Question about the political status of Croats in Bosnia

[Gnist]

I also have a question, which I believe it can be fruitfully clustered with this topic.

Republika Srpska (Serbian: Република Српска, Republika Srpska (listen (help·info)), also Српска, Srpska; Bosnian and Croatian: Republika Srpska; English: Republic of Srpska or Republika Srpska) is one of the two political entities which represent a lower level of governance in the present-day country of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the other entity is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the de jure capital of Republika Srpska is Sarajevo, the de facto capital is Banja Luka.[5] The entity is home to three ethnic "constituent peoples": Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats.

Republika Srpska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read elsewhere in a topic here on Stirpes that Bosnian Croats don't have voting rights at all in Bosnia - instead their votes count in the Croatian political system. Why isn't there a Croatian political entity in Bosnia? Serbs and Muslims have their own political entities in Bosnia, so why shouldn't Croats have one? This appears to me to be a most appalling injustice in the prevalent order.

[svin]

That's what wondered me too. Up to recent time I've thought that Bosnia was divided into three parts: Muslim, Serbian and Croatian.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Gnist

I read elsewhere in a topic here on Stirpes that Bosnian Croats don't have voting rights at all in Bosnia - instead their votes count in the Croatian political system.

They have voting rights primarily in Bosnia. They vote in Bosnian elections. But great many of the Bosnian Croats have citizenship of the Republic of Croatia as well, which enables them to participate also in Croatian elections.

Croats from other countries (the so-caled diaspora) are entitled to obtain Croatian citizenship.

Originally Posted by Gnist

Why isn't there a Croatian political entity in Bosnia? Serbs and Muslims have their own political entities in Bosnia, so why shouldn't Croats have one? This appears to me to be a most appalling injustice in the prevalent order.

It is injustice indeed. During the war Bosnia was practically divided into three entities. However, the portion of Bosnia controlled by Serbs (about 70%) was the largest one in the beginning in the war, which was due to the fact that they had taken over the entire firing power and infrastructure of the Yugoslav Army stationed in Bosnia.

The rest of Bosnia was divided between Croats and Muslims/Bosniaks. In 1994 the American pressure on both Croatian and Bosniak/Muslim side ushered in the so-called Washington agreement, which resulted in merging of the Croatian and Bosniak politico-military entity into one larger entity called Federation of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federacija BiH, or just shortly Federacija). Federacija was meant to be Muslimo-Croat in every sense, but later on it gained more marked Bosniak/Muslim character because of the majority of its inhabitants being of that ethnicity. Federacija is then further subdivided into ten cantons, some of which have Croatian and others Bosniak/Muslim majority. Although cantons with Croatian majority have a more marked Croatian specificities, there is an overall impression that Federacija is more Bosniak than Croat in just about everything.

Other than Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska is another entity. These two entities together form the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska controlled during the war about 70% of Bosnia's territory, but in the end of the war Serbian army was ousted from one part of the territory it had previously controlled and that part of the land was annexed by the Croato-Bosniak Federation. According to the Dayton Agreements (1995, end of the Bosnian war), Republika Srpska controls 49% of Bosnia and the rest goes to Federacija.



Federacija is marked in blue and Republika Srpska in red.

It is my impression that Bosnia and Herzegovina has the most complicated administrative division of all countries in the world.