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In 1991, Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević had a series of discussions which became known as the Karađorđevo agreement or Karađorđevo meeting. These discussions commenced as early as March, 1991. They involved the redistribution of territories in the ex-Yugoslav republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia, in that territories with either Croatian or Serbian majority (or plurality) would be annexed. This meeting did not include the largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims).

Background

The first meeting was held in Karađorđevo, Vojvodina, Serbia in March, 1991 and was covered in the press. At the time the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia still existed, on June 25, 1991 Slovenia would declare independence and fight a brief, Ten-Day War sparking the disintegration of Yugoslavia. A second meeting was held in Tikveš at the end of April, 1991.

The policies of the Republic of Croatia and its leader Franjo Tuđman towards Bosnia and Herzegovina were never completely transparent, but always included Franjo Tuđman’s ultimate aim of expanding Croatia’s borders. Franjo Tuđman and the Croatian government have denied this agreement on numerous occasions stating that in 1991 the Serbs controlled all of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian rebellion in Croatia during the Croatian war of independence was just beginning.

ICTY

It is stated in an amended indictment (Prlic et al. case) by the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), that at a meeting with his closest advisers and a group of Croat nationalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franjo Tuđman declared that "It is time that we take the opportunity to gather the Croatian people inside the widest possible borders." pointing out the opportunity to expand Croatia's border at the expense of Bosnia and Herzegovina's territory. The amended indictment goes further to say:

"to about April 1994 and thereafter, various persons established and participated in a joint criminal enterprise to politically and militarily subjugate, permanently remove and ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats who lived in areas on the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were claimed to be part of the Croatian Community and later Republic of Herceg-Bosna; and to join these areas as part of a 'Greater Croatia' whether in the short term or over time and whether as part of the Republic of Croatia or in close association with it by force, fear or threat of force, persecution, imprisonment and detention, forcible transfer and deportation, appropriation and destruction of property, and other means which constituted or involved the commission of crimes which are punishable under Articles 2, 3, and 5 of the Tribunal Statute. The territorial ambition of the joint criminal enterprise was to establish a Croatian territory with the borders of the Croatian Banovina, a territorial entity that existed from 1939 to 1941. It was part of the joint criminal enterprise to engineer the political and ethnic map of these areas so that they would be Croat dominated both politically and demographically."

The Prosecution submitted that part of the Greater Croatia-Herceg-Bosna program had at least three important goals.

"First, it was clear to probably anyone who looked at it with any sort of intellectual objectivity that some municipalities and areas claimed by Herceg-Bosna were more Croat than others and with some of the areas on the fringes more toward the east, more towards Central Bosnia not having a strong Croat majority or even plurality. As a second reason, as a matter of political, military, and economic practicalities and part of the ultimate what I will call horse trading with the Serbs and the Muslims, Tudjman and the Herceg-Bosna leaders recognised that they might have to give up or trade away some of the areas furthest from the core Banovina territory. Third and equally important and as already mentioned, relocating Croats from other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and moving them into houses and flats which had been seized from or abandoned by Muslim families or Muslim families which have been expelled would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the Muslims to return to those areas, their houses having been taken over by Croats."

As the indictment regards not just Franjo Tudjman, but also other key figures from the Republic of Croatia (Gojko Šušak, former Minister of Defence and Janko Bobetko senior General) as participants in the joint criminal enterprise, the government of the Republic of Croatia in 2006, filed the motion to be allowed to participate in the trial as the amicus curiae in order to "assist in the interpretation of historical and political facts and the determination of truth". The ICTY dismissed Croatia’s motion to appear as amicus curiae in the case, concluding that "it would not be in the interests of justice to allow a state – whose former political and military officials are named in the indictment as the participants in the joint criminal enterprise – to participate in the proceedings as the amicus curiae."

Testimonies

Croat politicians who worked with Franjo Tuđman such as counselors Dušan Bilandžić and Hrvoje Šarinić, and former prime minister of Croatia Stjepan Mesić have confirmed the story. Many other high-ranking Croatian politicians also testified in ICTY confirming the story, such as former prime minister of SFRY Ante Marković. Furthermore, American and British politicians such as US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann, ambassador Herbert Okun (a US veteran diplomat), and lord Paddy Ashdown also confirmed the story.

Counselors

Dušan Bilandžić, a counselor of Franjo Tuđman participated at the meeting and published a book claiming that "the essence of meeting was the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina".

In a court testimony Hrvoje Šarinić, counselor of Franjo Tuđman for foreign affairs, who was present during the negotiations denied several times the existence of any agreement about the division of the Bosnia and Herzegovina with Milošević.

