27 October 2003

To his holiness John Paul II

Holy Father,

From 1992-1995, the non-Catholic communities of Mostar and its immediate environs suffered a brutal program of “ethnic cleansing” and the organized annihilation of non-Catholic shrines.The International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, human rights groups such as Helsinki Watch, the UN human rights rapporteur for Bosnia-Hercegovina, survivors of the atrocities, historians and journalists have compiled detailed reports on these crimes.. Many Catholic clergy in Bosnia-Hercegovina have condemned these actions and supported the return of refugees and reconstruction of the destroyed sacral heritage, in accordance with the internationally recognized peace agreement negotiation at Dayton in 1995 and ratified in Paris. A document was issued in your name, Johanni Paulo II Per la Pace as a report on the Assisi meeting held to discuss peacemaking in the Balkans. In that document the Catholic Church called on all religious leaders to work for peace and to value members of other traditions as much as members of their own.Vinko Cardinal Puljic has also issued an eloquent statement on the need for a pluralistic Bosnia-Hercegovina and he has engaged in serious efforts to bring that vision to pass. In 2003 you visited Banja Luka, the scene of organized atrocities against the non-Serb Orthodox population that are the mirror image of the atrocities in Mostar against non-Catholics. There again you called for peace and reconciliation.

Church leaders in the Mostar area, however, have been in violation of your announced principles since 1992 and continue to violate them to this day. Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar and the Franciscan friars in control of Medjugorje, the site of alleged appearances and auditions of the Blessed Virgin, have not only refused to support the efforts for peace and reconstruction, they have actively interfered with it. Bishop Peric denounced the struggling efforts of returning refugees to reconstruct the century Careva Mosque in the ancient cultural seat of Stolac, near Mostar. Bishop Peric claimed that the reconstruction equal to that of the dynamiting and burning of the mosque in 1993. The Bishop asserted in opposition to the reconstruction that there might be have been an earlier church beneath the site of the five-centuries-old mosque. Yet before the destruction of the mosque and the effort by returning refugees to rebuild it, Bishop Peric never speculated on the possibility that a church might have existed under the site of the almost 500-year old mosque. Hindu militants who destroyed the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya employed a similar logic to that of Bishop Peric, citing an alleged former temple to the god Ram. Islamic militants have used the same logic to destroy or condemn to enforced neglect Christian and Jewish shrines in other areas of the world. By this logic, there is hardly a shrine on the face of the earth that should no be considered illegitimate on the grounds it might be sitting on some earlier shrine.

Even more troubling is the fact Bishop Peric never denounced the original destruction of the Careva Mosque in the first place. If efforts of refugees to reconstruct their mosque is a "crime" equal to the original destruction, we wonder why Bishop Peric never condemn the original destruction in the first place. Bishop Peric had also refused to condemn the destruction of the other mosques in Stolac, the historic neighborhoods, the libraries, private manuscript collections, art and craft collections, the Serb Orthodox Church, and every trace of non-Catholic heritage, a destruction carried out in careful, systematic fashion away from any warfare. None of this destruction was war damage; it was an organized program to extirpate 500 years of non-Catholic heritage. Nor did Bishop Peric protest the murder and torture of unarmed Muslim civilians, conversion of the Stolac Bone Disease hospital into a torture-chamber, the decision by later Catholic leaders in the area to force non-Catholics to use this very same site as their polling station in internationally supervised elections, the forced marches on which Muslim women and children were driven, in some cases to the point where the weaker died along the way, or the imprisonment of the Muslim males in five notorious concentration camps near Mostar, including Dretelj, Heliodrom, Capljina, and Ljubuski, where the victims were abused, starved, beaten, and used as human shields.

Holy Father, I have found no record yet of any Catholic priest ministering to the innocent victims in these camps in the diocese of Bishop Peric.

The militant nationalists who control the town after its “cleansing” have constructed numerous new crosses, crucifixes, hrines to the Blessed Virgin, bell towers, Croatian flags, and the Croat checkerboard on the ruins of the destroyed monuments nd over the public buildings (such as public schools, hospitals, and government buildings) to indicate the Catholic-only character of the town and its institutions.They constructed a Christmas creche on the ruins of the 1519 C.E. Careva Mosque.And in 2002, they constructed, with the participation of Father Rajko Markovic, a large cross at the center of the ancient citadel at Stolac, and then replaced their first, wooden cross with a large stone cross.The stones were torn from the citadel itself and from an area housing an ancient mosque, in violation of the Annex VIII of the Dayton accords and in violation of the law of Bosnia-Hercegovina forbidding the destruction or defacing of structures that have been designated as national monuments. In addition, fourteen stations were constructed on the path leading to the citadel. They renamed the citadel hill, a site cherished by all the peoples of the region of all faiths. I have detailed program of constructing triumphal shrines of exclusion in my recent essay Shrines of Blood in Hercegovina (Sociology of Religion, winter 2003). In addition, photo documentation of these shrines has been made available at the extensive web site dedicated to this issue as part of the Stolac web page.

