History

After World War II, Fikret Abdić grew up in his native region. The area was otherwise quite poor, not well developed and completely unindustrialized. Immediately after the Second World War, this region was also the scene of the so-called Cazin Rebellion. After completing his studies in agronomy, Abdić, as a relatively young engineer, became the director of the Agricultural Cooperative Agrokomerc in Velika Kladuša. By raising the small agricultural cooperative into a modern food combine which employed over 13,000 workers, the economy of the entire area was boosted and living standards improved, in a region previously unindustrialized and underdeveloped. Agrokomerc transformed Velika Kladuša from a poverty-struck region to a regional powerhouse. Agrocomerc became recognizable countrywide utilizing advertising and marketing extremely skillfully, to the point that Agrokomerc's mascot, a chef with a tall white cap, was as ubiquitous as Vučko or Zagi (the 14th Summer Universiade's mascot). Tops biscuits, Agrokomerc's main product (a copy of the Jaffa Cakes), almost pushed its more famous predecessor off the market, in SR Bosnia and Herzegovina. Local residents of Velika Kladuša reportedly called him Babo (Father). He ran the company with strong political backing from influential politician Hamdija Pozderac and his brother, Hakija Pozderac, utilizing combined socialist and capitalist methods. In late 1987, just before the death of Hamdija Pozderac, Raif Dizdarević was about to take over the annual Presidency of Yugoslavia, during which a scandal arose. Abdić found himself prosecuted for "counter-revolutionary acts endangering the social order of the SFRY " under Article 114 of the Criminal Code of the SFRY and eventually imprisoned for alleged financial improprieties and Hamdija Pozderac resigned. The scandal shook not only the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the whole of Yugoslavia.

Agrokomerc & the Pozderci 

These people drew conclusions based on the writings of the media and a series of untruths that were published in the media, at least as far as Abdić is concerned. This is how it became common to write, according to which, by joining the SDA, Abdić hurt Pozderci so badly that they never forgave him. It is often repeated that the people of Pozderci expected him to form a civic and even a Muslim party, but they could not forgive Abdić for joining the SDA. It is true that he has always been closer to a civil option than to an explicitly Muslim party with a strong emphasis on religion. However, it is also true that Abdić has always taken into account the commitment and wishes of our people in his actions. In the period after the Agrokomerc scandal and the beginnings of the creation of multiple parties in BiH, Hakija Pozderac had very little contact with people on the ground, especially Muslims. Since the beginning of the affair, Abdić had been in prison with numerous associates. Hakija Pozderac was also imprisoned, and Hamdija was asked to resign and retire. They promised him that they would release Hakija and Abdić from prison when he retires and resigns, and he did. However, the naive and honest Hamdija had no idea what kind of game they had set up for him and his heart could not withstand it. Hamdija Pozderac died on April 6, 1988, and Hakija, who knew who was breathing in West Bosnia until the Agrokomerc affair, was so shaken by the affair that he practically stopped coming among people and contacting people on the ground. If Abdić had to rank the amount of love, dedication to Western Bosnia and conviction that Western Bosnia can and must do better, then Hakija Pozderac was in first place. Behind him was Abdić's brother Hasan Abdić, then Hamdija Pozderac and his brother Sakib Pozderac, who is a general. Abdić said he would put his self in that group at the very end because he was younger than them and more focused on economic topics and jobs. Because of this and for a number of reasons, he loved and appreciated the Pozderci brothers extremely, but Hakija and Hamdija were still the closest to Abdić. That's why he had problems when, on October 1993, Božidar Darko Šicel, Mujo Osmankić and Abdić flew to Belgrade for negotiations with Radovan Karadžić and Slobodan Milošević. Abdić asked Darko Šicel to definitely include a visit to Hakija Pozderac in the program. He reacted violently, warning him that Milošević did not like Hakija and wanted to talk Abdić out of that idea. Abdić told him that Hakija was his friend and that he was sick, and that Milošević, as a good host, would respect his wish to meet with Hakija. After Abdić requested that they be allowed to meet with Hakija, Milosevic asked if Abdić wanted to visit anyone else.

Abdić certainly wanted to see Miroslav Marjanović, the Prime Minister of Serbia because Hakija introduced Abdić to him when he was the General Director of Progres. Marjanović took care of the supply of Hakija because at that time there was a general shortage in Belgrade. When they arrived with Hakija, the first thing they told them was that Muslims should not go to war with each other. Abdić respected his wish (or request!?) he thought to himself and after Abdić's return he really insisted on peace. Precisely because of this focus on economic issues and the development and renewal of Agrokomerc, Abdić was at that time very intensively in contact with a huge number of people, and many, especially Muslims, clearly and unequivocally let him know that it is very important for them to have such a party that they will feel like their own and which one they will trust. Feeling for the people, Abdić took care not to disappoint those  people and that is the main reason why he made the decision just before the start of the big SDA meeting in Velika Kladuša in September 1990. Thousands of people at that time were happier that he joined the SDA than if he had built two or more new factories or farms. Such were the times and those who did not feel the mood and wishes of the people fell out of the current political combinations.

Alija Izetbegović has told Abdić on several occasions that he doesn't like the Pozderci, and the real truth is that he couldn't come up with a reason. He saw them - as part of the then leadership of BiH and Yugoslavia - as directly responsible for the five years of imprisonment he served after the trial for the Islamic Declaration. This is where one of the main character traits is hidden, which makes Alija and Abdić two worlds and completely different people. Alija did not want or wanted to negotiate, he tried to solve everything by force or cunning, not to say fraud. In such plans, he had no remorse as a believer and as a man deeply devoted to religion and religious topics. Even though Abdić served 11 years on the basis of the indictment, which was largely designed by Alija and negotiated with the Croatian authorities, and he served the full 15 years Abdić was sentenced to on parole (which was harder for him than prison!) Abdić does not feel that bitterness, so that is not an obstacle for him to sit down and talk with Alija's son, Bakir Izetbegović, today one of the three collective heads of state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because of this character of Abdić's, at the beginning of the cooperation Abdić persistently wanted Alija to understand who the Pozderci are and how important they are for the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially for Western Bosnia. No matter how much the thesis was circulating in the public that immediately after the end of the elections and after Alija assumed the position of the first man of the Presidency, the reckoning with him began - that does not correspond to the truth. Abdić - for which he is still very sorry and guilty as a human being - did not go to Hamdija's grave for two full years so that Alija would not interpret it as a move directed against him personally. Abdić thinks that there is no need to repeat once again the well-known fact that the area of Western Bosnia is one of the most densely populated areas on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a predominantly Muslim population. Precisely because of this fact, many people visited Western Bosnia and persuaded people to opt for the SDA because it is a sure dam that what SK, or as they said - the communists - did to Agrokomerc will never happen again. Practically, there are many emissaries, and Abdić will mention only a few: Šemso Tanković from Bosanski Novi and a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, Salem Šabić (a native of Gračanica, known because he sewed for Tuđman as a tailor), Ibrahim Ružnić (from Šturlić, professor at Rijeka, founded the SDA in Rijeka and in the area of today's PGŽ), Nadarević (born in Pjanić, Cazin municipality, but lives in Zadar), SDA activist, Šefko Omerbašić (born in Goražde, chief imam of the Zagreb mosque), Mirsad Srebreniković from the Islamic community in In Croatia, an agile activist of the SDA, and even people like Mika Tripala, Vlado Gotovac and Ivo Banca contacted Adil Zulfikarpašić and convinced him that cooperation with the SDA was necessary and that partial interests should be forgotten for the sake of BiH interests. The activity of most of those people and many others was based on the story of how Agrokomerc was created and built and how much damage was caused when the communists decided to destroy Agrokomerc by starting the Agrokomerc affair, and how something like that simply will not be possible when the SDA came to power for a moment. The comparison between Agrokomerc and Yugoslavia is interesting. If they wanted to destroy Agrokomerc as a kind of symbol of Yugoslavia, then the fact is that Agrokomerc survived the collapse of Yugoslavia and outlived the country in which it was created. It is also a sign of the vitality of this large economic complex, which, even in such a destroyed state, has the potential to rebuild and once again take over the driving force of the development of the entire area of Western Bosnia, as well as beyond.

