Mate Boban

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Mate Boban

Mate Boban (1940 - July 7,1997) was a Bosnian Croat politician and leader of the Bosnian Croats during the Bosnian War. He was born in the villige of Sovići in the municipality of Grude in southern Bosnia Herzegovina. Boban was the first and only president of the short lived Herzeg-Bosnia which was never recognized but existed between 1991-1994. He was virulently anti-Bosniak and mantained friendly relationships with the Serbs even when the Croats were fighting the JNA.

Pre-war Life

Prior to the war he managed a publishing company in Imotski, Croatia and subsequently was a bureucrat in a tobacoo factory in Zagreb Although he had been a member of the communist party since the 1950s he joined the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) a nationalist Croat party as soon as it was founded. He was eventually elected to the Bosnian parliament and served as HDZ vice-president before rising to the position of party president in Bosnia.

Estabilishing Herzeg-Bosnia

On November 18, 1991 Boban proclaimed the existence of the 'Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia', as a separate "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole," on the territory of Bosnia. This was in keeping with an agreement between Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević to divide Bosnia between themselves. Boban met with Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadžić during May 1992 in Graz, Austria where they agreed on mutual cooperation in the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the pair met again on September 2, 1993 in Montenegro in order to coordinate their actions after the Bosniaks rejected the Vance-Owen peace plan). Boban ordered the assassination of Bosnian Croats who opposed his plans.The most well known were Stjepan Kljuić, Blaž Kraljević and Tomislav Dretar. Kraljević was lured to a meeting on August 9th, 1992 and was assassinated along with 8 of his deputies. Dretar survived assassination attempts but was isolated in the Bihać enclave throughout the war and as such could not oppose Boban effectively. Stjepan Kljuić survived a poisoning and remained opposed to Boban for the duration of the war.

Bosnian War

The deal called for the Serbs to aid the Croats in defeating the Bosniaks and carving a piece of Bosnia and incorporating it into Croatia. Tensions mounted from June 1992 until early 1993. After many Croat provocations and hostile acts, open warfare broke out in April 1993 between Croats and Bosniaks. The Croat militia, the HVO, attacked and expelled Bosniaks all over central and southern Bosnia, all the while they committed many atrocities against civilians. Examples of this include the massacres in Stupni Do and Ahmici. By early 1994 the tide was turning against the Croats. The Republic of Croatia was spending an estimated 3 million Deutsche Mark on the war in Bosnia every day and faced heavy international criticism for its role in supporting the HVO. Although the HVO was better armed, the Bosnian Army was bigger and proved too much for the HVO to deal with. This is when the US forced a peace treaty, known as the Washington Accords which were signed in February 1994. Subsequently Pope John Paul II and the US government forced the ouster of Boban.

Post war life and death

After the Washington accords ended Herzeg-Bosnia Boban went into retirement and died of a stroke in 1997. His funeral atracted no foreign dignitaries, but did attract many like minded Croats such as Gojko Šušak. There were rumours that his death was faked to avoid being tried for war crimes.