Tudjman's
permanent political orientation has remained an almost Anschluss-like
drive for annexation of the Croatian majority areas in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. This was his central geopolitical strategy
and obsessive expansionist ambition.
Myth
about the provincial imperialist predator
Tudjman
himself has openly disclosed (or "blurted out")
his sinister expansionist obsession in numerous historical
books and essays, interviews and academic ruminations: he
publicly questions and, more, expressly announces his disbelief
with regard to feasibility and long-term stability of multicivilization
states (not multiethnic- see the discourse below) A multitude
of his explicit statements deny the possibility of a self-sustained
state Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tudjman's predatory appetites
stemmed from an ahistoric psychopathological fixation on the
Croatian Banovina borders (a 1939 territorial settlement between
Croats and Serbs giving Croatia proper circa 1/3rd of the
current Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
Croatian Banovina/Ban Croatia
in 1939.
Also,
Tudjman's retrograde and antiquated myopic "vision"
(essentially, a 19th century-like territorial plunder, "sanctioned"
by geopolitical imperatives) got an unexpected boost from
the American political analyst Samuel Huntington's bestseller
"The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of the World
Order", whose central thesis is that multi-civilization
states, lacking a strong and unequivocal self -identity, are
not only prone to self-dissolution, but frequently act as
foci and hotbeds of radical conflicts which tend to sweep
globally polarized "denominationally hued" antagonists
into the vortex of a certainly regional, and possibly planetary
confrontation.
![](../images/tocka.gif)
Reality
Tudjman
assuredly did not believe in long-term sustainability of states
patched up of competing nations (here, as in the majority
of continental European studies, the concept "nation"
is not equal to the "state". For example, Poles
in the 19th century have been a nation without a national
state, not just an ethnic group or an amorphous "people".
This doesn't include states whose population is made up of
groups of different ethnic origin, like Argentina or Australia.),
so that his views on the possibility of self-sustained Bosnia
and Herzegovina, can be summed up thusly: heretics of the
yesterday are prophets of the tomorrow.
Besides, he was
not solitary in this judgement: similar geopolitical vision
can be found in American diplomat, writer and historian Henry
Kissinger’s masterwork "Diplomacy" (with all the
understandable simplifications taken into account): ("Henry
Kissinger: "Diplomacy", Touchstone publishers, paperback,
page 195. Chapter "A Political Doomsday Machine").
History has justified Tudjman's perspicacious observations
and diagnoses (which are understandably more penetrating and
detailed, with regard to the "Balkans" (a spooky
and worn-out stereotypical tag) situation than Kissinger's
bird's view fuzzy generalizations; we won't even bother to
address such amateurish self-advertising dabblers like Glenny,
Vulliamy or Maas,..), at least in the case of the South-East
European contested lands (Western Europeans' killing spree
has ended, hopefully, in the 1950s/60s- Algeria, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Kenya). With only Switzerland as the proverbial happy
exception that proves the rule (no genocidal war fought on
the Swiss soil (so far)) and Belgium as the buffer zone in
service of restraining and sapping post-Napoleonic France's
influence- Europe's only "multiethnic" states are
only those where one nation has succeeded in overpowering
and assimilating others to a significant degree (English vs.
Welsh and Scots in the U.K.; Castilians vs. Catalans and Basques
in Spain,..) or has acculturated them in subtler ways. All
other "multiethnic" states (in fact, composed of
more nations, not just ethnicities; but the concept "multinational"
has become restricted, as any serious English dictionary shows.
Therefore we shall abstain from using the adjective "multinational"
in the continental European sense in order to avoid confusion.)
rest either on outright repression (China, Indonesia) or religious/denominational
self-absorption and fear of "the other" (India,
Pakistan)- the situation somewhat resembling that of the medieval
Europe before the growth of national monarchies' powers (France,
England, Spain) has destroyed European unity based on common
faith (Catholicism) and the figure of indisputable political
arbiter (Papacy).
With regard to
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tudjman was not an addict of any "Banovina
fixation", but reasoned as a realist politician: after
the collapse of communist totalitarianism and its concomitant,
inevitable footnote, the break-up of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, as
the "epitome Yugoslavia", a microcosm of Yugoslavia's
contraries, becomes a contested country where each and every
nation looks after their own, separate aims: Croats and Serbs
after the final, long postponed unification and integration
with their respective mother countries (Croatia, Serbia);
while Bosnian Muslims, who were the chief beneficiaries of
the later stages of Yugoslavia's existence (the growth of
Bosnian "statehood" within communist Yugoslavia
ran parallel with Bosnian Muslim demographic expansion and
assertiveness, which resulted in the fact that they, for the
first time in reliable population surveys, spanning some 150
years, have achieved a relative demographic majority ) want
to preserve Bosnia and Herzegovina as a, more or less, "their
own state". This state will, patterned along the lines
of Bosnian Muslim demographic expansion, Croat and Serb emigration
edging on exodus and tinged progressively with Islamic cultural
and historical hue, from employment preferences to myopic
history school textbooks, inevitably have grown (in not so
distant future) into an exclusively Muslim state with Croats
and Serbs majorized and marginalized, with the prospect of
complete disappearance of Christian Slavs from their ancestral
soil. (Of course, one must distinguish between strategy and
tactics: strategy aims at re-constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina
as an essentially Bosnian Muslim national state, whereas tactics
deceptively misuses the multiculturalist ideology in the "one
state-one nation" variant ("cultures" don't
receive recognition as "national" cultures of two
separate peoples, Croats and Serbs, but are relegated to the
status of digested footnotes closer to the American "subculture"
concept of picturesque periphery, from cuisine to genealogy).
