|
Incoming Messages from ZTN
|
Updated Every 4 Hours
mFrom notes@igc.apc.org Wed Aug 16 17:46:30 1995
Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (192.82.108.1) by MediaFilter.org
with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Wed, 16 Aug 1995 17:46:30 -0500
Received: (from notes) by cdp.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.203 ) id KAA04516 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Wed, 16 Aug 1995 10:47:40 -0700
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 09:56:21 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat"
From: Ivo Skoric
Subject: No Subject Given
To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l
Message-ID:
X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org
Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org
Precedence: bulk
Lines: 742
>From majordomo Mon Aug 14 10:09:34 1995
Received: (from majordomo) by igc3.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.6 ) id KAA10460; Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:09:33 -0700
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:09:33 -0700
Message-Id: <199508141709.KAA10460@igc3.igc.apc.org>
To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org
From: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org
Subject: BOUNCE zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org: Message too long (>40000)
Status: U
>From iskoric@igc.apc.org Mon Aug 14 10:09:28 1995
Received: from ix3.ix.netcom.com (ix3.ix.netcom.com [199.182.120.3]) by igc3.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.6 ) with SMTP id KAA10444 for ; Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:09:24 -0700
Received: from by ix3.ix.netcom.com (8.6.12/SMI-4.1/Netcom)
id KAA22288; Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:07:11 -0700
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:07:11 -0700
Message-Id: <199508141707.KAA22288@ix3.ix.netcom.com>
From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com (. )
Subject: Tudjman's Croatia Continuation of the Fascist NDH ('41-'45)
To: Conference "zamir.chat"
Subject: Tudjman's Croatia Continuation of the Fascist NDH ('41-'45)
Date: 10 Aug 1995 17:28:24 GMT
Xref: soc.culture.croatia:28567 soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna:30137
soc.culture.yugoslavia:45432 soc.culture.europe:48190
alt.current-events.bosnia:9895
alt.politics.clinton:192813 soc.culture.jewish:167872
08. august 1995.
TUDJMAN'S CROATIA CONTINUES THE POLICY OF
THE FASCIST INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(1941-1945)
Since Tudjman took over in Croatia in 1990 and the adoption
of the present Constitution, which does not mention Serbs as a
constituent people, it has become evident that the strategic
goal of the new Croatian authorities is the creation of an
ethnically pure Croatian State. Now, following the aggression
of the Croatian Army against Western Slavonia on 1 May 1995
and against Krajina from 4-8 August 1995, even Tudjman's closes
friends and allies find it difficult to prove that this is not
true. The latest aggression of Croatia against the Serbian
people of Krajina, with the engagement of about 150 000 troops,
tanks, heavy artillery and aviation, destruction of all major
towns in Krajina, expulsion of over 250,000 Serbs, mass
calculated killing of civilians, mass-scale war crimes, strafing
and shelling of the helpless columns of refugees, destruction
and devastation of everything that is Serbian, has opened the
eyes to many in the world and provided to those better
acquainted with the situation the unambiguous basis to conclude
that the strategy of the annihilation of the Serbian people in
Croatia under Tudjman's Government today is not at all different
from the same strategy of the fascist Government of Ante
Pavelic, leader of the so-called Independent State of Croatia
which was created under the auspices of Hitler and existed from
1941- 1945.
The fascist creation of the Independent State of
Croatia (1941-1945) was proclaimed in Zagreb on 10 April 1941 and
lasted until 9 May 1945 until the collapse of fascism. It
encompassed the territories of Croatia (except Istria, Hrvatsko
primorje and some islands), Bosnia-Herzegovina and Srem. Hitler
brought to the helm of the Independent State of Croatia Ante
Pavelic, Croatian emigre in Italy and the founder of the illegal
fascist organization CROATIAN USTASHA MOVEMENT. The Ustasha
programme of the Independent State of Croatia provided, inter
alia, for the extermination of the Serbian people, the Jews and
Romanies from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia
and for the creation of "a pure Croatian nation", i.e. an
ethnically pure Independent State of Croatia.
Ethnic cleansing under Pavelic and Tudjman. The Independent
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
State of Croatia (1941-1945) took over the racist laws of Nazi
Germany. By its cruelty, brutality and macabre killings, the
regime of Ante Pavelic astounded even the German SS formations
stationed in the Independent State of Croatia./1
The ethnically pure Croatian State was the strategic goal of
the fascist Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic. What
Pavelic and Hitler failed to achieve from 1941-1945, Tudjman
managed to do from 1991-1995. Since the outbreak of the Yugoslav
crisis to the latest aggression against Krajina, over 500 000
Serbs have been expelled from their ancestral lands and homes.
