Today’s “Vecernji List” newspaper from Zagreb published an article quoting president Ivo Josipovic: “I invite the parties not to conduct dirty campaigns”. This is i relation to the coming elections in Croatia. “I expect from the participants in election campaign to offer the voters as to how Croatia will develop,” Josipovic added.
In the HRT television news Josipovic commented that political parties should not talk about the past but about the future.
It is not clear whether he was alluding to the fresh arrest of the WWII communist Josip Boljkovac for alleged crimes of mass murder during 1945 or the feshly intensified criminal investigations for alleged corruption by the ruling party Croatian Democratic Union. Perhaps he meant both?
Whatever he meant seems illogical! But, with an unsettling discomfort for many.
All election campaigns in the entire “Western” democratic world revolve around the future AND the past. Past performances on past issues that affect the people are very important. National memory cannot be erased. The future depends on how the past was reconciled.
Croatia must pursue on its path to convict all proven crime from the past and the present. Especially the crimes that affect the people en masse and these are war crimes and corruption. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb), B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)