The Mufti of the Poglavnik

A few days ago marked the full twenty years since the death of the former Minister of Defence of Croatia, Gojko Šušak.

It was an excellent occasion for a large number of radical right-wing figures in Croatia, and even in BiH, to recall with eulogies the man who was only saved by death from ending up behind bars in The Hague along with Jadranko Prlić and other organizers of the well-known Tuđman project of the humane resettlement of the population that did not fit into the idyllic picture of the envisioned pure Croatian territory.

Although Gojko Šušak and Franjo Tuđman have not been among the living for two decades, the Hague Tribunal, with its verdict against the HB six led by Prlić, delivered a verdict according to which the political and military leadership of Croatia was responsible for the Joint Criminal Enterprise. Therefore, both Šušak and Tuđman.

There is no doubt in the verdict that, had they been alive, Šušak and Tuđman would today be spending time in the premises of a Hague or some other European prison along with Prlić, Petković, Stojić, and others.

The twentieth anniversary of Šušak's death was marked by the screening of the documentary film "Gojko Šušak - The Victor from the Shadows," in which stars of the first echelon of the Croatian nationalist right, such as Miroslav Tuđman, Davor Domazet Lošo, Ljubo Ćesić Rojs, Ante Beljo, Momir Žužul, and others, speak in the most beautiful terms about the late Croatian Minister of Defence.

Standing in the front row with them was the former mufti of Zagreb, Šefko Omerbašić, who could not allow only Ćesić and Lošo to claim Šušak's wartime merits. The mufti went to great lengths to surpass them and describe Šušak as a messiah, whom God himself had sent to earth to establish order and peace among people.

- As Minister of Defence, Gojko Šušak greatly assisted BiH, or rather Bosniaks. He often halved weapons for the HVO and the Army of BiH. There are witnesses alive today who received that weaponry – says the mufti.

It is true that Šušak did not often halve weapons, but rather it was common practice, not because he was a man who shared the last piece of bread with his neighbor, but because it was outright robbery. Namely, weapons for the needs of the Army of BiH and the defense of BiH from the aggressor had to pass through territory controlled by the HVO, so Šušak's followers would seize half of those weapons as a form of extortion.

While most domestic and foreign observers of the situation during the war in BiH consider Gojko Šušak most responsible and the ideological creator of the persecution of Herzegovinian Bosniaks, Mufti Omerbašić considers him a very decent person.

Furthermore, Omerbašić points out that about 200,000 refugees from BiH found refuge in Croatia, and that they received better treatment than those who went to Austria or Germany, and that Šušak personally helped some of them.

This is not the first time that Šefko Omerbašić has acted as a megaphone for the Croatian nationalist right. He openly sided with the former Minister of Culture, Zlatko Hasanbegović, after the latter engaged in a verbal war against anti-fascist values and the anti-fascist Croatian past.

Omerbašić boasted at the time that he personally sent Hasanbegović as his envoy to Bleiburg, where tens of thousands of supporters of the Ustaše movement and the criminal Pavelić's NDH gather every year in mid-May to mourn the defeated Ustaše regime under the guise of honoring Croatian victims.

Clearly, there is some secret connection between Mufti Omerbašić and the Croatian right.