antifascists – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Tito’s Crimes Should Never Be Forgotten

October 25, 2017 by inavukic 8 Comments

Robin Harris
Photo: http://www.unicath.hr/

The leaders of Croatia’s antifascist movement repeatedly identified themselves with Tito. They offered no apologies for Tito’s methods and the Communist Party’s crimes.

Tito, in fact, behaved as Communists do, promoting revolution by the mass liquidation of potential opponents, by subverting every independent institution, and by bringing all power within the Party’s control.

By Robin Harris,

(source: standpoint.co.uk )

Progressive opinion affects to take symbols lightly. Thus public acceptance of blasphemous plays and obscene exhibitions, the burning of a national flag, and insults to heads of state are all supposed to be evidence of intellectual liberation. Particularly in former Communist countries, where symbolism has altered in ways that disorientate the new as well as the old Left, the cry quickly goes up that any concern for symbols is an “obsession” or a “distraction”.

In Eastern and Central Europe, though, the Left’s indifference to symbols is an affectation. The modern leftist turns in a flash into a snarling neo-Communist — lacking only a Party membership card and Kalashnikov to revert to the older variety — when his own myths are challenged. Moreover, his assumed indifference to tradition quickly becomes intolerance of “extremism”, if any unwholesome, or ambiguous, symbol emerges from shadows on the Right.

On Friday September 1, Zagreb City Council voted to change the name of one of the most prominent squares from “Marshal Tito Square” to the “Square of the Republic of Croatia”. The decision was greeted by some solemn shaking of heads in the Western media, where it was depicted as an assertion of reactionary nationalism. Credibility was lent to this by the fact that the campaign to change the name was spearheaded by Dr Zlatko Hasanbegović, the former Croatian culture minister, who fell foul, when in office, of agitation from George Soros-backed NGOs, whose tax-financed budgets he was minded to cut. Hasanbegović is a nationalist historian with a taste for controversy and what, for politicians in Croatia, is an unnerving willingness to argue intellectual positions. He is not, however, a fascist, anti-Semite, or racist (he is a Muslim, and so has received his fair share of Islamophobic abuse). In any case, the majority for the change was provided by the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the centre-left party grouping attached to Zagreb’s mayor, Milan Bandić.

The square’s name change was historically significant. It clearly symbolised a break with the country’s past. But it became involved with another dispute about symbols, which has, despite the sound and fury, no historical significance at all. Near the Jasenovac concentration camp, where a large number of Serbs, Jews and political opponents of the quisling Independent State of Croatia (NDH) were killed by the Ustasha authorities, a private memorial was raised a year ago to members of the HOS (Croatian Defence Forces — a rightist paramilitary force) who died fighting in the war for Croatian independence in the early 1990s. On the memorial was inscribed the Ustasha salute “Za Dom Spremni” (“Ready for the Homeland”). The salute was apparently used by many HOS fighters — though who knows with what understanding of its true significance? The memorial plaque has since been moved a few miles away. What to do generally about totalitarian symbols — including the Communist five-pointed Red Star (“Petokraka”) positioned near the sites of mass graves of Communist Party victims — is now the thankless task of a government-appointed commission. Meanwhile, a well-funded, internationally-supported “antifascist” movement currently seeks to link cases of real or imagined nostalgia for the Ustasha regime — which collapsed 70 years ago — with the movement to cleanse Croatia of the remains of the Communist regime — which have a disconcerting degree of life in them still.

But what is this “antifascism”? There the historical evidence is clear. Antifascism is not a catch-all category of democrats. It is a Communist construct. It is, indeed, meaningless without reference to Communist ideology. Its exponents quickly manifest this even today by their willing defence of the record of Communism, their espousal of a recognisable (anti-Western) Communist world view, and their unshakeable conviction that the only threat to civilisation comes from the Right, not the Left.

Until the recent upsurge of leftist anarchism in America, there was, significantly, no antifascism in the US or Britain. Yet these countries were the key components of the Western alliance against the Axis powers in the Second World War. The absence of any antifascist movement in the US and the UK is not just because there was no significant indigenous Anglo-Saxon fascism (Mosley quickly fizzled out); more importantly, it is because there was no significant indigenous Communism — whose creation antifascism is.

