Stjepan Mesić held Milošević responsible for "creating a Greater Serbia on the ruins of the Former Yugoslavia".
[16][17] Mesić revealed thousands of documents and audio tapes recorded by Tuđman about his plans during a case against Croat leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina for war crimes committed against Bosniaks.
[18][19] The tapes reveal that Tuđman and Milošević ignored pledges to respect Bosnia's sovereignty, even after signing the
Dayton accord.
[18][19] In one conversation Tuđman told an official:
"Let's make a deal with the Serbs. Neither history nor emotion in the Balkans will permit multinationalism. We have to give up on the illusion of the last eight years... Dayton isn't working. Nobody - except diplomats and petty officials - believes in a sovereign Bosnia and the Dayton accords."[19] In another he is heard telling a Bosnian Croat ally, "You should give no indication that we wish the three-way division of Bosnia."
[18] The tapes also reveal Tuđman's involvement in atrocities against the Bosniaks in Bosnia, including the Croatian president covering up
war crimes at Ahmići where more than a hundred Bosniak men, women and children were terrorised, and then shot or burned to death.
[18][19] When asked if "Tuđman's view was that Bosnia was a mistake and that it was a mistake to make it as a republic after the
Second World War and that it should be annexed to Croatia", Mesić responded "Those were his ideas, that Bosnia was supposed to belong to Croatia on the basis of a decision that should have been adopted by
AVNOJ."
[20]
The Yugoslav Wars resulted in at least 97,000 deaths of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
[21] and more than 1.5 million expelled.
[22] A country where previously no region could be described as purely Bosniak, Serb or Croat shifted to a partitioning into multiple ethnically
homogeneous nations.
[22][23][
verification needed]
The policies of Tuđman and Croatia towards Bosnia and Herzegovina were never completely transparent, but always included his ultimate aim of expanding Croatia's borders.
[24] In the
Tihomir Blaškić verdict, the Trial Chamber found that "Croatia, and more specifically former President Tuđman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the
HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."
[6]