The denial to the Serbs of the capacity of a constituent
people in 1990 and the subsequent declaration of the independence
and sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia signalled the
beginning of the expulsion of the citizens of Serbian
nationality.
The mass exodus of the Serbs, which began in the summer of
1991 continues unabated. From June 1991 to July 1995, the
Croatian authorities expelled from the territories under their
control more than 350000 Serbs. The ethnic cleansing of Serbs has
taken place all over the Republic of Croatia, particularly in
Western Slavonia. Serbian villages were systematically burned
down and destroyed. According to the information collected until
15 August 1992 by the Serbian Sabor relating to the persecution
of the Serbian people and its ethnic cleansing in Western Slavonia
by the authorities of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, published
as an
============================================
1/ Report of SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner to the Military
Commander for Southeast, 3 September 1941; documents of the
Personal Staff of the SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, MA 328, No.
651866
============================================
official document of the General Assembly of the United Nations,
183 Serbian villages and 10 towns have been fully cleansed and
87 Serbian villages partially cleansed from Serbs.
In his report of May 1993 (S/25777) the United Nations
Secretary-General says that 250 000 Serbs have been expelled from
their homes. The number includes only the registered cases of the
expelled Serbs who found shelter in the Republic of Serbian
Krajina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Most of the Serbs who lived in many Croatian towns in large
numbers left these towns because of a perfidious method of
pressure:
30 000 from Karlovac, 28 000 from Zadar, 30 000 from Sisak, 5 000
from Gospic, 15 000 from Sibenik, 10 000 from Vinkovci and 10 000
from Slavonski Brod. (The Government of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia submitted documented data on the ethnic cleansing of
the Serbs from Croatia to the United Nations on a number of
occasions, including its four reports on war crimes, submitted in
accordance with Security Council resolution 780).
According to the information reaching the European Union
from Zagreb, at average up to 500 Serbs leave Croatia every day
mainly for the Republic of Serbia, Republic of Srpska or the
Republic of Serbian Krajina.
The Serbian civilian population in Eastern Slavonia, Medak
Pocket and in other ancestral Serbian lands has also been
liquidated on a mass scale.
The aggression against Western Slavonia of 1 May 1995 was
aimed at ethnically cleansing that part of Serbian territories.
In a matter of days, over 15 000 civilians, women, children and
the old were expelled, while over 3 000 of them were liquidated.
In its undisguised aggression against the Serbian
territories in Western Bosnia, a foreign territory, Croatia
occupied pure Serbian towns of Glamoc and Grahovo. Croatia
expelled over 50 000 Serbian civilians from this area.
150 000 Croatian troops engaged in the genocide in Krajina.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The genocidal policy of the extermination of the Serbian people
pursued by the Croatian State culminated in its aggression
against Krajina on 4 August 1995 . This aggression, in which 150
000 troops were engaged, brought about a mass suffering of
civilian population, exposed to outright, deliberate and
incessant attacks by artillery and airplanes. Many people,
especially women and children and the old were either killed or
wounded. The aggression brought many war crimes and mass exodus
of about 250 000 people in its train, who fled to former Bosnia-
Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This caused
enormous humanitarian problems unprecedented in recent history:
on 6 and 7 August 1995, the Croatian aviation and artillery
killed the refugees in long columns on a mass scale in the areas
of Martin Brod, Petrovac, Banja Luka, Topusko, Glina, the Topusko
Dvor road, in the vicinity of the Bojna settlement, on the
northern borders of Krajina and Bosnia. Tens of thousands of
women, children and the old and ailing were killed.
The ethnic cleansing is carried out through physical
liquidation of civilians, arrests, organized demolition of
Serbian houses, evictions, dismissals, prevention of religious
life, refusals to grant Croatian citizenship, etc.
Carl Bildt: Tudjman responsible for war crimes. Co-Chairman
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia Carl
Bildt accused President Tudjman publicly already on the first day
of the aggression of the atrocities committed by the Croatian
armed forces in Krajina and said that it was possible that the
President of the Republic of Croatia be brought before the
International War Crime Tribunal in The Hague. Croatia responded
by declaring EU representative in the International Conference on
the Former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt persona non grata.
