Blaž Kraljević '92: Do Not Allow the Division of BiH, It's About Our Destiny

Blaž Kraljević, colonel of the Croatian Defence Forces of Herzegovina, issued a public proclamation on May 9, 1992, calling on Croats and Muslims not to allow the division of BiH, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

- We are telling all citizens of BiH, especially Croats and Muslims, not to consider the statements and agreements of Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić. Neither of them speaks on behalf of Croats and Muslims. They do not speak about what Croats and Muslims want.

- There will be no division of BiH. We can and will preserve BiH for all of us, we will not leave our people in the lurch. Either we will all perish, or we will all be free. We are not ready for betrayal. Radovan Karadžić is a murderer of the Croatian and Muslim people, and Mate Boban cannot and has no right to represent or lead the Croats and Muslims of BiH to ruin.

- HOS and TO BiH are protecting and will protect Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina is destroyed, the people are displaced, but victory is ours. We call on HVO to place themselves under our command, i.e., under the command of HOS, and in cooperation with TO BiH, to liberate BiH for the happiness of the people. Let's remove people with dark pasts and questionable presents from the BiH defense units. Send them home and keep an eye on them, it's about our destiny. We have a chance, but only one."

On August 9, 1992, after the brilliant successes of the HOS units under Kraljević's command on the Trebinje battlefield and the liberation of the immediate city center and the sincere desire to liberate the entire territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with other patriotic forces that stood in the way of nationalists and fascists from the self-proclaimed Croatian community of "Herceg-Bosna", members of the HVO military police, on the orders of the leadership of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna, ambushed and killed Blaž Kraljević and 8 HOS members in Kruševo, on the main road from Mostar to Čitluk.

Blaž Kraljević was born on September 17, 1947, in the village of Lisice, near Ljubuški. Upon arriving in Herzegovina at the end of 1991, he became the head of the Croatian Party of Rights, i.e., the HSP branch for BiH, and on January 15, 1991, he was appointed commander of the HOS war staff for Herzegovina, with the rank of HOS colonel.

The policy of the Croatian Defence Forces, led by Kraljević, was aimed at the political and military alliance of Croats and Muslims (Bosniaks) in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Greater Serbian policy of conquering Bosnia and Herzegovina.

No one has been prosecuted for his murder.

According to the claims of those who knew the political circumstances well at the time, Kraljević's liquidation was ordered by Gojko Šušak, then Minister of Defence of Croatia, to Mate Boban, who allegedly organized the execution of this crime.