The entire stratagem
can be easily deciphered in a few trends:
-overt manoeuvres
to institute a quasi-official, "Bosnian" language,
at the expense of Croatian (and, hopefully, Serbian as well)
-clampdown on and
silencing virtually all Croatian-language electronic media,
except those on provincial levels, serving the sole purpose
of de-Croatization and brainwashing
-media isolation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the surrounding countries (especially
Croatia, which covers more than 65% of the protectorate's
boundaries). Having in mind all the grand phrases announcing
European unification urbi et orbi-these dirty little tricks
glaringly bespeak of cynical colonialist mindset.
-combination of
gerrymandering, election frauds and gradual distortion of
the Dayton peace treaty in such a direction as to ensure growing
Muslim dominance. In essence- externally imposed Bosnian sovereignty
of the "nation-state" variant (something that the
majority of Bosnian Croats and Serbs detest and are not willing
to accept, from here to eternity) only encourages Bosnian
Muslim overblown ambition for domination (something they couldn't
dream of achieving without permanent foreign patronage). All
slogans of the "hands off Bosnia" type just intensify
Croats' and Serbs' bitterness: their dissatisfaction may be
summed up in an angry rhetorical question: "Who the hell
are you, decrepit neo-colonialists, policing, bossing and
abusing your UN prerogatives, gotten under highly suspicious
circumstances, to lecture us what to and what not to in our
ancestral homeland? If you fancy that we are going to bend
and accept your shameless promotion of Bosnian Muslim political
and national agenda-then, maybe, Alice's wonderland would
be better suited for your "peacekeeping" zeal. No
chance we'll ever accept pompous blather about "Bosnian
territorial integrity" (essentially, a remnant of Ottoman
Turks' invasions), especially when it comes from global colonial
plunderers (Hawaii as a "naturally acquired national
territory/state". Yeah, my foot)."
One can shortly describe Croat national strategy in Bosnia
and Herzegovina (bearing in mind other nations' aspirations:
Serbs wanted to secede and absorb into Serbia proper a greater
part of B&H (somewhere between 60% and 75%); Bosnian Muslims
kept on insisting on the "indivisible and unitary"
status quo, refusing to take into consideration possible constitutional
and administrative changes which would dispel any fear of
the looming Muslim majorization (Bosnian Muslims, who have
constituted 30,73% of the total Bosnia and Herzegovina population
according to the 1948. census, have grown to become 43,67%
in the 1991. census. During the same period, Croats have dropped
from 23,94% to 17,32%, and Serbs from 44,29% to 31,37%):
a) in the case
of definite collapse of Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatian-majority
areas should be incorporated into Croatia
b) if Bosnia should
survive as a state, then, it could be only as a political
entity each and every of her 3 constituent nations have agreed
to give their assent to, because they see their own prosperous
future in such a political unit: without true equality, achieved
through ethnic/national sovereignty and materialized via numerous
building blocks of equality (schools system, military and
police, economic system,..)- Croats's and Serbs's fickle good
will shall inevitably vanish for good. To ask them to assist
to and hasten their own national marginalization and disappearance
(virtually, a suicide) is way too much for even morbid mindset.
In such a situation Tudjman, along with the vast majority
of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has chosen the following
option: Croatian majority areas (greater part of Herzegovina,
central Bosnia and Bosnian Posavina) should serve as strongholds
for preservation, defense and growth of Bosnian Croatdom,
while Croatian minority in other territories could be given
help and sustenance, backed by Croatia and Croat-controlled
areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The dogmatic contention about
supposed Tudjman's fixation on the Banovina Hrvatska/Ban Croatia
boundaries (dating back to1939.) simply doesn't hold water.