The genocide. The Independent State of Croatia will go down
^^^^^^^^^^^^
in history as a creation which ushered in a systematic and pre-
planned genocide against the entire Serbian people. The regime of
Ante Pavelic brought the order on "the final solution of the
Serbian question", the annihilation or expulsion of the Serbian
people from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia,
six months before the Nazis took the decision on the total
annihilation of the Jews.
Over 1 900 000 Serbs, accounting for almost one third of the
overall population of the Independent State of Croatia, were
outlawed by the Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic
(1941-1945) by a system of laws. Over 900 000 Serbs were killed.
Serbian territories, but without Serbs. The victims of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Independent State of Croatia were hundreds of thousands of people
bestially murdered by being thrown into karst pits or rivers,
burned alive or slaughtered in prisons and concentration camps.
The concentration camp of Jasenovac on the Sava River banks in
the Independent State of Croatia was the largest killing field in
the Balkans and one of the few in which 700 000 Serbs, Jews and
Romanies were killed.
The armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia fought
the anti-Hitlerite coalition throughout World War Two (1941-
1945). As early as the middle of July 1941, the Independent State
of Croatia (1941-1945) dispatched to the Eastern Front against
the Red Army the re-enforced 369th infantry regiment numbering 3
865 men, entering in this way the war against the Soviet Union.
During 1941 and in the first half of 1942, the Independent State
of Croatia dispatched over 8 000 legionaries of all services to
this Front.
On 14 December 1941, the Independent State of Croatia
declared war to the Allies, including the United States of
America and Great Britain.
Today, 50 years later, continuing its genocide against the
Serbs, the Croatian regime is, unfortunately, being supported
also by the leaders of some influential countries.
Despite the fascist basis and roots of his regime, President
Tudjman established this year a Committee to mark the 50th
anniversary of the victory over fascism. Side by side with this
Committee, he established a Committee to mark the 50th
anniversary of Bleiburg and the "road of the cross" commemorating
Croatian fascists. He was received in the Holocaust Museum in
Washington and invited to the commemoration of the victims of
fascism in London on 8 May 1995.
An international "scientific" seminar was held in Zagreb
in May 1995 on "Bleiburg and the Road of the Cross 1945-1995"
under the auspices of the highest Croatian authorities at which
it was, inter alia, pointed out that "the seeds of present-day
Croatia sprung up from the blood of the Bleiburg martyrs".
Instead of the ceremony in commemoration of the victims of
fascism, Jasenovac was shelled on the day of the 50th anniversary
of the victory over fascism.
On 1 May 1995, Franjo Tudjman dispatched an enormous number
of soldiers, tanks and planes equal to the number of inhabitants
against the Serbs in Western Slavonia on which occasion over 3
000 civilians were killed, Pakrac, Lipik, Jasenovac and Okucani
were ethnically cleansed, while about 15 000 Serbs were expelled.
Out of 20 000 inhabitants before the attack, 1 200 inhabitants at
most remained in the region, in accordance with UN information.
In only four days, i.e. 4 to 8 August 1995, 250 000 Serbian
civilians were expelled from Krajina. That was the main goal of
the Croatian aggression against Krajina. Serbian lands, but
without Serbs is the motto of the regime of Franjo Tudjman, taken
over from his role model Ante Pavelic. This is evinced also by
the statement of Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic of 6
August 1995, made to the Associated Press to the effect that he
expected that up to 99 per cent of Serbs would leave Krajina.
First on 1 May 1995 in Western Slavonia and then on 4-8
August 1995 in Krajina (North-South), Tudjman's war machine set
out to destroy all larger Serbian settlements, to kill in a pre-
planned way and on a mass scale civilians, women and children,
the old and the exhausted, to strafe and shell long columns of
helpless refugees, to rape Serbian women and to mutilate savagely
civilian victims. It destroyed all documents and the Jasenovac
Memorial in which, at this moment, 200 Croatian soldiers are
stationed, in forlorn hope to erase the traces of past crimes.
Hitler and Pavelic - Tudjman's role models. Ever since his
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
emergence on the political scene, Franjo Tudjman has sought to
portray the Ustasha Independent State of Croatia as any other
European State and to equate its leader Pavelic, just as he
equated Hitler, with other European leaders of that time. In his
book "The Wasteland of History", published by Matica Hrvatska in
Zagreb in 1990, Tudjman said that the Holocaust was a natural
phenomenon in the history of nations and that there was nothing
particular about it. Tudjman admitted that "Hitler was bad", but
that "in a sense he was no worse than anybody else".
