Mijo Krešić - the longest-serving member of the BiH Council of Ministers

A. Čorbo-Zećo

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Poor relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina directly reflect on the relations between Bosniaks and Croats within BiH, and most of all in the Federation of BiH, which is one of the key causes for the halting of political progress, Euro-Atlantic integration, and positive processes in BiH in general. The functioning of the Dayton framework is not possible without a functional so-called Washington framework, which defined the relations between Bosniaks and Croats within the Federation. 

However, the cooling, deterioration, and blockade of relations between Zagreb and Sarajevo did not happen suddenly, nor is it a spontaneous process. In this regard, the activities of a person who has held a high position within the security system for years are very indicative and interesting, whose activities have never been fully clarified, but are undoubtedly linked to most individual incidents and scandals that have caused immeasurable damage to the very fragile relations between Zagreb and Sarajevo. 

Mijo Krešić has been the long-serving Deputy Minister of Security of BiH and one of the longest-serving members of the BiH state government, who has survived almost all political upheavals and has almost untouchedly reached the position of Deputy Minister of Defense of BiH, which is the most important address for BiH's progress towards NATO. 

The position of deputy minister is ideal for destructive, para-political action, as it is not directly exposed to the media and the public, and within BiH structures and systems, a deputy minister has almost all the same powers and access as the minister. Moreover, they have much more time to dedicate to achieving political goals while the minister is directly preoccupied with daily political activities. 

Therefore, Krešić is positioned to strongly and decisively influence some of the most important points of relations between Bosniaks and Croats. And, as we have already stated, those relations are at their lowest historical level.   

The fact that there is a political center of power that has been profiting from this conflict, misunderstanding, and poor relations for years confirms that this is a kind of special political war in which the most important thing is to maintain tension, mistrust, suspicion, and accusations between Bosniaks and Croats, and consequently between Zagreb and Belgrade. If we analyze the nature of the cooling and political tensions in that relationship more deeply, it will be clear that in recent years, there has been a very systematic effort to disseminate (de)information, scandals, and intelligence/political games that target the most sensitive areas of these relations – the issue of equality and the issue of security. 

Harsh words often come from Zagreb towards Sarajevo and BiH, accusing them of being breeding grounds for radicalism, a danger to Europe, exporters of terrorism and extremism. A false image is being built of unstable state structures, incapable of participating in the fight against global challenges – in a word, BiH is presented as a great danger to Croats, not only in BiH but also in Croatia. 
Bosniaks are being told stories about radicalism, nationalism, hegemonism, even though the Washington Framework, which regulated those relations in the early circumstances, established very broad national rights for both Croats and Bosniaks. 

On the other hand, Bosniaks are warned that Zagreb is blocking BiH's European path, slowing down economic progress, that it is insincere and profits from the political blockade in our country, and that it is constantly working to undermine the state, hoping to eventually divide it according to the Cvetković-Maček principle. 

It is very indicative that Krešić's rise in the HDZ BiH hierarchy corresponds with the strengthening of the Serb-Croat connection in BiH and the strengthening of pro-Russian influence in the Balkans, and even the forgotten fall of the April Package in 2006, thanks to the vote of then-SDA MP Mehmed Žilić, former post-war Minister of the Interior of Tuzla Canton and Minister of the Federal MUP. Krešić is a cadre from Tuzla. 

Then began the dizzying rise of the ambitious Mijo Krešić, who, during his tenure as Deputy Minister of Security on two occasions, will be remembered for the scandal of fabricating information about thousands of radical foreign fighters returning to the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Syrian battlefield. 

This lie was disseminated through official channels of the Croatian SOA and shortly thereafter fed to the then-President of the Republic of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, who first publicly presented it to the media and then publicly apologized to the citizens of BiH.

First, in 2010, Krešić unilaterally, without the knowledge and approval of Sadik Ahmetović, the then Minister of Security of BiH, sent a fabricated report to the UN about terrorist organizations in BiH, radicalization, and the terrorist threat in BiH, which caused immeasurable damage to BiH's reputation. For this illegal abuse of his position, Minister Ahmetović filed a criminal complaint that was never processed and is still kept in a drawer today thanks to Krešić's family ties with the Chief Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, Gordana Tadić. 

Krešić has often been the perpetrator of serious anti-state scandals that have damaged BiH's already weak security rating with international institutions. The latest in a series of Krešić's outbursts in the past decade occurred in the spring of last year when Minister Dragan Mektić and journalists from Žurnal uncovered the affair of the recruitment of Bosnian Salafis by some rogue power centers within the Croatian SOA. 

Of course, Krešić himself is at the center of that affair, and was directly accused by Minister Mektić. However, instead of the prosecutor's office dealing with the perpetrators of this affair, with Krešić at the head, it spent days questioning Minister Mektić and journalist Žurnal Avdo Avdić, all carefully monitored by Krešić's close relative in her capacity as Chief Prosecutor. 

"While the persistent Krešić works to present BiH as a stronghold of radicals, damaging its reputation with the international community, thus distancing it from Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO, Minister Mektić strengthened international cooperation and personally supported the large NATO exercise in 2017 in Tuzla.
While at least three criminal complaints against Krešić are gathering dust in prosecutor's offices, tomorrow, February 6, the trial of the now former minister Dragan Mektić begins for misusing international community funds in the field of firefighting," states Patria's source from the Ministry of Security of BiH. 

All indications are that pro-Russian influence is "leading in the first half of this match in the special war league" being waged on the territory of BiH. Krešić is currently the Deputy Minister of Defense of BiH and is directly responsible for the implementation of the programmatic reforms of the MAP path for BiH's accession to Euro-Atlantic integration, in which the most significant share is held by issues in the areas of defense, security, and justice. 

We have no doubt that Krešić himself has a proven track record for the (non)stop progress of BiH towards NATO and the EU. In addition, it is very important to note that Krešić, without a doubt, does not act independently or outside the system that supports or merely uses Russian influence, whether in both countries, BiH and Croatia. 

According to relevant sources, Krešić is firmly connected with hard-line structures in Croatia that are opposed to the current Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.