Antifascism was a propagandist device to broaden support for Communist Party aims among non-Communists. It was a tactic to gain power, at which point power would be wielded exclusively by the Party itself. The intermittent emergence of antifascism was just a sign of the Communist Party’s temporary weakness. Between the two world wars the promotion of antifascist “Popular Fronts”, most successfully in France, encompassing the democratic Left but serving the Party, was authorised by Moscow. In 1939, however, Stalin opted for the alternative strategy — alliance with Hitler — and antifascism was immediately discarded.

Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Broz Tito in 1960
(Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The Yugoslav Party under Tito, like other European Communist parties, obediently followed the new line. The much-trumpeted “rising” of the Communist partisans was not in response to Ustasha atrocities — the NDH had been formed on April 10, 1941. It was an authorised response to Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union — on June 22. With energetic prompting from Moscow, the Yugoslav Party now took up antifascism as a device to rally opposition to the Axis occupiers and the quisling regimes in Zagreb and Belgrade, but with a view to imposing a classic Marxist-Leninist revolution. The term “antifascist” was meanwhile used to legitimise what were presented as non-Party institutions of an alternative government — as with AVNOJ, the Antifascist Council of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia. Once the Communists attained power and squeezed out or liquidated non-Communist elements, under way by 1944, antifascism was relegated from its prominence in the Party’s ideological arsenal. Only in 1990, when the Communists knew that they were facing a reckoning with real democracy, did the Party revive antifascism. So, for example, while the Party changed its name from the League of Communists of Croatia (SKH) to the less threatening Party of Democratic Change, and then the Social Democratic Party, the Communist veterans’ organisation, SUBNOR (Alliance of Associations of Fighters in the People’s Liberation War), was retitled the Alliance of Antifascist Fighters. In short, antifascism never existed independently of the Communist Party, and though millions of genuine democrats have fought oppressors who may, at a pinch, be described as “fascist”, those freedom fighters had nothing in common with the ideological artefact of antifascism, except occasionally as useful dupes.

This, then, answers the question: what is antifascism? And what is its link with Communism? But the further question is: What is Tito’s role in it?

The old plaque on Tito Square, now intended for the Zagreb historical museum, makes a large claim. It reads: “Marshal Tito Square. Josip Broz Tito, politician, leader of the antifascist movement, President of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, 1945-1980, 1892-1980.” (Emphasis added.) An array of campaign groups turned out — in only modest numbers, despite the media attention — to protest against dethroning their hero from his square. The television pictures told the story of their identity and their marginalisation. Everywhere big red flags bearing the hammer and sickle were waved. The only Croatian flags present were those of the old socialist “People’s Republic”. Some protesters wore items of Yugoslav army uniform — the same worn by the Serbian/Yugoslav army forces which in 1991 attacked Croatia.

The leaders of Croatia’s antifascist movement repeatedly identified themselves with Tito. They offered no apologies for Tito’s methods and the Communist Party’s crimes.

But a glance at the list of groups supporting the protest suggests that some very special apologies were in order. Were the “Women’s Network” aware, one wonders, that Tito initiated sexual relations with his first wife when she was just 14? That he later denounced her, and his second wife — and a host of other Party “comrades” — to the NKVD when he was in Moscow in the 1930s? Did the homosexual activists know — as a forthcoming book by a Croatian historian will shortly detail — that at the Goli Otok concentration camp, to which Tito despatched his political enemies, the authorities publicly humiliated and beat homosexuals, whom they considered “bourgeois decadents”?

The Jewish community, represented at the protest, has, of course, reason to detest the behaviour towards them of the wartime Ustasha, who fully collaborated in the Holocaust decreed by the Reich. But should Croatian Jews be grateful to Tito and the Party? In 1945 well-known Jewish businessmen were killed and their businesses seized by the Communists. When the Communists arrived, Jewish properties confiscated by the Ustasha were not returned, but were again seized and enjoyed — and are often still enjoyed — by the Communist elite and their privileged, cosseted progeny — the so-called “red bourgeoisie” who provide the bulk of the ruling class of “post-Communist” Croatia.

As for the Croatian Serbs, whose leaders were prominent in the protests — whatever privileged positions they disproportionately occupied under the Party, notably in the repressive apparatus, they would be well advised to reflect on the long-term cost of those benefits. That cynical Communist policy of divide and rule meant that in 1990, when democracy arrived in Croatia, Serbs were both distrustful and distrusted and as such automatically seen as hostile to the new state — which the Serb rebellion prompted by Belgrade (still then led by Communists) confirmed. If Tito’s Yugoslavia left hatreds so raw and wounds so deep, who can seriously conclude that Communism offered a cure or even a palliative for atavistic nationalism, as its apologists still claim?

