VZCZCXRO8287
PP RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHVJ #1020/01 1291313
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 091313Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3457
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHDC
RUFOAOA/USNIC SARAJEVO
RUETIAA/NSA WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SARAJEVO 001020 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR D (SMITH), P (BAME), EUR (DICARLO), EUR/SCE 
(ENGLISH, FOOKS, MITCHELL, SAINZ), NSC FOR BRAUN, OSD FOR 
FLORY, USNIC FOR WEBER AND GREGORIAN, VATICAN CITY FOR 
SANDROLINI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/07/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL SOCI BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: RELIGION AND POLITICS APPEALING MIX FOR 
CATHOLIC LEADERS 
 
REF: A. SARAJEVO 994 
     ¶B. SARAJEVO 966 
     ¶C. SARAJEVO 954 AND PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: Charge Tina Kaidanow for reasons 1.4(b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: The Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
(BiH) has long been politically involved in issues 
surrounding Croat returns, specifically the question of who 
is primarily to blame for the low numbers of Bosnian Croat 
refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who returned 
to Bosnia after the 1992-1995 conflict. In recent months, 
Church officials have also focused on the proposed 
constitutional reforms that were rejected by the state 
Parliament's House of Representatives on April 26 (see refs A 
and B). Church opposition to constitutional reform has put it 
squarely in the middle of Bosnian Croat electoral politics, 
as it involved itself in the internal split within the Croat 
nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party. The 
Church's unhappiness with former Presidency member and HDZ 
President Dragan Covic as a political leader and its 
dissatisfaction with the international community's alleged 
lack of concern for the plight of Bosnian Croats fueled 
Church officials' public support for the new, splinter party 
"HDZ 1990." The Church has also been openly hostile to USG 
efforts to promote constitutional reform. As the Church is 
currently the only institution that can speak to Bosnian 
Croats with a unified voice, its influence cannot be 
underestimated, and its political stance contributed directly 
to the defeat of the proposed constitutional amendments. 
These amendments were universally applauded by U.S. and 
European leaders as a major step forward in giving BiH a more 
functional state. The last time the Church waded so overtly 
into political controversy was during the failed "Third 
Entity" secession movement in 2000-2002. End summary. 
 
RELIGIOUS LEADERS FOCUSED ON POLITICAL AIMS 
 
¶2. (C) Church officials have long been vocal in accusing the 
international community, and the U.S. and UK in particular, 
of obstructing efforts to promote the return of Bosnian Croat 
refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their 
prewar homes in BiH. However, in recent months, and as 
campaign season heats up in advance of the October 1 national 
elections, the Church's message has become increasingly 
strident and counterproductive. Recently, Church officials 
also focused on the debate over U.S. and EU-backed 
constitutional reforms supported by the majority of BiH's 
political parties. Although the proposed amendments were 
supported by the Bosnian Croat Croatian Democratic Union 
(HDZ), by far the largest Croat party, internal leadership 
rivalries within the party intensified as the amendments came 
to a vote--eventually splitting the party. Rather than 
remaining neutral, Catholic Church leaders have increasingly 
and openly aligned themselves with the new Croat nationalist 
"HDZ 1990" party, which opposes constitutional reform, and 
whose members advocate founding a Croat "third entity" in 
Bosnia--a backward step from the Dayton structures, and one 
which Under Secretary Burns explicitly ruled out during his 
October 2005 visit to BiH. 
 
FOURTH REGION, NOT THIRD ENTITY 
 
¶3. (C) In early November 2005, the Catholic Bishops' 
Conference in BiH (consisting of the four Bishops of 
Sarajevo, Mostar, Tuzla and Banja Luka), with Cardinal Vinko 
Puljic's signature and endorsement, publicly put forward 
their proposed alternative constitutional framework for BiH. 
(Note: Cardinal Puljic is the head of the Catholic Church in 
BiH.) The Bishops' proposal suggested a Bosnia divided into 
four "regions," centered around Sarajevo, Tuzla, Banja Luka 
and Mostar. These regions "would follow the current criteria 
of economic...historical, geographic and (above all) national 
divisions." While avoiding the politically-charged phrase 
"Third Entity," this proposal nevertheless resurrects the 
postwar nationalist aspirations of Bosnian Croats to carve 
out their own Croat-majority territory in BiH. 
 
¶4. (C) The Bishops' proposal also ignores the fact that some 
Bosnian Croats do not live in Croat-majority areas, and thus 
would not benefit from a Croat-dominated "fourth region." The 
same Croat minority returnees to the Republika Srpska and 
central Bosnia, who are the focus of the Church's complaints 
that the international community and the Bosnian government 
 
SARAJEVO 00001020  002 OF 003 
 
 
want to force Croats out of Bosnia, would be excluded under 
this political framework--unless they resettled in the 
Croat-majority region, thus further consolidating the results 
of ethnic cleansing against which the Church claims to be 
fighting. 
 