Being the late 20th century politician, he was well aware
of the fact that Bosnian Muslim masses and their elite were
not in the semi-comatose state of political apathy and passivity
(in sharp contrast to the pre-WW2 situation), and that, in
part as a consequence of decades-long Yugo-communist indoctrination,
harbour more or less intense animosity toward Croats as such
(this may sound as an overstatement, but history has proven
it to be an euphemistic understatement). Also, since huge
portion of Banovina Croatia (we are referring to the Bosnia
and Herzegovina territory) had covered Bosnian Posavina (more
than 6 municipalities, plus good chunks of other municipalities'
areas), and the fact that Dayton Peace Agreement has "mercifully"
accorded the Croats only 2 territorially disconnected municipalities
(thanks to the "international community's” generosity
in awarding Serbian aggression with the greater part of Croatian
soil in Bosnian Posavina as the necessary "life corridor"
(what a marvel! we are witnesses of resurrected geopolitical
monsters we have thought to lie safely buried in the imperialist
past) -all this is a definite proof that endless blather about
imaginary Tudjman's "Banovina boundaries addiction"
is just a piece from Croatophobic propagandist arsenal.
Moreover, newer
babble (originating from conspiracy junkies circles soaked
in chronic Croatodemonomania) has hilariously (for a detached
viewer) undermined the entire "Tudjman-Banovina-fascination"
myth. According to this, "revised" version of partition
dogma, Tudjman has, having come to see the merciless truth
of military vulnerability and geopolitical insignificance
of the whole Bosnian Posavina pocket, shifted focus of his
predatory interests to the under-populated and craggy, but
strategically and communication-wise important region of the
north-eastern Bosnia, where Serbs have constituted overwhelming
majority from the 18th century on.
The fairy tale
goes on like this: the north-eastern Bosnia parts secures
Croatia's geopolitical "soft belly" by adding the
decisive strategic depth buffer zone (although Bosnian Muslims
are even deeper in an imagined Croatian vulnerable geo-strategic
zone, inhabiting densely populated Bihac region-this crucial
fact is easily dismissed with charming irresponsibility) and
is a sort of territorial compensation for lost Bosnian Posavina.
Now, the entire "Banovina-boundaries-fascination"
myth collapses before our eyes. Had Tudjman wished to resurrect
the Banovina Hrvatska/Croatia in the 1939 boundaries, he couldn't
possibly have done so without incorporating the overwhelming
majority of Bosnian Posavina, which had been so vital a part
of Cvetkovic-Macek Banovina 1939 agreement. But, if he had,
according to the same conspiracy theorists, come to agreement
with Milosevic with regard to territorial "swap"
(Posavina for NW Bosnia), he must have been astonishingly
clairvoyant, because Bosnian Posavina was occupied as early
as 1992., and Croatian military forces have gained control
over north eastern Bosnia as late as 1995, after many military
and diplomatic ups and downs. Since "Banovina fixation"
and "territorial swap" are mutually exclusive- another
myth goes down the toilet.
![](../slike/navrh_e.gif)
Myth
about the crown witness and the central evidence
![](../images/tocka.gif)
Tudjman
himself gave away (in a bibulous mood) his expansionist/annexationist
master-plan with regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the
Guildhall banquet, 6th May 1995, when British liberal-social
democratic politician Paddy Ashdown succeeded in talking him
into an astonishing act of self-disclosure: he (Tudjman) has
drawn possible future boundaries on a napkin Ashdown cautiously
preserved (presumed similarity with Monica Lewinsky's sperm-soaked
blouse is purely coincidental), in order to expose Tudjman's
partitionist appetites.
![](../images/tocka.gif)
Reality
Tudjman's
(better, Ashdown's) napkin will probably remain recorded in
the annals of European and World history as one of the most
bizarre and Kafkan episodes of the late 20th century political
monkey-mongering. So far this piece of grotesquerie has not
had such ominous consequences (except for Tihomir Blaskic, Croat
general from the central Bosnia, when this specimen of politico-pornographic
frame-up has "secured" him 45 years in the Hague dungeon)
as did such paranoid forgeries like "The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion" or mega Serb expansionist blueprint, "Nachertanie"
( one can read these Serbian strategies at
( http://www.hic.hr/books/creation/index.htm
)
As the story goes, Tudjman has, according to the British wannabe
political "star", MP Paddy Ashdown, in a relaxed and
intimate atmosphere, drawn future Bosnia and Herzegovina boundaries.
Essentially, this croquis divides Bosnian territory in two separate
zones: Croatian (which would consist of circa 2/3 of B&H,
with Muslim autonomous region under Croatian supervision included),
and Serbian (only 1/3 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, consisting
of the city of Tuzla, the Drina river basin and Croatian part
of Bosnian Posavina). A few dubieties naturally pop up:
-if Tudjman's fixation
remained a slightly modified Croatian Banovina from 1939.-then
what to do with this territorial monster appearing out of
the blue ? Bosnian Posavina is elegantly brushed off, and
Croatia, parenthetically, devours the entire Bosnian Muslim
ethnic corpus. The two geopolitical aims, Banovina (less than
1/3 of B&H, with almost exclusively Croatian population)
and the "napkin Croatia" ( more than 2/3 of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, with Bosnian Muslims outnumbering Bosnian
Croats in ratio surpassing 2.5/1, completely annexed into
a hypothetical greater Croatia) are irreconcilable.