Bishop Peric has also supervised the construction of numerous other triumph shrines. Large crosses were placed on the hills south of Mostar, looking over the burned out Serb and Muslim homes; they were placed on the hills above the great Pocitelj complex, one of the most significant artistic and cultural sites in the region that was largely destroyed by Croat militias. Photos of these sites can be found in the same web site listed immediately above, along with history of the sites, their destruction, and the heartening efforts (boycotted by the Catholic Diocese of Mostar) to reconstruct them, as well as at the Pocitelj
web site.

Large crosses were also placed in front and above the Zitomislici Orthodox Monastery to mark its annihilation. In 1993 by Catholic miilitia groups operating out of the Virgin Mary pilgrimage site of Medjugorje attacked the ancient monastery, killed or expelled the its priests, monks, and nuns, drove away in terror the Orthodox Christian population of the area, and dynamited and burned the historic buildings. With great effort and both local and international support from all religious traditions, the Zitomislici complex is being rebuilt. The major officials of BiH have come together with the Islamic religious leader and the Orthodox bishop at this moment on reconciliation and renewal.Only Bishop Peric was absent, declaring he refused to be part of such events. The destruction of Zitomislici by Medjugorje based Catholic militias, the killing of its monk and priests, the expulsion of its Orthodox population, as well as the construction of large Latin crosses above and in front of the site are all documented on the extensive an Zitomislici documentation site. At the same site you will find photos of the ceremony inaugurating the reconstruciton of the historic monastery complex, with representatives from the Islamic and Orthodox churches, the Jewish community, the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Bosnia-Herzegovinan commision for heritage revitalization in accordance with Annex VIII of the Dayton peace agreement. Unfortunately, though Catholics of good will participated in the ceremony as individuals, no official representatives of the Dioscese or of the local Franciscan community is to be found. Bishop Peric boycotted the event and refused to send any representative in his place.

In Mostar itself, the Bishop refused to remove the massive cross above Hum Hill, a cross that dominates all vistas and skylines in the immediate area. He rejected appeals of Catholics and non-Catholics in the area to dismantle this symbol that imposes a single religious identity over an area known for its rich diversity of traditions.He rejected the appeal of the UN Office of the High Representative to consider the effect of this massive Latin cross on returning Orthodox Christian and Muslim residents. The cross, Peric stated, was placed there as part of the Papal Jubilee year of 2000 that you had declared yourself, Holy Father, using your own declaration of a Jubilee of good will among peoples of all religions as a reason to erect and maintain a symbol of religious domination. Full documentation available at the Stolac web site as well as the site on Mostar.

Holy Father, you have intervened in other cases where you judged a change was necessary; in Central America and in North America you removed bishops you felt were acting outside the guidelines.For ten years, the Dioscese of Mostar and the Fransciscan run pilgrimage site have supported religious exclusion and have either supported the extremist militias directly or have refused to condemn their atrocities, with only a couple minor exceptions. Even today, the Church at Medjugorje is decorated with a large banner based upon the flag of Croatia, even though Medjugorje is in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The banner signals that the Medjugorje friars support the illegal and banned “herzeg bosna,” a self-proclaimed and illegal all-Catholic territory that will be merged with Croatia proper. When Office of the High Representative in BiH ordered the raid on a criminal enterprise known as the Banca Hercegovaska, they found that among its board of directors were the extremist HDZ leader Ante Jelavic who declared an illegal "herceg bosna" mini-state in violation of the Dayton agreement and of BiH law and organized demographic engineering programs to change the population balance in the area, as well as intimidating returning refugees. The bank was a channel for the illegal "herceg bosna" parallel structures and for criminal rackets run by militant Croat nationalists in Bosnia. With him as directors of the criminal enterprise were Bishop Peric and the Medjugorje Franciscan friar Jozo Zovko who controls the lucrative Medjugorje pilgrimage site and who used the bank to process millions of dollars from the pilgrimage industry; reports have revealed that much of the Medjugorje money collected from pilgrims in humanitarian appeals and in sales of lodging, food, and religious items was funnelled directly into the HVO militia that carried out the "ethnic cleansing" program against non-Catholics. Ironically, pilgrims are told that Medjugorje is an ocean of peace in a region of conflict, when as early as 1993, all Orthodox Christians and Muslims were driven from the town and all Catholics were threatened with severe reprisals if they shelted Orthodox Christians or Muslims.