Tudjman: Jews responsible for genocide. Tudjman's obsession
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
is to justify fascism, reduce the number of the Serbian and
Jewish victims and to continuously accuse both of these
peoples.Tudjman seeks to prove that genocide existed throughout
history and goes as far as to claim that it was invented by the
Jews. Tudjman does not completely deny the Ustasha crimes, but
seeks to minimize them by "re-defining their place in history".
In an attempt to re-write history, Tudjman goes on to say that
tens of thousands of inmates, most of them Romanies, Jews and
Serbs, as well as Croats, perished in the Jasenovac concentration
camp ("The Wasteland", page 316).
Tudjman's antisemitism and Serbophobia. Tudjman imputes that
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the Jews in the Jasenovac camp administration were responsible
for the killing of the Serbs and Romanies as well as of Jews
themselves. He accuses the Jews of allegedly appropriating the
gold of the Romanies and claims that this was the reason for
their execution ("The Wasteland", pp 318-319). Under Tudjman's
reign, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and Serbian churches and
cultural and spiritual centres are simultaneously attacked and
destroyed.
What the new Croatian State was to look like was no secret
to anybody, particularly not to the threatened Serbian people.
Speaking on Jelacic Square (until 1991 Republic Square) in Zagreb
to the welcoming crowd upon his return from New York, after the
admission of Croatia into the United Nations, Tudjman said
threateningly that "everybody must know that nobody can rule
Croatia now but Croats themselves. The Serbs in Croatia must
understand and accept the fact that neither Yugoslavia nor Serbia
exist any more; the world no longer recognizes it. The Serbs in
Croatia must recognize Croatian authorities, if they will not do
it, they would better go and look for their homeland elsewhere in
the world"./2
Tudjman's consistency. Under the pressure of the Jewish
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
lobby, Tudjman himself tried to correct his positions from the
said book. He had reduced the number of the Jewish victims in
World War Two to under one million and then apologized and said
that he was going to rectify the mistake in the next edition of
his book with respect to Jews, but not Serbs.
Franjo Tudjman incorporated the ideas from his book in the
programme of his Croatian Democratic Community, the ruling party
of Croatia. On 24 and 25 February 1990, Tudjman said: "The
hegemonists and unitarists forget that the Independent State of
Croatia was not only a 'quisling' creation and a fascist crime,
but also an expression of the historical aspirations of the
Croatian people for its independent State and a cognizance of
international factors". By putting out the request for "the
territorial integrity of the Croatian people in its historic and
natural borders", Tudjman said that by this it is meant that
according to its present-day constitution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is
also the State of the Croatian people. "This is the reflection
and continuation of the Croatian politicians Starcevic,
Pavlinovic, Trumbic and Radic, all of whom spoke about Bosnia
Herzegovina from the position of its unity with Croatia and the
West, and had no second thoughts as to where its people would
decide in a referendum its place was."/3
The same symbols in 1941 and in 1991. Tudjman
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
propounded similar ideas in his statement at the celebration of
the 155th anniversary of the publication of the national anthem
of present-day Croatia "Our Beautiful Homeland" which was also
the national anthem of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-
1945). Today's Croatia has the same symbols as the fascist
Independent State of Croatia - the same national flag, coat-of-
arms and the same national currency (kuna).
================================
2/ Prime-time News of Croatian Radio-Television, Zagreb, 24
May 1992.
3/ The regime of Franjo Tudjman considers Ante Starcevic the
"Father of the Croatian nation". In his well-known book "Magnum
Crimen" (Zagreb, 1948), eminent Croatian historian Victor Novak
wrote that the ideology of Ante Starcevic and his political heir
Josip Frank, the founder and leader of the Croatian Party of
Right, was hued with undisguised racism about pure Croatness.
Their racist nationalism, Novak went on to say, was very militant
and intolerant, exclusive, anti-Orthodox, anti-Yugoslav. What
they stood for was best evinced by what they put on their
banners: "Croatia to the Croats", "There is only one political
people in Croatian lands - the Croats", "No Serbian nationality,
no Serbian name are recognized in Croatia" and "Axes for Serbs".
