2024-04-06 19:33:48
Croatia is very proud and cherishes its sparkling coastline. The so-called country of 1,000 islands (although it actually has as many as 1,244) does not want to cede two of them to neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Disputes over the ownership of the islands of Mali Škol and Veliki Škol began when the countries declared independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
According to the 1999 the reached agreement assigned the islands to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Croatia never ratified that document.
The last attempt to find a solution was in 2012, just before Croatia joined the European Union.
“At that time we were bombarded with stories about Mali Škola and Veliki Škola,” recalled Bosnian journalist Almir Panjeta. “All the newspapers, especially those who supported the government, wrote only about the islands, as if it were a dispute over a large territory like Mallorca.”
A flag was raised on the island
A. Panjet, like many of his countrymen, was intrigued by the islands, which he had never heard of before: “I told my editor in the weekly Slobodna Bosna that I would like to see what is there.
He liked the idea, and two days later I was already traveling with the photographer.”
But when they arrived in Neum, a secluded town on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 22km coastline, which is the second shortest in Europe after Monaco, the reporters knew something was wrong.
“We got a few puzzled looks from people when we asked how to get to the islands.
Then we went to one of the owners of the islands, Tihomir Putica, to get his permission. He just laughed at us,” A. Panjeta recalled.
It turned out that the islands are nowhere near Mallorca. The smaller one, Mali Školo, resembles a pile of stones, and when the water level rises, it completely sinks.
Veliki Škol is just the size of two football fields.
“We arrived at the first island – Mali Školo. We could not disembark because she was under water – the captain of the ship told us that this is normal, – said A. Panjeta. “We asked to be taken to another one.”
When the reporters found themselves in Veliki Škole, they raised the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina on a stick.
“We called it a journalistic play ‘Landing on the School.’ We even tried to recreate the famous image of raising the US flag on the island of Ivo, – said A. Panjeta with a laugh. – In fact, we looked at all this with a grain of satire. We had no intention of provoking anyone or causing an international scandal. Jokingly calling our visit an expedition, we wanted to emphasize the absurdity of the situation and show that although it is important to resolve the border disputes, this whole story about two islands is not worth such attention.”
There were protests in the country
The stunt with the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the island of Veliki Škol did not go unnoticed in Croatia.
The event coincided with nationwide protests sparked by then-Prime Minister Zoran Milanović (who is now serving as the country’s president) when he declared that Bosnia and Herzegovina might get these two islands: “We will not quarrel with our neighbors over two pebbles in the sea.”
“On the same day, in several Croatian cities, the extreme right organized protests specifically against Z. Milanović’s statement,” said A. Panjeta. – They gave passers-by two pebbles each as a symbol showing that the Prime Minister does not respect the Croatian land.
However, to be honest, most of the media in Croatia knew very well that the raising of our flag was just a joke, and even printed headlines mocking the situation, symbolizing the results of our expedition.”
I did not ratify the document
After the breakup of Yugoslavia, the border issue was nominally resolved by an arbitration known as the Badinter Commission, named after its chairman, former French Minister of Justice Robert Badinter.
in 1992 In January, the commission decided that when the Federal Republics of Yugoslavia declared independence, their borders were recognized as international and could only be changed by agreement, not by force.
But disputes over actual borders continued throughout the 1990s.
in 1998 a misunderstanding at the border near the town of Martin Brod almost led to a conflict between Croatian police and international peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At first, the Croats retreated, but the country’s president, Franjo Tudjman, ordered the border guarded by force, which could have led to a direct confrontation with NATO. The international community managed to defuse the situation.
Finally, in 1999, an agreement was reached regarding the two Schools, which was concluded by the Bosnian Alija Izetbegović and F. Tudjman, then a member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although the Bosnia and Herzegovina side was ready to ratify the document, Croatia never completed the procedure because Tudjman died a few months after the signing of the agreement and before its approval in parliament.
According to former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusič, even today’s politicians are unable to move the matter from the point of death: “I don’t see the two countries sitting down and reaching a new agreement in the future, or that the presidents of the countries have enough authority, especially among the local right, to even dare to ratify the existing document .”
No matter how banal the disagreements over the two islands, as well as over the demarcation lines at the towns of Martin Brod and Chrvatska Kostainica, they can exacerbate nationalist sentiments.
“If we look at the agreement rationally, the best option for Croatia would be to ratify it,” said V. Pusič. – This situation greatly incites nationalists, because it is the issue of borders that gives them space to seek attention.
Croatia has open border issues with all its neighbors in the Western Balkans.
Serbs and Croats have still not resolved the issue of the part of the border along the Danube, two more islands are involved in the dispute.
Croatia claims another peninsula, Prevlaka, part of which is claimed by Montenegro as it is at the gateway to Montenegro’s Bay of Kotor.
Preserved as heritage
One of the two brothers who own Mali Škol and Veliki Škol, T.Putica said he is not concerned with the decades-long question of which country owns them: “We have been asked a thousand times whether we would like the islands to belong to Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina. To be honest, I’d like them to belong to Australia.”
The two brothers do not plan any facilities on the larger island because they do not have the necessary permits and access to infrastructure.
But the only two islands belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina surrounded by Croatia are the pride of the Putić family.
“You really can’t dock a ship there. Sometimes we swim to check if someone littered, but that’s all, said T.Putica. “The islands are part of our old heritage, we will leave them to our children so that they can say that they are the sole owners of the two islands of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
Prepared according to Euronews inf.
2024-04-06 19:33:48