- why on earth
would Tudjman, by then the decisive player in war and peace
games in Bosnia and Herzegovina, share his most intimate stratagems
(which have, up to now, remained completely unknown to his
former closest associates-turned-political-adversaries (Hrvoje
Sarinic, Stjepan Mesic), at least in this "napkin contours
form") with an obscure British MP, dribbling with insatiable
desire for public self-advertisement ? Ashdown, virtually
a non-entity on ex-Yugoslavia political map, is, we are supposed
to believe, a charismatic seducer able to overpower old Machiavel
Tudjman's suspicion and to rob him of his most guarded geopolitical
secrets. Moreover - Tudjman, in the act of unprecedented naivety,
signs his compromising diabolical plan! As for Ashdown- this
typical political Cagliostro was playing exactly the same
game as many other fame-hungry exhibitionists, battening on
the West's guilty conscience with regard to the idealized
projection of Bosnia martyrdom.
- it has been established
by graphological analysis that Ashdown's napkin is a rather
clumsy forgery. For instance, no Croat politician (especially
a "nationalist" like Tudjman) would write the noun
"Krajina" without quotation marks, which underscore
artificiality and ultimate doom of the Serbian parastate on
Croatian soil. More, Tudjman's handwriting doesn't match that
found on the napkin.
- strategically,
"Ashdown's napkin" presents a geopolitical doctrine
that runs contrary to everything Tudjman stood for his whole
life as a politician: demarcation with Serbs and cooperation
with Bosnian Muslims, but *not* the creation of a bi-national
Croatia, which would inevitably come into existence with absorption
of more than 2 million Muslims (in fact, the latter scenario
might be characterized as the ultimate strategist's nightmare.)
Tudjman was frequently publicly defamed for his imagined obsession
with "ethnically pure" Croatia. Now, the same slanderers
put up another, oxymoronic charge: the supposed "ethnic
purist" was in fact extreme "ethnic pollutant",
all-too-willing to nationally contaminate Croatia with the
indigestible portion of Bosnian Muslims, significantly outnumbering
the original Serbian population in Croatia. Also, the Islamophobe
Tudjman (so they aver) yearned to incorporate as much Muslims
as possible into an essentially Western Catholic/secular state,
in order to solidify the basis of Croat nation state and make
it eligible to the European Union membership (forget about
Turkey's unpleasant experiences re this matter.)
-the fact Croatophobes
are very willing to overlook is a self-evident one: even if
Tudjman had harboured such sinister predatory ambitions (let's
suppose this, for the sake of argument)- it is absolutely
preposterous to assume that he could have realized this "shipment
of men and goods" as he had whimsically decided. Such
a "population transfer" (Serbs from Banja Luka to
Tuzla, Muslims from Tuzla to Banja Luka) is impossible for
the only remaining superpower to accomplish, let alone for
a tiny, war-exhausted Croatia. The underlying assumption of
"Tudjman lord of the ethnic migrations" fantasy
is that he was able to toss millions of people to and fro,
without slightest respect for wishes and plans of political
and military leadership of Muslims and Serbs, or international
community, UN, USA or EU. Welcome to the wonderland!
But, the napkin
story has had more sinister repercussions: Lord "Paddy"
Ashdown has testified in the general Blaskic Hague trial as
a witness for persecution (sorry, a Freudian slip- prosecution).
His testimony was among crucial ones that led to the judiciary
conclusion that Croatia was "aggressor on Bosnia and
Herzegovina".
Simple logical
analysis of this part of the verdict shows its untenability:
it stands on Ashdown's (and two other problematic “protected”
witnesses's) testimony. What kind of international military
conflict, i.e. "aggression" is, if, of the entire
world, only two-three people know about it ?
a) Military conflict between Bosnian Croats and Muslims ended
by the Washington agreement signatures March 18th 1994, according
to which both parties had agreed to form a joint Federation
that will in near future have entered the confederal communion
with Croatia. A rather bizarre conclusion, considering the
purported "aggressive" nature of Croatia's role
in this conflict.
b) Paddy Ashdown
has testified on the map president Tudjman had supposedly
drawn (on the napkin) during May 6th 1995. So, some 14 months
after the cessation of Croat-Muslim hostilities, Tudjman draws
a map showing his opinion how the boundaries will have looked
in 10 years.
c) this napkin becomes the crown evidence for the "international
character of the Croat-Muslim conflict" verdict. The
map on the napkin was drawn 14 months after the end of the
Muslim-Croat war, and more than 2 years after its beginning.
To pose such claims certainly is blatantly to beg the question.
