The Feeble, Obsessive Colonialism of Andrej Plenkovic

The decision of the Republic of Croatia to ban entry onto its territory of Avdo Avdic, arguably the most prominent investigative journalist in the whole of the Western Balkans, represents a new nadir in post-war relations between Zagreb and Sarajevo.

This article is available in Bosnian

Yet to suggest that there is “dispute” between two states at the heart of this incident is a misnomer.

Because Bosnia and Herzegovina has no quarrel with Croatia. It has no pretensions on its territory, it does not seek to influence or impede its governance, it does not collaborate with its adversaries, and it has no history of doing the same either. Croatia, in contrast, engages in all the above against Bosnia and Herzegovina, as have generations of nationalist leaders in Zagreb.    

Three times during the 20^th century, Croatian nationalist officials sought to partition, occupy, or annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. First in the period between 1929 and 1939 under the royalist dictatorship in the first Yugoslavia, then again between 1941 and 1945 under the genocidal NDH regime, and then once more between 1992 and 1994 through the criminal “Herceg-Bosna” project.

The animating ideological principle of all three efforts was the predominate belief of nationalist hardliners in Zagreb in the inherently subordinate position of the Bosniak nation. That the Bosniaks were a people without agency, history, or culture. At best, the Bosniaks were a cultural appendix of the long, dark Ottoman era, which in turn would not truly conclude until Bosnia and Herzegovina was “returned” fully to the dominion of Christian rulers – i.e. Catholic Croatians – and the Bosniaks were “liberated” from the yoke of their despotic, Asiatic religion.

How central the yearning for dominion over Bosnia and Herzegovina has been to contemporary Croatian nationalism is best evidenced by Franjo Tudjman, the proverbial “father” of modern Croatia.

Amid an existential struggle for survival of Croatia as a sovereign state in the autumn of 1992, Tudjman reorientates his country’s meager resources to launch a de facto invasion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to repeatedly attempt its partition with Slobodan Milosevic. The same despot then occupying approximately a third of Croatia’s own territory.

The absurdity of Tudjman’s decision making between 1992 and 1994 is difficult to overstate. Imagine if today, as Russia presses further into eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy decides to invade Moldova. Not to dissolve the self-declared “Transnistria” but to seek the country’s partition with Vladimir Putin. Madness would scarcely begin to describe such a foray. Yet in the annals of Croatia’s long-governing HDZ, Tudjman remains, in the words of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, a figure “with whom few 20^th century statesmen can be compared”.    

Thankfully, Tudjman’s Bosnian campaign failed, spectacularly. Even so, in the process Zagreb, and Tudjman himself, were directly implicated not only in systematic atrocities against the civilian population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in kneecapping the country’s liberation efforts.

Had it not been for Croatia’s incursions into Bosnia and Herzegovina between October 1992 and March 1994, it is likely that the Siege of Sarajevo could have been lifted by the Army of the Republic Bosnia and Herzegovina itself. Had that occurred, it follows that the battlefield situation in eastern Bosnia may have been entirely different too. To the extent that the Srebrenica Genocide may never have occurred at all. Because Srebrenica, like Zepa and Gorazde, would have received relief from the government forces trapped in the capital. And certainly, Croatia’s own war against Milosevic’s occupation regime may have ended far earlier, at least in 1994 rather than 1995, had Tudjman not decided to waste untold blood and treasure in his foolish effort to recreate the short lived Banovina of Croatia.

Rather than accepting these historical facts and making a genuine attempt at reconciliation with Sarajevo and the Bosnian and Bosniak people, especially given Croatia’s comparative advantage today as an EU and NATO member state, the Plenkovic government has doubled down on Tudjman’s failed colonialist pretensions.

Today, Andrej Plenkovic derides Bosnia and Herzegovina’s duly elected officials on a near daily basis; his government systematically interferes in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s domestic governance; his government shields Bosnian Serb secessionist Milorad Dodik from EU sanctions; he lambasts the binding decisions of the European Court of Human Rights demanding the reform of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s discriminatory, sectarian constitutional regime; his ministers praise the country’s shameful segregated schools; he glorifies the murderous legacy of the “Herceg-Bosna”; he pals around with neo-Nazis; his government harasses Croatian journalists, and it bars the free movements of their Bosnian colleagues.

Andrej Plenkovic may not be a vulgarian like Dodik or Croatia’s own Kremlin-aligned president. But these are not the actions or the policies of a well-adjusted “Christian democrat”. Plenkovic’s Bosnian obsession, like that of Tudjman, is a disease. A disease which has convinced Plenkovic, like Tudjman, that Croatia can and must project its will unto Bosnia and its people.

The problem is, like Tudjman, like Pavelic, like Macek, Andrej Plenkovic will find that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not Croatia’s to rule. Generations of great Bosnian truth tellers like Avdo Avdic have made sure of it.