnians and the ultimate territorial division of nations, moving today to Sarajevo too?

DRAZENA PERANIC