Stjepan Mesić

When Stjepan Mesić became the president of Croatia after the death of Tuđman, he testified in ICTY about existence of a plan to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina into three parts, between Serbs and Croats and a small Bosniak state. Stjepan Mesić claims he was the one who organized the meetings. Mesić also revealed transcripts recorded by Franjo Tuđman about his plan in the case against Croat leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina for war crimes committed against Bosniaks. Mesić held Milosević responsible for creating a Greater Serbia "on the ruins of the Former Yugoslavia".

When asked if "Tuđman's view was that Bosnia was a mistake and that it was a mistake to make it as a republic after the Second World War and that it should be annexed to Croatia", Mesić responded "Those were his ideas, that Bosnia was supposed to belong to Croatia on the basis of a decision that should have been adopted by AVNOJ."

Ante Marković

Ante Marković, the last Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, broke his 12-year long silence and at the trial of Slobodan Milošević stated: "I was informed about the subject of their discussion in Karađorđevo, at which Milošević and Tuđman agreed to divide Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia, and to remove me because I was in their way." ... "They both confirmed that they had agreed on dividing Bosnia-Herzegovina. Milošević admitted this immediately, while Tuđman took more time", replied Ante Marković when questioned by chief prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.

According to Marković, both Tuđman and Milošević thought that Bosnia and Herzegovina was an artificial creation and the Bosniaks an invented nation, because in Tuđman’s view they were "converted Catholics" and in Milošević’s "converted Orthodox". Since the Serbs and the Croats combined constituted a majority, the two also believed that the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina would not cause a war and conceived an enclave for the Bosniaks. Support from Europe was expected as they did not have the desire of having a Muslim state. Tuđman also told him that history would repeat itself in that Bosnia and Herzegovina would again fall "with a whisper".

Marković declared that he warned both leaders that it would result in the transformation of Bosnia into a Palestine. He told this to the Bosniak leader Alija Izetbegović, who gave him secretly made tapes of conversations between Milošević and Radovan Karadžić, discussing JNA support of the Bosnian Serbs, he went on to say that Milošević was "obviously striving to create a Greater Serbia. He said one thing and did another. He said that he was fighting for Yugoslavia, while it was clear that he was fighting for a Greater Serbia, even though he never said so personally to me."

Warren Zimmerman

According to the testimony of Warren Zimmerman, Franjo Tuđman claimed that Bosnia and Herzegovina should be divided between the Croats and the Serbs. "Tuđman admitted that he discussed these fantasies with Milosevic, the Yugoslav Army leadership and the Bosnian Serbs," writes Zimmerman, "and they agreed that the only solution is to divide up Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia".

Zimmerman also testified about Tuđman's fears of an "Islamic fundamentalist state" who referred to Izetbegović (who wrote the Islamic Declaration in which Bosnia is not mentioned) as a "fundamentalist front man for Turkey" and accused them of "conspiring to create a Greater Bosnia" by "flooding Bosnia with 500,000 Turks".

Herbert Okun

Herbert Okun was the deputy of Cyrus Vance, UN special envoy to the Balkans. In this capacity, he attended a number of meetings where the division of Bosnia Herzegovina was discussed. As Okun described it, the aspirations of Croatia and Serbia for the annexation of parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina became evident after Tuđman and Milošević met in Karađorđevo in March 1991 and after the meeting of Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić in May 1992 in Graz. Neither party kept their plans for the creation of separate states within Bosnia-Herzegovina and their annexation to Serbia and Croatia secret at their subsequent meetings with international diplomats.

Paddy Ashdown

The leader of the British Liberal party Paddy Ashdown asked Franjo Tuđman how he viewed Bosnia and Herzegovina in ten years at a London dinner in 1995. Tuđman reportedly sketched a map of a Bosnia and Herzegovina divided between Croatia and Serbia on a napkin. Ashdown told the story before the International Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague in the trial of Bosnian Croat general, Tihomir Blaškić.

Graz agreement

The Graz agreement was a pact signed between Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban on April 27, 1992 in the town of Graz, Austria, during a period when Serbian forces controlled 70% of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The treaty was meant to limit conflict between Serb and Croat forces and put them closer to annexation of territory under Croat and Serb control. The Graz agreement was seen as a sequel to the Karađorđevo agreement. In between the newly expanded Croatia and Serbia would be a small Bosniak buffer state, pejoratively called "Alija's Pashaluk" by Croatian and Serbian leadership, after Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović.

References

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36. http://books.google.com/books?id=wXooH0vZVd4C&pg=PA47
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38. http://books.google.com/books?id=wXooH0vZVd4C&pg=PA49
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42. Pessimism Is Overshadowing Hope In Effort to End Yugoslav Fighting
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• Bosnian War
• Croatian War of Independence
• Croatian nationalism
• Serbian nationalism