HVO STILL UNDER ZAGREB'S CONTROL

AIM ZAGREB, September 19, 1999

"The whole HVO project depends on foreign military assistance. This clearly shows that truly federal army will hardly ever be formed as long as the funds continue to spill over the Croatian border. Foreign expert assistance makes it possible for the Croatian side to keep separate military units. However, in long term, foreign military aid should be controlled by the B&H Government and not directly supplied to military forces or their commanding staff. Until this problem is resolved it will be impossible to create a federal army".

This for Croatia rather unpleasant statement concludes six-pages long report of the Mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a task of, inter alia, making military expenditures of the three Bosnian-Herzegovinian armies more transparent. Data supplied by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), Army of the Republic of Srpska (VRS) and the Army of B&H (AB&H) on their budgets are rather intriguing, especially the part relating to foreign military aid. This data showed that the HVO is functioning only thanks to foreign aid, with the neighbouring Croatia supplying its major part.

The total foreign aid which the HVO received in the last year amounted to DEM 141,548,099, with Croatia's share being 83 percent or DEM 117.2 million. Other donating countries - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Malaysia and Brunei provided the remaining DEM 24,348,099. Thanks to the Croatian assistance this aid is much higher than foreign aid received by other two armies: last year the B&H Army received DEM 110,796,813 and the Army of the Republic of Srpska DEM 27,988,067 - which came exclusively from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Reliance of the HVO on the budget of the Republic of Croatia is one of the problems which the international community repeatedly emphasized, but also a problem which the Croatian opposition uses to prove that Tudjman with his Government even today, after the war in B&H has ended and the Dayton Accords have been signed, wants to maintain his influence in B&H. And not only that: the Croatian state budget is undergoing a serious crisis (the current deficit is around DEM 1 billion) which is undoubtedly also the result of the financing of the neighbouring country's army about which the Croatian taxpayers were never exactly informed.

Although the amount of the Croatian aid is fascinating, it is questionable how precise are the data collected by the OSCE. Namely, the OSCE did not come by the mentioned figures through its own research, but asked the B&H Presidency for data on the sources and amounts of financing, in line with the conclusions of the Madrid Declaration and Annex 1 of the Dayton Agreement, which point out the need to ensure the transparency of the military expenditures breakdown. That OSCE itself is rather suspicious about these figures is also proven by the fact that an additional specification of expenditures was demanded of the B&H Presidency.

The structure of the HVO's military expenditures, as supplied by the Croatian side to the OSCE, seems illogical already at the first sight. Namely, demanding a report on military expenditures, the OSCE especially insisted on three items: operational costs, supplies and construction, and R&D (research and development). The report Ante Jelavic, Member of the B&H Presidency, has sent to the OSCE Mission stated that the entire amount Croatia had earmarked to the HVO was used for "operating costs", while the aid of other countries provided within the military stabilization programme was spent in the following way: DEM 13,235,067 for a contract with the American firm MPRI (which organises officers' training), while DEM 11,113,032 was used for materiel. The OSCE report also stated that the HVO did not specify what kind of equipment was bought for DEM 11.1 million.

The item "operating costs" for which the whole amount coming from Croatia (DEM 117,2 million) was used, is particularly interesting if compared to the data supplied by the Army of the Republic of Srpska. Namely, according to the 1998 report, the VRS received foreign aid in the amount of DEM 27,998,846, out of which DEM 9,428,469 in cash. This amount was allocated for the wages of 2,134 officers and the remainder amounting to DEM 18,560,377 for officers' training in FR Yugoslavia. A simple calculation shows that the average officer's salary in VRS is DEM 370. If that amount is tripled and the average officer's salary in the Croatian Defence Council taken to be DEM 1,200 it would turn out that the HVO had as much as 80 thousand people on its payroll! Naturally, "operating costs" should not be observed only through wages of personnel on the HVO payroll, but the given data illustrates that the reports is devoid of any logic.

Next, as we have already said, last year the HVO spent DEM 13,235,067 for the training of its 823 officers which means that the training of one officer (most of them were trained in Turkey, as much as 598 of them) cost DEM 16,000 on average. All these figures are even more interesting when it is known that these HVO "operating costs" include many other things, but without much specification of individual items. If the OSCE Mission manages to get hold of the required additional specification of expenditures, allegations of some Croatian papers about speculations in the HVO ranks whose top ranking officers never had to account for vast amounts of money they spent as they pleased, will prove true.

The Croatian taxpayers are unaware of the fact that of these three armies only the HVO is not getting anything from of the B&H budget. For its functioning the B&H Army got DEM 276,733,945 from the budget of the B&H Federation, and the VRS DEM 72,586,699 from the budget of the Republic of Srpska. As the above quoted conclusion of the OSCE Mission shows, only the HVO fully relies on foreign military aid, whose major part is supplied by Croatia. This piece of information, which was kept secret from the Croatian taxpayers, actually proves that the Croatian entity in B&H is not contributing a penny to the HVO expenditures and that the financing of the Croatian Defence Council is left exclusively to Zagreb.

Why is this so? The answer is clear and no further elaboration is required. The Croatian policy towards Bosnia is still based on double standards: the public ones, applied under the pressure of the international community, according to which it fully supports the integrity of B&H, and the parallel ones according to which Zagreb never gave up on its idea of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg Bosnia as a para-state on the Bosnian soil. When Herzeg Bosnia ceased to exist, at least formally and institutionally, the only thing left behind was the HVO which Zagreb intends to continue to control and influence. Hence such generous financing of its requirements without any attempt to cover at least some of the HVO's outlays from the Federation's budget as that would mean a step forward in the formation of a joint Federal Army of Bosnia & Herzegovina, which is by no means in Zagreb's interest. This is corroborated by data that this year Croatia will earmark DEM 100,502,000, for the HVO. This is admittedly some 14 percent below last year's amount. However, same as last year, the HVO will not receive a penny from the federal funds in 1999. All this should serve to preserve the independence of the Croatian military component in B&H and prevent the formation of a joint Bosniac and Croatian army within the B&H Federation.

DRAGO HEDL