================================
The State as a mechanism for the extermination of all non-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Croats. The Croatian Democratic Community and Franjo Tudjman
^^^^^^
carried out a revaluation and a thorough rehabilitation of the
Ustashe and the Ustasha movement./4 Mile Budak, the second-
ranking official in the Independent State of Croatia and its
Minister of Education and Faith, has been fully rehabilitated by
a decision of Franjo Tudjman. Many Croatian schools have been
renamed after him and the Croatian "newspeak" is being created
according to his teachings from the time of the Independent State
of Croatia of Ante Pavelic so as to establish and emphasize its
separateness from the Serbian language. That very same racist
approach of Budak towards the Serbs is a very salient feature of
the Croatian Democratic Community and the State policy of
Croatia.
Immediately after its assumption of power, the Tudjman
regime expunged the Serbs from the new Croatian Constitution (in
all the Constitutions of the former Yugoslav Federal Republic of
the SR of Croatia, the Serbs had the status of a constituent
people and not of a
national minority) and refused to grant the Serbs, in practice,
even the basic civil, human and national rights.
Even at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Serbs
were represented in the Parliament in Vienna and were recognized
as a separate entity, but not in Croatia after Tudjman's
accession to power. They are dismissed, evicted, their villages,
churches and cemeteries are devastated, all Serbian cultural
institutions are abolished as well as their language and script,
etc.
Minions of both Pavelic and Tudjman. Upon its taking over of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
power, the Croatian Democratic Community began to propagate the
Ustasha ideology more and more openly. Increasing publicity on
Croatian Radio and Television was being given to people like
Danijel Crnjan who, at the time of the Independent State of
Croatia, said that Croatia had radically solved the Jewish
question, Dinko Sakic, the warden of the Jasenovac concentration
camp, Pavelic's son-in-law Srecko Psenicnik (the leader of the
emigre Croatian Liberation Movement), Mate Sarlija (whose real
name is Nijaz Batla, Croatian Army General, Counsellor in the
Croatian Embassy in Sarajevo), Ante Stojanov an accomplice in the
murder of Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden Vladimir Rolovic of 1972
and Sabor deputy Vinko Nikolic, an ideologist of the Independent
State of Croatia (1941-1945) and the member of the Ustasha
headquarters and the ideologist of the Ustasha youth.5/
=================================
4/ The Croatian Democratic Community espoused, elaborated
and began to put in practice the basic political ideas of A.
Starcevic and his Croatian Party of Right, which he established
together with Eugen Kvaternik in 1861. Starcevic was the author
of the idea about the racial, national and religious superiority
of Croats over Serbs. He considered that the Croatian people
could not restore its national State without prior extermination
of the Serbian people. Denying the political individuality to
Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, he and his followers
contended that the Serbs were "Orthodox Croats". In his opinion,
the Croats were a superior and the Serbs an inferior race. The
creation of a pure Croatian and Catholic Independent State of
Croatia (1941-1945) in World War Two was an attempt to put into
practice the racial theory of Ante Starcevic and his political
heirs, Frankovci and Ustashe.
5/ D. Sakic: "I am proud of my past, of everything I did at
that time. Only the chosen few could occupy the post I occupy. If
the Independent State of Croatia had not existed during the four
war years, the 30 May 1990 could have never been possible. The
Independent State of Croatia was the foundation on which today's
Croatia was built. If we say the whole truth about the
Independent State of Croatia today, we have nothing to be ashamed
of, we can only feel proud since we defended Croatian interests,
we defended the State on whose foundation the present-day Croatia
emerged". He went on to say: "There were no mass killings at
Jasenovac. Considering the duration of the camp, considering the
number of people in it, deaths were natural and normal - there
were always about 3 000 inmates in the camp at a time. If we did
execute, we did so at the order of the competent court on the
basis of law. I am only telling you that the rule of law
obtained". (Interview to the "Magazin", Zagreb, 8 February 1995)
===============================
Nostalgia for Ustasha leaders. Croatia is rehabilitating the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
leaders of the Ustasha movement, renaming streets, squares,
schools and other institutions after them. The Victims of Fascism
Square in Zagreb has been renamed in Great Croatians Square, anti-
fascist memorials are being pulled down (over 2 000 memorials
commemorating the victims of fascism have been demolished in
Dalmatia alone), Pavelic's pictures are flooding the barracks of
the Croatian Army, Croatian military units are given the names of
notorious Ustashas such as Francetic, Boban and Luburic, cafes
and restaurants are named "Poglavnik" (the Supreme Leader, the
title given to Ante Pavelic during World War Two), "Ustasha" or
"U" and Pavelic's pictures are displayed in public places. On 6
August 1995, Croatian units entered the defeated and ethnically
cleansed Knin singing Ustasha songs and waving Ustasha symbols.
