Jelavic: Crusader for Croat autonomy

LONDON, England -- As the elected head of the HDZ, the dominant party among Bosnian Croats, Ante Jelavic has been vocal about his view that the Croats had been given a raw deal in the Dayton treaty that ended Bosnia's 1992- 95 civil war.

Previously an officer in the Yugoslav People's Army, Jelavic joined the Bosnian Croat HVO militia at the outbreak of the Bosnian war and rose through the ranks to become a logistics chief.

After the war Jelavic became defence minister in the federation. In 1998 he defeated a moderate candidate preferred by the late president Franjo Tudjman for the party leadership.

He rode that victory to eventual election as the Croat member of Bosnia's three-man inter-ethnic presidency.

Jelavic comes from southwestern Herzegovina and was a member of a powerful political and business lobby that even influenced decision-making in Zagreb -- seen at the time as "the capital of all Croats."

After Tudjman's death and the election of reformists in Zagreb, Jelavic said his party was transforming itself into a serious centrist party.

But an election rule amendment ahead of last November's general election -- which weakened the ethnic vote and helped to tip the HDZ from power -- proved too much for entrenched nationalists' interests to bear.

Last Saturday a Bosnian Croat congress dominated by the HDZ voted to establish Croat self-rule, and Jelavic gave the international community two weeks to change the electoral law.

In his last presidency session, he said: "I would be honoured if (Wolfgang) Petritsch removes myself or the party leadership or bans the party."

Jelavic is married with three children and holds a degree in electrical engineering from Zagreb University.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Bosnian Croat leader sacked
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