Croatian diaspora

"The term diaspora refers to the movement of any population sharing common ethnic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their settled territory, and became residents in areas often far remote from the former." Thus says Wikipedia and so I've always thought. Therefore, it strikes me as unusual to describe Croats living in Bosnia as "diaspora". Yet, this is very common in Croatia. Most of these Croats have lived in Bosnia for generations, for hundreds of years, very close to the Croatian border. Mostar is their unofficial capital.
Bosnian Croats find themselves in a difficult and complicated situation. With the Muslims they form the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one half of Bosnia (the other half being the Republika Srpska). It is a loveless marriage, arranged by the "international community". Bosnian Croats number half a million, which is much less than both Serbs and Muslims. However, unlike the Muslims they have a fatherland outside Bosnia, so if Bosnia breaks up in the future (which seems rather likely) they have some place to go. Or Croatia will simply attach the Croatian part of Bosnia.
The Croatian homeland (diaspora Croats, be it in Bosnia or Australia, are often called "Hrvati izvan domovine", Croats out of the homeland), or rather the Sanader administration, has decided upon a new strategy towards Bosnian Croats. A Council for Croats outside of Croatia will be founded, presided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a law to strengthen ties with Bosnian Croats will be send to parliament.
"Children are Croatia's blessing", says the rundown facade of the Croatian Population Movement. One of the strategy's aims is to stop the downward demographic trend. Many countries face the problem of aging populations, but Croatia is in a particularly difficult situation. This country has an enormous number of pensioners, mostly laid-off people who got early retirement. Although a firmly catholic country, Croatia has a very low birthrate, despite financial support for parents and a generous pregnancy leave. Result: an annual population growth of minus 10.000.

War crimes and a war of words

Branimir Glavaš, a right wing politician and former general, has been sentenced to ten years in jail for committing war crimes against Serbian civilians in 1991 in his home town Osijek. As a member of parliament, Glavaš still enjoys parliamentary immunity, so he could not be arrested and brought to jail. It is expected that the Croatian parliament will lift Glavaš immunity today, but the convict decided not to wait for that moment. He fled to Bosnia, his second homeland of which he is a national too.
The sentencing of Glavaš (image source) came a week before the local elections. Glavaš enjoys some measure of popularity and the ruling HDZ party is afraid that his sympathizers will turn their anger about the conviction of their war hero against the HDZ. Prime minister Ivo Sanadar therefore said that the Supreme Court joined the election campaign. The president of the court reacted by saying that Sanader has crossed the line between politics and judiciary, a line he is not allowed to cross.
Branimir Glavaš has launched, from Bosnia, his own campaign against Sanadar. He called him a "monster that gave away everything we fought for". Glavaš's supporters in Bosnia burned HDZ flags. How popular the HDZ is in Bosnia, is quite relevant for politics in Croatia. Croats in Bosnia constitute a distinct electoral constituency, and they have voted massively for HDZ so far.
Glavaš's own party, the Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB) is strong in Osijek, but no national factor. HDSSB president Vladimir Šišljagić, a former officer in the Jugoslav National Army, announced a "war of exhaustion" against Ivo Sanadar. Another high ranking HDSSB mocked Sanader's business activities in Austria (from 1987 to 1991) while Croatia was at war: "I would recommend Sanader not to speak about war veterans, because he was filming porno movies in Austria while we were defending Croatia."
The political war is far from over. On 17 May, when local elections are being held, the first battle will take place.

Croatia at the helm

Croatia is enjoying its 15 minutes of fame as it presides this month over the UN Security Council. The honour of leading the most powerful (officially) and most divided (obviously) council in the world has sparked a lively debate here about the topics that Croatia should put on the Council's agenda. I suspect the same debate kept Costa Rica busy when it took the presidency last November.
Croatia's president Stipe Mesić addressed the Council today. He said that the world in the 1990s had failed to understand how dangerous Milošević's politics were and warned the world now ignores the danger that comes from Milorad Dodik. Dodik is Prime Minister of the Republika Sprska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia. Mesić accused Dodik, not for the first time, of destroying Bosnia.
It must be said that Mesić has always defended the unity of Bosnia, not only against Dodik but also against former Croatian president Tuđman, who would have been most happy to cut out a part of Bosnia and add it to Croatia. I don't know, on the other hand, whether keeping people in one state against their will is a smart strategy for the long term.
Even if Bosnia will get back on the UN Security Council's agenda, I doubt that will do much to easy tensions. After all, Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence left the Council as devided as Bosnia is already.