Key people in Agrokomerc's affair

When the fate of Agrokomerc is followed from the beginning of the exchange affair until today, it is evident that some people appear both in the former Yugoslavia and in the Republic of BiH as those who do everything to destroy Agrokomerc and prove that Abdić is the one who is to blame for the collapse of Agrokomerc and the misfortune of the people who worked at Agrokomerc. The two key people who founded the SDA in Velika Kladuša - Mirsad Veladžić and Mehmed Jušić - were also key people in the so-called exchange affair.

At the same time as the drama unfolded with the accusation against Agrokomerc Vienna, Alija sent his trusted people to the area of Velika Kladuša. Velika Kladuša is taken over, according to Alija's decision and will, because it was never discussed by the BiH Presidency, by Mirsad Veladžić, a man of great confidence in Alija, who to this day tries to cheer up and dress up not only in Velika Kladuša, but in the entire area of Western Bosnia. Many do not know that Veladžić was once the president of the Workers' Council of Agrokomerc. The younger generation should be reminded that the presidents of the workers' councils in the former state were people with great influence and that their word in decision-making was not at all unimportant. It is clear that Abdić already knew at that time that he was a trustworthy person and that he worked for the State Security Service and that on their orders (because they operationally initiated the Agrokomerc affair) he supported the activities initiated by the Agrokomerc affair. He justified the fact that he often visited the premises of the SDB by the fact that, as a believer, he was often invited to interviews in the Service. Of course, it was only a cover and an excuse that as a secret member and informer, and a trusted man of that Service, he comes and receives assignments, but also reports to his employers in the SDB. Alija found such and such a man in Velika Kladuša and gave him special powers and tasks. Then, therefore, they worked for the SDB and were their main exponents, working according to the directives of the then powerful man, Duško Zgonjanin (then republican secretary of the SUP of the SR BiH, which today corresponds to the function of the minister of interior affairs)

It is interesting to recall that it was Zgonjanin who was one of the most persistent policemen who tried to find illegal actions in the Agrokomerc affair. For example, he launched a very extensive investigation into all possible circumstances why we export chickens to Egypt and Qatar via Maribor and Graz, and at the same time export chickens via Osijek, claiming that the Egyptians could have organized it themselves, and not that we do the whole job. The fact that the chickens were going via Osijek for the needs of Lohman (one of the largest companies for breeding coca-layers; from whom we initially learned!) meant nothing to Zgonjanin, because he had no idea about all this. There was similar behavior regarding the export of iron from Željezara Zenica, which went to third countries via Libya and Egypt. Explaining international trade transactions to these people was a waste of time, because not only did they not know anything about it, but they also did not accept the application of normal norms in such business in international trade. If Abdić decided to write a book about Agrokomerc, he would write much more extensively and in detail about these topics, so that readers will be able to gain a more complete insight into this segment of the destruction of Agrokomerc. Zgonjanin's ignorance of economic affairs and determination to prove the guilt of Agrokomerc and Abdić caused enormous damage to Agrokomerc and it is a real injustice that such a man was not held accountable for it. One of Duško Zgonjanin's main assistants was Smajo Jušić, Mehmed's son, the man who prepared the team from Agrokomerc and Velika Kladuša in the so-called exchange affair. It is interesting that none of these people, after Abdić's release from prison in Bihać in 1989, appeared again at Agrokomerc. Mirsad Veladžić is the only one who tried in every possible way, with Alija's help, to assume a dominant role in the entire area of Western Bosnia, including in Velika Kladuša.

The extent of Veladžić's and Jušić's power and how immoral they were is best illustrated by the fact that at the time of the exchange scandal, they brought a hard-working and professional man, a professor at the Faculty of Agriculture in Sarajevo, Mr. Osman Pirija, to head Agrokomerc. To be quite precise: the Executive Council of the Assembly of the SR BiH (August 3, 1988) on the basis of the conclusion of the Assembly of the SR BiH (from July 29, 1988) issues a Decision which states: "In order to implement the conclusions of the Assembly of the SR BiH on remediation of the consequences caused by the affair "Agrokomerc" from July 29, 1988 are temporarily referred to SOUR "Agrokomerc" 1) Osman Pirija, professor of the Faculty of Agriculture in Sarajevo; 2) Dr. Dmitar Varenika, professor of the Veterinary Faculty in Sarajevo; 3) Dr. Boris Tihi, professor at the Faculty of Economics in Sarajevo." Describing their task, it is stated that "together with the temporary Management Board of SOUR "Agrokomerc" and the temporary management of work organizations, they determine the content, time and method of providing their professional assistance in organizing production..." and that "within 10 days, they submit a report to the Executive Council of the SR BiH Assembly". They determine "the difference in personal income in the amount between the personal income they earn in the collective labor organization in which they work and the personal income they would earn while working in SOUR "Agrokomerc", depending on the time spent at work, with the fact that the total personal income cannot be less than 1,000,000 dinars per month". (After getting out of prison in 1989 and taking over Agrokomerc, Abdić and all the people who started the reconstruction of Agrokomerc went on a guaranteed personal income of DM 100.) Not long after he was appointed to the position of director of Agrokomerc, Osman Pirija, submitting his resignation to the authorities of the management of Agrokomerc, clearly stated that he was not appointed by the Government, the Central Committee or anyone else, but by Veladžić and Jušić, and that he was submitting his resignation to them. This shows how smart a man Mr. Pirija was. It was clear to him that this duo of SDB members influenced the Executive Council of the SR BiH Assembly to appoint the three of them to the management of SOUR Agrokomerc. Osman Pirija, as a respected professor of the Faculty of Agriculture in Sarajevo, did a great job by estimating the value of Agrokomerc at much higher amounts than those for which the whole affair was started.

When we talk about the continuity of attacks on Abdić and Agrokomerc, I want to point out some strange coincidences that hardly anyone takes into account (and very few people know about it!). At the time when Abdić was released from prison in 1989, the head of the SK BiH was Nijaz Duraković, born in Stolac. At that time, Imam Hasan Čengić was in Stolac, and Nijaz was his mentor for his master's thesis at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo. Mirsad Veladžić, as an associate of SDB and an employee of Agrokomerc (at one time also president of the Workers' Council of Agrokomerc), married the sister of Hasan Čengić and the daughter of Halid Čengić from Ustikolina.

Čengići are Alija Izetbegović's closest collaborators and people who significantly influenced his decision-making. From Abdić's communist persecutors, symbolized by Nijaz Duraković, the then president of the SK BiH, to Alija and Čengić from the SDA, nothing much has changed, except that there are numerous family or other connections among these persecutors, while belonging to the secret services and informants' past are not at all negligible. Abdić thinks that the connection between the secret services of former Yugoslavia and today's secret services in BiH and other countries created after the breakup of Yugoslavia is so strong that it connects people of different worldviews and political affiliations in a strange and somewhat inscrutable way. Not wanting to state anything categorically, Abdić just wanted to mention that in a series of books he is called a KOS man and it is persistently claimed that this is so. There is even an attempt to prove that KOS planned far-reaching to engage him in the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so it is stated that Agrokomerc was able to operate successfully only because it supplied the JNA. The fact is that in the total income of the last years before the Agrokomerc scandal, the share of business with JNA does not exceed one percent of total income (more precisely, from 0.3 to 0.5 percent). In this sense, such accusations about his belonging to KOS and about how KOS prepared him years before to deal with Muslims definitely fall away and are completely unfounded and ridiculous.

On February 28, 2006, Tjednik Nacional published a list of 1,789 KOS agents in Croatia. Among them, "Izetbegović Alija, President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, engaged in prison by Musić Rešid, a member of the SDB BiH" is also on the list under serial number 610 (p. 16). At the time when Alija was serving his sentence, Musić Rešid was the deputy of the republican secretary for internal affairs, Duško Zgonjanin, in charge of secret services, so the explanation that Musić initiated him as an associate of KOS seems very logical and convincing. Considering how many people accused Abdić of being an agent and collaborator of the KOS, it is strange that he is not on the above list, but this refutes many authors who persistently accuse him of cooperation with the KOS, as well as the top of the JNA, which led an aggressive and warmongering policy against not only BiH but also against neighboring Croatia and other former Yugoslav republics.

