Roots of Creation
The organization, arming, and military training of the Croat community in Bosnia and Herzegovina began in 1991 when the Bosnian Croats realized that they were next on the Serb agenda and that the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s government, led by Alija Izetbegović, and its Muslim population were either incapable of or unwilling to take decisive defensive measures against a probable attack by the Bosnian Serbs and their allies. At the time, the Muslim-dominated government in Sarajevo was declaring that "it is not our war", and HVO veterans later charged that Izetbegović was actually cooperating with the Serbs. Even the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s chief of staff, Sefer Halilović, has expressed disgust with Izetbegović’s coterie of Serbian agents, confidence in the JNA’s good intentions, and refusal to take even the most basic steps to organize his country for defense. Moreover, the apparent emphasis Izetbegović placed on Islam as the foundation of the new Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was taken as a threat to the continued existence and freedom of the Catholic Croat community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Read more about this topic: Croatian Defence Council
Famous quotes containing the words roots of, roots and/or creation:
“Where the world ends
The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
The roots of the world.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Sprung from the West,
He drank the valorous youth of a new world.
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind,
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul.
His words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts
Were roots that firmly gript the granite truth.”
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940)
“As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)