SARAJEVO, ZAGREB, 01. NOV. 2016 – Relations between the two countries face a new challenge as Croatian and Bosnian Croat officials expressed concerns after ten Bosnian Croat ex-fighters were arrested for alleged war crimes against Serbs, BIRN reported. The Croatian Foreign Ministry and the local government of Posavina canton in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the alleged war crimes were committed, have expressed serious concerns about the arrest of ten former Bosnian Croat fighters. Bosnian Croat war veterans’ associations also strongly condemned the arrests, insisting that during the 1992-95 conflict, Bosnian Croats were fighting a defensive struggle, and claiming that the arrests were aimed at intimidating Croats in the country. The former Croatian Defence Council fighters were arrested on Monday on suspicion that they committed crimes against Serbs from April 1992 to July 1993 in Orasje, a Croat-dominated town in the Posavina canton in northern Bosnia. Those arrested included Djuro Matuzovic, a retired Croatian Defence Council general, as well as Marko Dominkovic, also a senior member of Croatian Defence Council during the war and a former deputy director of the Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA. After the police operation, the Croatian Foreign Ministry urged the Croatian ambassador in Bosnia, Ivan del Vechio, to request detailed information about the arrests and to try to meet the ten suspects, who also have Croatian citizenship. Croatian officials told BIRN that regardless of the presumed legal validity of the arrests, their timing – coming right after first official visit by the new Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to Bosnia, and just before the Catholic holiday of All Saints’ Day – was unfortunate. They said this could undermine the improvement of relations between the two countries after Plenkovic’s visit. The Posavina cantonal government also criticised the operation’s timing. “The [Posavina cantonal] government believes that the moment at which the activities of SIPA and the prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina took place was inappropriate, bearing in mind the approaching Catholic holiday of All Saints’ Day,” it said in a statement. Croatian media reported further disquiet about the police operation. “[Bosnian Croat veterans’] Association: ‘The arrest is threatening citizens of Orasje, which contributes to [their] further emigration,’” reported Croatian newspaper Vecernji List. Other Croatian and Bosnian Croat media carried similar reports, some of them calling for an urgent meeting of the Croatian parliament to address the situation. Relations between Bosnia and Croatia have been increasingly tense in recent months due to internal political turmoil in both countries, as well as Zagreb’s implicit support for Bosnian Croat calls for a third, Croat-dominated political entity in the country.
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