Fascists given positions in Tudjman's Government. The
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tudjman regime has appointed former Ustasha officials to high
positions in present-day Croatia. Former members of the Ustasha
movement have filled the ranks of Croatian diplomacy, military
and police. Among them, as reported by "The New York Times", is
an Ustasha woman terrorist in the Croatian Embassy in Washington.
President Tudjman has also rehabilitated the high-ranking
Ustasha official from Dubrovnik, Ivo Rojnica, appointed him
Croatian Ambassador to Argentina and decorated him with a high
Croatian order. Rojnica had said that he would have done what he
did from 1941-1945 over again. He signed a racist order of the
Independent State of Croatia in 1941 and was decorated by Ante
Pavelic for his "dedicated work in carrying out the entrusted
duty in the Ustasha movement".
By a decision of President Tudjman, Vinko Nikolic, member of
the Ustasha General Staff and the ideologist of the Ustasha
youth, who from 1941-1945 participated in the genocide against
the Serbs, Jews and Romanies, has been appointed member of the
House of Counties of the Sabor of the Republic of Croatia.
Medals for killing Serbian civilians. "Croatian veterans"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
from World War Two, Home Guard members and the members of the
fascist army of the Independent State of Croatia also paraded
before President Tudjman during the celebration of the Fifth
Anniversary of the Republic of Croatia on 30 May 1995. On that
occasion, Tudjman conferred the high Croatian orders of "Nikola
Subic Zrinjski" also on S. Rinac, the killer of the Serbian Zec
family in Zagreb, who admitted to have committed this crime, but
has not been arraigned yet, T. Mercep, responsible for the
massacre of Serbs from Pakracka poljana to Gospic, M. Baresic,
Ustasha terrorist and the killer of Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden
Vladimir Rolovic, S. Praljak, former TV Director and now a
general in the Croatian Army at whose orders the world-known
cultural and historical symbol of Mostar - the Old Bridge, was
destroyed.
Rehabilitation of former Ustashe. The books of prominent
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ustasha officials from the time of the Independent State of
Croatia are being published under the sponsorship and financial
assistance of Croatian Government departments.
The book of Eugen Dido Kvaternik called "Remembrances and
Observations 1925-1945, Addenda to Croatian History" was
published with the assistance of the Ministry of Science and
Technology of the Republic of Croatia and promoted on 21 March
1995 in the Entrepreneurs' Centre in Zagreb. The author of the
book was the head of the Ustasha Supervisor Service and the head
of the Administration of public order and security and the main
organizer in 1941 and 1942 of all racial and religious
persecutions, mass killings, genocide and war crimes, and the
promotion was intended to provide a "scientific verification" in
the form of the "addenda to Croatian history"./6
====================================
6/ By the proclamation based on Art. 3 of the legal
provision on the Croatian State Sabor (Parliament) of 24 February
1942, No. XXXV 232-Z-1942, signed by Head of State Ante Pavelic,
Eugen Kvaternik and Slavko Kvaternik were proclaimed members of
the Croatian State Sabor ("the memorial book of the First
Anniversary of the Independent State of Croatia 10 April 1941-10
April 1942", published by the State Reporting and Promotional
Office in Zagreb).
====================================
"Free" press. The Croatian authorities instructed the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Croatian information media not to report of the Nazi past of
Germany. At the same time, speaking at the party congress of the
Croatian Democratic Community in Zagreb on 15 October 1995,
President Tudjman proposed that "the remains of the victims of
communism" also be transferred to the memorial complex of
Jasenovac and that tribute be paid at one place both to the
"victims of fascism and the victims of communism, to the Jews and
victims of the homeland war"./7 At the end of 1993, the
Coordination Committee of the Jewish community of the Republic of
Croatia in Zagreb protested the planned "rehabilitation of the
Ustasha State" taking place in Croatia, as well as the idea that
the Ustasha criminals be buried in concentration camps which they
once established and run themselves.
On 10 March 1995, "Vjesnik", the standard-bearer of the
official Croatian press (there is hardly any independent press in
Croatia) carried the photographs of the Ustasha criminals J.
