Political Dance: Criminals cleaned the territory, peacemakers like Covic will seal the results

Interview with Dragan Covic on TV1 is full of contradictions, illogicalities and unfounded political games. Unfortunately, not in one single answer did Covic sound tolerant or with strong arguments, as he succeeded to impress in the past.

He began with a shock:

- Republika Srpska is our reality, whatever we may think of it. You and I may talk in private as to how we see the RS, but that is the reality of one project.

By this statement, Covic erased horrid ethnic cleansing of Croats and Bosniaks in Republika Srpska, 'whatever he may talk privately about'. Furthermore, he publicly expressed support for genocide politics of Serb political, military and police government indicted by the Haag Tribunal.

At present, there are few Croats in the RS, as if there have never lived there. Covic perceives the RS as a 'reality of one project'. If so, he should have been asked the following question: What does he think about real indictments by the Haag Tribunal and the World Court of Justice, of the entire political, military and police high level of the RS?

In the same manner Covic spoke about the census – as of a bulletproofing of ethnic cleansing and the ultimate 'concentration of people'. Similar to the political, military and police high levels of the RS, Covic's friends 'Prlic et al' were indicted by the Haag, for a parallel project. General of HV and HVO Slobodan Praljak called the project 'lebensraum' (Nazi fight for living space by expansion towards East) in front of horrified American journalist Roy Guttmann. Covic has already visited this group of founders of Herzeg-Bosnia at the prison in Cheveningen, perhaps attempting to exert influence on the decisions of an international court.

Covic continues to speak about the census in BiH:

- We have got a very clear picture of BiH. I suggest to all those who are following this, to draw a map on the basis of the census. Never mind your inner border, just see the current concentration of people. We have completely ethnically cleansed 85% of BiH. The whole of RS, the biggest part of FBiH, equally so. One should not deny it but, respecting each other, accept that as the reality on the ground and think about the ways to preserve BiH as the whole, Covic said.

Therefore, the criminals cleansed the territory, and the peacemakers like Covic will seal the results.

Isn't that absurd to 'respect each other' by 'accepting that some peoples were exterminated on the ground'.

'Even now BiH is divided', he says, 'we have two entities, 10 cantons inside one entity'. Why is it a problem if, instead of those 11, 12 government, we have 3 or 4 or 5? As long as they are multiethnic. You can't make ethnically clean structure as such.' Only a few sentences before, he concluded that BiH is 85% 'ethnically clean'.

In the same interview, Covic admitted that his personnel has the majority power over police structure in the majority-led cantons.

- Recently we had an exercise – Serbia and RS and police forces on Drina. There were different interpretations. Probably did not have to happen but it did. Now we in FBiH want to respond by similar exercise or a similar rapid response in Tuzla. That is pointless, Covic said.

In the abovementioned exercise 'Rapid Response 2016' 4 cantons did not participate, of which 3 are with Croat majority – so the message is clear. The exercise of the Ministries of Serbia and RS, therefore, of one part of BiH and another country, he tries to justify, and then one legal exercise of police forces he treats as a provocation, which is a malicious attempt of manipulation.

Therefore, Covic is not contradictory for no reason. Someone who was Secretary of Communist Party at the factory 'Soko'. Someone who was special among Croats because he was signing in Cyrillic. When Croat workers of 'Soko' warned that they should not be repairing airplanes that 'bomb our people', he said 'we don't know yet who our people are'. Last but not the least, he is the person who knew all the concentration camps in Herzegovina and sought the prisoners for the forced labor in his factory, which can be proved by hard evidence.

As much as we know about Covic's past, he keeps confusing us over and over again by his unarticulated views. He concluded that, with this legal police exercise, Federal police 'deals with' the exercise near Sepak. Covic contradicts himself again: 'We protect BiH as the whole, and those who try to undermine that, we seek to agree with and try to find the way out of problems instead of create new ones.'

Therefore, we have to show good will and negotiate with those who 'try to undermine the wholeness of BiH'. Covic has an issue with legalists, while illegal and anti-constitutional behavior deserves negotiations, good will and tolerance.  

- I'm afraid that was somebody's strategy – exert pressure on some parts of BiH, people are leaving etc.

Massive departures from BiH of all three constitutional peoples look horrifying. However, as in all other combinations of the three political high levels, they will justify themselves by blaming the other two.

Then the local elections come and we hear there will be no local elections in Mostar.

It is hard to explain that Covic 'heard' there would be no local elections in Mostar.

Covic's politics is losing because the Croats, like the other two peoples, on the basis of ZAVNOBiH, had far more rights in the civil Republic of BiH then one insane nationalistic politics of 'clean territories' allows, as advocated by Boban's and Prlic's HDZ.

Such politics, now advocated by Covic, brings down the Croat corps to West Herzegovina, which is a tragedy for an indigenous people with the wealth of culture and tradition, which is the part of multiethnic BiH in all its essence.

One thing is should not be disputed, though – all the politics of the Balkans nationalistic creators of chaos and darkness will one day be dealt with.