Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

UNWANTED INDEPENDENCE 201
I had the impression in December 1991 that Izetbegović was by then trying
only to postpone the outbreak of hostilities for as long as possible. The Muslims
must have known that the Serbs had, for a long time, been arming themselves for
a civil war and that it was high time to make up for their past neglect in
establishing their own armed militias. That was difficult because the army had
already confiscated the weapons of the Bosnian Territorial Defense forces earlier,
as it had done in Slovenia and Croatia. I spoke at the time with Ejup Ganić,
member of the state presidency and later vice president of the republic. He
openly conceded that Bosnia was far behind in weaponry and thought, with
resignation, that perhaps the only option by then, in the event of military action
by the army and the Serbs, was to declare Bosnia-Herzegovina an “occupied
country” and call upon the international community for assistance. When I asked
him if he really believed that the international community would do anything for
Bosnia in this eventuality, he shook his head. Moreover, the procurement of the
necessary weapons was now blocked as a result of the international embargo. 68
As if that were not enough, the UN refused to send any “blue helmets” to
Bosnia, on the grounds that there was no conflict there. At almost the same time,
the UN had declined to send peacekeeping troops to Croatia, on the argument
that there was a conflict there, which should first be ended.
In Croatia, there was at the time a hostile feeling toward Izetbegović, because
the army had operated against Croatia from positions in Bosnia, and Izetbegović
and the Muslims had allegedly not done anything to stop this. The reproaches were
unjustified, however, because Izetbegović had not been in a position to do
anything to oppose the movements of the army; in the Serbian districts of
western Bosnia, he and his people no longer exercised effective jurisdiction.
Besides, in late June and early July 1991, when the army had attacked Slovenia
in part from bases in Croatia, Croatia had been equally passive.
The hard-fighting Croats in western Herzegovina played an important role in
the Croatian independence struggle of summer and autumn 1991. They ranged
over all of central Dalmatia, including Split, and on several occasions prevented
army units with tanks from moving from positions around Mostar southward
against the coast. Later, in April and May 1992, the army unleashed its fury by
bombarding Capljina and Mostar; its goal was to establish the Neretva as the
boundary between Serbian territory and territory held by others. But it was not
successful.
One must concede that the Croats, and above all those in Herzegovina, had no
illusions in regard to their relations with the Serbs and the army. In contrast to
the Muslims, they armed themselves in good time, enabling them later to save
the lives of many Muslims. Nonetheless, Tudjman allowed himself to be seduced
by the useful relationship which he had with the Croats of Herzegovina and
secured for them the leadership of the Bosnian branch of the HDZ, even though
the Herzegovinan Croats comprised only 40 per cent of Croats in the republic as
a whole. At the beginning of February 1992, the erstwhile chair of the HDZ in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Stjepan Kljuić, had to step down in order to make room for