PULJIC: U.S. SEEKS TO WIPE OUT BOSNIAN CATHOLICS 
 
¶5. (C) During his recent visit to Washington, Cardinal Puljic 
intensified the ugly rhetoric he had employed during the 
constitutional reform talks, particularly in the weeks 
leading up to the vote in Parliament. In Washington, Puljic 
said that the U.S. "cannot ignore the disappearance of 
Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina" and that he would 
continue to advocate for constitutional changes that would 
"safeguard the equality of Croats." (Note: Despite his stance 
as the protector of his peoples' interests, Puljic was the 
only leader of one of Bosnia's traditional religious 
communities to refuse to represent his community at an 
inter-faith dialogue on the margins of the November 2005 
Dayton commemoration events in Washington hosted by Secretary 
Rice.) Puljic also implied that Bosnian Croats were the 
victims of a negative campaign by the U.S. government, which 
resulted in members of Congress and other interlocutors 
having "information that was negatively colored towards 
Catholics in BiH." In an earlier interview on Good Friday, 
Puljic explicitly accused the U.S. and UK of chasing Bosnian 
Croats out of BiH, a policy which, Puljic argued, is 
enthusiastically supported by the perpetrators of ethnic 
cleansing who want to consolidate the "gains" they made 
during the war. 
 
CROAT RETURNS: MYTH AND REALITY 
 
¶6. (C) Puljic and the Catholic Bishops in BiH frequently cite 
lack of support by the international community and 
obstruction by local government authorities as the main 
factors causing the low number of Croat returns to BiH. In 
fact, according to sources in the UN High Commission for 
Refugees (UNHCR) and other NGOs working in the field, the 
most critical influence on Croat returns was the deliberate 
policy of the Croatian government from 1995-2000 (and, 
secondarily, of politicians in Croat-majority areas of 
Herzegovina) to encourage Bosnian Croats to permanently 
resettle either in Croatia or in Croat-majority areas in BiH. 
Refugees and IDPs who chose to remain in or move to Croatia 
were offered substantial incentives to do so, including 
housing, land, employment, education and social benefits, and 
Croatian citizenship. Inducements to settle in Herzegovina 
were more limited, but also included housing and land 
allocations. 
 
¶7. (C) The U.S. was one of the biggest international donors 
for reconstruction of housing and infrastructure in Bosnia. 
While assistance was not segregated by ethnicity as a matter 
of policy, we estimate that at least $69 million in USG 
funding was spent on projects in primarily Croat return areas 
between 1996 and 2005. Claims--whether from Bosnian Croat 
politicians or Catholic Church officials--that the U.S. did 
not support Croat returns, either as a question of funding or 
policy, are factually incorrect and politically mischievous. 
Obstruction by local government officials was and remains a 
real issue affecting returnees to areas where they are in the 
minority. However, this obstruction affects not only Croats, 
but all ethnic groups in minority return communities 
throughout BiH. 
 
AN AGREEMENT WITH THE HOLY SEE 
 
¶8. (C) In April 2006, the goverment of BiH signed a "basic 
agreement" with the Holy See governing the legal status of 
the Catholic Church in BiH. The conclusion of such an 
agreement (while not granting the status to the Church that 
would be accorded via a Concordat of the type usually used in 
majority Catholic countries) represents a major success for 
the Church and is the result of years of persistent lobbying 
by Church officials in BiH. Unfortunately, the agreement has 
done little to quell complaints of state discrimination 
against the Church and its believers. 
 
¶9. (C) Comment: In an era where the U.S. government, the 
international community and the more progressive of Bosnia's 
political leaders are pursuing constitutional change to place 
a strong and unified Bosnia firmly on the path toward 
 
SARAJEVO 00001020  003 OF 003 
 
 
Euro-Atlantic integration, the Church's vision of an 
ethnically-divided Bosnia is a tragic and dangerous step 
backwards. When the "Third Entity" movement was strong in the 
late 1990s, the international community had a robust 
international military presence and there was direct 
oversight by the Office of the High Representative, which 
firmly rejected any further division of Bosnia along ethnic 
lines. The retrograde political forces pushing for Croat 
separatism came to a head in 2000-2002, a period which saw 
orchestrated mob attacks on UN peacekeepers by Croat mobs and 
removal from high office by the High Representative of Croat 
officials who were fanning the irridentist flames. The 
Church's stance will continue to benefit "HDZ 1990" as it 
makes its "victory" against constitutional reform the 
foundation of a negative, obstructionist and separatist 
election campaign. End comment. 
MCELHANEY