TRAITOR OR "DADDY" COMING BACK HOME?

FIKRET ABDIC

AIM Sarajevo, 9 September, 1997

At the just completed second convention of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), everybody stood up when Alija Izetbegovic walked into the hall. A man who sat down on the same occasion at the first such gathering, Fikret Abdic, was last given attention by the media in Sarajevo when a representative of his Democratic National Community (DNZ) in the federal parliament, Ibrahim Djedovic, was arrested contrary to the Constitution (as arrests over here usually are, while those for all sorts of crime never occur). On the occasion, like months before, all the media were swarming with accusations for treason, secessionism and crimes against civilians. In autumn '93, state Radio-Television proclaimed him "greater criminal than Karadzic himself". His dossier was sent by the ruling SDA to the Hague a long time ago, and it even conditioned last-year's general elections by deleting his name from the list of candidates for the Presidency. This year's local elections are characterized by omission of his name (probably by the logic - if we do not mention him, he does not exist), although the victory of the DNZ in Velika Kladusa, and even in Cazin, is quite certain. Is Fikret Abdic returning to Cazin Krajina?

Return to Velika Kladusa - regardless of his current more than good position in Croatian Opatija - is doubtlessly the greatest dream of Fikret Abdic. Not only that his ambitions have not been curbed (indeed, investment into DNZ reconfirms them), but according to the atmosphere in Krajina it is obvious that the conflict between Izetbegovic and Abdic has not yet reached its ultimate outcome. The first and the most important round, as a reminder, was won by Izetbegovic when he took the seat of the President of the Presidency of B&H in '90. Despite the fact that at the then elections Abdic won the largest number of votes, with the whole-hearted support of his coalition partners - SDS and HDZ - Izetbegovic was elected President of the Presidency with a one-year mandate. Rumours about alleged coup d'etat planned by Abdic in the beginning of the war, although they acquired the form of official interpretations of developments, have never been sufficiently clarified or proved. Nevertheless, they still remain the main driving force in media propaganda against anything that even resembles Abdic. Proclamation of the "autonomous province of Western Bosnia" which was a lost cause, and later inter-Bosniac conflict which as the result had not only thousands of killed civilians, but also politically unquestionable fact that Abdic as a leader of a considerable part of the Bosniac nation would continue to exist. In a clearly outlined political strategy about one nation and one leader, for Izetbegovic and the SDA, Abdic's domination over not such a small number of Bosniacs from Cazin region causes a greater headache than an agreement with two single-ethnic parties about demarcation of territories within B&H. This especially because the answer to the question whether Izetbegovic is the only and absolute leader of the Bosniacs would be affirmative only in Pale and a part of western Herzegovina, and it would be denied as one goes further away from the party seat, that is closer to Velika Kladusa. Similar distribution would be that of the answer to the question whether Fikret Abdic is a criminal or savior of Cazin region, even if parts of Republica Srpska or territory of former "Herzeg-Bosnia" were included in the poll.

The Bolshevik awareness of Fikret Abdic according to which plotting with the authorities, whoever they may belong to and whatever they may be like, is always welcome (from the communist clan of family Pozderac, over affiliation to the SDA, to alternate inclination and open vassalage to either Belgrade or Zagreb) suffered the greatest defeat when Washington Agreement was signed and (at least armed) conflicts between Zagreb and Sarajevo were suddenly interrupted. Regardless of the fact that cantons pursuant the said Agreement promoted in Vienna were given even bigger power than Abdic claimed for his autonomous province, his debacle and then his flight from B&H was inevitable.

After collapse of Abdic's creation, Izetbegovic triumphantly walked into Velika Kladusa. The deserted and ghostly town did not prevent him to hold his first press conference in Abdic's office, as amends for long erosion of his title of the only Bosniac leader.

Last year's general elections showed, however, that rivalry between Izetbegovic and Abdic in a part of B&H was not completed, regardless of what the current relation of forces was like. Although out of several ten thousand Abdic's supporters who spent months in the refugee camp by the Bosnian-Croatian border, a large percentage is scattered around the world, returnees to Kladusa voted for Fikret Abdic all over again. It is an open secret that over 60 per cent of citizens of Kladusa voted for DNZ, that this party won a large number of votes in Cazin as well, and that "Daddy's voters" appeared even in Buzim, allegedly unquestioned stronghold of the hard-core faction of the SDA. Since the Hague Tribunal has not (yet) indicted Abdic, and since Djedovic's defence may easily achieve good results - which will after his controversial arrest, make a new "Daddy"'s hero of him after return to Cazin region - chances for Abdic's winning local power in Velika Kladusa are more than certain.

The question to what extent his influence, evident in Cazin, has chances to "spill over" to other places in Cazin region, is closely connected to political ambitions of Abdic himself. In case of winning power in Kladusa, Abdic's first step (except for the press conference in the already mentioned attractive office) will undoubtedly be opening of his own radio station, but also of a television station, as by far more deadly media, for which he certainly will not lack money. Domination of the media, it is a lesson learnt well in this space, is the best foundation for further political undertakings.

In the conditions of the police-controlled and semi-privately owned state of local power-wielders in the region of Cazin, will it be possible to implement election results in case Abdic wins power in some, or at least one of the Cazin Krajina municipalities? Especially because he is the person who was explicitly proclaimed a war criminal by the official Sarajevo. It seems that the answer to this question is being prepared by who else but the international community. According to still unconfirmed information, international forces are investing great effort to establish a demilitarized zone in this part of B&H, which can work as a prevention to possible conflicts for power in Krajina, but also support to obeying election results. In other words, return of Abdic to Cazin Krajina may very painfully echo in official Sarajevo, but he will, if these election results are made legitimate, have all the support of the international community in taking over power.

After all, has not the West backed Biljana Plavsic according to the same principle of legitimacy? From the angle of preservation of united and multi-ethnic B&H, Abdic's political moves are in no way worse (or better, for that matter) than those represented by Plavsic. The fact that return of the traitor (or Daddy) may politically reflect on repeated rivalry with Izetbegovic, is a matter which will disturb the ruling SDA and not in the least the international tutors of the Dayton accords. On the contrary.

Drazena PERANIC