Fra Drago Bojić in interview with Nacional: Aluminij workers should have raised their voices earlier

(Patria) - The alliance of Dragan Čović and Milorad Dodik is disastrous for Catholics and Croats in Bosnia. 

This was assessed by fra. Drago Bojić in an interview with Nacional, in which he also warned about the cooperation of a part of the Church in BiH and the HDZ, in a way that harms citizens. 

„This alliance is entirely in the spirit of Serbian and Croatian politics of the 1990s, that is, the politics led by Milošević and Tuđman, i.e., their Bosnian-Herzegovinian satellites Karadžić and Boban. It is about the Republika Srpska and Herceg-Bosnia political project, which was legalized through ethnic cleansing in war and the Dayton Agreement in peace, and which in practical, spiritual, and national terms truly function as parts of Serbia and Croatia, respectively. By this, I do not wish to justify Bosniak nationalism, which is also destructive and dangerous as these two, but I believe it is partly a frustrated reaction to these two, which rely on their 'mother countries',” said fra. Bojić, as reported by the Patria News Agency.

He assessed that the policy led by Dragan Čović is not concerned with the interests of Croats in BiH, but with maintaining the Herceg-Bosnia fiefdom in western Herzegovina and the current state, federal, cantonal, and local positions that bring great financial benefits to the “legal and legitimate” representatives of Croats. 

„This leads to severe consequences not only in politics but also in education, culture, and everyday life. This is the cause of creating new ethnic people, 'new Croats', mafiosi and liars, religious converts, primitive and heartless insolent people who think that 'true Croatianness' is shown and confirmed by hatred towards others. Any reasonably minded person must be disgusted by this 'new Croatianness' and this 'newly composed Catholicism'. The policy of the HDZ is also shown by the collapse of the Mostar company Aluminij, which was systematically plundered for years. While Aluminij workers are protesting these days, trying to save the company and their jobs, shouting 'Dragan, thief', they forget that they also supported that policy and were silent when members of other ethnicities were expelled from that company,” said fra. Bojić.

He emphasized that Dragan Čović and HDZ BiH control everything when it comes to Croats in BiH: public companies, natural resources, veterans' associations, the education system, cultural institutions, but they also have the support of a large number of people from the Church. 

„With the help of the Croatian National Assembly (HNS), Čović has abolished even the few differences that existed politically regarding Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats, if there were any at all. He is also aided by the current Croatian policy of Prime Minister Plenković and President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, which is bad for both Croatia and Croats in BiH, as well as for political relations in this region. The current Croatian policy in many ways resembles Tuđman's, and the majority of Croatian citizens are still mentally in the 1990s. How devastatingly defeatist that is for Croatian society and the Croatian people in this region.” 

I do not like sweeping, cheap, and populist analyses, said fra. Bojić, but, he says, „it seems that such a Croatian people, generally, cannot have a better government because that would be a false, artificial, embellished image of a people that is generally politically illiterate, culturally neglected, morally decayed, intoxicated by nationalism, and religiously bigoted.”