It is inappropriate for Plenković, as a clone of policies that destroyed bridges, to attend the opening of the bridge near Počitelj!

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković responded today to journalists' questions about criticism that "he shouldn't be at the opening ceremony of the bridge near Počitelj on Corridor Vc" and stated that the role of Croatia's representative is "congratulatory and observational," while also noting that the criticism seems inappropriate because it concerns a joint corridor.

We are responding to Plenković as to why his presence is inappropriate. First and foremost, he has never renounced the joint criminal enterprise, convicted in The Hague, and his interference in Bosnia and Herzegovina's internal affairs goes beyond a 'friendly' relationship. Even today's meeting with Krišto showed Croatia's attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. The entire meeting looked like a report to a superior, not a conversation between two equally positioned individuals representing two countries.

A friend does not undermine a friend's sovereignty, nor does he have claims on their property. And Croatia has never returned Bosnia and Herzegovina's property (from succession). A friend does not leave nuclear waste in a friend's yard, cut down forests on the border, enter their territory with weapons, cut off their access to the sea, and have resolved border issues. Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have this with Croatia – therefore, as long as there are open issues, there is no friendship.

And the issue of bridges is particularly painful!

Mostar and Herzegovina have always been a place of bridges, almost all of which were destroyed in the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were destroyed in a relatively short time. The Army of Republika Srpska and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) destroyed them. Most of these bridges were rebuilt by Bosniaks, Bosnians, and Herzegovinians who, despite the horrors they endured, wanted connected shores again.

Today's policies of Croatia and the HDZ BiH clearly show that they do not want connected shores, as they neither want nor are able to condemn and renounce retrograde policies, but continue to demarcate territory through political games in peacetime and achieve wartime goals peacefully.

Mostar and its surroundings were left without all bridges during the war, even those in suburban settlements.

Including the famous Old Bridge, which Željana Zovko now claims as 'material and intangible heritage of Croats in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.' It was perhaps intangible when they destroyed it, and it became material when Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, the Council of Europe, and the joy of the whole world restored it.

It was destroyed by HVO shells fired from positions in Rodoč. In The Hague, during the pronouncement of the second-instance verdict against Jadranko Prlić and others, it was designated as a military target. It was a particularly painful blow to the small, attacked nation, which at that time was confined to a small area between the Neretva River and the front line with the HVO. Today, Plenković 'congratulates' us on a new bridge, but refuses to acknowledge the past or the verdicts.

Dragan Čović still dreams of the so-called Herceg-Bosna, that state-like creation that devastated Herzegovina. Today, in a slightly different way, he wants the same thing as Franjo Tuđman.

When we talk about bridges, let us remind them that the bridge connecting Ljubuški and Čapljina was named after Franjo Tuđman. The bridge was renovated with the funds of all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and named after a man who divided Bosnia and Herzegovina and under whose command that bridge was destroyed. And all this is tolerated by Bosniaks who present themselves as a different civilization. This is what the megaphones of the HDZ say, about some clash of civilizations, and perhaps they are right, because there is a big difference between those who destroy and those who rebuild.

The relationship and acceptance of civilizational values is the difference between Croatian policy and its megaphones on one side, and Bosniaks on the other. Because Bosniaks agreed to peace while their wounds were still bleeding, crossing bloody rivers, devastated mountains, because there were no bridges or roads.

Bosniaks, Bosnians, and Herzegovinians live civilizational values that Plenković, Čović, and their megaphones claim to defend, although they do everything contrary to civilizational values. Nurturing criminal policies, glorifying criminals, apartheid, segregation are not values of today's civilized world, but they are the essence and core of Croatian policy.

It is the same policy based on treacherous agreements whose army destroyed the South Bridge, Lučki or Mujaga Komadina Bridge, Betonski Titov most or Musala Bridge, Željeznički or Sutina Bridge…

Almost genetically cloned policies that destroyed bridges in Herzegovina through aggression are now forcibly trying to open them and tell a story of friendship. The same story they told in the early nineties while drawing lines to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina with Milošević and Karadžić.

The bridges are here again, more beautiful and stronger, and no matter how much these false anti-civilizational friends attack, they cannot destroy as much as Bosnia and Herzegovina can rebuild, because a flower is growing in it, and it is the greatest guarantee that Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a homeland for all patriots and well-meaning people. Destroyers will sooner or later, in war or peace, end up in the dustbin of history, because that is simply the natural course of events!