Fikret Abdić

Infobox Person
name = Fikret Abdić
caption =
birth_date = Birth date and age|1939|9|29|mf=y
birth_place = Donja Vidovska, Velika Kladuša, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina)
dead=dead death_date = death_place =

Fikret Abdić (born September 29 1939) is a politician and businessman from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the 1980s, he became known mainly for his role in building up the farming conglomerate Agrokomerc. During the Bosnian War, Abdić declared his opposition to the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina led by Alija Izetbegović, and founded the small, short-lived and unrecognized Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia in the northwest of Bosnia, composed of the town of Velika Kladuša, and a few nearby villages. The mini state existed between 1993 and 1995 and it was allied with Army of Republika Srpska.cite web|title=A Man who Divided the People of Krajina|url=http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/trae/archive/data/200108/10807-001-trae-sar.htm|publisher=AIM press, Sarajevo|author= Emir Habul|date=2001-08-07] cite web|url=http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~ujvr/hrch/4000-4999/4371adm.htm|title=Decision on admissibility: Case no. CH/00/4371, Ismet Gracanin vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina]

In 2002 he was convicted on charges of war crimes by a court in Croatia.

Biography

Before the war, Abdić was the director of Agrokomerc, a company from Velika Kladuša that he raised from an agricultural cooperative into a modern food combine, which employed over 13,000 workers, and which boosted the well-being of the entire area. Agrokomerc changed the Velika Kladuša from a poverty stricken region to regional powerhouse. Local residents of Velika Kladusa called him "Babo" (Daddy) and treated Abdic "like a god" and "were ready to do whatever he said."cite web |date=2007 |url = http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/migration/pubs/rrwp/5_militarized.html|title = Militarized Refugee Populations: Humanitarian Challenges in the Former Yugoslavia|format = HTML |publisher = [http://web.mit.edu MIT] | accessdate = 2007-09-11 | last=Sarah Kenyon Lischer |quote=] He ruled the company in an "imperial" style, with strong political backing from influential politician Hamdija Pozderac and his brother Hakija.cite web|title=Yugoslavia All the Party Chief's Men|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965639,00.html|author=Kenneth W. Banta|publisher=TIME magazine|date=1987-09-28]

In the late 1987, just before Hamdija Pozderac was about to take over annual Presidency of Yugoslavia, a scandal arose, and Abdić found himself imprisoned for the alleged financial malversations, and Hamdija Pozderac resigned. The scandal shook not only the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the whole of Yugoslavia as well. Another of his controversial moves was erecting a monument to a Bosnian "başbölükbaşı" from the Ottoman Army Mujo Hrnjica on a hill above Velika Kladuša.cite web|title=Miloševićevi ljudi|url=http://www.nin.co.yu/2000-01/13/11112.html|publisher=NIN|date=2000-01-13|language=Serbian]

After his release from prison, he joined the Party of Democratic Action just 24 hours before the 1990 elections were scheduled [cite web|url=http://www.moljac.hr/biografije/abdic.htm|title=Biography, moljac.hr website (compiled from multiple sources)|language=Croatian] and ran for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the erstwhile constitution, voters elected seven members to the presidency; two Bosniaks, two Serbs, two Croats and one Yugoslav. Abdić and his future rival Alija Izetbegović ran for the two Bosniak positions, and were both elected. Once the positions were filled, the members of the presidency elected a President of the Presidency who acted as its head. Although Abdić won more popular votes than Izetbegović, Abdić did not assume office for reasons which remain unclear.

Bosnian War

According to NIN, when the Bosnian War broke out, Abdić briefly appeared in Sarajevo hoping to assume presidency after Izetbegović had been arrested by the Yugoslav People's Army. However, he was preempted as Izetbegović had already named Ejup Ganić for that position.

