Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks Trade War Crimes Accusations

ZAGREB, February 7, 2018 – The Croatian National Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HNS BiH), which includes the most significant Croat parties in the country, on Wednesday condemned an interview with the Bosniak member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency, Bakir Izetbegović on Croatian national television, saying that Izetbegović had “belittled and insulted” Croat war victims and added that the Croat people in central Bosnia suffered most gravely in the last war.

“The views expressed by the Bosniak member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency and president of the Democratic Action Party (SDA), Bakir Izetbegović in the Nedjeljom u Dva (Sunday at 2) programme relating to the suffering of the Croat people in the Homeland War, particularly in Central Bosnia, deeply offended and belittled all Croat victims in the Homeland War, the families of those killed, wounded or detained Croats and all members of the HVO defence forces because they do not correspond to the actual truth,” HNS said in a press release.

Izetbegović spoke about the last war and said that the Bosniak Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not commit mass crimes and that Bosniak authorities systematically prevented them and that the execution of 64 Croats in Križančevo Selo near Vitez was the consequence of the military defeat of the HVO.

“The truth is that during the Homeland War, compared to the other two armies, the HVO committed the least crimes and that relative to their number, the Croats were the greatest victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the press release says.

The press release notes that in Central Bosnia alone 85,141 Croats were displaced by the Bosniak side, 2,751 were killed, 468 of whom were civilians, and that 2,402 children were left without one or both parents. During the war, 3,098 Croats became invalids, 10,500 homes were destroyed as were 43 places of worship and several hundred tombstones were destroyed or desecrated.  The press release further notes that in Travnik, 28 villages mostly inhabited by Croats, were completely ethnically cleansed.

“No one in the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina who ordered these crimes has answered for them as yet, instead Bosniak officials refer to these crimes as incidents,” the press release says and adds that falsifying history by “belittling the suffering of Croats and victims during the Homeland War in Bosnia and Herzegovina” is not the way to build trust between people and will not relax relations between Croats and Bosniaks.

 

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