In the European Union’s enlargement narrative, Bosnia and Herzegovina is frequently portrayed as a country progressing on its “European path”, committed to reconciliation and democratic reforms. Yet beneath this optimistic façade lies a disturbing truth — systematic impunity for war crimes committed against one of its constituent peoples: the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
While the 1995 Srebrenica genocide has rightly been acknowledged and memorialized globally, other atrocities — equally devastating to the communities affected — remain deliberately obscured, both in domestic and international discourse. Two of these atrocities are the massacres in the villages of Bikoši near Travnik and in Grabovica near Mostar.
In Bikoši, in June 1993, foreign jihadist fighters (“mujahideen”) and units of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina executed at least 24 Croatian civilians and prisoners of war. Some reports cite up to 37 victims. Though the crime was documented in international tribunal proceedings, not a single perpetrator has been held accountable to this day. Twenty thousand Croats were expelled from the Travnik area during the war, and systematic ethnic cleansing targeted both their homes and their churches.
In Grabovica, in September 1993, Croatian women, children, and elderly civilians were murdered by Bosniak forces — another massacre that remains largely unknown to international audiences. Among the victims was Augustina Grebenar, a child, whose name is absent from school textbooks, media narratives, and official histories in both Bosnia and Croatia.
The contrast is stark: while the crimes of Bosnian Croats have been meticulously prosecuted — with the controversial “Joint Criminal Enterprise” (JCE) verdict against Croatian wartime leaders frequently invoked to shape EU narratives about Bosnia — war crimes against Croats by Bosniak forces are systematically ignored, minimized, or politically neutralized.
This double standard undermines genuine reconciliation.
It distorts European policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It perpetuates the marginalization of Croats as a constituent people within the country.
Moreover, in 2021, an outgoing international High Representative, Valentin Inzko, imposed a controversial law mandating the uncritical acceptance of all international tribunal verdicts — thereby cementing the unequal treatment of different communities’ suffering into legal form. The law not only prevents open scholarly debate about the tribunals’ shortcomings but also criminalizes alternative historical perspectives — further alienating Croats, many of whom view the tribunals as having been heavily biased in their prosecution priorities.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina to progress genuinely on its European path:
All war crimes must be prosecuted.
All victims must be remembered.
All communities must have the right to their historical truth.
Selective memory serves no one — least of all the European Union, which risks endorsing a deeply imbalanced historical narrative that stifles reconciliation instead of fostering it.
It is time for the EU to confront this uncomfortable reality.
And it is time to tell the untold story of Bikoši, Grabovica, and the many other forgotten Croatian victims of the Bosnian war.
Ivan Urkov l poskok
wpDiscuz