Tito’s persona still, however, evidently holds a certain attraction. It is of more than historical interest to understand why. The answer seems to be that Tito, though an orthodox Communist — his quarrel with Stalin was caused by ambition, not doctrine — was also something else, and this “something else” turns out to be that he was a heroic “antifascist”.

Tito, in fact, behaved as Communists do, promoting revolution by the mass liquidation of potential opponents, by subverting every independent institution, and by bringing all power within the Party’s control. He authorised the killing of tens of thousands of people, many without trial, others with staged trials — soldiers, conscripted Home Guard members, unpolitical civilians, Catholic priests, monks and nuns, doctors, nurses, teachers, journalists, businessmen, women and children. The mass graves, where people were thrown in alive to be slowly suffocated by the weight of those who followed, are still gradually being excavated. For fear of annoying influential Communist cadres, who had joined anti-Communists to create the fledgling Croatian state in 1991, these horrible crimes were for many years left unmentioned. Until recently, most Party and secret police archives were similarly inaccessible. There was no lustration of Party members. Not a single trial within Croatia has been held of a Communist official: only in Munich, after Germany managed to secure their extradition, were two high-ranking Yugoslav secret police officials given life sentences for a politically authorised murder on German soil in 1983.

The new Croatia’s first president, Franjo Tudjman, apparently admired Tito; but Tudjman never dreamed of imitating Tito’s personality cult, whose effects must still be remembered when assessing the Marshal’s reputation. Leafing through the snapshots portraying Tito’s gaudy, greedy, self-indulgent, spendthrift, pointless political life, it requires an exercise of imagination to take the performance seriously. Yugoslavia solved nothing internally. It achieved nothing externally. But heroic myths, imposed by expert media control over 35 years, so brainwashed its population that they became a heaving, wailing, neurotic, human wreck when the dictator’s death was finally announced. Only a system in which all hold on reality had been lost could have solemnly announced as its watchword for the country’s future that lapidary slogan: “After Tito — Tito!”

Tito’s achievements, such as they were, have largely been forgotten, along with most of his crimes; only his antifascist credentials are still burnished. Yet antifascism, like the smile on the Cheshire Cat, reminds us, in a disembodied form, of what Communism was, what the Communists did, and what their successors would like to do, if they had the chance. It should go the way of Tito’s plaque

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: antifascists, communist crimes, communist liquidations, communist Ygoslavia, Croatia, For Home Ready, Inependent State of Croatia, Josip Broz Tito, Partisans, Ready For Home, Robin Harris, Ustashe, Za Dom Spremni

ANTIFASCISTS: OFFICIALLY NEW BREED OF TERRORISTS

July 5, 2017 by inavukic 18 Comments

Portrait of Josip Broz Tito
Head of former communist Yugoslavia
Portrait title “Josip Groz Tito” by Charles Billich

In the USA the radical far-left group Antifa has been using threats and violence to suppress conservatives, libertarians, nationalists, and capitalists for months, and finally, a state has officially labeled them a terrorist group. On June 12, New Jersey became the first state in the country to label Antifa a domestic terrorist organization with the state office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. “Anti-fascist groups, or “Antifa,” are a subset of the anarchist movement and focus on issues involving racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, as well as other perceived injustices,” the office’s website details.

Croatia would also do well if it declared as terrorists the antifascists denying communist crimes. In Croatia, the antifascist – antifa – organisation/s operate under legally based registration and cannot, therefore, be classified as anarchists. However, their expressed speeches charged with fundamental denials and justification of mass-scale communist crimes during and post-WWII without doubt are designed to incite anarchy, social divisions and violence or aggression particularly targeting those who seek justice for the victims of communist crimes and de-communisation of the country’s public administration and affairs.

Viewing the antifascists’ acts and public displays from a criminological, rather than ideological, perspective offers some provocative insights into the minds of those protecting the communist fighters of WWII and after it, who labeled themselves as antifascist fighters in order to conceal their heinous acts against humanity under the umbrella of the worldwide revered name of “antifascism”.

Studies have shown that criminals/terrorists commonly use five techniques to justify their heinous acts – allowing them to effectively neutralise their guilt. Croatia’s antifascists, former communists and many of their offspring, do just that even to this day.

