Croatia: Give Yourself A Tattoo With A Razor Blade Without Anesthetics

Metaphorically speaking, “give yourself a tattoo with a razor blade without anesthetics” is the kind of feeling many people in Croatia are expressing as an intended impact of their president’s current invitation to Serbia’s president for a state visit.

A very significant number of Croatian people are outraged at President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s invitation to Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic for an official visit to Croatia mid-February. How Grabar Ktarovic indends to dust off the red carpet to greet Vucic in Zagreb is indeed proving to be a vexing question that goes to the core of the Croatian still largely uncompensated and unrecognised suffering at the hands of Serbia in the early 1990’s.

Serbia’s President Vucic has long, using blatant lies publicly despised, denigrated, vilified and maligned Croatia and Croatian people. Vucic, as did all Serbs who were active during the aggression, embarked on a personal mission during their aggression against Croatia in the early 1990’s to occupy and ethnically cleanse of Croats and other non-Serbs one third of Croatian territory. Croats liberated that territory but were faced with incalculable costs to Croatian lives and at enormous cost to Croatian property by the enemy’s hand. None of which damages have been reconciled to a degree that could satisfy at least a part of due justice.

At the time when Serbia holds its exhibition in UN New York building through which, using lies and half-truths, purposefully tries to show Croatia up as the worst Holocaust perpetrator in Europe the Croatian president invites its president on a visit!

The invitation at such a time may indeed prove to be a gaffe of monumental proportions by the Croatian president, whose approval ratings are already floundering.

It’s a known fact that apologetic gestures via their implications of recognition of past wrong doing contribute positively to a reconciliation process. However, there’s no sign that Vucic intends to offer any apologies with regards to the bloody, murderous aggression against Croatia in the early 1990’s in which he himself actively participated by fueling the Serbian intent to kill, plunder and rape in Croatia.

Given the public outcry and condemnation in Croatia regarding this invitation, including from some well-known intellectuals and politicians, the only way this meeting could end “well” is that Croatia’s president takes Serbia’s president to one of the monuments dedicated to victims of Serbia’s aggression; such as the one in Vukovar, in Skabrnje, in Tovarnik … to mention but a very few.

Anything less certainly appears as a betrayal of Croatian trust and interests that is almost treasonous in its own right; for untold number of unresolved Serb perpetrated crimes during their aggression against Croatia and untold Serb pursuits to vilify Croatians on a world stage even to this day draw one to such a conclusion.

Negotiating successfully with the enemy, an unrepentant one such as Serbia, on points that are outstanding as a matter of reconciliation would indeed be a political art of high-ranking. In essence, Vucic has taken, for the moment at least, the no-concessions view to ongoing requests from Croatia for the location of the many hundreds of Croat victims still recorded as missing from the Homeland War, Vucic continues equating the aggressor with the victim, he continues usurping politically superior rights over the Serb minority of Croatia even if they are Croatian citizens bound to Croatian laws thus maintaining Serb-imperialism over Croatia…

He said a couple of days ago that he “will seek the assistance of authorities in reviving Serb villages and speak of what Serbia can do for their Croatian minority.” The fact that Serb minority has three seats in the Croatian parliament whose line of representation and the fact that Croatian state budget channels significant funds in support of its ethnic minorities doesn’t appear praiseworthy to Vucic – he intends meddling in Croatia’s affairs over its own population, he continues denigrating Croatia in business that is not his!

One must wonder why deputy Speaker of Croatian Parliament (HDZ), Milijan Brkic, stated on Friday 2 February 2018 that he supports President Grabar-Kitarivic’s invitation to President Vucic because “Serbia is our friendly and neighbouring country. Mr Vucic has had in his history some derailment from the path, he wandered a bit, but its time we all take our foot off the ball, all together and that we stop concerning ourselves with the past.”

The problem with this is that Serbia has clearly shown via its UN exhibition last week that it is still no friend to Croatia. And that is only a small part of its unfriendly and aggressive activities against Croatia and its people. People are neither fools nor blind and to call an active enemy a friend is insulting to human intellect.

The situation on the ground regarding President Grabar Kitarovic’s invitation to President Vucic is that a significant number of people within the HDZ ruling party do not support it and the same goes for the opposition. Besides the sentiment expressed by Milijan Brkic the following exemplify the ones that are opposite to Brkic’s or deal with outstanding issues Serbia is expected to deliver:

Stevo Culej (HDZ Member of Parliament) said: “75 Croatian citizens were killed in Tovarnik and no one has been made duly responsible for these killing nor have the remains of the killed been found yet, and I expect, if Serbia’s president comes to Croatia to try in his Serbia find information for at least one person still missing killed in Tovarnik and bring that information to Croatia with him…”

Josip Dakic (HDZ Member of Parliament) said: “as you know, I would rather he is in Remetinec (prison in Zagreb) than on a visit to Croatia…”

Zeljko Glasnovic (Independts Member of Parliament) said: “we have $34 billion war damage, and what’s with the raped, with the murdered, what’s the damage to the victims … since 1945 Germans paid $89 billion in damages to the victims of Nazism, what have Serbs the Greater Serbia imperialists done? I mentioned it before the youngest victim murdered in Croatia was 6 months old and the eldest 104 years old, the youngest rape victim was 5-year-old girl and the eldest 80 … who will pay for these people’s destroyed lives, families etc…”

Another concerning thing is for certain and that is that by inviting Serbia’s president to visit Croatia at this particular time when Serbia’s international propaganda activities based on lies are particularly viciously geared against Croatia President Grabar Kitarovic has served an unpleasant and disquieting surprise to her people. The surprise whose goals and reasons that justify this timing are completely obscure to the masses and politicians as well as the government itself. How is that for preparing the terrain for a visit Grabar Kitarovic claims is good for Croatia when its people are vulnerable still from the ravages and devastation of Serb aggression and are deeply insulted by Serbia’s recent UN exhibition? Grabar Kitarovic would presumably have had a more accommodating public reception to her invite had she clearly stated to the people at least some of the important points on her meeting agenda – which coincide with people expectations – with Serbia’s president on Croatian soil. Ina Vukic