HDZ and the Third B&H Entity

Tactical or Strategic Issue

AIM Sarajevo, 6 March, 1999

In the past few days it was possible to hear two types of statements which at first sight do not seem connected in any way. One is that the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), that is the Croats in B&H (since an equation mark is usually put between the two!?) allegedly do not want the third entity; the other that HDZ, therefore, the Croats again, want a tv-cannel of their own. The statement is highly indicative of one of HDZ members from B&H who ranks highly in Zagreb and who claims that nothing should be done in B&H, in other words that everything should be done to delay and obstruct developments until it becomes clear what will become of Kosovo. According to such speculations, if Kosovo secedes from Yugoslavia, so will the Croats from B&H. If Kosovo acquires the status of the third republic, the Croats will demand their own entity like the one the Serbs have in B&H, and if Kosovo is given autonomy, so will the Croats within the Federation. Even if all this is pure fiction, it smells somewhat of reflections in the international community, and somewhat of an internal plan which two partners in the Federation may be discussing. Both the one and the other have foundation in behavior of the people from the international community and in demeanour of the so-called federal partners who are doing nothing that might reinforce the federal concept. Indeed everything that was done that reinforced it was done under close surveillance and powerful military, political and economic pressure of international officials who still wish to have the Muslim political factor on the territory of Europe "controlled from within", especially since the militant Muslim elements have appeared in Bairam processions with symbols of Talibans and scenario of Jihad warriors.

But, what is true in the mentioned two statements of Croatian representatives in the authorities? They do not ask for the third entity, this is imputed, says Jadranko Prlic, foreign minister in the B&H Council of Ministers. One could have believed him if what he and his HDZ political sympathizers talk about and do were not along the line of "Herzeg-Bosnia", ranging from the so-called Croatian community, Croatian republic, all the way to a community as an "umbrella institution". How come when the dream of every Herzegovinian politician and of majority of Croats who live in Herzegovina is to move their fields and their homes, their villages and towns to Croatia, to fuse with it, to make an Anschluss contrary to the one in 1938. Some individuals from the international community (for instance, Jacques Klein) are helping them with their statements. So indeed, does HDZ want the "third entity"? Yes, more than anything else, because that is the minimum which remained when the international community blocked the way to their secessionist policy. The official Croatian policy would also like that, because it would achieve with it the political maximum once included in the aspiration of division of B&H to the border of Banovina from the year

1. The Bosniac party is also increasingly in favour of it, because it does not know what to do with the Croats, it cannot deal with them, because they wish for themselves the status in the Federation which the Serbs used to have in Yugoslavia, and the Croats do not wish to settle down with the minimum Izetbegovic is ready to give them in his concept of the Federation. It seems that even certain persons (more and more of them) from the international community would also like that, because they believe that it would fit in their concept of "peaceful Bosnia", and equally that it would reward Tudjman for his cooperativeness, especially vis a vis the Hague, concerning which the world indeed owes him something. What do declarations of leaders of B&H HDZ actually mean? Only that they have learnt their lesson in politics, so they do not stick their necks out any more in making demands which can immediately be qualified by the Bosniacs as "secession" and similar, as opposed to Bosniac alleged cooperativeness.

This is where the story about the separate ethnic, Croatian TV channel fits in, and at this point it becomes clear that HDZ just pretends that it does not demand the third entity. Indeed, the greatest stronghold of SDA's policy, the self-proclaimed Television of B&H, is stubbornly defending its stands, the stands of its party and in this way manifesting the hegemonistic concept of SDA's understanding of the Federation. This of course suits HDZ just fine, which through the wish for its own TV channel in fact expresses its stand towards the joint state with the Bosniacs. Logically speaking, it is inconceivable that the Federation, as the joint state of two constituent nations and all the citizens in it, does not have its television network (this is strange for the state of B&H) founded and owned by the assembly whose stands it would express, while in fact, its cadre and the program are federal. As that television station does not wish to be transformed into a television station of all nations and citizens, the demand of the Croats from HDZ could be considered as a normal one. But, nevertheless, the demand for its own television channel is nothing but the demand for the "third entity", in other words for further destruction of everything that could be or is a symbol of the joint state.

The main argument which one may hear from members of HDZ in favour of their TV channel is: "Well, there is Serbian Television!", which translated into Croatian political language would mean - the Serbs have again gained the most, they have their entity, their television, their ethnic being in B&H. So if at the same press conference Prlic says that HDZ does not want the third entity, and Ivo Andric-Luzanski, president of the Federation, says that he is in favour of a separate TV channel, then it is just a delusion that these two things are essentially opposed, because it is a fact that not a single member of HDZ has given up the project of Herzeg-Bosnia as a minimum, and this minimum, in the given circumstances is the "third entity". In case the Croats truly do not want their entity, then the story about the "third entity" can be transferred from being a strategic goal to the tactical field of the struggle for full equality of the Croats in the Federation, in other words for shattering the Bosniac unitarian concept, the Serb syndrome from fromer Yugoslavia.

Must it be said that the policy of the biggest, most numerous nation has ruined Yugoslavia? Must it be said what will happen if the Bosniac, that is SDA policy, with its obstructions, supports the idea of the "third entity"? HDZ alone is too weak for this and such a project, and it needs the help of its nine-year partner in power.

Zeljko IVANKOVIC

AIM Sarajevo