The first recourse in neutralising the guilt for crimes is the “denial of responsibility”. In this way, criminals/terrorists might refer to forces beyond their control, relieving them of responsibility for their criminal actions. This was and is utmost loyalty to the communist party and its oppressive, fear mongering, tyrannical structure of power, resting on personality cult and political elitism. Communist purges under Josip Broz Tito in former Yugoslavia saw hundreds of targeted assassinations of non-communist inclined Croats and hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths buried in multitudes of unmarked mass graves and pits. Innocent Croats – killed like flies. To this day Croatian antifascists deny any responsibility for those deaths and continue justifying them by calculatingly and wrongfully accusing those they slaughtered of being fascists.

Second, criminals/terrorists employ “denial of injury” to justify violence. Communists causing harm and injury through cruel acts evidently believed that their actions will not have consequences to themselves since their cruelty would lead them to a better world – akin to paradise on Earth – under the rule and power of communism. Today’s antifascists in Croatia perpetuate the rhetoric of how just and mighty communist Yugoslavia was. This denial persists to this day as it is in no significant and objective way addressed by the modern-day antifascists of Croatia. No reality checks, whatsoever.

The criminals/terrorists also use a technique called “denial of the victim”. For zealots, the population in Croatia that did not subscribe to communism deserved and deserves punishment and death; any injury is just retaliation for their hatred of communists or antifascists. Many communists even considered the civilians of anti-communist predisposition as the enemy, since they supported and independent Croatia. The innocent masses buried in hundreds of pits deserved to die according to many antifascists.

The fourth tactic used by criminals/terrorists to neutralise their guilt is to “condemn the condemners”. Rather than explain their actions, terrorists attack those who disapprove of their deviance. For them, those condemners from the ranks of politicians, journalists, academics, judges, public figures, outspoken citizens and the like – are corrupted, depraved, brutal hypocrites and deviants, because they insist that communist regime was totalitarian and riddled with crimes against humanity. Thus antifascists widely employ the branding of those who fought for an independent Croatia during and after WWII as worthless beings who deserved the death that hundreds of thousands were faced with during communist purges. This neutralisation technique allows criminals to shrug off denunciation of their actions by questioning those segments of society that critique communist crimes/terrorism.

Finally, terrorists appeal to “higher loyalties” to explain their crimes. Social control may be neutralised by sacrificing the demands of larger society for the demands of smaller social groups to which the terrorists belong, such as antifascists. Antifascists keep pounding on how the communists/antifascists liberated the Croatian people in WWII, regardless of the fact that any liberation had to do with maintaining Yugoslavia as a conglomerate or federation of different states as opposed to independence of the Croatian state and nation. Communists made promises of brotherhood and friendship within Yugoslavia and forced a notion of brotherhood by purging – murdering – masses that wanted nothing to do with that ill-founded brotherhood. Today, Croatian antifascists even have the hide to claim credit for the independence of today’s Croatian state. A claim most fowl.

Denial of communist crimes in Croatia maintains and deepens the widespread fear of an emergence of yet another communist-like rule and in that prevents the development of mainstream solidarity with the independence and democracy Croats fought for in the 1990’s. The political and, therefore, economic prosperity of the country have been at an impasse for more years than I want to count and this must change – the scales must turn towards that for which Croatia fought: away from communist mindset and practices in public administration and affairs.

Much of this boils down to persistent, mindless denial of justice to victims of communist crimes by Croatian antifascists and this is – terrorism. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: antifah, antifah declared terrorist group, antifascists, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, denial of communist crimes, New Jersey, US Homeland and vSecurity Preparedness

Croatia: Denials Of Communist Crimes Dictate Profound Changes

June 23, 2017 by inavukic 13 Comments

My last week of visiting Croatia this time around is almost over and impressions run high – almost paralysing – with regard political scene and inroads. Regretfully, I shall leave Croatia this time carrying with me the perpetually present heavy load that gives no clarity as to how long the dual preoccupation with justice for victims of communist crimes, on the one side, and the “antifascist” or communist justification and denial of those crimes, on the other side, will last. Yesterday, June 22, Croatia had a Public holiday marking WWII antifascists (communists), with commemorative events held to that effect and deaf silence regarding any condemnation of communist crimes. At the same time, especially at Jazovka pit where, post-WWII, communists/antifascists murdered and dumped hundreds of politically different Croats, commemoration of victims of communist crimes was held. Representatives of Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic were at both events, holding speeches!

