Praljak Blames Bosnian Army for Sparking Conflict
He says Bosnian Croat forces were forced to defend themselves against attack by government troops.
Praljak Blames Bosnian Army for Sparking Conflict
He says Bosnian Croat forces were forced to defend themselves against attack by government troops.
Bosnian government forces provoked conflict with the Bosnian Croat Croatian Council of Defence, HVO, forces by targeting ethnic Croat soldiers, a defendant told the Hague tribunal this week.
“In 1992, the Bosnian army began digging trenches in the hills around the town of Gornji Vakuf, in central Bosnia, where it fortified its positions and turned its weapons at the Croats,” said former Croatian army officer Slobodan Praljak.
Praljak, was one of the main figures in the wartime breakaway Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna, established in August 2003.
“The Bosnian army kept provoking conflict every day, shooting and killing HVO soldiers. Tens of soldiers died [during this time] – occasionally, there were up to five dead soldiers a day,” he said.
“It was only logical enough for the HVO to answer these provocations – when someone constantly harasses and kills you, you must defend yourself.”
Praljak said the Bosnian army's attacks in central Bosnia were “planned provocation, classic perfidious military tactics” that created a “domino effect” with the Croats attacking Bosnian army positions in retaliation in mid-January 1993.
Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal accuse Praljak – along with fellow Bosnian Croats Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stolic, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic – of responsibility for the expulsion, rape, torture and murder of Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats between late 1991 and early 1994, as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse parts of Bosnia that would then be joined to a Greater Croatia.
The indictment states that Praljak, the one-time assistant defence minister for Croatia, served during the war as Croatia's liaison to the HVO government and armed forces.
He delivered communications and instructions from then Croatian president Franjo Tudjman and other senior officials, while also reporting back to Zagreb on developments in Bosnia, it says.
The indictment further states that through his various positions and functions, Praljak was at certain times in command of HVO forces and ethnic Croat civilian police operating in Bosnia, and was responsible for logistics, organisation, planning, training, deployment as well as strategic and combat orders.
Praljak, who is representing himself in court, spoke during his testimony of “aggression by the Bosnian Army against Herceg-Bosna” and said that it began attacking cities under Croat control in 1993, ultimately aiming to “occupy” all these territories up to the border with Croatia.
Asked by Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti as to why the Bosnian army had attacked Croats, Praljak replied, “Given that they couldn't expand their territory in the direction of the Serbs, [the Bosnian army] decided to do it at the expense of the Croats. The Bosnian army was fully aware of the fact that they couldn't take anything else from the Serbs. It was reason enough for them to attack us.”
During his testimony, Praljak said “Muslims considered themselves to be the 'fundamental nation' of Bosnia and Hercegovina, ie that they were the indigenous population to which Bosnia exclusively belonged”.
“They considered that Serbs and Croats have their mother states, Serbia and Croatia, and should move there,” he added.
Praljak also spoke of what he said was the “harassment” of ethnic Croats by the Bosnian army in the area, which “culminated in an incident [during] Christmas 1993, when a Croatian flag was taken down from the municipality building by the Bosnian army, and burned”.
“This incident was a serious emotional blow to HVO soldiers,” said Praljak.
Judge Antonetti then asked Praljak whether “the Muslims living there might have had another view about the positioning of the Croatian flag on the municipality building”.
“Yes, they had a different attitude, and a problem, because they didn't want to [treat the Croats] as a people with equal rights,” replied the defendant.
“That meant that Croats as a constituent nation had no rights whatsoever in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Muslims in Bosnia had taken that same dominant position as the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia,” said Praljak.
“Everybody could put up their flag, only the Croats couldn't do so. It wasn't a religious flag of any kind, as in the case of the Bosnian army. The HVO flag was a flag which had represented Croats for many centuries and had symbolised the unification of western and eastern Croatia.
“The Bosnian army, 90 per cent of its soldiers, carried a religious green flag with a crescent and star.”
Praljak denied the charge outlined in the indictment against him that there was a joint criminal enterprise aimed at attaching parts of Bosnia to Croatia.
“I responsibly declare that Herceg-Bosna was just a temporary organisation with the aim of defending Bosnia and Hercegovina with no tendencies whatsoever to separate from Bosnia and Hercegovina and join Croatia,” said Praljak.
“For President Tudjman, the territorial independence of Bosnia and Hercegovina was never in doubt.
“His attitude was that a single Bosnia and Hercegovina should be a goal, a country where Croats and Muslims would live together, that was his message with regard to Bosnia's destiny.
“[Tudjman] often tried to determine what the international community intended to do with Bosnia and Hercegovina. He was most afraid that the West was going to reward the Serbs, and he was sadly right. His doubts became true in Dayton in 1995 when the peace accords for Bosnia were signed, and the country was divided into two entities. The Serbs were truly given their own state.”
The trial continues next week.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.