Affair Agrokomerc - Vienna

So, it started with Alija promising Abdić that after winning the SDA elections, he would do everything to correct the injustices inflicted on Agrokomerc in the so-called exchange affair and that they would abolish the SDB, which staged and organized the whole affair. None of those promises. In fact, quite the opposite. Thus, in the information from September 1992 sent to the BiH Presidency, Abdić requested that the money that was paid out through Agrokomerc Vienna in the name of salaries to members of the 5th Corps and families of (deceased) soldiers who have no means of subsistence be refunded as soon as possible (a total of DM 4,060 million). He especially emphasized that by refunding these costs, the payment of salaries and other benefits for the eighth and ninth months would be significantly facilitated, and that this would further strengthen the morale of the units of the 5th Corps and the families of the soldiers. It is less known; the commanders of the 5th Corps never spoke about it. Some of the fighters wanted to leave the front line because they did not receive any compensation, and their families were starving. Of course, there is no answer to these requests, but the fact that one company could pay such a sum of money gave Alija and his followers the idea to extract as much money as possible from Agrokomerc Vienna and thus gradually destroy both Agrokomerc and Abdić. As early as January 4, 1993, a man came to the main police headquarters in Vienna and filed an anonymous complaint against Abdić and Agrokomerc on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina, accusing us of smuggling humanitarian aid and weapons. It is evident from the court file that an anonymous person comes to the police in Vienna again on January 12 and supplements the report on arms smuggling and embezzlement of humanitarian aid. It is probably difficult to find two worse, more serious accusations than these in any democratic country in Europe. An investigation begins that lasts a full eight years (in the end, all the accusations from the anonymous report are dismissed). The meticulous Austrian police are warning all commercial banks in Europe not to do business with Abdić because he was under investigation for embezzlement of humanitarian aid and arms smuggling. In the court file, there is also a letter from the Viennese court rejecting the accusations, but at that time Abdić was already in prison in Croatia and his son was going to Vienna to collect the document from the police department. The police investigation lasted eight years because it was not clear to the meticulous Austrians that Abdić did not pay a single salary or take a single daily allowance and that he did not have any representation expenses, which further strengthened the suspicions that it was arms smuggling and that they were covering up. This is what the police told Abdić's son when they apologized for taking so long to investigate the allegations. However, during that time, Agrokomerc Vienna duly paid over 60 million DM for goods that were shipped to Velika Kladuša and which were used to the greatest extent by the 5th Corps. Regardless that the charge was dropped, it's a shame the trust in Agrokomerc and Abdić is great and shaken, and that was the goal of Alija's people who submitted the application. Abdić had an indication of who the people are in question, but since it is an anonymous report, the Austrian police have protected the identity of the applicant, so Abdić will not present here the specific two names that most likely did the dirty work.

All the seized documents of Agrokomerc were handed over to the representatives of Agrokomerc, even though Agrokomerc Vienna was founded as a completely private company in the process of internationalizing Agrokomerc in such a way that Abdić personally paid 95% of the required amount in the name of the shareholders of Agrokomerc, 3% in Abdić's name and 2% in the name of Habiba Zukić.

It is evident from the court file that the submission of the application and documentation did not go through the Ministry of Justice, as is usual in legal affairs when dealing with citizens of other countries, but through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which indicates that Haris Silajdžić was also involved in it. Many indications indicate that Alija also directly contacted Alois Mock, the then Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in order to speed up the court process against Abdić and thus turn him into a criminal and smuggler.

It is interesting that Alija's paid accountants do not speak or write about this police investigation in Vienna. It's clear why - apart from the police investigation, nothing was done and all charges were dismissed at the investigation stage, regardless of the fact that the investigation lasted for almost eight years. If the court had even initially prosecuted Abdić, hundreds of pages of the worst accusations and lies would have been written on that topic. It was important to them that the goods that were paid for through Agrokomerc Vienna arrived in Velika Kladuša and in the warehouses, and the 5th corps made sure that the warehouses were emptied very quickly and that Agrokomerc -Vienna was exhausted while the police investigation in Vienna was going on and practically ended up in a kind of bankruptcy. I am not exaggerating when I say that Agrokomerc was perceived as "war booty," which Alija used to pay his faithful followers and henchmen who did everything that was asked of them.

"Babo" 

It is well known how much Alija Izetbegović was bothered Fikret's nickname Babo, which many people used to address him. That's why they tried to call him "Did" in order to gain importance and significance, but the word "Did" is associated with the old and served, while "Babo" sounds potent and in full force. I will show how Alija's fans try to denigrate everything that Alija didn't like and in this way, ingratiate themselves with the Izetbegović family and gain a better position for themselves in Alija's Pantheon. Clearly, the better the position, the better the charm - money, honours, reputation, and the like. The most drastic example is the writing of Fikret Muslimović: "According to my understanding, it was not normal that many call him "Babo". If Fikret Abdić had an ear, he would have addressed the people himself and influenced them not to call him that, because in the Bosniak tradition they know what the word "Babo" means. Without going into the moral aspects of his satisfaction at being called that, it is important to figure out where the initiative for the people to call him "Babo" comes from. Who was the first to think of addressing him like that, and why did it happen? It is not excluded that it happened spontaneously, from the people, because Fikret Abdić was established as a successful businessman, and at the time when people started calling him "Babo" he was under the influence of a big scandal, the so-called "Agrokomerc affair". In that affair, the court proceedings against Fikret Abdić took place, with the epilogue of a two-year prison sentence, which he served for the most part. The escalation of this affair coincided in time with the escalation of Greater Serbian nationalism, the appearance of the "SAN Memorandum" in 1986 and the coming of Milošević to power in Serbia. There are justified thoughts that the Greater Serbian policy since Fikret Abdić planned to build a position through which, in accordance with the ambitions of that policy against Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, it is possible to influence the Bosniak people more significantly in order to passivize them in resistance to that policy or put them at the service of that policy. Bearing in mind the overall conditions in which Fikret Abdić betrayed his people and the homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina, such assessments about the planned guidance of Fikret Abdić through betrayal are realistic, so in connection with this, the origin of the mood in which the people called him " Babo", precisely because the word "Babo" is a morally protected word according to Bosniak tradition, so it is more likely that it was manipulated from the outside, through specific propaganda. Myths are foreign to Bosniak tradition, and the naming of Fikret Abdić "Babo" had mythological overtones. Bearing this in mind, it is likely that this mythological echo came from the Great Serbian environment where myths about leaders are, in some historical circumstances, the dominant content of consciousness from which evil springs. Ignoring the incorrect facts that Muslimović states (much earlier than the Agrokomerc affair started, the people called me Babo!), the acrobatics with which Muslimović performs Fikret's betrayal and serving the realization of the Velikosprudden goals indicated in the Memorandum to SANU are, at the very least, very strange. Muslimović, without any shame or fear, classifies thousands of honest people, Muslims, in the service of the Greater Serbian goals, accusing them of succumbing to politics "from the Greater Serbian environment where myths about leaders in some historical circumstances are the dominant content of consciousness from which evil springs." If it is also from Muslimović, it is too much! However, since he is already so intrigued by the origin of the name Babo, I will explain that as well. With the expansion of Agrokomerc and the increasing number of young people employed at Agrokomerc, people began to talk - "come and contact Babo, he will hire you." And really, when Fikret told them not to call him Babo, many young people answered to him: The Babo who made me have work, gave us all bread and made life possible, and that's why he was our Babo and he will forever remain Babo. And so Abdić remained Babo, and everything else is insinuations and Muslimović's lies that have festered.

The economy of Western Bosnia was, ostensibly, largely reliant on the Agrokomerc company of Velika Kladuša. When proclaiming the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, Abdić, also proclaimed the German mark, the dollar, the franc and the shilling legal tender, he raised the prices of products imported from Croatia and the, gave the employees their salaries in hard currency and in that way closed the circle of the circulation of money. The miracle came true. In Velika Kladuša one could really find everything, as there were no problems with the supply of consumer goods, ready-made clothes and footwear from Croatia, all sorts of different kinds of food from the Republic of Srpska, Belgrade papers in the Cyrillic alphabet, and gasoline, although 4DM per litre, it was available at every gas station.

"We know that the prices of products in Kladuša are much higher than those at which we procure the goods, but this has to be so because production in the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia has ground to a halt owing to the lack of raw-materials. We are living and waging war off those so called war taxes. Nevertheless, the salaries of the employed are such that they can live normally, said Abdić. "Those employed in the police and soldiers get from 100 - 150DM per month, customs officers 150, and those employed in postal services 200 DM. The salaries of the members of the government are not much higher."