All these points are documented at the web page on the Stolac web site which contains illustrated essays on the destruction of Stolac and the region, on the reconstruction of the Careva Mosque, on the destruction and reconstruction of other sites, on the bloodshrines that have been placed on the ruins of destroyed sacral sites. It also supplies the full correspondence of the Muslim community of Stolac with Bishop Peric, Nuncio Giuseppe Leazo, Vinko Cardinal Puljic and reports by Hector Gullan on the war criminal’s continuing domination of the area’s economy, a powerful letter of the Muslim community to Father Rajko Markovic, and numerous other article, indictments, sentences, and other forms of documentary information. The page links to detailed testimony concerning the atrocities of Catholic militias operating in the name of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church that were inflicted upon non-Catholics pursuant to the policy of "ethnic cleansing" for which the major militia, party, police, and military leaders of the self-declared all-Catholic "Herceg Bosna" have been convicted and sentenced. I supply further documentation is supplied on the Balkan war crimes and human rights site.

Holy Father, you have spoken out for the need for peace in all quarters of the world.You issued the document Per la Pace from Assissi. You visited Sarajevo and called for reconciliation. Yet Mostar is only 40 minutes by flight from Rome and you have never spoken out of the religious terror that reigned and continues to reign in this diocese. You could transform this environment of resistance to peace by bringing new leadership. As we document the legacy of such decisions for Hercegovina, we would welcome the news that you have now brought your passion for peace into action, in Mostar and surroundings; that you have matched your stated principles with your actions as the authority in the Church today, acting as the Vicar of Christ on Earth; and that you have brought hope to those Catholics, Orthodox Serbs, Muslims, and others of different traditions who wish to live together in a pluralist society.

For years now the Islamic community, people of good will from all faiths, local Catholics supportive of their non-Catholic neighbors, the Office of the High Representative, art historians from around the world, and academics in various disciplines have been coming to Mostar and its environs and have been disheartened by the spirit and substance of policy emanating from the diocese of Mosar. Even after the dismissal of numerous entreaties to Bishop Peric and to your Nuncio, Giuseppe Leanza, they have not lost faith that they their appeals will be heard.

Holy Father, your Nuncio, Monsignor Leanzo, has been fully informed of this tragic situation and has not responded, referring all requests back to Bishop Peric. Bishop Peric responded at first with rejection of all pleas for an end to his attack on those who were attempting to rebuilt. When the Stolac community members asked him if he had ever condemned the atrocities in Stolac, he replied: "I have always said that a crime is a crime." Bishop Peric then declared that he was ending all conversation and dialogue.

When a bishop knows that militias acting in the name of his tradition are engaging in mass-killings, expulsions, annihilation of the sacral heritage of other traditions, and imprisonment in concentration camps where prisoners are starved and tortured regularly, surely that bishop is required to say something more specific than "a crime is a crime." Bishop Peric's vague and abstract "a crime is a crime" fails to offer moral or religious leadership in accordance with the principles you outlined. All too often religious leaders give glowing statements, in the abstract, about peace and toleration and, as you have often done, they condemn the acts of religious militants of other traditions against members of their own. Unless religious leaders are willing to begin by setting an example and speaking out against atrocities committed in the name of their tradition, in their regions of authority and jurisdiction, such abstract calls for peace or for toleration by the other religions are unlikely to lead us forward to a world where peoples of different faiths appreciate one another and respect one another.

Unless you act to change it, this ten year policy continuing in place today in Hercegovina will be left for future generations as the policy of the Holy See and as a legacy of your papacy.

Michael Sells

Emily Judson Baugh and John Marshall Gest
Professor of Comparative Religions
Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue
Haverford, PA 19041
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/home.html

27 September 2004

Holy Father,

In the nine months since I posted this letter to you, Bishop Peric has continued to disappoint those working for peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This summer, Bishop Peric refused to attend the ceremonial reopening of the Stari Most in Mostar, the famous bridge symbolizing the bridging of religions and peoples in the region that was destroyed by the Croat HVO militia on November 9, 1993. Once again we are left with question: which is the true stance of the Catholic Church: that evinced by your own Papal envoy as well Fra Slavko Soldo and Fra Mijo Džolan, the Provincials of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Franciscans, all of whom attended the reopening celebrated by millions around the world--or Bishop Ratko Peric who refused?