17 years since Tuđman's death, his wartime role in BiH still reluctantly mentioned in Croatia

17 years have passed since the death of Franjo Tuđman, the first president of the Republic of Croatia. His name, analysts claim, has never been more alive in the Croatian public than in recent months, writes Patria.

Tuđman is respected in Croatia by both the left and the right. If they criticize him, the left mostly blames him for the poor economy he left behind.

The right does not think he made any mistakes. If he did make any, they say, it was difficult times, so the president did what he could.

Few people in Croatia talk about relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war in the 1990s today, except for a few journalists and their media outlets.

Parliamentary representative Ivan Pernar recently accused Tuđman in the Parliament of dividing Bosnia together with Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. Pernar said that Tuđman was responsible for the Bosniak-Croat conflict, which resulted in the deaths of a large number of Bosnian Croats. However, for everything else he says against the HDZ policy, Pernar is threatened with imminent arrest. He has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Pernar himself recently admitted that he expects the police at his doorstep soon.

The Croatian portal Index reminded on the 17th anniversary of Tuđman's death that Ankica Lepej, a bank employee, had most seriously compromised Franjo Tuđman and his family with her actions in 1998. There had been talk before about their financial successes aided by politics, but Ankica Lepej provided proof – hidden accounts.

- I heard Tuđman telling pensioners that his wife was also a pensioner and that she too was struggling to make ends meet. I looked up the Zagrebačka banka computer using her personal identification number and discovered a large sum of money – said Lepej, who reported Tuđman's savings to Jutarnji list.

When the witch hunt began and investigations started at the bank, which offered a million-dollar reward for identifying the mole, Ankica Lepej confessed. And lost everything. Index writes that the first whistleblower in Croatia lost her job, as did her husband, the family was harassed for years, and today she lives in a social housing apartment.

Numerous pieces of evidence have been presented before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia revealing Tuđman's role during the war in BiH, but the time has not yet come in Croatia to speak about it openly, writes Patria.