Today, after more than twenty years since the end of the war in BiH, far more documents and writings about that period are available than at the time when these events took place. I want to refute here once and for all the frequent claims about how Abdić turned against Alija Izetbegović because he could not get over the fact that Alija became the President of the BiH Presidency. Abdić was neither jealous, nor could he accept the position of President of the BiH Presidency because of the obligations he had towards the devastated and largely collapsed Agrokomerc after the Agrokomerc affair that took place. Even that was controversial.

Hundreds and hundreds of pages have been written about the formation of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, but the real truth has not even been written. The declaration of AP Zapadna Bosnia is reduced exclusively to a direct and very harsh accusation against Fikret Abdić  - it is secession and treason! And the autonomy that we wanted, as a precondition for survival and a more or less normal functioning of life in the area of Velika Kladuša and neighboring municipalities, was at no time neither secession nor betrayal, nor was it secession from the mother state - the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The thesis about secession and treason, and about the fact that it is a Greater Serbian project that was prepared for a long time, stems from the fact that my departure from Sarajevo and departure to Velika Kladuša completely coincided with the departure of Biljana Plavšić and Nikola Koljević and Franjo Boras from Sarajevo and the BiH Presidency . It is true that these three members of the Presidency of BiH left Sarajevo and that they found refuge in the newly established state formations - Republika Srpska and Herceg-Bosnia. In addition, it was convenient to emphasize that, in addition to Serbs and Croats, Muslims also worked against the interests of the new Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is not unimportant to remind that, at least as far as Alija Izetbegović is concerned, the whole process of turning autonomy into secession and treason is also a Greater Serbian, and very often, directly Chetnik project, it was completely normal. Namely, Alija engaged me in the SDA, I organized the largest Muslim rally for him in Kladuša, and after the election it turned out that I was the election winner. When the problem of him being the president of the Presidency was already solved, the problem remained of how to create assumptions that at the time of re-election, after a year, I would be eliminated as the greatest danger and he would be promoted as a leader, who was practically nothing. Funds were not selected for the extension of Alija's mandate as President of the BiH Presidency, so the well-informed Nedžad Latić writes (Sarajevo Armageddon, p. 149): "Among the documents were some types of receipts that he handed over two million German marks to Mate Boban. As Isma (Ismet Hadžiosmanović, op.a.) explained to me, the money given to him personally by Bakir Izetbegović was intended to bribe Boban as the leader of the Croats, so that he would not interfere with Alija Izetbegović remaining president of the Presidency at the moment of the necessary rotation at that function." I found out about all these behind-the-scenes games much later, reading the huge amount of literature that was written about those war days in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As the election winner and a man who could not be bribed with two or two million marks, it was easiest to eliminate me by accusing me of being a traitor and, later, a war criminal, and to promote him in such a way that as president He accused the Presidency as a traitor and secessionist. Therein lies the key to understanding why the autonomy of Western Bosnia, which rested on the internationally agreed project of creating provinces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was declared secession and treason, and why Alija did not hesitate to use the armed forces of the 5th Corps as a striking force that would " Muslim separatism of Western Bosnia in Bosnia and Herzegovina" to break in the beginning, starting an inter-Muslim war.

 "For the past ten years, every May 2nd, the state television and all media under the control of the authorities in BiH commemorate the anniversary of the failed coup d'état that I allegedly tried to carry out on May 2, 1992. This fabrication about my coup attempt was not mentioned until the second half of the 90 years of the last century, when Bosnia and Herzegovina started writing indictments against me as an alleged war criminal, so with the coup d'état thesis, my treacherous character is proven and it is the crowning proof that I am a war criminal. It is absurd that in the indictment that BiH prepared for The Hague in 1996, and which was later delivered to Croatia and served as the basis for the verdict in Karlovac, there is not even a word about the coup attempt. It is incomprehensible that anyone is being accused of an attempted coup after such a lapse of time. This is precisely what speaks best of the character of the authorities in Sarajevo, which took so long to devise how to turn one episode of the Bosnian war nightmare into my alleged coup attempt. In order to get a more complete insight into this so-called coup d'état, I am obliged to describe in more detail and more comprehensively the events that preceded this fictitious coup d'état, which is so necessary that I can be accused of being a war criminal.

After the referendum on Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state, national passions boiled over and the entire spring of 1992 was filled with continuous conflicts and scandals that increasingly show that Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the way to a war that can no longer be avoided. As a member of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I am almost constantly on the ground and in contact with people on the ground. There are a number of articles about this, more or less incorrect, and their main goal is to show and prove that I am good with the aggressors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially with the JNA and the generals, and that exactly where I go to calm the inflamed passions, the Chetniks appear who occupy that territory, and the Muslims either flee or kill them. "...Because wherever he stayed, Serbian fascists would appear the next day" (Halil Puškar, Krajiški pećat, Istanbul 1996, p. 213).

Namely, neither Puškar nor other paid writers against me understand that responsible people who engage in politics have a responsibility to the people who voted for them. That's why my position was clear - it is better to negotiate and agree for days than to go to war and shed blood. As a member of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I was almost constantly on the ground and tried to calm the heated passions that led to war, bloodshed and destruction. At that time, I could not believe that there were people sitting in the Presidency who needed war and that if there had been no aggression against BiH, the head of the BiH Presidency would have found a way to provoke a war. At the end of the day, Alija Izetbegović clearly wrote in the "Islamic Declaration" that there is no state without blood, and he consistently adhered to this statement. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of the "Islamic Declaration" is written "Our motto: Believe and fight." (Islamic declaration, Bosnia, Sarajevo, 1990, p. 1) How many people will die, what nations and religions will be there, how many mothers, wives, sisters, daughters will turn black, that was not even in the mind of the first man of the BiH Presidency . He had a clear vision - to create his own private state in BiH, organized on Islamic principles, and what price the peoples living in BiH would pay for the realization of his vision - that was unimportant. On the other hand, I believed exclusively in conversation and negotiation. Even today, I am convinced that at least an inter-Muslim war could (and had to) be avoided. Alija's determination not to talk to people who did not think like him was such that it did not leave much room for any dialogue, but it created fertile ground for conflict and war. The events at Skokovi during the formation of the Democratic People's Union and preparations for the declaration of autonomy clearly showed that there was a deliberate plan to accuse me and the people who supported me of treason and later of war crimes. And I was convicted the moment the election results were announced. My victory in the first multi-party elections was the first count of the indictment for treason and war crimes. Alija needed the war, among other things, so that he could declare me a war criminal and eliminate me for a long time from the political and every other life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the spring of 1992, therefore, I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina and calmed the raging inter-ethnic tensions that threatened to flare up into a war of unimaginable proportions. I will give the example of Bosanski Brod. Fierce fighting began in Brod in mid-March and the Serbs shelled the town and threatened to destroy the refinery. At the invitation of the director of the Refinery, I come to Bosanski Brod and from the port of the Refinery I call him to come to the Refinery. He replied that there was shooting and that it was dangerous, as if it wasn't dangerous for me. I also call Ejupo Ganić, a member of the BiH Presidency, to come with some other members of the Presidency, but he also replies that it is dangerous. He reached the Derwent and still did not go. Having somewhat calmed down the situation, I returned to Sarajevo and proposed to the Presidency that "we form a mixed commission composed of members of the BiH Presidency, which would go to Bosanski Brod again with General Milutin Kukanjec." Izetbegović did not want or was allowed to go on the field, Biljana Plavšić and Franjo Boras said that once they had had enough of exposing themselves to danger, and "only for me it was not a pity if I died" is written in the mentioned book. 

As it is stated in many articles that I did not negotiate to calm the situation in Bosanski Brod, but that I stayed there to enable the Serbs to take control of both Bosanski Brod and Derventa and that I actually handed over those cities to the Serbs, I remind you that the General Secretary of the Presidency On March 30, 1992, Mile Akmadžić of the SR BiH delivered to all members of the Presidency a letter (number: 02011274/92) in which he wrote that in order to familiarize themselves with the situation, he was "delivering the conclusions of the agreement between the delegations of the Presidency and the Government of the SR BiH with the representatives of the Crisis Staff of the Municipality of Bosanski Brod and to the representatives of the Crisis Staff of the Serbian municipality of Bosanski Brod and to the representatives of the European Community Monitoring Mission." At the end of the letter it is written: "The agreement was concluded in Derventa on March 28, 1992 with the aim of resolving the crisis situation in the area of the municipality of Bosanski Brod."

