Željko Komšić: Ustaše-Chetnik ideology from Serbia and Croatia accepted in BiH must be defeated

SARAJevo, (Patria) - President of the Democratic Front (DF) Željko Komšić stated that the official policy of Croatia and Serbia, HDZ and SNS, very clearly and unequivocally propagates the Ustaše-Chetnik ideology.

In an interview with the Patria agency, he said that there is a dangerous revitalization of the Ustaše-Chetnik regime and criminals from that era on the political scene of those countries. He emphasized that this is not only a problem for those countries and the citizens living in them, but, as he said, it is a very clear and present danger to the whole of Europe, which must be stopped.

“President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović recently visited Argentina where, during a meeting with President Mauricio Macri, she stated: 'After World War II, many Croats found freedom in Argentina where they could testify to their patriotism and express justified demands for the freedom of the Croatian people and homeland'. Who are they that President Grabar-Kitarović is talking about? After the fall of Nazism in World War II, Ustaše leaders like Ante Pavelić and Eugen Dido Kvaternik, who modern Europe condemns and despises today, fled to Argentina,” said Komšić. 

The DF president reminded that reputable historians have been warning for some time that the revitalization of the Ustaše state is being carried out in Croatia, or, as he said, they point out that there are associations that openly deny Jasenovac, but that the current government in Croatia is cynical towards such warnings. Komšić also referred to a recent article by the international agency Associated Press (AP), which states that Croatia is one of the countries in the center of Europe where the far-right has seen growth.

“So, the HDZ policy has led to global media labeling Croatia and its citizens in a very negative context,” says Komšić.

'Vučić Approves of Šešelj's Moves'

The former member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that dangerous things are also happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina's other neighbor, Serbia, which, by a decision of the court in Belgrade in 2015, rehabilitated the Chetnik duke Draža Mihailović. Surviving Chetniks in Serbia today are entitled to a monthly financial compensation.

“Thanks to the policy of Aleksandar Vučić, convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj recently bought a weekend house in Hrtkovci, Vojvodina, from where he expelled hundreds of innocent Croatian families in the nineties. He stated that he has no regrets and that he would do the same again. Aleksandar Vučić has done nothing to prevent Šešelj's rampage through Hrtkovci, just as he has done nothing to punish Šešelj for burning the flag of the Republic of Croatia in the Serbian Parliament,” said Komšić.

'Denial of Hague Verdicts'

The DF president also reminded that both HDZ in Croatia and SNS in Serbia continue to reject the verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which condemned the policies of those countries from the nineties for aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the persecution and murder of thousands of citizens of that country. On the contrary, as Komšić said, “the regimes from Zagreb and Belgrade continue to show their aspirations towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.” 

“Slobodan Praljak and others on one side, and Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić on the other, are still heroes for Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and Aleksandar Vučić. They have confirmed this several times during public appearances. This tells us that the current regimes would repeat the bloody past,” Komšić believes. 

He said that he is particularly concerned because, he criticized, “backward policies from Zagreb and Belgrade have also been accepted by their sister parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely HDZ and SNSD.”

“Both political parties, or their leaders Dragan Čović and Milorad Dodik, continue to advocate for the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, deny victims, try to legalize ethnic cleansing, and all the while they have support for this from Belgrade and Zagreb. Finally, HDZ BiH and SNSD not only deny the victims of the past war, but they belittle them at every step. In the western part of Mostar, there are streets named after Ustaše like Mile Budak and Jure Francetić. In the BiH entity of Republika Srpska, there are streets, squares, and schools named after convicted war criminals like Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić,” said Komšić.

The DF president assessed that Aleksandar Vučić is extremely hypocritical when he says he supports the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while at the same time supporting Milorad Dodik's Chetnik ideology. He reminded that HDZ leaders from Croatia simultaneously say they support the Euro-Atlantic path of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but, completely contradictorily to that policy, they also support Dragan Čović and the local HDZ, which advocates for anti-European values, such as a new ethnic division in BiH.

'The Solution Lies with Pro-Bosnian Parties'

Such a policy of Zagreb and Belgrade towards BiH, Komšić assessed, has led to the emergence of right-wing currents among Bosniaks as a response to the retrograde policies from the neighborhood. He reminded that the idea of renaming Titova Street in the city center to Alija Izetbegović Street has recently been re-actualized among certain groups in Sarajevo, which Alija Izetbegović himself opposed several times, even during the aggression against BiH.

Komšić believes that the only correct response to retrograde policies in BiH and beyond, or, as he put it, the only possible solution for the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for him the only and eternal hearth for all its citizens, is the victory of pro-Bosnian parties and the rejection of any fascist ideologies from both outside and inside BiH itself.