Croat Political Scene in B&H

Lasting Destruction

AIM Sarajevo, 20 May, 1998

In diplomatic circles in Sarajevo the opinion is established that the political scene of the Croats in B&H is the most rigid, the most inflexible and therefore the least changeable. This conviction was so firm that deputy High Representative for B&H, Jacques Klein, undiplomatically announced that he would break the hardcore faction of the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ). Therefore, while Republica Srpska is moving towards democracy, while the Bosniac political scene is becoming increasingly stratified, with the Croats, with the Croat policy in B&H, the international community still communicates only by - pressure.

What is the Croat political scene like from within? Regardless of how petrified it may seem, it is nevertheless turbulent just like the others, and conditioned by probably more elements than the Serbs or the Bosniacs, primarily because of the more powerful influence exerted on it from without than on the others, and essentially different than among others, influence of the Catholic Curch in B&H, regardless of how party life among B&H Croats may be greatly reduced.

In its short history of eight years B&H HBZ got its seventh president, which is certainly a record for Guiness, and once again confirmed that it is not an autochtonous party, but just a branch office of the most ordinary kind, in which Zagreb from time to time installs its new governor with extremely limited sovereignty. At the same time, B&H HSS, as an autochtonous party of the Croats in B&H, which for some time gathered the entire Bosnian Croat intellectual elite, is split from within into two powerful groups and is probably facing political bankrupcy. On the Social Democratic scene which is objectively nowadays the only real and possible alternative to the ruling nationalistic structures, there is practically no relevant Croats. The only true political factor, however it may declaratively disassociate itself from political activities, is the Church, although its authority has also been badly damaged.

Although the Crurch was the last mentioned, it is evident that in understanding the current political situation among the Croats in B&H, it is necessary to start from it. The founder and the constant companion of B&H HDZ while the communist system was torn down, the Church did not have the courage to disassociate itself from its product, the HDZ, when it started working against its objective interests marked as preservation of Catholicism in B&H. With the awareness about it, the HDZ also manipulated the Church, and the Church did not try to prevent it like in the case of the Croat National Council (HNV) and the HSS as the actual owner and the promoter of the HNV. The Church justified this with national interests, and claimed that it was always on the side of the nation, and the nation backed the HDZ, and round and round again. However, it did not back other or moral principles, when they were on the side of minorities. This was the matter which could be read in Dani or Feral Tribune, and which was addressed to the head of the Church in B&H, cardinal Puljic, who, as Miljenko Jergovic writes, instead to be a great man, became a small Croat, that is, who was not up to the historical moment. At least not in the manner in which the new Zagreb Archbishop Bozanic is nowadays. The relations between the Church and the HDZ reflect other relations. Primarily relations with the HNV which is headed by former president of the B&H HSS, former member of Presidency of B&H and former vice president of former communists, Ivo Komsic, and the part of the HSS controlled by Ivo Komsic with the influence of a certain number of Church dignitaries.

Although the Church was mildly disassociated from the HNV, Komsic as the president of HNV enjoyed confidence of a part of Church dignitaries who recognise in him a Croat alternative. As the HNV is a political para-creation equal to Herzeg Bosnia but with a different prefix, Komsic and the HNV and Church dignitaries needed the HSS controlled by Komsic. That is why a coup was staged in the HSS in order to allegedly turn the HSS back into "Croat waters" and tear it free of transnational coalitions it joined under powerful Komsic's influence. This is an expression of the understandable demand of the Church which is by its very nature opposed to liberalism and social democracy and is ready to forget Komsic's and everybody else's past if at present they are unequivocally Croat, essentially of the HDZ kind, but without the idea of moving people, that is, of depriving the Church of its believers. Aware that politics is pursued through political parties, apart from the HNV, through his men who will nominate him in the elections, Komsic made a coup in the HSS and replaced Stanko Sliskovic without waiting for the already scheduled party convention. Sliskovic fought back with his faction, so there are two HSS now which keep accusing each other. Sliskovic is accusing Komsic of putschism, and Komsic Sliskovic of cooperation with the HDZ, but in fact it is just a struggle for the leading post, in which Sliskovic has more massive support, and Komsic has the support of the HSS, headed by Ilija Simic, a greater number of intellectuals and, paradoxically, some personages from the Church and a part of former communists and the police.

And while the HDZ took great pleasure in shooting at the HSS which it had done for a long time, it started splitting at the seams from within. Splitting of the HDZ from within was dictated by the attitude of the world towards Zagreb, but also by vis major, as health problems of the leaders of the HDZ (Tudjman and Susak who died in the meantime) are called. And as the dream that Herzegovina would unite with Croatia was vanishing, and the road broadened by which B&H Croats were taken to the Hague, the variegated B&H HDZ failed to become aware or refused to become aware that it was experiencing the scenario deja vu in Pale when for the sake of his post Milosevic sacrificed not only the Knin krajina but also a part of B&H, and in the end even his closest political associates (Karadzic & company). This "chicken software" as Stanko Sliskovic would say, in the heads of the B&H HDZ leaders was not operational even on the level of ordinary everyday political considerations, so that it put itself in an absolutely inferior position not only in relation to Zagreb but also to its federal partner and the international community, and with its internal split (regional, criminal, interest and political) its effectiveness was definitely reduced to that of a dead horse. Due to the death of their main patron in Zagreb, Gojko Susak, scandals around Tudjman (Sarinic, Dubrobnik bank and similar), the still unresolved status of B&H prisoners in the Hague, the Serbs returning to Drvar, threat with return of the Serbs to Croatia, trial to war criminals from the other war, but mostly due to the slow but inevitable debacle of institutions of Herzeg Bosnia, B&H HDZ found itself in the open, exposed to attacks which are such that even by far more stable institutions would start to split.

The fifth convention of B&H HDZ could not conceal any of the mentioned problems, not even the fact that the faction which expressed disobedience to Tudjman and posthumously to Gojko Susak, to wishes of Zagreb, hurried to pledge allegiance and loyalty to that very same Zagreb. The fact that B&H HDZ got its president against the will of Zagreb is the best sign that there will be more presidents, and that the hardcore faction of the HDZ, the one fully controlled by true financial power wielders in Herzegovina, will continue, to the final collapse, to defy both Zagreb and Sarajevo, both the international community and the Church. But, it will defy some really, and it will feign defying others. The politics which will persist on the scene is the politics of pressure exerted against the HDZ and the Croats in B&H, the way the HDZ sees it. The HDZ is lucky that nowadays, when it has never been weaker, it has nobody against it, not even the HSS which has until recently at least been a powerful corrective and the only alternative to the HDZ. This is comforting for the HDZ, but not for the Croat political position in B&H, and probably not for the Church either, which is gradually becoming aware where its open support to the HDZ had led it, so it is now alarmed by a lizard, and least of all capable of admitting its own mistake from not long past to which some of its men still belong, among whom father Anto Bakovic is just the most unfortunately exposed.

Zeljko IVANKOVIC

(AIM SARAJEVO)