The Role of Croatia in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Antemurale Christianitatis as a Policy of Choice.

• Author: Suljagic, Emir
• Position: COMMENTRY - Report

In this commentary, I argue that since the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the central plank of the Republic of Croatia's foreign policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter "BiH" or "Bosnia") has been a consistent and systematic "orientalisation" of BiH and its Muslim population on the part of the political class of Croatia. The article looks at the Croatian policy towards Bosnia, focusing on the origins of the Croatian project in BiH that started in the early 1990s--and still lasts, albeit by different means--as well as its historical and cultural roots.

From the moment the Republic of Croatia gained independence in 1992, its political elites sought to re-arrange BiH in line with their view of Bosnia as a mere sum of three ethnic groups (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs). Subsequently, they used different instruments to that end. Whereas in the 1990s Croatia was instrumental in the establishment of a proxy-state in BiH called "Herceg Bosna," which orchestrated a campaign of mass violence to claim a third of Bosnia's territory and change its ethnic fabric, presently Croatia is pursuing a diplomatic, political, and media campaign tantamount to a hybrid warfare towards BiH with the ultimate goal to undermine the Bosnian statehood. Croatia's current strategy hinges on the skillful manipulation of BiH's sizable ethnic Croat population in BiH. (1)

While the notion of orientalisation is rooted in Edward Said's concept of "orientalism" as "a tradition of thought, imagery and vocabulary" (2) used to create a reality in BiH that does not exist, or otherwise would not exist, the "othering" of Bosnia's Muslim population has a long history in Croatia; so long, in fact, that one could argue that important elements of Croatian identity have been formed in a binary opposition to Islam and Muslims of BiH. The idea of Croatia as a "bulwark" of European and Christian civilization towers above all other ideas in contemporary mainstream Croatian nationalism. Moreover, Croatian nationalism has also remained substantially trans-sovereign, i.e. based on the assumption that Croatia's national center "is the center of life on both sides of the border" (3) and "historicist." (4) Croat nationalism remained "trans-sovereign" through the 1990s to this day: "Although Mo-star increasingly became the center of Croats in BiH during the 1990s, especially during the existence of Herceg Bosna, Zagreb was and still remains the trans-sovereign center." (5) "Historicity" is ingrained in the very foundations of the Croat national ideology, tracing its roots in Pavao Ritter Vitezovic's ideas in the 17th century. Vitezovic was the first Croatian national ideologue to extend the Croat name to all South Slavs but also based his vision of Croatia on the so-called "historical and state right." (6)

From the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Croatian policy towards BiH has been based on both the idea of civilizational distinction from (and, by extension, supremacy) and the belief that the Croatian state is responsible for the well-being and political situation of its co-ethnics in BiH and therefore within its rights to intervene in its sovereign affairs.

From the moment BiH gained international recognition as a sovereign and independent state in April 1992, Croatia--using the state instruments under the leadership of President Franjo Tudman--has sought to redefine it from a civic republic into a confederation of ethnic groups, at best. In other words, parallel to the Serbian project during the wars of dissolution of Yugoslavia, there was also an independent and corresponding one for Croats. Whereas the Serbian project was more ambitious in scope and more brazen in the execution, it shared with its Croat counterpart the common goal of dividing and removing from the political map the BiH state. (7) In ideological terms, the Croatian project was at the intersection of several different strands of thinking within the mainstream Croat national ideology that have in common territorial claims on Bosnia and Herzegovina and consider Bosnian Muslims either as lost brothers to be redeemed or the eternal enemy representing the Asiatic other.

The decision to recognize BiH was spelled out clearly in a letter sent to Alija Izetbegovic, President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and signed by his Croatian counterpart Tudman on April 7, 1992. The letter stated that the Republic of Croatia recognizes--rather than under its constitutional name of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav socialist republic--BiH as "the community of three constituent peoples," simultaneously seeking guarantees for "the sovereign rights of the Croat people" and includes an offer of Croatian citizenship to members of the Croat community in BiH. (8)

Throughout his political career, Tudman maintained that a sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina was not an acceptable "solution for the Croat people" because it "was created by the colonial conquest of an Asiatic power (...) from the 15th to 18th centuries, at the expense of Croat people, at the expense of Croat territory." (9) Elsewhere, Tudman further elaborated his position on BiH and its Muslims: "Personally, as a man who has thought of history, [I] never had illusions as far as Muslims are concerned and their relationship to Croatdom, because I knew that Croats fought Muslims for three centuries, not Turks, but Muslims from Bosnia and that they pushed Croatia to the verge of doom (...) No politician, Radic, Macek or Pavelic, and now me, have managed to establish a working relationship with Muslims." (10) He said this in a meeting with a delegation of Bosnian Croats trapped in the besieged Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in December 1993.

In fact, Tudman was echoing two different strands in the Croat national tradition: one that considered the Bosnian Muslim population the enemy of Christendom and therefore Croats as its shield bearers, and the other of Muslims as a part of the Croat nation that needed to be redeemed and emancipated. In Hajdarpasic's words, Bosnian Muslims played within both Serb and Croat national imagery the "liminal figure (...) that could appear both as a fanatical, relentless oppressor and a strayed but redeemable co-national." (11)

In unpacking Tudman's statements--some of them meticulously recorded in closed meetings with the leadership of the Republic of Croatia and separatist leadership of Bosnian Croats, as well as in his pre-war publications (12)--it is important to understand two related concepts. One is antemurale Christianitatis--the notion that Croatia is the shield and bulwark of Christianity and Europe--and the other that of "nesting Orientalisms," elaborated by Milica Bakic-Hayden.

Bakic-Hayden places "nesting Orientalisms" (13) within the context of appropriation and manipulation of the designation of the "other" in former Yugoslavia: "Thus, while Europe as a whole has disparaged not only the orient 'proper' but also the parts of Europe that were under oriental Ottoman rule, Yugoslavs who reside in areas that were formerly...