Cardinal Vinko Puljic never compared the newly elected Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency Zeljko Komsic with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, he only warned of the necessity to amend unjust laws, Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina Ivo Tomasevic said on Tuesday.
“Cardinal Puljic put in the spotlight the necessity of adopting the laws that would, as he said in the sermon, protect the people, their dignity and their rights,” said the statement signed by Tomasevic.
Speaking at a mass in the central Bosnian town of Zepce two days ago, Puljic said the Croats were persecuted in line with the law “just like Hitler came into power in line with the law.” His statement came a week after the general election in Bosnia and Herzegovina when citizens elected among other authorities the members of tripartite state Presidency.
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The election of the Croat member Zeljko Komsic was strongly objected by the nationalist Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), whose leader and candidate for the Presidency Dragan Covic lost to Komsic. They said he was not elected by the Croat people but owing to the votes of Bosniaks, and assessed his election was illegitimate. However, according to the Bosnia’s Election Law and the Constitution, Zeljko Komsic’s election was legal and constitutional.
Puljic’s words triggered reactions including the one of Komsic, who called on the Cardinal to better pay a visit to the World War II concentration camp instead of comparing the election results to Adolf Hitler’s rule.
Tomasevic strongly dismissed any connection of the Cardinal’s words with Komsic.
“In his recent sermons he only warned of a necessity to amend unjust laws,” he underlined.