1. How on earth
has Lord Ashdown during 20some minutes conversation discovered
a secret no one except him has succeeded in "extracting"
from Tudjman ?
2. How can a projection
about the state of the region in 2005 become *the* argument
on the nature of 1993/94 military conflict ?
3. What kind of
"international conflict", involving 2 countries,
could it be considering the fact that no one knows about it
except 2 "protected witnesses", but even they cannot
testify in public for reason of their safety ?
President Tudjman
has on many occasions (interviews to the French TV FR-2 August
19th 1995, to the Turkish TV August 29th 1995, to the Israeli
TV September 4th 1995,...) explained what the "napkin
story" was all about :.." NATO (and EU authorities
in Bruxelles) has made known, during 1993, a map on possible
future influence spheres in East Europe, drawing a boundary
between "East" and "West". Various projections
of these East-West spheres of influence were published in
the strategic atlas "Complexe", authored by Chaliand
and Rageau. In all maps imagined East-West boundaries virtually
“partition” B&H "
Full reference
is: Gerard Chaliand, Jean-Pierre Rageau "Atlas Strategique.
Geopolitique des nouveaux rapports de forces dans le monde.",
Editions Complexe, 1994, pg. 219, ISBN 2-87027-528-5. Both
authors are well known political scientists with academic
credibility (visiting professor at UCLA Berkeley and Harvard
(Chaliand), and the specialist for Eastern Europe and contemporary
history (Rageau)).
Considering the map from their "Atlas" (Figure 1.),
one can easily see that the “napkin borders” are exactly the
same as those presented in the Chailiand-Rageau strategic
study:
![](../images/zadnje/karta_mit2.jpg)
Figure
1.
So,
the conclusion would be:
a) Tudjman's explanation
of the source and motivation for "napkin map" is
credible
b) Ashdown has
(probably purposely) misattributed the map to the supposedly
predatory future Tudjman's intentions
c) everything else
is nothing but political fabrication
- as all spicy stories have salacious endings, this one is
no exception: British MP Paddy Ashdown has, in the year 2000.,
published his diary where he shamelessly and explicitly retells
the story about "Tudjman's napkin". Not to bother
a potential reader with unnecessary details, a few "confessions"
deserve to be mentioned:
a) Ashdown professes
his antipathy towards Tudjman and proudly displays his ignorance
by assigning Tudjman a quisling-like role in WW2 (in fact,
Tudjman was the only living statesman dining in the Guildhall
with active anti-fascist fighter record).
b) Ashdown then
proceeds to describe how he managed to get Tudjman drunk.
Another misfire, since Tudjman was known for his temperance/abstinence
and no one, in any circumstance, has ever seen him even slightly
intoxicated.
c) at the end:
Ashdown confesses that he had written all the names of the
regions and places. When asked about his opinion on future
boundaries between Croatia and Serbia, Tudjman draw a curved
line on the napkin (speedily provided by Ashdown) with no
further remarks. Ashdown himself later added all the names
and immediately trumpeted and blown up the whole "affair",
with the sole intent to escape from anonymity and catapult
himself into the orbit of global media fame. And, lo and behold!
- he succeeded. Lord “Paddy” Ashdown is current (2002-*) Bosnia
and Herzegovina’s “High Representative”, i.e. colonial governor.
Archetypal post-modern politician, no doubt.
![](../slike/navrh_e.gif)
Myth
about the bogus war and the Karadjordjevo partition deal
![](../images/tocka.gif)
During
the meeting in the Karadjordjevo estate (Serbian province
Vojvodina), March 30th 1991., Croatian president Tudjman and
Serbian president Milosevic struck a deal whereby they agreed
about the respective influence spheres and the partition of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, completely ignoring even mere existence
of Bosnian Muslims. Thus, the "alliance made in Hell"
came into being, Serbs and Croats united trying to annihilate
Bosnia's statehood and laying the ground for joint military
aggression and ethnic cleansing to come.
![](../images/tocka.gif)
Reality
The Karadjordjevo
myth is the Archimedean central point of the "harmonious
multiculturalist Bosnia" addicts, the grand simple "solution"
and cheap absolution for all sins of EU/USA (semi)conscious
complicity in Bosnian slaughter, devious plots gone south
for good, public embarrassments,...in sum: the ideal scapegoat.
When pressed, the Karadjordjevo junkies would jabberwock something
like this: paradisiacal harmony was a natural state of the
state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a sort of Eden turned into
Inferno by rapacious passions of their predatory neighbours.
