Dodik and Čović: Renovating Crimes

Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović are acting in sync. Very openly and intensely, they are sending messages that chill the blood of every decent person in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik supports Čović and his federalisation in the Federation, while Čović backs Dodik and his separatist intentions. Čović will, of course, say he is for Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Euro-Atlantic path, but at the same time he will tie himself to the flag with Dodik, who denies everything Bosnian.

It is hard to admit that the criminal sentiments in the minds of certain BiH politicians today are perhaps more pronounced and aggressive than those held by war criminals from these parts in the 1990s. Unfortunately, it is enough to listen to the narrative of, say, Čović's partner Karamatić, and common sense will block it.

Thus, at least hypothetically, we can speculate that Karadžić and Mladić, Praljak and Kordić, and all other war criminals, responsible for 200,000 killed on all three sides during the four bloodiest years in Bosnia and Herzegovina, perhaps could not have foreseen the bloodshed into which they were pushing even their own peoples. But the presidents of the two largest political parties of Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović, know what their nationalist politics and rhetoric can lead to again, because they witnessed the horrors with their own eyes. Čović himself participated in them, using Bosniaks from the Heliodrom camp as labour in Sokol, where he was one of the directors at the time.

When he was Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, in late February 2007, Dodik stated in front of RTRS TV cameras that Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić were not heroes of the Serbian people. He called on them to surrender to the Hague tribunal. Dodik then said: "Our imperative is to finish this. Let us remove this burden from the people. They are no longer any heroes, they never were heroes, when they led to the entire state being condemned because of their refusal to appear in court." Ten years later, he changes his rhetoric, calling Karadžić and Mladić, whom the Hague Tribunal convicted for genocide in Srebrenica, Serbian heroes. After Mladić's life sentence in November 2017, Dodik said, „He is a hero, and no one can change that.“ Which Dodik is the real one? The one who condemns criminals or the one who vindicates them? Probably the one who incites hatred among peoples.

Dragan Čović and the HDZ use the same political paradigm. Through his cross-party organisation HNS, Čović called for the rejection of verdicts for the joint criminal enterprise of former leaders of HZ HB and the Republic of Croatia. The sentence for the persecution of non-Croats was handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The judicial proceedings against these criminals lasted 465 days in the courtroom, involving testimony from 320 witnesses. The trial concluded with a Trial Chamber verdict of 1,600 pages written by three experienced international judges. The verdict was then confirmed by a decision of five other judges. This is a verdict not directed against the Croatian people, but against the political and military leadership of the Republic of Croatia and the then Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosnia. They are responsible for the persecution, torture, and murder of thousands of Bosniaks in Herzegovina and a part of the Serbs from those areas.

When intellectuals, associations, civic parties, and left-wing parties criticised the HNS Declaration, which insults victims, Čović's first associate, state Minister of Finance and HDZ Vice President Vjekoslav Bevanda, called those reactions hysteria against Croats. „This hysteria cannot be restrained, it cannot be stopped because it is all organised with the aim of persecuting Croats from these areas. It is no coincidence.“ Thus, neither Čović nor Bevanda mention the victims even once. On the contrary, when the victim rebelled against the denial of their suffering, Bevanda said they were hysterical.

From the area of today's Republika Srpska, about 200,000 Croats were expelled, and many times more Bosniaks. Bosniaks and Croats were exterminated from Bosanska Posavina and Krajina. The western part of Herzegovina was cleansed of Serbs and Bosniaks. Momčilo Krajišnik called for Serbs to leave Sarajevo after the war. The city lost 100,000 of its inhabitants overnight. For Čović and Dodik, all this is not enough. They are again inciting peoples to conflict. As if the peoples here have not suffered enough. As if the national leaders have not drunk enough innocent blood. Because of this, Dodik and Čović act as if they are renovating crimes. And because of that, they are worse than the mob from the 1990s.