Francetic and R. Boban (many units in the Croatian army are named
after them now) and the text of the Ustasha march "Evo zore, evo
dana, evo Jure i Bobana" ("Here Breaks the Dawn, Here Breaks the
Day, Here Come Jure and Boban"). Many magazines in Croatia have
Ustasha leanings and the most notorious amongst them are
"Vinkovacki hrvatski vjesnik" with a front page motto "Serbs be
damned wherever you are" and the new "Hrvatski vitez", whose
editors would stop at nothing to demean the Serbs.
As soon as he took over power in 1990, Tudjman dismissed
over 1000 editors and journalists and introduced iron discipline
in all newspapers in Croatia. Dismissals and the sending out of
circular instructions to editorial boards is a very salient
feature of the media policy of present-day Croatia.
The anti-Serbian atmosphere and trends in the Republic of
Croatia are well illustrated also by a consistent and almost
complete expunction of the text of Serbian authors from
elementary school textbooks (B. Copic, D. Radovic, B. Miljkovic,
D. Maksimovic, A. Vuco, P. Kocic, J. Jovanovic Zmaj, V. Karadzic
or J. Sterija Popovic, while Ivo Andric, the 1962 Yugoslav Nobel
Prize winner for literature is given only a fragmentary
reference). All Serbian writers, representative of literary
trends and epochs, have been left out from secondary school
textbooks too.
No textbook references to Ustasha crimes. School books
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
contain no lessons at all on anti-fascism and the anti-fascist
struggle in Croatia because they are necessarily reminiscent of
the contribution and identity of the Serbs. They do contain
however the texts from the so-called Croatian primers from 1941-
1943 in an attempt to prove that those were the times when people
"lived a normal community life". The "revaluation" of history by
way of issuing new textbooks is designed to imbue the children
with hatred towards the entire Serbian people. This was also the
case with the textbooks issued in the time of Ante Pavelic
according to which the Croats were always threatened and shackled
with Serbian hegemony, while all the evils emanate from the
Serbs.
The Serbian language and the Cyrillic script are no longer
in use, while the spiritual and cultural identity of the Serbian
people is being denied. There are no Serbian dailies and radio
and television programmes in the Serbian language. The Serbs are
racially discriminated against in which way Croatia violates the
basic provisions of the Convention of the elimination of all
forms of racial discrimination to which it is also a party.
Conversion of Serbs and Muslims. The Independent State of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Croatia of Ante Pavelic (1941-1945) converted forcibly 240 000
Serbs. Tudjman's Croatia uses Pavelic's experience and methods.
Ever since the beginning of the armed conflict in former Croatia
in 1991 about 20 000 children have been forcibly converted.
Simultaneously, Croatian authorities are forcibly converting
Muslim children in Bosnia where about 17 000 Muslims have been
converted in the last three years.
Neo-fascism. On 28 December 1993, a large commemoration of
^^^^^^^^^^^
Ante Pavelic, the fascist leader of the clerical and fascist
Independent State of Croatia from 1941-1945, was held in Zagreb.
"Without him, there would be no present-day Croatian State," was
the official explanation.
Up and down Croatia (the central celebration was held in
Split), the adherents and upholders of Ustasha tradition marked
also this year the anniversary of the establishment of the
Independent State of Croatia on 10 April. This was a unique case
that the establishment of a collaborationist
======================================
7/ "Vecernji list", 1 November 1993
======================================
fascist State as had been the Independent State of Croatia was
being freely celebrated in a European country, that fascist
crimes were being denied or at least downplayed and that those
who had committed them were being presented as "freedom-fighters
and anti-fascists who had made only sporadic mistakes"./8
All the media in Croatia carried the "Proclamation to
the Croatian Nation" of 10 April 1995 of Mladen Svarc, the
founder of the New Croatian Right Party, in which he requested
the Croatian Government to rescind the humiliating 21 June and
proclaim the 10 April as the day of Croatian statehood.
Speaking at a meeting of the Central Committee of the
Croatian Democratic Community on 25 April 1995, Franjo Tudjman
said: "Croatia is being accused of continuing the policy of the
Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945), but it should be known
that the Independent State of Croatia was not only a crime, but
also an expression of the state aspirations of the Croatian
people. Today, the people from either side are invited to rally
around the problem of democratic Croatia".
At the celebration of 10 April in Split, Political Secretary
of the Croatian Party of Right Ivan Gabelica said (part of it
carried by the Croatian Radio-Television and the press): "From
the suffering, blood and tears of the Croats rose Dr. Ante
Pavelic - all those means that Pavelic propounded and that he
used to establish the Independent State of Croatia should be used
against the Serbs also today".
