Displacement of Croats – again?

Over 3 million displaced in wars that raged in Croatia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1991 – 1995

To start this, let me just quote the start of Nenad Piskac’s article – Croats are dying out in Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina – on Croatian Cultural Committee portal .

“ It’s bad for Croats in Croatia, so how would it not be worse for them in Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina? Croats here and there in the “region” are not even political subjects. In some places they’re not even an object. They officially do not exist. Croats in Slovenia, for example, are not even an ethnic minority, in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina they are third-class “constitutional people” modified by Muslims and the only constitutional people without its own “entity” (living territory), in the Serbian Republic they were thoroughly ethnically cleansed without any prospect for return, and in Serbia, Croats can be anything they want except Croats”.
I wonder if anyone in the international community that “counts” has noticed this sad state of affairs while they bang on about the rights of ethnic minorities in Croatia? I wonder, if they’re going to do anything about it!

But, thankfully, there a many people that live and breathe for Croats’ rights. And when it comes to those within Croatia I’m quite glad that I have come across the “Action for a better Croatia” party and this is what it’s website says on the issue of Croats in Croatia:

“Lately, there have been frequent calls for youth to leave Croatia and seek their livelihood in some other countries, because there is no future for them where they were born and grew up. Besides showing present day tragedies such messages are extremely dangerous for the future of the Croatian people. Not even the biggest and richest countries in the world give up easily on their young people, so why are leaders of Croatia doing it and, for whose interests? Whom does it benefit that there are fewer Croats from generation to generation?  Can a small nation such as the Croatia afford such an attitude toward the future?

The recent census showed us the alarming demographic picture of Croatia, but the ruling political elite, and this government, the one that is currently governing as well as the one that governed the past decade, does not seem worried, in the least. Given that, over the past few years, we have witnessed a general neglect of national interests by these politicians, we can rightly conclude that the demographic collapse of Croatia is only one part of the plan for the destruction of an independent Croatian state and Croats as a nation.

But so that it would not appear that they are doing nothing, the ruling minds came up with a strategy to improve the demographic picture of Croatia and presented it to the National forum entitled “Demographics – conditions of Croatian future ” at which the sponsor of the Forum, President Josipovic, enthusiastically declares: ” There are two great tasks in front of us, and they are: to work on a pro-birthrate policy and to devise policies that will attract foreign citizens. The time of hideboundness has passed, Croatia has enough power and capacity to accept the young intellectuals who will certainly contribute to the development of Croatian pro-birthrate policies.”

So, that’s the plan, Mr. President? ‘Young Croats to be sent into the world to seek a better future, and Croatia to be populated by foreign citizens, because Croatia is not hidebound but filled with capacity to accept anyone who puts his/her mind to living in it. Has it ever crossed your mind and the minds of your wise counsel how to make use of this capacity and retain Croatian youth in the Homeland and make use of their intellect and zeal for the betterment of Croatia and not for the benefit of another country, which has not invested a cent in their development?  Your Kukuriku (Cock-a-doodle-doo) colleagues have not thought of providing expectant mothers with financial and other support that would allow them to give birth to and raise a larger number of children, so that immigration would be unnecessary. But, they have thought to push through an ideology that leads to an even greater decrease in birth rates through health (sex) education.

Croatia has, throughout its history, always been broadminded and provided a home and a refuge for all that needed it, and in return these same settlers eventually in time took control of the government, persecuting their hosts and claiming the land as their own. After each such generosity we were left without one part of our territory, and we will not even speak of the disappearance of the population over the ages from Croatian territories.

The most obvious example of this is the time after the Second World War when your ideological role models expelled Croats and ethnic Germans from their ancestral lands and then settled immigrants from the whole of the former Yugoslavia. The nationality of settlers was “accidentally” mainly that of those who claimed that it is their country and “accidentally” these newcomers were given the best land and the best jobs, while the indigenous Croatian people were either politically and economic exiled or sentenced to mere survival.

After fifty years, the newcomers have concluded that “that” part of Croatia is theirs and that only they have the right to live there, and they argued their conclusions with a rifle and a knife. The truth is that their plan did not succeed, but regardless of the fact that they lost the war, broadminded Croats forgave them the slaughter and destruction they committed and let them to continue living peacefully on the stolen land, but again after twenty years, they claim that this is their country and seek within it some rights of their own, rights that are not recognized anywhere in the world and which are, in addition, based on earlier expulsions of the Croatian population.  Do we need to once again repeat this to prove (to whom?) that we are not hidebound or, have we learned something from history?

Croatia truly has the strength and the capacity for young people, but it is necessary to know how to mobilize and make available that strength and capacity to those who were born and educated in Croatia, and only if there are not enough of them invite foreigners to enrich Croatia to with their knowledge and skills.

Promising young people that they will soon be able to work in the EU, is of course a fraud because those who wanted to could have worked there already, and there have been limits on employment established through employment quotas and the cost of labor, which is the same as in the country from which the worker is coming. But, that is not the main problem, the main problem is the question for which previous political elites have no answer: WHY should our young people have to go to work and wander around in foreign countries, separated from their families, friends and the land where they grew up. We know the answer. They promise employment in other countries, because they are incompetent, unable to secure jobs for them in Croatia.

Neither the HDZ nor the Kukuriku Coalition have so far shown neither the knowledge nor the will to create out of the Croatia a country in which one can live from his/her work and create new values for future generations. All we have seen from them is the selling off of everything that was for sale, and a life on credit. It is high time for us to thank the one and the other for everything, and that finally Croatia is governed by those who created it and dreamed of it as a country of happy people who will not seek their fortune under other people’s skies.

It is high time for those that were exiled a long time ago to return to Croatia, and not for daily exoduses of Croats to occur due to the incompetence and neglect of the anti-national politicians.

Action for a Better Croatia, mr. Zeljko Cvrtila, acting president”

Translated into English by Zeljko Zidaric and Ina Vukic