RESTORATION OF OLD NATIONALISTIC COALITION
Associated List
AIM Sarajevo, September 5 - An extraordinary press conference of the Associated List held today in Sarajevo attracted a large number of journalists from Bosnia & Herzegovina and a few foreign colleagues of theirs.
It was both because of the topic of the press conference ("Restoration of old nationalistic coalition"), but also due to the fact that two exceptionally highly esteemed politicians spoke about it: Ivo Komsic, member of B&H Presidency, and Professor Zlatko Lagumdzija.
About the sudden outbreak of affection between the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), both Komsic and Lagumdzija talked bluntly, referring to the promotive gatherings of the SDA in Croat-controlled Capljina and that of the HDZ in Bugojno which is on the territory of the Federation, held almost simultaneously in the past few days which could best be described as "an agreed exchange".
According to Komsic's words, it is propagated that Bosnia & Herzegovina is homeland of the Croat people: "If it were not for the present circumstances, this would have made us happy. As it is, the HDZ must admit that it was defeated, this is completely contrary to what it had done before. It must admit defeat of Herceg Bosna and its policy. This is an inconceivable manipulation. They should answer for the combatants who were killed when Rajic was playing commander, for victims of the Croat people because of the policy imposed on them by the HDZ", said Komsic, reminding the public of the fact that the Croat Peasants' Party (HNV at the time) held a convention of the Croats living in Sarajevo on February 6, 1994, and demanded that conflicts stop, and that only two days later, they were sharply criticized by the HDZ. "Nowadays", says Komsic, they are saying just the opposite. Unfortunately, we must express support to it, and we would be very happy if they were speaking the truth now, if it were not just hypocrisy".
Ivo Komsic illustrated this with the problem of Bosniacs, natives of Croatia, who had lived there for more than 40 years and who were now being banished by the authorities from Vojnic, Slunj and Gvozd. For Komsic, this was just the result of the policy according to which neither the HDZ nor the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) were running for the parliament in B&H, as if there had not been a single Serb in the Federation, or vice versa, as if there were no Croats on the territory of RS. Briefly, restoration of old nationalistic coalitions is just impermissible baffling of the people.
Shameful, hypocritical behavior of the SDA and the HDZ was illustrated by Zlatko Lagumdzija by the pre-election gatherings in Capljina and Bugojno. In Capljina, at the gathering of the SDA, accidentally or on purpose, an effendi showed up and did everything to appear as it did, and in return a tourist agency brought the Croats into the sports hall in Bugojno who waved and sang their songs there and safely returned! Without having practically set their feet on their native land, exactly as the Bosniacs in Capljina.
Zlatko Lagumdzija called attention of the journalists to the more and more frequent declarations of the leaders of the SDA according to which the SDA deserved the merit for everything good that had happened, while the opposition was to blame for all the evil. The SDA kept spinning the same pattern over and over again, saying the same thing all the time, repeating that the opposition had done nothing in defence of B&H. "This is", Lagumdzija said, "the pattern which does not insult us any more, but it does insult citizens of B&H, the people, patriots. When everything began in 1992, nobody called only members of their own party to defence. I do not remember that that was how it was done. All the people were called through legal institutions of the state which would not have existed now, had it been left solely to a single party to defend it. Legality of Bosnia & Herzegovina was defended by people who are now sitting in the Associated List".
Lagumdzija informed the gathered journalists that the Interim Electoral Commission had returned all the "problematic" candidates of the Associated List, and that Sir Kenneth Scott, Acting Chief of Mission, personally apologized to him because of the "mistake".
In the context of the fact that the Associated List had sent a protest to the OSCE because of Momcilo Krajisnik's candidacy, who publicly repeated that the state of Bosnia & Herzegovina did not exist, Lagumdzija said that neither the SDA nor the HDZ, nor any other political party for that matter, joined them in their public appeal. "They act as if it were our problem and not theirs too. It is more important to them that the people are united and that is why we are worried more by the behavior of legal representatives of the authorities than by the OSCE."