Mario Pejić: What HDZ is doing today is contrary to the party's founding assembly from the 1990s

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The newly elected president of the Croatian National Council, Mario Pejić, stated that in Bosnia and Herzegovina one cannot speak only about the position of one people, but problems must be viewed as a whole, equally for all peoples.  

"The citizens of this country have been marginalized. Citizens as a whole. We can say that the Croatian people are not satisfied with the current situation, but neither is any other. We cannot selectively observe the current political situation," said Pejić for N1 Television. Speaking specifically about the Croatian people in BiH, he said that "the basic problem is that the Croatian people are unequal within the Croatian corpus itself."

"For years there has been a division into Bosnian and Herzegovinian Croats, and those who lead politics divide them that way," said Pejić.

"So, there is a political elite that has set itself an imagined space in which it intends to exist, while it does not think at all about Croats in Tuzla, Sarajevo, Posavina, Krajina," he added.

Pejić said that party affiliation with the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has become a measure of 'Croatianness', and that if you are not a member of HDZ, "they immediately call you a traitor." 

"There are excellent people within HDZ, which in the 1990s was a pro-Bosnian and Herzegovinian party. It was founded in Sarajevo's Skenderija and advocated for a sovereign BiH and called on Croats to go to the referendum in 1992. Everything that is being done today is contrary to what was said at the founding assembly," said the president of the Croatian National Council.

Pejić said that HDZ representatives today call themselves bearers of European values, while simultaneously advocating a return to the 1990s and a return to the idea of Herceg-Bosna "which is catastrophic, which brought the Croatian people into this position, caused damage to Croats in BiH and Croatia, which was a friend of BiH in various areas." 

"Because of one period from '93 and '94 when Croatian politics stumbled, we now have this problem. Unfortunately, someone is now returning to that. Europe certainly does not want Herceg-Bosna," Pejić commented.

Regarding what the policy of official Croatia towards BiH is, Pejić said that the official policy of Croatia should not be identified with the Republic of Croatia. 

"The current official policy of the Republic of Croatia is under the direct influence of the so-called Croatian National Assembly and HDZ BiH. It is a mistake that they do not communicate with Croatian organizations that think differently from the HNS."

Regarding the statement of Dragan Čović, president of the HNS, that a "European constitution for a modern BiH" is needed, Pejić said he does not believe that a European constitution is based on the ethnic division of BiH territory. 

"If we are going for a European constitution, then we must follow the European Convention on Human Rights. That statement itself is contradictory," said Pejić.

The complete interview is available on the N1 website.