Emancipation in the background

By: Sead Omeragic

'BiH is not politically emancipated', President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, said in an interview.

What does 'political emancipation' of a state really mean? The dictionary says it is 'the fact or process of being set free from legal, social, or political restrictions; liberation.' The irony is that Croatia interferes with the internal business of BiH, thus making it dependent.

Croatia has gone so far as to integrate its alleged concern for Bosnian Croats into its own constitution – probably to cover up its real goals. The Dayton Peace Accord was co-signed by Croatia and Serbia as they had been directly involved in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Dayton Accord requested an utmost clarity of Croatia's relations with BiH as whole, and not only with Bosnian Croats. By signing the Dayton Peace agreement, Croatia has gone from being a guarantee of the agreement to being a guarantee of numerous disagreements. The international law does not allow any room for constitution-based meddling with another state affairs.

Hence it is no wonder that no one from BiH sued our neighbors before some international court. After all, the legitimate Croat representative from BiH has never signed the Dayton, the signatories were representatives of Croatia. The interference came about in its worst form at the time of Tudjman's regime, when Croatia directly participated in the war against BiH.

There are the UN resolutions which undoubtedly condemn military interference of Croatia in BH internal affairs. To avoid any confusion, those condemnations of the UN arrived long before the Split Agreement of Izetbegovic and Tudjman, which was signed to the request of big powers 45 days before the war ended.

Which conflicts is Croatian president thinking of? She has never before mentioned the war role of Croatia in BiH. Now she has an additional problem. Following the brutal attacks on the Islamic community in Serbia, Croatia and its president Kitarovic have begun denying Sarajevo as the center of Islam in this part of Europe.

'In Croatia, we have a small but very active, exceptional Islamic community which is giving its best to govern the processes in the region and isolate radicals, fundamentalists', Grabar Kitarovic said in the same interview.

Her words refer to some important goals which she has been promoting. She detected radicals and fundamentalists in Sarajevo who should be isolated. Why else would she call upon the Islamic community in Croatia to interfere and 'govern'. Earlier this year, in her speech at the anniversary of 100 years of Islam in Croatia, she said that Croatia is the center of Islam in Europe. According to the census, there are 63,000 Muslims living in Croatia.

According to president Grabar Kitarovic, they have taken over the running of the regional processes. Hence they are supposed to run the Islamic community in Sarajevo with 2 million members – Bosnian Muslims.

The statements of Croatian president are harsh, with a slightly finer 'wrapping' than those of prime minister Milanovic, who recently earned himself lots of negative publicity by speaking of BiH as 'big shit'. There are too many scandals in Croatia's politics towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. During his recent visit to Stolac, Croatia's foreign minister openly said that Stolac is a Croat town, after HVO destroyed all its mosques and threw Bosnian Muslims into concentration camps of hunger and death.

I doubt that any of the Bosniak politicians will react to the unacceptable statements of the Croatian president. After all, they failed to react to the recent marking of the anniversary of the parastate Herzeg-Bosnia. Our politicians tend to leave defending of the country to the journalists and the ordinary Bosniak. Why would they have to do it after all?

They remain important and full of themselves, and though they sacrifice nothing, they take the best from Bosnia.

In the interview, Kitarovic said that Dodik's referendum was the threat to BiH and that he is a Russian man. At the same time, the president of Croatia should ask Covic about his deeply hones relations, full of understanding, with Dodik and everything that the latter does against BiH.

Covic says he will lead BiH to Europe. At the same time, he is not making that promise to Dodik. Why? The conflict and division in BiH were originally created by Serbia and Croatia from 1992 through 1995, which was subsequently confirmed by The Hague. 21 years later, the entire military and political top rank of Serbia and Republika Srpska was convicted.

Also convicted was the military and political highest rank of so-called Herzeg-Bosnia, and the organized crime also included Tudjman's regime. The Hague Tribunal does not seem to have any issue with emancipation.