Bosnia and Herzegovina


Zeljko Ivankovic writes on the current political situation among the Bosnian Croats for the AIM independent news pool on June 19, 1998.

As much as the international community made efforts to break down the toughest political monolith in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the Croat HDZ party - the more it resisted the pressures from the outside.

Still, all is not as it seemed in the beginning. The dissident faction started to dissipate. Ljubic brothers have been satisfied. They entered the Presidency of the BiH HDZ, so they have been "bought" by a well tried out method. The problem became more simple than it looked.

Bosnia and Herzegovina public watched carefully the destruction of the tower called HDZ, and as much as the SDA stated publicly that this was an internal HDZ matter, it could not hide its satisfaction, as well as was the case with others, due to the beginnings of democratization among the Bosnian Croats, particularly after the breakdown of the HSS, due to internal strife, again caused by the fight for positions. Part of the public among the Bosnian Croats felt Zubak's "Putsch" as an attempt to befriend the Bosniaks and the international community, receiving qualifications, although in a milder variant, like Biljana Plavsic in REpublika Srpska.

While the formation of this new party, which will probably be named "New Croatian Initiative", is awaited, it is expected that it will get support from Bosnian Croats in Posavina, Zepca, Usore, larger cities, and most importantly, of the Church. That is probably why Zubak is publicly mentioning adding an attribute to the party's name, like christian democratic and similar. While the New Croatian Initiative and its leaders are intensifying their propaganda, organization and initiation, a question is rightly raised, as was done a few days ago at a press conference of the Croatian Ntional Union, whose president is the former HDZ leader Milenko Brkic, why Zubak and his supporters did not speak earlier that the BiH is a homeland for Croats, why weren't they as principled after Dayton as they are today.

The brief period ahead of September elections will be the best confirmation about the strength and objective political power of Zubak's New Croatian Initiatieve, but the observes cannot escape a conclusion already that "only interests are eternal" and that when fighting for a position, a politician is even ready to fight for - principles. The question that remains to be answered is whether Zubak's party, besides personnel, also voter's support and financial power to remain on the scene, because everything that Croats did in Bosnia was paid by Zagreb. This cannot be seen in a favorable light, at least not completely, by the official Zagreb. The situation is even more complicated that ZAgreb is under pressure from the USA to stop financing, what still exists as Herzeg Bosnia.


Source: News service "AIM," , June 19, 1998