Miko Tripalo, President of the Action of Social Democrats of
Croatia, wrote: "Those attempting to rehabilitate the Independent
State of Croatia and the Ustashe advocate in effect the war
option. The rehabilitation of the Independent State of Croatia
and the Ustashe is assuming worrisome proportions and is
manifested through a flood of Ustasha symbols and photographs of
Ustasha criminals. 10 April, the Day of the Independent State of
Croatia, is officially celebrated and is stage-managed by the
Croatian State and military"./9
In a public letter of Dalmatian anti-fascists it is, inter
alia, said: "Neo-fascism is our daily reality and it is our duty
to warn of it on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the
victory over fascism. Death was the goal at the time of the
Independent State of Croatia; it was provided false dignity by
totalitarian laws: the Law on the racial belonging of citizens,
Law on permanent summary courts, Law on the expulsion of non-
Croats and conversion into Catholicism and the Law on
concentration camps. These laws were implemented by the mass
extermination of other blood, other race, other thought. The
worst mistake in the new present-day State was committed by
establishing links with Ustasha emigres who understood it as an
opportunity to try to achieve what they failed to achieve in the
last war. The kuna conduced to the definitive official
identification of present-day Croatia with the so-called
Independent State of Croatia, voted at the behest of the Great
Leader: the nostalgic circle has thus been closed - neo-fascism
has evidently pitched camp in Croatia, fascism is our daily
reality, fascism is being reincarnated as a way of ruling
Croatia."
Tudjman's Croatia the greatest threat to peace. At the Inter-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Parliamentary Conference on European Security, held in Warsaw on
5-6 May 1995, it was frequently pointed out that "the most
important factor of European instability is present-day Croatia,
burdened with the new army and replete with memories of the
Ustasha State of World War Two."
Greater Croatia. Hitler presented the Independent State of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Croatia to Pavelic as Greater Croatia which, fortunately for
Europe and the Balkans, did not last long. Today, Tudjman is
doing everything to have Greater Croatia presented by Germany,
the United States and the Vatican, reconstructed from Bosnia and
Serbian lands. While a concerted propaganda campaign is being
mounted to frighten small Balkan countries with the spectre of
"Greater Serbia" and are being offered a protective "umbrella",
behind the smokescreen the Washington Agreement from 1994
inaugurated Greater Croatia in which the Muslims are a majority,
while the July 1995 Split Agreement consolidated the
===============================
8/ In its programme "Review of the Activities of Political
Parties" of 12 April 1995, the Radio-Television of Croatia
broadcast the marking of 10 April - the Day of the Independent
State of Croatia - by the Croatian Party of Right in Split on
which occasion youths wearing black uniforms saluted those
attending the event with stretched right hands like Mussolini and
Hitler.
9/ "Novi list", April 1995.
===============================
military alliance between Tudjman and Izetbegovic and was given
the blessings by the United States Ambassador in Zagreb, Peter
Galbraith. Both of them have been sent teams of US military
planners and experts and they have been rendered military and
financial assistance. The United States has unilaterally
discontinued the control of the arms embargo against Muslims and
Croats in violation of the Security Council arms embargo
resolution in whose adoption it participated.
Croatian authorities in Bosnia. From the beginning of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
crisis until the present day, thousands of Croatian regular
troops have been present in many parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatian flags have been flown and the Croatian, i.e. Ustasha,
coat-of-arms and national currency (kuna) have been used. All
structures of the authorities in these parts of Bosnia-
Herzegovina are directly linked with Zagreb, not Sarajevo.
Ethnically pure Croatian State. The ethnic cleansing of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Serbs from their ancestral lands in Croatia has been a permanent
feature of Croatian policy. Croatia is not interested in whatever
status or rights of the Serbian people, in whatever level of
mutual confidence; its exclusive interest has always been the
control of Serbian ethnic lands but without Serbs. The genocide
against the Serbian people initiated by Ante Pavelic has been
continued by the President of present-day Croatia Franjo Tudjman.
The goal of an ethnically pure Croatian State is being realized.
Telling proof of this monstrous enterprise is the fact that over
500 000 Serbs have been expelled from their ancestral lands since
the forcible secession of Croatia from the former SFR of
Yugoslavia to the present day. The most evident example of this
is the latest Croatian aggression against the Republic of Serbian
Krajina and the mass exodus of the Serbian people from this
region, the largest in the last five years of the systematic
persecution and extermination.
===============================================================
-- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me --
D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com
===============================================================