A few months later, Abdić decided to return to Bihać and lead the people there. Together with 20,000 of his supporters, he opposed Izetbegović's government and formed the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, a move which the government characterized as treason. He made peace deals with Croat (14 September 1993) and Serb leaders (October 22, 1993) who were satisfied to weaken Bosnian government in the light of Karađorđevo and Graz agreements which aimed to redistribute Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and the FR Yugoslavia. The FRY (consisting of the Republic of Serbia) wanted all lands where Serbs had a majority, eastern and western Bosnia. The Croats and their leader Franjo Tuđman also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian.cite web|url=http://www.un.org/icty/naletilic/trialc/judgement/nal-tj030331-1.htm#IIA|title=ICTY: Naletilić and Martinović verdict - A. Historical background|] cite web |date=2007 |url = http://www.cas.sc.edu/geog/hrl/Hazard_Pubs/2004_TheClashOfGovernmentalities.pdf|title = THE CLASH OF GOVERNMENTALITIES:DISPLACEMENT AND RETURN IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA|format = PDF|publisher = United States National Science Foundation award number BCS 0137106| accessdate = 2007-09-30 | last= Dr. Gerard Toal and Dr. Carl Dahlman|quote=But unlike Bosnian Serb claims to demographic dominance and self-determination, Croat nationalists sought to gain territory on a largely historic claim to western Herzegovina, a territory that would enlarge Croatia’s southern region by incorporating most of southern Bosnia. These plans were discussed in 1991 by Milosevic and Tudman at Karadordevo and an apparent partition of Bosnia agreed (Silber 1995,131-132). For his part, Milosevic wanted most of eastern and western Bosnia, and Tuđman was willing to give up the Croat areas of northern Bosnia for his interests. Between these territories, they would leave a buffer Muslim state. ]

When the government 5th Corps of Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, based in the south part of the Bihać pocket in Western Bosniacite web|url=http://iwpr.net/?p=bcr&s=f&o=158272&apc_state=henibcr2002|title=Bosnia: Abdic Turns Spotlight on Bihac|publisher=IWPR|author=Luke Zahner|date=2002-02-28] tried to end the existence of APWB, Abdić raised an army which was supplied, trained, financed by (and fought alongside) the Army of Republika Srpska and Serbian counter-intelligence against the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) and Bosniaks loyal to Izetbegović. The Serbs took advantage of the situation and strengthened their and Abdić's positions. In August 1995, an ARBiH offensive ended the Republic of Western Bosnia forcing him to flee to Croatia.

Lord Owen, British diplomat and co-author of the Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg peace plans who was favourable to the Serb position, described Abdić as "forthright, confident and different from the Sarajevan Muslims. He was in favor of negotiating and compromising with Croats and Serbs to achieve a settlement, and scathing about those Muslims who wanted to block any such settlement." [http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/Owen/lists/owencd0.html Balkan Odyssey] ]

After the war

After the war he was granted political asylum and citizenshipcite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1448009.stm|title=Warlord on trial in Croatia|publisher=BBC|author=Gabriel Partos|date=2001-07-20] by the Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and lived near the coastal city of Rijeka. The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina charged him with the deaths of 121 civilians, three POWs and the wounding of 400 civilians in the Bihać region. Croatia would not extradite Abdić. Following the death of Tuđman in 1999, and the change in government in Croatia the following year: Abdić was tried when the Croatian authorities themselves put him on trial. In 2002 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes committed in the area of the "Bihać pocket”.cite web|url=http://hrw.org/reports/2004/icty1004/4.htm|title=Concerns Pertaining to the Judiciary|date=2004-10|publisher=Human Rights Watch] In 2005 the Croatian Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 15 years.cite web|url=http://www.osce.org/documents/mc/2006/09/20668_en.pdf|title=Background Report: Domestic War Crime Trials 2005 (page 23)|publisher=OSCE mission in Croatia|date=2006-09-13|]

Abdić ran for the position of Bosniak member of the Bosnian presidency in 2002 on the Democratic People's Community party ticket in 2002 and won 4.1% of the vote. [cite web|url=http://www.izbori.ba/Documents/Rezultati%20izbora%2096-2002/Rezultati2002/Kratki/PredsjednistvoBiHKratkaVerzija.pdf|title=PREDSJEDNIŠTVO BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE|publisher=Central Electoral Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina|accessdate=2008-04-23] Bosnian law does not bar him from running for office since his conviction is in Croatia.

External links

* [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j072001.html Free Fikret Abdic!] , by Justin Raimondo, "Antiwar.com", July 20, 2001
* cite web|title=On the Brink of Capital Punishment (Interview with Abdic)| url=http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/serbian_digest/254/t254-4.htm|author=Svetlana Vasovic-Mekina|date=1996-08-17
publisher=Vreme News Digest Agency No. 254

References