We are appealing to your sense offairness

amantoin@vub.ac.be 
Mr. Paddy Ashdown
High Representative 
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina 
Nov. 7, 2002
Fax 387-33-283-501

Dear Sir:

We are appealing to your sense of fairness. It has been quite obvious to
Croatians in Bosnia that they have been singled out to totally unjust
treatment. While the Bosnian Serbs get away with attacks on international
officials as has occurred in Banja Luka and Trebinje last year, with no
measures taken against them, Bosnian Croat banks have been raided by NATO
forces for unproven wrongdoing with no known result to date and after all
this time Bosnian Croat savers still have not been able to take out any
of their savings. This is outrageous in itself. Some democracy the West
is trying to teach Bosnia's citizens! Now in addition we have the
deviousness of the Bosnian Serbs and the army of Yugoslavia/Serbia
delivering military equipment and intelligence to Iraq, while England and
the USA talk of war against that nation. The Serbs will just excuse
themselves, perhaps fire one or two people and that will be the end of
the affair - as usual. No drastic steps are taken against them ever. 

Furthermore, repeatedly Croatian officials have been dismissed for being
too nationalistic, while there are far more nationalistic Serbs staying
in the government. The first order of the day when you took over was
to dismiss a Croatian official even though there was no apparent reason
for it - it seems it was just to show "who is boss"? We were hoping you
would have a greater sense of fairness. 

While the Western Powers press Croatia to accept the return of all Serbs,
regardless of any atrocities they have committed in Croatia - and there
were many - no such reciprocity exists for the Bosnian Croats who have
been ethnically cleansed from the parts of Bosnia now in Serbs' hands. No
one has so far been allowed to return to "Republika Srpska", even though
this is part of the Dayton Agreement. There is no pressure by the West
nor by you as the High Representative to start this return happening.
Bosnian Croats from the Posavina are totally disenfranchised, living as
refugees in Croatia already ten years. We strongly urge you to see to it
that these tens of thousands of Bosnian Posavina Croats finally get
justice done and return to their old homes - or more correctly - rebuild
them, since Serbs destroyed them all after thoroughly looting them. 

There was never in recent history a much more unjust agreement reached
than was the one in Dayton, by giving the 31% Serb population of Bosnia
almost half (49%) of the country which they ethnically cleansed
by murdering and expelling the non -Serb majority population of Muslims
and Croats and actually running it as a separate state, while giving
Croats and Muslims to share the other half in a "Federation". It is
obvious that the Muslims being the majority in the Federation will have
the upper hand, even though the Croats are a constituent people with the
same rights and were Bosnia's original nation before the Ottoman Turkish
occupation and conversion of many to Islam. Since they constitute only
17%, it seems the West has taken the right to push them aside as though
they don't exist. Well, they do, and they have the right as a constituent
nation of Bosnia Herzegovina to be respected and treated fairly. 

So again, we hope your sense of justice will prevail or we have to assume
that you are prejudiced against Croats - why this should be so is not
something that can be justified or comprehended. 

Very truly yours,

Hilda M. Foley
National Federation of Croatian Americans
13272 Orange Knoll
Santa Ana, CA 92705, USA