He was concelebrating Mass on Plehan hill near Derventa in north Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of ceremonies held on the 20th anniversary of the expulsion of Croats from the Bosanska Posavina area in north Bosnia. Also in attendance were bishops from Croatia and other parts of Bosnia.
At the service, Derventa dean Marko Hrskanovic recalled that nearly 50,000 Catholic Croats lived in the Derventa Diocese in 1991 but that only a little over 1,000 remained now.
Cardinal Puljic said those figures best described the suffering of Bosnian Croats, and that over the past 20 years too many people had failed in rectifying that injustice.
He said it was a fact that evil was committed and that some excused the crimes against Croats with what had happened at Jasenovac and claims about the collective guilt of the Croatian people for that.
Puljic said the authorities formed after World War Two had been vengeful against Croats in the Posavina area, killing or imprisoning them.
He said the Jasenovac camp was being used to impose guilt, while execution sites such as Vukovar and Srebrenica were not being mentioned.
"We must no longer allow the manipulation of the victims," he said, adding that all victims were entitled to equal treatment. "How many of us have to disappear for crime to no longer be justified? Can crime be justified with crime?"
Cardinal Puljic criticised the policy of the international community in Bosnia, saying it was conciliatory to the stronger but used force and imposition towards the weaker.
He also criticised the Croat representatives in government for not advocating the interests of the people but their own, which he said had led to discord.