Croatia: Government attempting to belittle WWII Communist Crimes

Section of Tezno mass grave - 15,000 victims - Photo: Ben Freeman

While the Croatian Social Democrat led government has declined to continue sponsoring the WWII Bleiburg Tragedy commemorations, its leaders have decided to pay respects to victims at the Tezno mass grave (about 15,000 murdered there). The only problem is that Tezno mass grave is only one of many places of WWII, and after, where communist […]

Croatia must not yield to Serbia’s intimidation

ICJ Trial Chamber 2008

Croatian online news portal Vjesnik reports Friday 27 April that Slobodan Homen from Serbia’s ministry of Justice gave a statement to Serbia’s Evening News in which he said: “We are very interested in achieving an agreement on relinquishing the cases for war crimes. Croatia has 1500 such cases against Serbs, and we only have 40 […]

Croatian economy: Political blame game net – now cast wider

Finance Minister Slavko Linic - Photo: Boris Scitar/PIXSELL

Croatia’s finance minister Slavko Linic had spent a recent week in the USA in the successful bid to sell USD1.5 billion Croatian bonds to private investors. While increasing Croatia’s foreign debt, the government says this was essential in order to create the capability of repaying due foreign debt obligations and to create an atmosphere/conditions for […]

Croatian Generals’ ICTY Appeal: zooming into the nitty-gritty

Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac Appeal hearing is set for 14th May. Many wait in intense anticipation. While the charges for war crimes against the generals were and are directed at the Generals as individual people the Trial Chamber’s findings in April 2011 was felt by the nation. The latter in particular because […]

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic: will his metaphoric Ustashi snake divert attention from post-WWII Communist crimes

Cartoon: Ivo Josipovic and the Snake

When a Head of a country – a President – starts evoking a terrible long-gone past and resurrecting it, pinning it, maliciously, as active inclinations of today’s decent freedom loving citizens then we know that country is in danger of long-lasting disarray and disenchantment. This can no longer be seen as political rhetoric to win […]

Croatia: Commemorating the 82,085 recorded deaths in WWII Jasenovac area concentration camps

Jasenovac Flower Memorial (Photo HRT)

22 April 2012 marks the 67th anniversary of the Jasenovac concentration camp prisoner break-out. A commemoration was held at that largest detention and work camp of the Independent State of Croatia (1941 – 1945). Out of 1073 prisoners still held there on 22 April 1945, 600 of them broke out and barely 100 of them […]

BBC: stealthy, mean-spirited bias that runs deep

Siege of Sarajevo Map adapted from artwork FAMA International

Just for the record: complaints, analyses, protests,court cases, write-ups about BBC bias is not a new phenomenon, it’s been going on for years. Indeed if one searches for BBC’s bias on the internet one finds seemingly endless legitimate and justifiable information on this issue. I, myself, have addressed the issue of BBC bias on a […]

Bleiburg Massacres: the Shame of the British Army and Yugoslav communists

Tomislav Karamarko - candidate for president of Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)

To call the Bleiburg Massacres commemoration a “happening” is awful, and utterly disrespectful of the dead. That’s what Croatia’s president Ivo Josipovic did this week when he commented on the decision by the parliamentary presidency to stop sponsoring the annual commemoration at Bleiburg (Austria). Josipovic said this week that the Parliament presidency’s decision was good […]

Lawyers will ask for Croatian general’s conviction to be overturned on all counts

Ante Gotovina (L) Mladen Markac (R)

Republished with permission from the portal of Institute for War and Peace Reporting  Gotovina Appeal Hearing Set For May Lawyers will ask for Croatian general’s conviction to be overturned on all counts By Rachel Irwin – International Justice – ICTY TRI Issue 736, 5 Apr 12 The appeals hearing for Croatian general Ante Gotovina will […]

Croatia 2000

Reblogged from Eyes of the Mind: I visited Croatia in Autumn of 2000 and took a fair number of photos, mostly of the remaining devastation in Vukovar from the 1991-1995 war.  Here is a selection of them (which I have finally transferred from film to digital images). The fire department in Vukovar, where its defenders […]