1. We urge solidarity among the Croatian people and political leadership in Croatia so that they do not create the wrong picture of the role of the Croatian political leadership during the period of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina by making hasty, sweeping or subjective statements and thereby affecting the final verdict regarding the joint criminal enterprise and the individual crimes for which Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina have been convicted with the possibility for appeal, in order to make it possible for a just verdict to be reached. Statements by some of the political leadership, such as that Croatia had an ambivalent policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia was the aggressor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, do not correspond to the actual direction of Croatian government policy of that time. Moreover, aggression is not part of the indictment against Jadranko Prlić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Bruno Stojić, Valentin Čorić and Berislav Pušić, and the ICTY does not have a mandate for disputes between states or even the crime of aggression. We urge all political structures in the wake of the statement by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia to support the involvement of the state in this process of the refutation of the [alleged] joint criminal enterprise and international conflict with all legal means, and to facilitate access by the defense to the archives and new evidence, if this proves necessary.

2. We urge the Bosniak political leaders and parties to exercise prudence. Short-lived triumphalism can only yield short-lived profit by the political forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in the long run it will not be possible to conceal the historical facts according to which President Franjo Tuđman urged the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to vote in a referendum on an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina as their country, according to which the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) was first included in the defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, after supplying arms to the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the embargo, cared for tens of thousands of refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We deeply regret that the Croatian-Bosniak conflict ever occurred. The leadership of the two armies who together defended their common homeland—Bosnia and Herzegovina—from Greater Serbian aggression at that moment obviously did not understand the tendencies in the international environment and foreign diplomacy that oversaw the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, despite this, the fact remains for history that the two armies reestablished an alliance in Washington so that after Operation Storm, they conducted joint campaigns for the liberation of Western Bosnia, causing the breakdown of the forces of General Ratko Mladić, and after Srebrenica were able to save Bihać from new genocide. After a thousand two hundred and one days of the complete siege of the so-called Bihac pocket, during Operation Storm the longest siege of an isolated Bosnian enclave was broken. Members of the Croatian Army and the Fifth Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina merged in the area of the Plitivice Lakes. Bihać, like Srebrenica, was a zone protected by UN battalions, including Dutch, who had done nothing to save the lives of the thousands of civilians. They were saved by the alliance of the Croatian Army and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is a historical fact that no one can deny.

3. We urge unity among the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only unity, which is not single-minded but rather an awareness of the importance of common denominators, instead of the divisions that have been the case so far among the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, can secure all the rights for them as a constituent nation as guaranteed by the Dayton Constitution. Since the court in The Hague with its prosecution policy has not punished crimes against Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to mourning every Bosniak victim of the Croatian-Bosniak conflict sincerely, we call upon the law enforcement agencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina to investigate and punish the perpetrators of crimes against Croats during the war. In attacks against Croats by the Bosniak Army, 1,150 Croats were killed within a small area, including over a hundred children. Prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes is necessary in order to maintain a future of lasting peace and prosperity for the three constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

4. We are quite surprised by the unjust acquittal of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, the former Chief of the Serbian State Security Service of the Milošević regime and its first agent in charge of special operations, especially since not a single senior political official of the former Serbia, the leadership of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) and the leadership of the Counterintelligence Service of the Yugoslav National Army (KOS) has been declared part of the joint criminal enterprise for the crimes planned and perpetrated in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia. When we consider that Slobodan Milošević died without having been convicted, that Biljana Plavšić, the mastermind of crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, when from the verdicts for Srebrenica and Ovčara we read that the military intelligence and political leadership of the former Yugoslavia and Serbia were exempted from responsibility for planning and organizing crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we cannot avoid the impression that there was a full amnesty for Serbia, i.e., its military, intelligence and political leadership, for the war in the former Yugoslavia. The acquittals of Stanišić and Simatović and their superiors for crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while at the same time condemning Croats and the former Croatian leadership for planning and organizing crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, astound us. Thus, the court in The Hague is saying that predominantly the policies of indictments and to some extent the policies of sentencing were guided by the criteria of politics and not justice. Therefore, the court ha not fulfilled its function because it provokes frustration among the attacked and victims, and those who perpetrated aggression are not given the opportunity to face the truth and experience their own catharsis. After these verdicts, an inevitable question arises: How is it that Herceg-Bosna, which was formed for the purpose of defense and no longer exists, has been declared a criminal enterprise run from Zagreb, while the Republika Srpska, which was built on genocide and ethnic cleansing, has gained the legitimacy of statehood, contrary to all the principles of international and humanitarian law? Unfortunately, such verdicts will not suitably relegate the bloodstained breakup of the former Yugoslavia to the past and history anytime soon.

5. Bearing the aforementioned in mind, the inconsistency of The Hague Tribunal, the attempt to make a legal experiment out of that court instead of an instrument of justice, we urge the Republic of Croatia not to withdraw charges of genocide. This is necessary for peace in the region. It is necessary to seek justice and establish rule for the future before a serious, non-experimental international tribunal, in order for conflicts to be resolved by court and not by war. Furthermore, those who initiated aggression should bear the consequences. Otherwise, we can expect more wars because everything indicates that crimes do pay: what is conquered remains the aggressor’s and the victims are held responsible for defending themselves. If the international community is not prepared through the ad hoc court in The Hague to establish permanent foundations for peace in this region, as indicated by individual indictments and convictions, then the Republic of Croatia must assume responsibility, if for no other reason than piety toward the victims and preventing the repetition of crimes.

In Zagreb, June 10, 2013

Vlado Košić,
President of the Justice and Peace Commission
Croatian Conference of Bishops