DIRECTING NATIONALISM PROPERLY

AIM Zagreb, March 6, 1996

When a few days ago, the constituting canton assembly was convened in Sarajevo, a somewhat unexpected rebuke came from the city branch of the ruling Croat party in B&H, the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ). The Boshniak party was reproached for having deprived the Croats of an adequate share in power and for intending to keep power in the capital only to itself.

From the aspect of Croat-Boshniak relations, this is quite a strange complaint, to a certain extent even surprising, because the Croats have not showed special interest for Sarajevo in the past few years - except in the sense of establishing ethnic municipalities - moreover, during 1993, an entire set of Croat personnel of the republican government agencies was withdrawn from there. After signing of the Washington agreement, in the beginning of the following year, calls stopped to the few remaining Croat officials (Archbishop Puljic) to leave the city where the Croats did not wish to be that which is proscribed and corrupted everywhere else - an ethnic minority - and a gradual return of Croat personnel back to Sarajevo began only after the Dayton Agreement in the end of last year.

But even now, it is not an expression of a sincere awareness that something could be done together with the Boshniaks, least of all construction of a joint state, but mere fulfillment of international obligations which the Croat party has always shown great keenness for, although always even slightly more hypocrisy and cunning to avoid these obligations. Moreover, news arrived from unofficial sources that, during the recent visit to Bosnia&Herzegovina, Tudjman had offered Alija Izetbegovic to exchange Sarajevo for Mostar, and there also seemed to have been other combinations, mostly the one that the Croats would give up Jajce to the Boshniaks, again if they would be given the exclusive right to the demolished city on the banks of the Neretva river.

Even if these indiscretions were not accurate down to every little details, nevertheless it seems that there is at least a silent agreement on a particular type of internal demarcation within the federation, which is not made public just in order to prevent international sponsors from sensing that something is going on behind their backs, but the bargain is discreet enough so that even some observers in Sarajevo who have the opportunity to be eye-witnesses of the developments, have started mentioning it only recently. Member of the B&H Presidency Stjepan Kljujic, who has lately begun to regularly contribute to Croat press, wrote in the latest volume of the weekly "Nacional" that it was not a mere chance that the Croats were not returning to Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bugojno, Zenica, Travnik and other places. Alija Izetbegovic did not wish it, but Franjo Tudjman was not interested in it either, since he would like according to Mr. Kljujic, all Croat returnees to make their homes in the deserted Western-Bosnian places, such as Drvar, Grahovo, Glamoc...

Mr. Kljujic especially dwelt on Sarajevo saying that it was the centre of B&H "not only politically, but culturally and economically. And that is where we have nothing. But not because the Muslims have taken away from us what we had, but because everything was given to them as recommended by Zagreb. It is a paradox, for example, that the Croats in Sarajevo, in the silent division of power, held in their hands important enterprises such as the Post Office, Energoinvest, Retirement and Disability Insurance Company, Lottery and a series of others, and now that they are partners in the Federation, when the power is divided only between the SDA and the HDZ, they have nothing".

Mr. Kljujic's words are a good illustration of the thesis that national parties in B&H, but this is also valid more broadly, are at the same time both partners and rivals who have drawn hundreds thousand people into misery and the war, like pawns in a chess game the outcome of which is mostly planned and agreed in advance. Unusually bluntly, Kresimir Zubak spoke out about this planned recruiting and manipulating national feelings at a round table conference in Sarajevo. "Now is the time of national euphoria", he says and advises that it "should not be inhibited", but only "properly turned in the right direction". He stresses a very pessimistic diagnoses of the current relations among federal partners, accusing the leaders of the SDA that they aspire to a civic state where the Croats would have the status approximately the same as the Algerians in France. Kresimir Zubak therefore advocates that different political concepts of the Federation be clarified between the two partners, because on the contrary, "futile effort would be made which might turn into a new war".

If read between the lines, Mr. Zubak seems to be warning the Boshniak partner that "this is not what we have agreed to", and all things considered, intentionally turns off the lights in his visions of the forthcoming events in order to be more convincing in his appeal to the federal partner to return within the limits of the agreed. Stjepan Kljujic has quite a different view of things, and he writes that both Tudjman and Izetbegovic have got rid of their most competent and well-meaning associates, and have therefore remained alone, increasingly relying on each other. "I was personally unhappy when relations between the two were strained, however, since they have started liking each other, I am even more unhappy."

Mr. Kljujic is probably somewhat overestimating the idyll between Mr. Tudjman and Mr. Izetbegovic, because even if one could believe that the two have achieved full agreement about internal demarcation in the Federation, this demarcation would still be burdened with so many open issues and possible conflicts, that it would exceed the limits even of a most meticulously elaborated agreement making it worthless. It became obvious during the recent meeting of the Prime Ministers of Croatia and B&H - Zlatko Matesa and Hasan Muratovic in Split, which was assesssed by the two parties as exceptionally successful and fruitful, but only two days later it was necessary to intervene because of a dispute which threatened to turn into a first-rate diplomatic scandal. Namely, having returned to Sarajevo, Mr. Muratovic declared that Croatia had agreed to giving the port of Ploce to Bosnia & Herzegovina for a period of 99 years, which caused a shock of the Croat party which denied this - it was said that the port of Ploce would be open to traffic from B&H and into it - and both parties, according to a tested recipe, layed the blame on journalists who had allegedly misinterpreted Muratovic's statement and attributed a sense to it which it had never had.

Whatever may have been agreed in Split, the notorious fact remains, which cannot be changed by any denial - that a possible demarcation would open the question of the exit of Bosnia & Herzegovina to the sea, which had erupted before signing of the Washington Agreement, when it became clear that it alone was sufficient to start a new war between the theoretical partners. Apart from that, Mr. Zubak, probably due to an unintentional awkwardness, touched upon another problem by saying that "national euphoria" should both among the Croats and among the Bosnians be "directed" better, because identification with high national causes which existed with the Serb party failed to appear in both. Thanks to that, the number of Croats who do not wish to withdraw with their authorities is still comparatively large, and they wish to either remain or return to territories controlled by the Boshniak party, and it is similar with the Muslims (this is partly reflects through the protests of the HDZ in Sarajevo mentioned in the beginning).

It can therefore, happen that certain portions of the two nations are eluding the imposed matrix agreed by their political leaders, although it is probable that it can only slow down and at best delay demarcation, if the HDZ and the SDA really decide to agree about it. And especially if they have already done it.

MARINKO CULIC