At the time of those conversations, I met Armin Pohar, who later worked for Alija Izetbegović and the Croatian authorities, but the impression I got about that man at that time has not changed to this day, and his interview, which I partially quote in this book, confirmed it for me. is that he is a man of high moral consistency.

As it is stated in many articles that I did not negotiate to calm the situation in Bosanski Brod, but that I stayed there to enable the Serbs to take control of both Bosanski Brod and Derventa and that I actually handed over those cities to the Serbs, I remind you that the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Slovak Republic On March 30, 1992, Mr. Mile Akmadžić of Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered a letter (number: 02-011-274/92) to all members of the Presidency in which he wrote that in order to familiarize them with the situation, "he is submitting the conclusions of the agreement between the delegations of the Presidency and the Government of the SR BiH with the representatives of the Crisis Staff of the municipality Bosanski Brod and to the representatives of the Crisis Staff of the Serbian municipality of Bosanski Brod and to the representatives of the Monitoring Mission of the European Community." At the end of the letter it is written: "The agreement was concluded in Derventa on March 28, 1992, with the aim of solving the crisis situation in the area of the municipality of Bosanski Brod." At the time of those conversations, I met Armin Pohar, who later worked for Alija Izetbegović and the Croatian authorities, but I have not changed the impression I got about that man even to this day, and his interview, which I have partially quoted above, confirmed to me that we are talking about a man of high moral consistency. (Insert a facsimile of the Conclusion of Agreement dated March 28, 1992)

The situation was similar in Derventa and Bijeljina and elsewhere where conflicts broke out. I was the only one who was not sorry, everyone else thought that their lives and safety were more important than peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is true that I had a reputation (especially as an election winner) and that I was respected by Serbs and Muslims and Croats and the JNA.

The spring of 1992 was extremely turbulent and stormy. So on April 2, we received a report from Bijeljina from the SDA that Muslims were attacked in Bijeljina and that a massacre was imminent. I immediately suggested that we form a three-member commission from members of the Presidency and go to the field. Alija did not go to crisis hotspots, Ganić declared himself a Muslim only when the functions were shared, so it was concluded that Franjo Boras, Biljana Plavšić and I would go. Boras said that he had had enough in Bosanski Brod and that it was the last time he was there where conflicts broke out, and that he would not go to Bijeljina. He obviously hinted that Kljujić should go now, but he didn't say it out loud. Biljana Plavšić also said that she would not go either. Generally speaking, the members of the Presidency were rarely open and direct in their communication with each other. As Biljana Plavšić clearly said that she would not go either, according to that logic then I should not have gone to Bijeljina either. It was decided that Jerko Doko, the Minister of Defense, and Alija Delimustafić, the Minister of the Interior, would go. He said he had some urgent work to do and would come by helicopter. I did not want to use the helicopter because the Presidency refused to pass regulations on the use of helicopters as well as on a number of other benefits for members of the Presidency, so the helicopter and other benefits were used spontaneously and without any order or organization.

When we arrived at the CSB in Tuzla, instead of being greeted by an elaborate itinerary and a clear route, we were greeted by the statement that it is dangerous to go to Bijeljina. I insisted that we go about ten kilometers from Ugljenik, at the Serbian barricade, they stopped us and did not allow us to pass further. I insist that they let us go and ask that they connect us with a certain Janković (in rank, I think, colonel!?) who is supposedly the commander. A major comes to us and begs us not to go any further because he says there is general chaos in Bijeljina - there is no command, there is an entire army of various uniforms and it is not known who is superior to whom and no one can control whether someone will pull the trigger or not. At one point, our car was completely surrounded by the army. There were soldiers in front of us on the road, around the road and behind us, and we really couldn't do anything. At that moment, 70 to 80 well-armed soldiers with bayonets on their rifles made their way to us and asked if we had any weapons. The escort was disarmed, and I never unpacked the official pistol, nor took it out of the desk drawer in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, therefore, it is clear that I never carried or used the weapon that I was tasked with in the formation. Their leader orders us to lie down on the ground and points his guns at us. The entourage and the delegation lie down, and I remain standing. He again orders me to lie down and I answer that I am a member of the BiH Presidency and that he can shoot me, but I will not lie down. After he repeated the order for the third time, I was sure that he did not have a liquidation order. This whole event took quite a long time.

In that tense situation, about which I never spoke publicly because I did not want to jeopardize my negotiating position, at one point a man unknown to me appeared. It turned out that it was Arkan, he salutes me as the president of the country and says that Biljana Plavšić called him when she received the information that we were stopped at the barricades. Arkan apologized and admitted that the command system was not established, that they were trying to establish contact with Janković, so he suggested that we go back and come tomorrow when the command system is established. We returned to the Presidency. Delimustafić avoided that event because he didn't even show up. In the Presidency, Biljana Plavšić and Nikola Koljević apologized to me, stressing that this should not have happened, especially not to me, who is constantly on the ground and in the hot spots of conflicts. I submitted a report at the session of the Presidency and it was agreed that the three-member delegation would leave again tomorrow. Boras refused again, so Biljana Plavšić and I set out on behalf of the BiH Presidency. Arkan met us in front of the Municipality in Bijeljina. That's when the scene happened when Plavšić and Arkan were kissing and I was standing by. In her memoirs, Biljana Plavšić describes it as follows: "Behind the report, he smiled like a child and walked straight towards me, hugged me and kissed me, and I thanked him for listening to me and letting those people go. I was really sincerely grateful to him and I asked him if Arkan was his first or last name. Everyone laughed, but he said neither. He approaches Abdić as an old acquaintance and tells him: you should thank her for freeing you, and Babo says that he would have gotten away without anyone's help." (Biljana Plavšić, Witness, Banja Luka, 2005)

After entering the meeting room, I ask if there are any Muslims there. They answer that there is none because no one responded. I agree to stay at the meeting on the condition that afterwards I invite Muslims via Radio Bijeljina, visit the streets around the city center, visit the wounded in the hospital and visit the families whose members died, which all present accepted.

Very few Muslims came after my call. From the conversation, I understood that a Serb and a Muslim had quarreled in the inn, and I suggested that the SDS and the SDA sit down and find a solution to the dispute, because many citizens have chosen one or the other of the conflicting parties. it can escalate if it does not calm down, and Alija asked for it to be announced that three thousand Muslims were killed in Bijeljina. Later, the mayor of Bijeljina stated that this statement by Alija about three thousand killed in Bijeljina emptied Zvornik of Muslims. This is the problem of the functioning of the SDA, which accepts Alija's evident lie as the truth.
 

The book of Hasan Biščević, my chief of staff in Rijeka, who soon switched to Alija and became a paid writer of books directed against me, is the best testimony to how lies are produced and how they are constantly transmitted and reproduced as truths. Thus, in the book he titled "Abdić's path in betrayal", for example on p. 110, writing about my visits to Bosanski Brod and Bijeljina, states: "All those days and those dubious journeys are veiled by thick dark curtains of his silence". Just a little further, describing how I refuse to lie on the ground in Bijeljina, he concludes: "... so the villainous Major Mauzer was saying something on the Motorola, and then Arkan arrived and they were talking, so the leader of the infamous hordes advised "Baba" to he doesn't show up anymore, because sometimes he can't do anything to them either... And in fact, that's exactly how it happened and Abdić didn't have to get his suit dirty, since there was no real danger." In order to appear persuasive and convince the reader that he is objective, he continues: "Admittedly, it will be difficult for those who went through humiliation and looked into the openings of the pipes pointed at them to believe it, but some of the participants, when everything quieted down, were ready to they see the whole case differently. According to their story, Mauzer's relationship with Arkan was constantly open and it must have been a carefully planned and coordinated action in which the former was supposed to scare Abdić's group and show who was the "boss" in that part of the previously shared Bosnian house. (...) When the "plot" reached its climax, the second Željko Ražnjatović was supposed to appear, in the role of a generous savior with a benevolent advice that, like, sometimes he also can't do anything for them, and that it is best not to appear. Only to know that Bosnia was oppressed by an indomitable force and that Bosnia, in fact, no longer exists".