The Karadjordjevo myth is a schemers' goldmine and fabulous
Croats-guilty-by-default device. It doesn't matter it cannot
be proven. The best thing about it is that it cannot be *refuted*
beyond reasonable doubt. The guilty-by-default machine operates
perfectly. Among many miraculous operations of this simplistic
cartoon (the cartoon form perfectly corresponds to "serious"
analyses which, using more technical and bureaucratic terminology,
blur much of its original absurdity) we can pick as the most
useful:
- Serbs
are exculpated (at least partially) and the burden of guilt
is transferred (as much as possible) onto Croatia's back
- Bosnian
Muslims are completely cleared even of a shadow of guilt (contrary
to the multiplicity of evidence, presented in the war section),
because, as the story goes, they were, poor babies, just *re*active,
never *pro*active in the ethnic cleansing business. Moreover:
they are allowed to retain the image of the privileged victim
and to avoid the embarrassment of being exposed as aggressors,
particularly with regard to Bosnian Croats (intercommunal
fighting ethnically "cleansed" 150,000 Croats from
Muslim-held areas & 50,000 Muslims from Croat-held areas).
- Croats
are, by incessant beating on the Karadjordjevo drum and the
concomitant guilt complex, rendered incapable of putting up
a prolonged serious resistance against innumerable manipulations
aiming at creation of unitary Bosnia and Herzegovina (though
the entire Bosnian Croat people might politically oppose inducements
to commit a national suicide, this can always be dismissed
as blunders of "seduced dumbasses" or a new proof
of ineradicable Croat pro-fascist leaning).
Be as
it may, the following facts are irrefutable:
-Croatian
and Serbian presidents Tudjman and Milosevic did meet March
30th 1991 on the Karadjordjevo estate in Serbian Province
Vojvodina. Details about this meeting, apart from usual diplomatic
statements, are unknown. The press release stated that all
controversial issues were discussed.
-the next
9 months have witnessed an all-out war against Croatia, covering
circa 2/3 of her territory and perpetrated by Serb-controlled
Yugoslav National Army (the JNA) and local Serb militias,
aided by flood of volunteers from Serbia proper. The city
of Vukovar was attacked and completely destroyed, while the
city of Dubrovnik, a Croatian coastal town was besieged and
shelled. War has spilled over to Croat-populated areas of
Bosnia and Herzegovina (not that Croats have shown any radicalism;
unarmed, they were all-too-easy prey in ethnic cleansing campaign).
Such was the case with the Ravno municipality-then, a part
of predominantly Serbian Trebinje municipality. When Croats
were expelled from south eastern Herzegovina and their houses
systematically burnt (Ravno) - Bosnian Muslim leadership has
shown total indifference, encapsulated in the by now legendary
phrase: "This is not *our* war". (Although it was
waged with the genocidal passion against Croats on the territory
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A very unconventional view on the
statehood, no doubt.) The Karadjordjevomaniacs conveniently
forget that the supposed agreement, reached in the March 1991.,
was brutally nullified in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as early
as 1991. If there was a deal - why the Vandalic, almost animalistic
Ravno occupation? Paranoid conspiracy "answer" is
food for bears since Ravno was liberated by HVO (Croatian
Defense Council-Bosnian Croat military forces) in 1992 and
finally incorporated into Croatian controlled regions in Bosnia
and Herzegovina Federation. Looks like Tudjman and Milosevic
decided that Ravno should go to Serbs, then changed their
minds on some other meeting (current Croatia's president,
stand-up comedian Stjepan Mesic, has enumerated no less than
48 secret and public meetings during the war- therefore, once
a month. Sociable guys or secret soul mates? Your choice)
One is
tempted to believe that their diabolic hidden scheming ultimately
determined all the zigzagging of the frontline, which moved
hither and thither according to the Machiavels' green table
machinations. Also - it is perfectly natural to assume that
they have reached an agreement with regard to Croatia, which
must have been president Tudjman's top priority. But, judging
from the fact that a (Serbian controlled) JNA plane flew to
Zagreb and bombed the offices of president Tudjman, and that
ten minutes before this attack, he went to a restaurant with
Stjepan Mesic and Ante Markovic, the last Yugoslav prime minister
(something that saved all participants' lives) - the Karadjordjevo
deal was, to say the least, a pretty wacky stuff. The ultimate
Karadjordjevo dogma lunacy could be presented something like
this: Tudjman has, as a part of the Karadjordjevo deal, accepted
the occupation of circa 26% of Croatia's territory. Also,
all further manoeuvres (Bosnia war details, UN peacekeeping,
final Croat military crackdown on Croatian and Bosnian Serbs,
NATO airstrikes) - all have been somehow predicted and agreed
on. Because Tudjman wouldn't have accepted temporary occupation
of more than a fourth of Croatia's soil, hadn't he known he'd
get it back anyway. A corollary of the Karadjordjevo conspiracy
theory is that at least one player (probably, both) was self-destructive.
Tudjman's position was strongly endangered with the fall of
Vukovar - his alleged partner's victory. Milosevic was, on
the other hand, on an extremely shaky ground when operation
"Storm" swept away "Serbian Krajina"-the
moment of ultimate triumph for his imaginary accomplice. Why
would they agree on a partner's possible downfall?
