Bosnian Croat opposition party slams HDZ BiH as pro-Serb

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If the incumbent Croat member of the Presidency is re-elected in October, the country will fall apart as he has colluded with the Serbs in trying to divide it so that Croats get their own mini-entity. But once they get it, they will flee from it, a Bosnian Croat opposition party said.

Dragan Covic, the President of the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), the Bosnian Croat most influential party, has been advocating a separate entity for Croat in Bosnia for decades.

The country is currently divided in two entities, one dominated by the Serbs, the other shared by Bosniaks and Croats.

Covic would like to see the second one divided among Bosniaks and Croats and his idea is supported by the Serbs, The Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) in Bosnia said in a press statement, adding that this kind of policy was “pro-Serb” and leads toward an exodus of Croats from Bosnia.

Covic has announced a post-election coalition with Milorad Dodik, the President of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity.

According to the HSP, Covic is in collusion with both Dodik and Serbia’s President, Aleksandar Vucic. The party said that together they are trying to block any integration projects at Bosnia’s state level and weaken the Bosniak-Croat entity, the Federation (FBiH), to show that the country’s system is not functional – a claim Bosnian Serbs have been repeating since the 1992-95 war ended.

In return, Covic was promised a “mini entity,” the party said.

“Covic’s politics have brought on the post-war exodus of 200,000 Croats from Bosnia to Croatia and other European countries, and if these pro-Serb politics continue, it will cause Croats to get the status of a national minority in Bosnia,” the HSP said, adding that should Croats in the country lose their status as constitutional peoples, they will not have the possibility to negotiate on their promised “virtual entity”.

The HSP called Serb politics “hypocritical”, as through Covic they are making sure Serbs get full constitutional rights in Croat-dominated areas but deny those right to Croats in Serb-dominated areas, the statement said.

“The answer is simple. Dodik is using Covic to cause disagreement between Bosniaks and Croats in FBiH and he is asking for constitutional rights for Serbs in Croat-dominated cantons so that they then can prevent the creation of the ‘Croat entity’ by invoking vital national interest,” the HSP said.

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