I have already mentioned that for years around my negotiations in the field, they created a rumor about how I negotiated with the JNA as their man and that after each of my negotiations, some of those cities or municipal towns fell into the hands of the Serbs. The best example of subterfuge and substitution of theses is my intervention and plea to General Nikola Uzelac to get out of prison the then Minister in the Government of the Republic of Croatia Muhamed Zulić (member of the HDZ), Azis Mikić (Vice President of the Muslim Democratic Party for the Republic of Croatia) and Hasan Ćelimović (from the Muslim Democratic Party party of Bosnia and Herzegovina). That day I traveled from Velika Kladuša to Sarajevo and when I arrived at the cabinet I found messages that Hrvoje Šošić and the President of the Republic of Croatia Dr. Franjo Tuđman called me on several occasions, and Alija Izetbegović told me to contact Tuđman urgently. Very quickly I got hold of President Tuđman and he explained to me that these three were arrested under strange circumstances and asked me to get in touch with General Nikola Uzelac, who was the commander of the Banja Luka Corps. I only got hold of General Uzelc in the late afternoon and tried to explain to him what it was all about. He promised to check the whereabouts of these people because he said he had no information that they had been arrested. Late at night he announced that they were already in prison in Knin, that they would be in Banja Luka the day after tomorrow and that we should meet there. He promised that a police car would be waiting for me in Jajce and escort me to Banja Luka. I insisted that we do it right away tomorrow, and in the end General Uzelac said that he was asking for understanding because they had been beaten and that they needed a day or two to recover from the beating.

When I left for Banja Luka, I was met by a militia escort in Jajce, but we didn't go on the main road, but on side roads (via Šipovo and Mrkonjić Grad to Banja Luka). When I complained to Uzelac that we were driving on side roads, the general told me that they had received quite reliable information that an assassination attempt was being planned on me and that it would show how the Serbs had liquidated me and that is why they did not want to risk driving on the main road. 

Minister Zulić and his friends were very frightened. Uzelac said that his trusted man, Muslim, would bring them to Sarajevo in a day or two when they had fully recovered. I came back and asked Husein Ćuk, whose wife is a doctor, to accept them in the apartment and for her to take care of them. After a few days of recovery, Husein Ćuk personally drove them to Zagreb in his car. So, upon the intervention of the two presidents, Tuđman and Izetbegović, I went to General Uzelac to free these three people from the Serbian prison in Knin. In numerous books and writings, my contact with General Uzelac turned into negotiations about Bosanska Krupa, which I allegedly handed over to the Serbs and arranged for the Muslims to move out. No one mentioned the real reason why I went to Uzelac, risking my life. (Uzelac had information that the Muslims wanted to liquidate me.) To make matters worse, it can be freely said today, the trio smuggled weapons, earning large sums of money and when the Serbian caught by the militia, they had no valid explanation of what they were doing and why they were in the territory controlled by the Serbs. That is how I was gradually turned into an associate of the Yugoslav army and Chetniks, and ultimately into a traitor to the Muslim people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In order for the absurdity to be complete, it must be remembered that this same Muhamed Zulić, after about half a year, in the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia during the session, and during the public TV broadcast, asked the question "who gave that Chetnik Fikret Abdić a Croatian passport" from the lectern. The representative of the County House appointed by President Tuđman, Mr. Hrvoje Šošić, answered him, swearing fiercely in front of the microphones and cameras, very vehemently and harshly, emphasizing that I got the passport for my merits, and that it was a shame that I dragged him, Zulić, out of the Serbian prison because it would have been better if the Chetniks had beaten him when he behaved like that towards a man (me, op.a) who risked his life to get him and his associates out of Knin prison. There was a similar situation regarding the water supply to Zadar. President Tuđman asked me to contact Martić in order to provide drinking water to Zadar at least to some extent. I conducted telephone conversations from my office in the building Presidency and everyone knew who I was talking to. I didn't even hide that because then, and today, I thought that the most important thing was to negotiate and avoid conflicts in which innocent people suffer. And one saved human life is worth the effort and negotiation with the enemy. In addition, my office, apparently, was sound-proofed, for which Alija Izetbegović was directly responsible, on whose orders it was done. Those telephone conversations and contacts with leading ex-JNA people were later used as crown evidence that I was constantly in contact with the Chetniks and that I worked for them, and against BIH and its peoples.

When I mention the sound office and the role of the secret services, I want to emphasize that it is still an almost unexplored topic that, due to the nature of the work of the secret services, is not talked about much or at all. But even what has been written so far reveals the enormous scale of the abuses of the secret services. Alija Izetbegović had the need to control everything in which or in whom he did not believe. In the book "State Secret" (Sarajevo, 2003), Semir Halilović states: "In their letter, the members of the SDB wrote that they listened to Fikret Abdić because he acted unconstitutionally, but that there was a solution for that from August 6. 1993 under number 03-150!" (p. 247) At that time I was still a member of the BiH Presidency, so it is much clearer how others were treated who were eavesdropped but were not so highly positioned. However, Semir Halilović clearly indicates in another place that the patron of such work was Alija Izetbegović, so he writes:

 "It is scandalous that Izetbegović reacted the same way in the case of the wiretapping of Ganić and in the case of Silajdžić. He sent word that he knew about it, but that it was unwise to do anything further. Alija simply had two currents within the secret service that did parallel jobs and informed him about them in parallel.

With the difference that Munja Alibabić had his own reach with Alija, beyond which Izetbegović did not want to let him go, and Alispahić had his hands infinitely free for all the dirty work that he did very well." Semir Halilović uses an abundance of documents from the secret services, including his statement "who gave the green light to eavesdrop on President Alija Izetbegović himself?" (p. 231) says a lot about the situation within these services. Without going into the elaboration of this topic, I quote the concluding statement of Semir Halilović: "If Alibabić, Alispahić and Mujezinović will say that they received an order from Alija to listen to everything alive that moves in the state, then a very logical question arises here, who to them, ordered the heads of the secret services to listen to Izetbegović???" 

The tour of the field finally convinced me that it will not be possible to preserve peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina without the intervention of the USA. Therefore, I drafted a letter to the then US President George Bush and suggested to the members of the BiH Presidency that we send that letter as a collective head of state. After much hesitation, on April 20, 1992, the Presidency concluded that there was no reason to send such an alarming letter and left it up to me to send the letter in my name as a member of the Presidency, which I did. The American ambassador in Belgrade at the time, Warren Zimmermann, called me and confirmed by phone that he had received the letter, but that the US would not take any action because it was a letter from a member of the BiH Presidency, not the BiH Presidency as a collective head of state.

Hasan Biščević also writes about this in the book "Caterpillar in the Garden of the Golden Lily", which was published in Rijeka in 1992, while Biščević was still the head of my office in Rijeka, and in another book, "Abdić's Path to Betrayal". Talking about the letter I sent to Bush, and Biščević couldn't even know a lot of the details because he was staying in Rijeka at the time, he writes in the second book: "The most interesting thing, of all things, was this conviction in the American intervention. She confessed from the very beginning, in all unofficial, semi-official and probably in the most official conversations, that the first - in a dramatic and extensive, and only partially quoted in the press letter to George Bush - was openly requested, in mid-May, by a until then pacifist member Presidency of the Republic of Fikret Abdić. After that, the President of the United States of America was approached by many, but only Abdić, at the end of his ambassadorial career in the ruins of Yugoslavia, was called by Voren Zimerman precisely on the occasion of the mentioned letter and - they talked for a long time." (p. 3132)

I am deliberately quoting this part from Biščević's book because later my letter to Bush was ridiculed and some authors even expressed doubt that the letter was ever sent. It is possible that the entire Presidency of the Republic of BiH stood behind this letter and called on the USA to intervene in the crisis that was growing by the hour, so that the situation in BiH would, perhaps, develop a little differently and with less blood and destruction.
 

One of the most bizarre events took place at the end of April 1992. I managed to convene a meeting of the cantonal committees of the SDA, SDS and HDZ in Bihać for April 26. It is also the last meeting of the three main parties in BiH at that level before the start of serious war operations. We had a meeting in the Municipality building and at one point a man from the telephone switchboard came and asked me to answer the phone because there were several thousand people waiting for me in Karlovac who had come from abroad to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was very surprised because I had no information about it. I answered the phone and told the man that I couldn't come right away because I had to travel via Split and Rijeka to Karlovac. Namely, road (and other) connections were already interrupted due to blockades in SAO Krajina and Republika Srpska. After we finished the meeting, I got into the car and headed towards Karlovac. These allegations can be confirmed by the then mayor of Bihać, Nenad Ibrahimpašić, because he sent the children to a relative in Rijeka with me so that they would be safe.
 