At the
end, let the facts speak for themselves:
a) The
greatest number of Bosnian Muslim refugees found their shelter
in Croatia, more than in any other country in the world. A
part of these refugees settled later in the EU countries and
the US, another part returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
the 3rd has permanently settled in Croatia. During the year
1992, Croatia received a flood of 400,000 people fleeing from
the Bosnian deluge (among them, circa 70% Bosnian Muslims).
More, in an unprecedented gesture of generosity and magnanimity,
Croatia continued to take care of the Bosnian Muslim soldiers'
families during the most intense fighting in 1993/1994 which
had ethnically cleansed tens of thousands Croats from Bosnia
and Herzegovina. No act of retribution has happened to the
more than 200,000 women, elderly or children whose male relatives
were at the same time engaged in brutal aggression against
Croat majority areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All in all,
Croatia has financed many months stay (and in over 50% cases
many years residence) of Bosnian Muslims, covering more than
95% of the expenses from her own budget.
b) Croatia
was the 1st country in the world (along with EU members, which
did it collectively) to recognize Bosnia and Herzegovina as
a sovereign state. Also, the 1st ambassador to appear in Sarajevo
was a Croat.
c) Croats
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, advised by the Zagreb government,
were virtually the only Bosnian people who has accepted (or
not explicitly rejected) *all* international community's peace
proposals, from the Cutilheiro plan (March 1992.), via Vance-Owen
(January 1993), till Owen-Stoltenberg (July 1993.) and Dayton
peace agreement (November 1996.). All these plans are based
on the precondition of existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina
as a sovereign state. Sapienti sat !
d) Bosnian
Croats, along with Croatia, have prevented the collapse and
inevitable massacres in the Bihac "safe haven",
which would certainly outnumber the victims toll in Srebrenica
(where, by the way, Dutch "peacekeepers" played
the role of Serbian executors' semi-willing accomplices).
e) had
not the Croatian Army intervened on Bosnian soil in the summer
of 1995, reducing the Serbs' controlled area from 70% to 45%,
the Dayton talks nor today fragile peace wouldn't have come
even into consideration. In all probability the war would
have dragged on and on with minor territorial moves (like
the most of the WW1) or Western "powers" would have
been sucked into a Vietnam-like desperate mission.
f) Croatia
has been either the chief provider or virtually (apart from
the Sarajevo airport and a few other isolated instances) the
only route whereby *everything* that kept Bosnian Muslims
alive was coming to the needy and the desperate.
Attorney Nobilo's closing arguments at General Blaskic's
trial:
The
Prosecution spent quite a bit of time in proving that the
idea of President Tudjman was a division of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
which would be a hostile policy towards this state, and the
key thesis, which invokes the support, was the meeting in
Karadjordjevo on the 30th of March, 1991 between Presidents
Tudjman and Milosevic. Allegedly, it is there that the division
of Bosnia was agreed upon. It is something that was speculated
on in the media, it was something that was rumoured, it was
something that was whispered about, but, Your Honours, before
you, no single shred of evidence was presented on what were
the contents of this meeting and what decisions were taken
there. So we have no witness, we have no document that would
show what the contents of the meetings in Karadjordjevo were
and what decisions were taken. We can judge on Karadjordjevo
only on the basis of the consequences of this meeting, and
we have to place it in the context of time.
That
was the 30th of March, 1991. At that time, the conflicts had
already started in Croatia, but they had not escalated at
that time. At that time, the rebel Serbs were active in Croatia,
which assisted the JNA that used them as an instrument and
it was arming them. President Tudjman was trying to prevent
a war, and in the context of this effort to prevent a war,
this meeting in Karadjordjevo should be viewed. Now, if what
the Prosecution claims is true, that is, that there was an
agreement between Tudjman and Milosevic in Karadjordjevo,
then the question arises: How come that after Karadjordjevo,
after the 30th of March of 1991, the real war in Croatia only
began? It was after the 30th of March that the city of Vukovar
was attacked and completely destroyed. This was a city in
Croatia. And also the city of Dubrovnik, a Croatian coastal
town. How can it be that the partners, after having reached
an agreement, are starting a real war in earnest? This is
another piece of evidence that this agreement never took.
Or it was said that Milosevic and Tudjman were partners because
they had reached an agreement. What type of agreement is this
that if, after Karadjordjevo, a JNA plane flew to Zagreb and
bombed the offices of President Tudjman? Ten minutes before
this attack, he went to a restaurant with Stipo Mesic and
Ante Markovic, the last prime minister, they went to a restaurant
ten minutes before that. So it is clear that there was no
agreement. How would you also explain that General Bobetko
entered Bosnia to prevent the JNA from taking full control
of Bosnia at that time? So the war really only started after
Karadjordjevo, and the only thing we can conclude is that
there was no agreement. We do not know what the contents of
this meeting were. We do not know whether there was an effort
to come to an agreement, but we know the consequences, what
happened after Karadjordjevo.