How long can the protectors of communist criminals and their victims live under the same roof is a question that perpetuates political nightmares, stifling progress in crucial areas of citizens’ daily lives and democracy. Croatia has not moved an inch in the direction of resolute actions in condemning all of its past (WWII and post’WWII) totalitarian regimes and the communist one is the one that still has its footprints in all current Croatian public administration lanes.

Situation being thus I think it best to promote in this article some writings of a notable Croatian woman, Blanka Matkovic, whose academic works and daily life populate attempts at unravelling the truth about communist crimes. Ina Vukic

“MASS CRIMES AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COMMITTED BY THE COMMUNIST REGIME AGAINST CROATIAN CITIZENS IN CROATIA AND SLOVENIA AT THE END AND AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1944-1945) By Blanka Matkovic Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy

University of Warwick, Department of History August 2015

CONCLUSION

In the last months of the Second World War and after the war, all of Europe was severely affected by its consequences. Yugoslavia was no exception. The intensity of the violence reached a new peak between the autumn of 1944 and the summer of 1945, when mass killings occurred across the country. However, the Yugoslav authorities denied for decades that these mass killings had ever taken place and stopped all attempts to reveal them. Moreover, the Western Allies, despite knowing about these crimes, chose to ignore them in order to preserve the alliance with the Soviet Union.

The political manipulation and the flaws in previous research had a tremendous impact, even on the generations born after the end of the Second World War. Unlike some other Eastern European countries where communism was installed with the help of the Soviet Army, Yugoslav partisans had gained power without the help of Soviet troops. The communist government of Yugoslavia was not imposed by a foreign power but was a result of internal factors. This is one of the reasons why the successor states of Yugoslavia have such problems to come to terms with the communist past and why former communists could often continue their careers under now democratic conditions. Macedonia is still the only former Yugoslav republic where a lustration law has been enacted (since 2009).

Croatia has not passed a law which would make the prosecution of the perpetrators of communist crimes possible. Moreover, 27 July is still celebrated as an unofficial national holiday although that was a day when in 1941 the first communist massacres happened. Between 1945 and 1990 that day was celebrated as the Day of the Uprising of the Peoples of Croatia and the murder of several hundred Croatian villagers, including women and children, was forgotten. Former leading members of the communist party still play an important role in Croatian politics and hold positions of power. The Lustration Law is therefore mostly supported by small right-wing parties and NGOs. They argue that the de-communisation of Croatian society is essential for social and political change.

Today, due to the reluctance to deal with the Communist past and, incomplete de-communisation of Croatian society, this topic in Croatia is still a matter not only of political and scholarly debates, but also of everyday life. Questioning total demographic losses and investigating communist crimes is often seen as ‘historical revisionism’, particularly by the former Croatian president Stjepan Mesić who compared it with ‘celebrating Fascism’ and argued that this might prevent Croatia from joining the EU. In February 2007, Mesić contributed to the international debate sparked by the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano. On the introduction of a Day of Remembrance in which Italy remembers the Italians either killed or forced to leave Yugoslavia at the end of the Second World War Napolitano criticised ‘hatred and bloodthirsty furor’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’. In his reply Mesić accused Napolitano of racism. In October 2011 Mesić expressed his concerns about ‘the second historical revisionism offensive’ in order ‘to judge communism which is equated with Nazi-Fascism’. Mesić said that the same thing was happening in the other transition countries and concluded that ‘the democratic Europe seems to be too democratic… towards such excesses’. Mesić ignored that in 2011 the Croatian Parliament itself had adopted the European Day of Remembrance of Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, commemorated on 23 August. This day also refers to victims of communist crimes. Without impartial and thorough research the ‘historical truth’ will keep disappearing behind a politically motivated smokescreen of half-truths, distorted facts and manipulated victim numbers.

Croatian historians are by no means the only ones whose work is seriously affected by pressure coming from various political circles. Serbian and Slovenian historians have also reported that there is still strong resistance to this kind of research. The governments and judicial systems of the former Yugoslav republics showed no willingness to prosecute the perpetrators of these atrocities or to pass and enforce Lustration laws. As according to Serbian historians most documents about these executions are kept in Serbian archives, only a close cooperation between Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian authorities and researchers will finally make conclusive results possible.

During the last two decades several investigations have been carried out in three republics of former Yugoslavia, but the results were not satisfactory. At first sight, they seemed to be impressive. Approximately 1,800 mass graves have been identified in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. On the other hand, only a small percentage of these locations have been exhumed, mostly due to financial reasons, and in many cases the victims have not been identified which leaves plenty of space for future, politically motivated manipulations.