When I arrived in Karlovac the next day, there were about three to four thousand people there. They explained to me that they were invited by Šefko Omerbašić and Mustafa Cerić with the consent of Alija Izetbegović, and they invited me because they know that I can take them from Karlovac to their destination in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I explained to them that this was not possible and that they would only cause bloodshed if they crossed the territory controlled by the Serbs. I especially emphasized that there is no need to interrupt their work in order to go defend Bosnia and Herzegovina because we have enough fighters, but there is a lack of equipment, weapons and help with food and all other necessities. Muhamed Zulić and Azis Mikić welcomed me in Karlovac, who were not at all satisfied with my attitude. Someone warned me that these people also had some weapons - a few zols and some bombs and infantry weapons. There was even a rumor that we would be fired upon, however, people accepted my explanation. When I told them that all the roads were closed and a good part was mined, and that with those few guns and rifles they would give the Serbs a reason to kill them, the people dispersed and went back where they came from.

Of course, Zijad Kadić, in the debate at the truncated session of the BiH Assembly (September 29, 1993), when there was an attempt to recall me as a member of the BiH Presidency, used this episode to portray me as a traitor and opponent of the Muslim people, stressing that he had been warned in April 1991 that "the creation of a small state was already hinted at" (From the tape recording of the session of the Assembly of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on September 28 and 29, 1993)

It's amazing how hard paid authors go to prove that armed conflict was inevitable. Huskić writes that the National Defense opened fire, while forgetting that the National Defense was formed only on October 12th, i.e. more than 10 days after Huskić describes the conflict on Johovica. In addition, he locates and dates the conflict to October 1st, and the described event took place on October 3. Simply, the facts are not important when they want to accuse me and the people who supported me. It is important to make the accusation and stick the label of traitor and opponent and then everything is fine. The truth is quite different. The 5th Corps informs us that a military force of about 1,200 soldiers has been raised from the front line towards the Serbs, that the only tank that the 5th Corps had as well as the only Praga was launched and that this military force under the command of Dudaković is moving to Skokovi instead on Johovica. That report from the headquarters of the 5th Corps clearly shows that there were people there who were close to the idea of autonomy, but they were not allowed to say it publicly because of the excessively "democratic" way of functioning of the 5th Corps. The founding assembly of the DNZ was held on October 3rd in the Agrokomerc Food Industry and, after receiving information that the strong military forces of the 5th Corps were moving to Johovica, the people set off in two groups - one towards Johovica, the other towards Skokovi. There were about 20,000 people at the founding assembly, and no one organized or sent those people either to Johovica or Skokovi. People started on their own, spontaneously opposing the repressive measures that were intended to stop the democratic right to form a new political party. At the moment when I was still speaking at the DNZ founding meeting, I heard something about these intentions and at that meeting I publicly invited Alija Izetbegović, Ejup Ganić and Rasim Delic to come to Skokove for talks to democratically agree on ending the blockade and establishing communications as all open problems would begin to be solved. I even said that if they were afraid, they could go to the French battalion, ask for protection and come in their armored vehicles, considering that this was the maximum guarantee of safety. Alija refuses the invitation and replies that he will not come to my feet, as if I am important, not peace and democratic processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Refusing to "come to Velika Kladuša", Alija forgets that in the fall of 1990, he really came to Velika Kladuša, when the largest gathering of Muslims ever held in Bosnia and Herzegovina was organized. After that meeting, he realized that, after I joined the SDA, he would win the elections, so it was not difficult for him to get back on his feet. He told me that I can only talk to the 5th Corps because even then he is planning that the only possible outcome of talks and agreements is an armed conflict.

I thought about what to do and decided, in the interest of peace and agreement, to talk to the command of the 5th Corps. Peace and a peaceful solution to all the accumulated problems was more important than the form of who I was talking to and who was the first to extend a hand of reconciliation and show readiness for negotiations. However, the commander of the 5th Corps, Dreković, following the example of his role model, Alija Izetbegović, also refuses to come to the negotiations. He decides to send one of his assistants from the Corps command, a certain Sejdić. As soon as we sat down to talk, it became clear to me from Sejdić's demeanor and timid appearance that he does not have any authority to negotiate and that the whole thing is just an ordinary farce. For a moment I even thought of giving up on everything and withdrawing, but the thought prevailed that any conversation is better than an armed conflict and we continued the conversation. 

It was agreed that the delegation of the BiH Presidency would come to Velika Kladuš for talks and that all disputes would be resolved peacefully. And the delegation of the BiH Presidency came to Velika Kladuša, consisting of Mustafa Cerić, Rasim Delić and the commander of the 1st Corps of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as the Italian. However, none of the members of the delegation even try to talk to me. Immediately after his arrival, Mustafa Cerić goes to Radio Bihać and accuses me of treason and secession and causing an inter-Muslim war. Muhamed Filipović states in his memoirs that the delegation did not even come to the meeting, but that they only fanned the flames and exacerbated the already tense situation. At that time, Mustafa Cerić, naibu reis, gave an interview to "Ljiljan, the newspaper for free Bosnia and Herzegovina" under the title "Victory or honorable death" in which he clearly states "We have our motto, such as: honorable death or victory!" and operationally promises "that we will issue a fatwa that every Muslim woman give birth to five children - three for herself, two for Bosnia" because "that would be an answer to the greatest executioner of Bosnian Muslims, who said that he is not afraid of the Muslim atomic bomb because there is none, but that he is afraid demographic bombs." In the same issue of Ljiljan, the results of a survey of Ljiljana in Cazinska Krajina were published under the title on the front page "Fikret Abdić is a devil!" and the conclusion that "The former "Babo" became a traitor to the Bosnian people" to whom "only 1.3% of Bosnian citizens still support babo. The largest percentage testifies that Fikret Abdić is a traitor." It is certain that my nickname Babo was not written in lower case by chance, and it is also clear that you should not trust the results of the survey too much, because it was directed and aimed at my discredit and elimination. Mustafa Cerić played a very significant role in that work.

 When I mention Mustafa Cerić, I have to remind you that shortly after he presented the indictment against me for treason by speaking on Radio Bihać, he also went to the Bihać prison. Two terrorists who killed Irfan Saračević's entourage - Vardić and Pirić - were imprisoned there. Little is known that after the removal of Irfan Saračević from the post of head of CSB Bihać, the situation in Bihać district became very electrified. The aforementioned criminals Vardić and Pirić, together with a group of people with a similar past, terrorized the entire area. After a working day, Saračević used to go with his colleagues to the Marlboro cafe on the bank of the Una, where they summarized the previous day and planned the next day. This terrorist group killed Adem Tutić, Rasim Alagić, Aris Begić and Nisveta Abdagić "Ceca" in a treacherous attack on the night between July 19 and 20, and Irfan Saračević was supposed to be with them, who felt bad that evening and left home. (see: krajina.ba/ Muhamed Hadžić's confession, February 28, 2013) Instead of putting them on trial, Cerić visited them, and right after Cerić's visit, those murderers were released, and Cerić told them - Go to Johovic immediately to defend Islam! Vardić was killed in the skirmish on Johovica.