It
is true that President Tudjman, on several occasions, both
publicly and privately, advocated a division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
That is true. That is correct. It is true that in 1981, Mr.
Tudjman, as a historian, wrote that Bosnia should be divided.
However, what the Prosecution did was manipulate this, that
is, taking these true statements, and they turned it into
a thesis and say, "The Republic of Croatia advocated
the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina," but there is no
evidence that the Republic of Croatia advocated the division
of Bosnia-Herzegovina. President Tudjman is the president
of the Republic of Croatia, but the policy of the Republic
of Croatia is reflected in documents, open documents, official
documents, such as laws, decrees, and in the actual steps,
measures taken by the Republic of Croatia. So that is how
its real position is reflected. In creation of an international
policy, it is clear that leadership plays a significant role,
but as this international or foreign policy is being created
in the bodies of the state, you have to take into account
both the internal and foreign relations. Croatia is a small
country, and you have to take into account all the influences
and positions that you have. A real politician has to take
into account all the different factors. Let's say that the
aim may be or the desire may be to, let's say, divide the
country, but the real policy prevents you from actually pursuing
such a policy.
I
will just mention a couple of things, but most importantly,
there is no shred of evidence that the policy of the Republic
of Croatia was going in the direction of division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
How are we to reconcile this policy with the fact that the
Republic of Croatia was the first state to have recognised
the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina as early as April
1992? And on 19 April, 1992, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
signed an agreement on the diplomatic councillor missions
abroad, and the Republic of Croatia undertakes to protect
the interests of Bosnia-Herzegovina, interests in those countries
where Bosnia did not have its own diplomatic missions. The
ambassadors were exchanged in 1992 and early 1993. On 19 January,
1993, the first ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina arrived in
Zagreb, and before that, the Croatian ambassador was already
in Sarajevo. Also, on 14 June, 1993, President Tudjman visited
Sarajevo, and throughout this period, they never interrupted
their diplomatic ties.
The
Croatian parliament adopted at least two declarations: One
is D106 of 30 April, 1993. In this declaration of the Croatian
parliament, Croatia says: "The historic friendship of
Croats and Muslims is a prerequisite for the survival of both
of these people in this region. It is the foundation for sovereignty
and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its future."
This is the declaration of the Croatian Parliament that speaks
about the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Also, Exhibit D107 of 30 June, 1993 where Croatia supports
the internationally recognised Bosnia-Herzegovina, its sovereignty,
and territorial integrity. So much on that issue, and we will
further argue that these two countries were allies throughout.
To conclude: the central Karadjordjevomaniacs' thesis about
the Tudjman-Milosevic deal on the territorial division of
Bosnia and Herzegovina is drastically subverted by the chain
of events on the battleground, both military and political.
Considering the fact that only direct American diplomatic
intervention had saved Western part of the Bosnian Serb Republic/Republika
Srpska from total military defeat that would have left Serbs
with no more than 25% of Bosnia and Herzegovina (mainly around
the Drina river basin), a cynic could justifiably deduce:
it's not Tudjman with whom Milosevic had struck a deal, but
Americans.
Conspiracy
theories aficionados, if they want mental fodder, could ponder
on the incontestable fact that the US (faithfully accompanied
by the EU) was the central arbiter who stubbornly insisted
that Serbs *must* get 49% of the Bosnian territory (although
there was no demographic, strategic, logical, let alone "moral"
reason for such a magnanimity towards a groggy genocidal regime).
The US have, under the false pretext of stopping the war at
any cost, halted the crushing defeat of Bosnian Serb Army
(Serbs were not on their knees; literally, they lay prostrated)
and later constantly put any leverage at their disposal to
secure the boundaries and constitutional status (in essence,
a status quo statehood) of Bosnian Serb ethnically cleansed
Republic.
Intriguing
development, indeed! Those who are the most vociferous and
seething with moral indignation in accusing the Croatia's
alleged aspirations to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina (quelle
horreur!) have worked overtime to split up Bosnia so as to
fulfil Serbs' expansionist dreams, even over-reaching Serbs'
optimal territorial appetites at the time (and succeeded at
that!). Those who, in fits of "righteous wrath",
slam Croatia and president Tudjman for secret "shady
deal" in Karadjordjevo (with nothing, zero, zilch substantiation),
have orchestrated a public partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and announced it urbi et orbi. Those who demonise Croatian
Union (later, Republic) Herceg-Bosna as a "parastate"
(the ultimate crime, no doubt)- have installed and continue
to support Republika Srpska as the true national Serbian state
in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Evidently,
the whores pontificate on chastity.
![](../slike/navrh_e.gif)
|