Despite the political obstacles, the intensity of the Yugoslav violence is very well presented by two numbers. This thesis has shown how harsh Yugoslav repression – compared to post-war purges in France and other western European countries – really was. Demographic losses in former Yugoslavia were among the highest in Europe. According to Vučković, Žerjavić and Kočović, Yugoslavia lost approximately one million people during the war, including 597,323 victims of the so-called ‘fascist terror’ counted in Yugoslav research in 1964. That means that approximately 400,000 casualties are unaccounted for. There is evidence that most of them were killed by communist partisans and the Yugoslav Army. The results provided by the research on ‘Victims of Dugopolje’ provides strong evidence that the majority of deaths occurred in the last few months of the war and immediately after the war. However, it remains unknown how many of those who stood trial later and were punished by death are included in that number.

Although it is still not possible to answer the question ‘how many people were killed in Yugoslavia during and immediately after the Second World War and how many of them fell victim to communist repression?’, the cases presented in this thesis show that number is certainly measured in thousands. In Macelj, Tezno and Jazovka alone, 2,789 human remains were discovered. This number may not sound that high, but it is important to keep in mind that these are only three out of 1,800 possible mass grave locations in former Yugoslavia and the exhumations were stopped in the early stage of investigation. Each location actually consists of several locations (Jazovka probably two), which are known under the same name. In Macelj, only 23 mass graves were dug out while there could be up to 130 mass graves. At the moment it is impossible to estimate how many people ended their lives only on these three locations. Only a further research can give at least an approximately accurate answer and prevent further manipulations with the number of victims on both sides.

The cases presented in this thesis provided sufficient evidence that thorough research could reveal more details about specific perpetrators of these atrocities. However, even when that is not possible, due to lack of archival documents, those that are available to us show a certain pattern. Following their capture, the majority of prisoners-of-wars and civilians were under control of the Yugoslav Army and its units actively participated in mass killings. In the following weeks OZNA was taking over. It is important to understand that OZNA was not part of the military but a police organisation and it did conduct investigations with the aim of getting information which would help improve its work. This is a reason why in some cases OZNA reacted angrily when prisoners were liquidated “too quickly”. KNOJ, which was subordinated to OZNA, conducted its military operations with a surgical precision. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the Yugoslav Army acted spontaneously. Sometimes that apparently was the case, and it is possible that those actions were a result of desire for revenge. However, in the cases when the killings were carried out on a massive scale, they were carefully planned and systematically organised. One example of systematic and organised mass killing is Kočevski Rog.

The question that often arises in discussion about this topic is – who ordered these crimes? Were they indeed a result of erratic behaviour and looting by a victorious army? It seems that this was not or not very often the case. Moreover, several documents presented in the fourth and fifth chapter suggest that all organisations in former Yugoslavia, including civil authorities, OZNA and the Yugoslav Army, were under strict control of the KPJ (Communist Party of Yugoslavia). In the most important matters the communists interfered in anything which was of particular interests. For example, some of the documents prove the local KP committees, such as the one in Stubica, occasionally contacted higher KP committees asking them to instruct the higher military commands how to proceed in the field. Given the fact that there was apparently a strong bond between the KPJ and the mass executions, it can be concluded that this was done with the knowledge of the Politburo, and therefore, Tito as well.

This might be the reason why so many former communists strongly defend Tito’s role and persistently claim that the killings were only ‘isolated incidents’. Another reason – at least for the older generation – might be the wish to protect themselves against prosecution. Acknowledging these atrocities and taking responsibility could also somehow diminish the role of the NOP in the anti-fascist uprising in former Yugoslavia which plays an important role for the self-understanding and prestige of the successor organisations of the Yugoslav communist party.

What is often forgotten in this story is who the victims are and why coming to terms with the past is essential for true peace. In 1997 John Paul Lederach presented his integrated framework for peace building in which the fourth phase represents ‘the longer-termperspective, which is often adopted by people who seek to prevent conflict and to promote a vision of a more peaceful and socially harmonious future’ which he called the ‘desired future’. Lederach believed that protracted conflicts cannot be fixed quickly because the healing of the people and the rebuilding of their relationships are necessary and they do take time.

20 years after the end of Homeland War and 70 years after the end of the Second World War, Croatian society is still not living in that ‘desired future’. The victims of the events, described in this thesis, are not only who were slaughtered, but many others whose lives have been affected. This is why profound changes in the Croatian society are necessary and they begin with objective and systematic research.”