However, on the same day, October 3rd, the relationship between the radical members of the 5th Corps and the people of Johovica and Skokovi threatens with an explosion of discontent and the situation becomes extremely dangerous and tense. Seeing what was happening, part of the members of the 5th Corps - members of the 521st and 527th Brigades of the 5th Corps sided with the people, and against the rest of the 5th Corps. In the existing literature, it is stated everywhere that the National Defense of AP ZB started a shooting in which several people were killed and wounded. However, this does not correspond to the truth because the AP ZB National Defense was founded only on October 12, 1993, that is, almost a full ten days after the DNZ Founding Assembly and the clashes at Johovica and Skokovi. In the existing literature written by the SDA, it is persistently emphasized that the conflict took place on Johovica, and at the same time Skokov is not even mentioned, as if the situation there was not the same as on Johovica. Johovica is being deliberately pushed as the starting point of the inter-Muslim conflict, later the war. Johovica is on the territory of the municipality of Velika Kladuša, and in this way it is further emphasized that only in that municipality there was a strong feeling of acceptance of autonomy and that the residents of Velika Kladuša, probably under my influence, were in favor of autonomy, while the other residents of the area were not. And in this way, differences between Muslims are constantly deepening and mutual intolerance between individual parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina is repeatedly reproduced. It is quite clear that Alija planned this conflict and was just looking for an excuse to start it. The establishment of a new political party - DNZ - in that area represented a big enough danger for the SDA and for Alija personally, and he decided on a final showdown. It is certain that without his consent, the military command of the 5th Corps would not have independently made the decision to open fire on the bare-handed and unarmed people in Johovica and Skokovi. But it is necessary to say clearly and loudly what has been kept silent for so many years - the conflict on Johovica and Skokovi is not a conflict between members of the 5th Corps and the people who gathered at the founding meeting of a new political party, a party they assumed would not betray and betray them as what did the SDA do? Two brigades of the 5th Corps (521st and 527th Brigades) actually clashed with the rest of the 5th Corps at Johovica and Skokovi. Those two brigades stood in defense of their parents, women and children, relatives and friends who gathered on Johovica and Skokovi protesting against the repression that the 5th Corps began to carry out against people who supported the initiative for autonomy and who ardently wanted the foundation of a new the party they trusted. To this day, the propaganda of the SDA and the ruling groups portray the conflict on Johovica and Skokovi as the beginning of the fratricidal war of the Muslim people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is persistently not mentioned that there were shootings in Skokovi and that the people of Cazin also defended the idea of autonomy because they realized that with a party like SDA and a leader like Alija, they would not go far. By forcing Johovica as the only place of these conflicts, they want to shift all the blame and responsibility onto me and the people of Kladuša as unwilling and bad Muslims and people who betray the national interests of the country they swear to and for which they died.

It should be remembered here that the first time the army shot at people in the territory of Western Bosnia was during the Cazin Rebellion in May 1950. The second time, part of the members of the 5th Corps opened fire on the unarmed people in Skokovo and Johovica in October 1993, on the orders of Alija Izetbegović, and the members of the 521st and 527th Brigades of the same corps returned fire defending the unarmed people. It is unthinkable that any military formation (in this case part of the 5th Corps) - regular OS BiH - opens fire on the people without the consent of the Supreme Command and the President of the BiH Presidency. There are still several similarities (but also differences) between the Cazin Rebellion and the beginning of the inter-Muslim war in Johovica and Skokovi. At the time of the Cazin Rebellion, the then JNA was multinational and ideologically indoctrinated, so it is to some extent understandable that it armed itself against the peasants who protested against the excessive purchase quotas of agricultural products (especially due to a very dry year!). This recent attack by part of the 5th Corps on the people is more difficult to explain because the Muslim army was shooting at the Muslims. Huska Miljković is often mentioned as the man who during the Second World War saved the Muslim people of the Cazin Region from the Chetniks by playing between the partisans and the German forces and with his Muslim militia protecting the peace and the people in that area. Both me and Agrokomerc are compared to him - because we also played a similar role in preserving peace and human lives in that area. And another similarity - after the Cazin revolt, the authorities expelled over a hundred families with more than 770 members of those families from the area of Velika Kladuša, Cazin and Slunj. It is an unprecedented punishment, not based on the laws and regulations of the time, but it speaks volumes about the force of the rebellion itself on the one hand, as well as the strength of the repressive response on the other.

It is little known that during the war in BiH there was an idea to empty the whole of Western Bosnia and move the Muslim people to the area of Eastern Herzegovina, and to settle that area with Serbs who would then form a compact territory that would connect SAO Krajina, Republika Srpska and the area Western Bosnia without Muslims. Alija negotiated very seriously with the leaders of the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Karadžić and Mladić, but this information is never presented and it is kept silent. No matter how much these issues are kept quiet, something leaks out.

Thus, Mustafa Čengić in the book "Alija Izetbegović - rider of the apocalypse or angel of peace" writes about another idea of relocating Muslims - from Srebrenica to Vogošće: "Under incomprehensible circumstances, the command staff is pulled from that territory (Srebrenica area - op.a.), and at the same time, they issue orders to attack the lines of the Bosnian Serb army, allegedly due to the weakening of the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. This gave the Serbian army a signal and an alibi for a general attack, which would certainly have happened without it because the Serbian units had been preparing for it for a long time. All this coincides with the active diplomatic involvement of Alija Izetbegović in solving the issue of this UN Safe Zone, in such a way that the population would move to Vogošća, which the Serbs were willing to leave in exchange for Srebrenica. Izetbegović presented this possibility to a delegation of Srebrenica residents in Sarajevo, who rejected it with disgust." (p. 195196) Ibran Mustafić also writes about this in the book "Planned Chaos 1990. 1996." and states almost the same thesis: "After the disappearance of Srebrenica, Hakija Meholjić started talking about how Izetbegović offered Srebrenica in exchange for Vogošća. Post-war stories also started that Izetbegović said that Clinton offered him that the Chetniks would enter Srebrenica, kill five thousand people, and that after that the West would intervene. It is better to find out late than never, but it is extremely dirty to talk about the intentions of the top in Sarajevo after the war, and not to say anything to the people after returning to Srebrenica. If I had not found out about this information from confidential sources, I would have remained in a dilemma as to what the truth was, given that I knew from previous experience that Hakija is a man who is skilled in the construction of untruths, and his morals are quite far from him." (p. 301) It would be interesting to hear from Ibran Mustafić today and ask him to specify from which "confidential sources" he learned about this information. Today, it is probably much less dangerous to name those sources, and "the people after returning to Srebrenica" should be told the truth."

"In the light of the Izetbegović-Milošević agreement on the one hand, and the Tuđman-Izetbegović agreement on the other, on the demarcation of the newly agreed Republics, the events of September '93 should be observed. year, when the delegation from Srebrenica was invited to attend the Assembly (All-Bosnian Assembly, op.a.) in Sarajevo, where they were offered to exchange Srebrenica for the Sarajevo settlements of Vogošća and Ilijaš, which will de facto happen after the war. Such an offer is a direct witness of the division of RBiH" (Semir Halilović: Državna tajna 2, Vojska poražene ideje, Sarajevo, 2007, p. 209) In the existing literature, which was mostly produced by apologists and paid writers of Alioja Izetbegović, as a rule when talking about the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he mentions me as the main actor of those divisions. Citing these writings that followed Alija's death, it is possible to see that this is not exactly the case and that Alija himself, who persistently claimed that he advocated a complete BiH, was still inclined to such divisions and trading the territory of BiH. I have no reason to doubt what Čengić and Mustafić write and state, but I remember that on the eve of the declaration of autonomy, they talked about these ideas about relocation and exchange of territories between Serbs and Muslims. At that time, the Okrug government, especially Veladžić and Ljubijankić, stressed the need to form a military force of 50,000 men (about which I also informed the BiH Presidency) which would have to break through to Foča, expel the Serbs and liberate Bosnia. Although all of this in the period from the summer of 1992 until the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina looked almost fantastic and unbelievable, it is obvious that in all of this there was also something from the realistic ideas of the people who created the politics of that time and presented such ideas. The fear of the possible relocation of a large population of Muslims from the area of Western Bosnia to somewhere else (and Eastern Herzegovina was mentioned!) was a strong trigger for accepting the idea of autonomy, because autonomy also meant staying in the area where these people were born. Ibran Mustafić mentions the Cazin region in the context of the inter-Muslim conflict and points out: "Just in the period when Srebrenica effectively became a ghetto in which a kind of truce reigns, a fierce war is being waged throughout BiH. What is worst, the war reports rarely mention the fighting with the Serbian occupier, but the reports are getting richer every day about the fighting with the HVO. A special story becomes the Cazin region and the battles between the "Abdićevci" and the 5th Corps of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Today, it is much clearer why people from the area of Srebrenica speak to people with whom they share good and bad, and who went abroad with the label of "autonomas" from the area of Western Bosnia - if we had Babo, Srebrenica would not have passed the way it did. It is obvious that Alija was ready to sacrifice several hundred thousand Muslims in the area of Western Bosnia and move them (as it smells like ethnic cleansing that the Muslim government would carry out on Muslims) to areas where Serbs or other inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina lived. It is precisely in this intention of the central government that the explanation of the widely accepted idea of autonomy should be sought, because it is the most difficult for people to decide to leave their native hearth and the place to which they have been tied for centuries and generations. It is also true, and I know it because I was a witness - Bosnia and Herzegovina did not win at Johovica, as many apologists of Alija and official politics write, but five or six brigades of the 5th Corps defeated two brigades of the 5th Corps that defended their parents, brothers, women and children in front of the military force used by the then president of the BiH Presidency, Alija Izetbegović.