Chetniks – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Serbia Made Itself Jew-Free, Croatia Did Not!

August 31, 2019 by inavukic 24 Comments

Antisemitic postage stamps in Serbia 1941-1945

Simone Weil (French philosopher and political activist) said in her book The Need for Roots: prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind (Routledge and Paul, 1952) that truth is “a need of the soul”. She went on to say: “The need for truth is a need more sacred than any other need. Yet it is never mentioned. One feels afraid to read once one has realised the quantity and monstrousness of the material falsehoods paraded in even the books of the most reputable authors. Thereafter one reads as though one were drinking from a contaminated well.” The days Weil lived in are those we live in and have lived for decades, where politics get in the way of the truth, of facts and the duties to humanity often take a back seat.

Serbia has with Efraim Zuroff’s (head of Jerusalem branch of Simon Wiesenthal Center) conspicuous help managed to exculpate itself and Serbs from the horrendous crimes committed by WWII Milan Nedic government and Draza Mihajlovic’s Chetniks, said recently Dr Esther Gitman, a USA and Israel based historian.

Two things have prompted me to write this article. The first is Efraim Zuroff’s recent tantrum published in Serbia’s Kurir that the plaque dedicated to Blessed Alojzije Stepinac fixed along the Sorrowful Way (Via Dolorosa) in Jerusalem should be torn down because according to Zuroff Stepinac’s plaque belongs nowhere in the world and that he would act in getting it removed (despite the very truth and fact that research since year 2000 by Dr Esther Gitman has yielded copious amount of historical documentation that shows beyond reasonable doubt that Stepinac in fact played a leading role in rescuing Jews and other ethnic groups during WWII Croatia).

Antisemitic poster in Serbia 1941-1942
“Who will be heaviest? No one!
Because the Jew holds the scale ” !

On publicly commenting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s trip to Ukraine last week, taken to be a yet another opportunity to assess Israel’s relations with the post-Communist new democracies of Eastern Europe, and especially those with a Holocaust past of participation in the systematic mass murder of Jews, Zuroff took the opportunity to say that Ukraine in recent years has been one of the worst offenders in terms of distorting the history of the Holocaust, and glorifying individuals who collaborated with the Nazis in implementing the Final Solution.

This would be fine were it not true that Zuroff takes it upon himself to help Serbia distort the history of the Holocaust. We read in the news that Serbia is planning to adopt a law to create a memorial centre in Belgrade for tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma killed by Nazis in World War II, preventing plans to redevelop two concentration camp sites in the capital city into commercial space. Draft legislation will be sent to parliament in November with the “active involvement of the Jewish community in Serbia,” Efraim Zuroff told reporters after meeting with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic this week. He said he got assurances from the Serb leader that the bill will be adopted and the government will provide funds for the memorial. The fact that it was the Serbs and not the Germans that brought masses of Jews to slaughter in WWII Serbia does not appear to deter Zuroff from towing Serbia’s line of covering up its role in the Holocaust.

All crimes should be talked about openly but not using fabrications and opinions as facts, which is exactly what Zuroff is evidently doing.

The second reason for writing this article is last week’s utterly deplorable comparison of today’s Croatia with the WWII Independent State of Croatia by Milorad Pupovac, member of Croatian Parliament representing a part of Serb minority in Croatia. “I would not want this country to come up with the same experience, which was an attempt in the 20th century, to create a Croatian state and to collaborate (with the Nazis) … How things are now, the way many people in this country, including those who sit with us in Parliament are relating to that idea, such possibility is not unrealistic…”, Pupovac said.

While the Croatian government leadership has responded to Pupovac’s deplorable behaviour as unacceptable the mind boggles why there are no stronger moves to commence proceedings that would remove Pupovac from the Croatian Parliament. Croatian Parliament was instituted amidst the bloody Serb aggression against Croatia’s independence struggle and members of Pupovac’s immediate family were active in that aggression and ethnic cleansing of Croats from their homes. Pupovac has for years been on a rampage against Croatian independence and on the path of spreading lies about WWII Croatia just like Zuroff does, covering up and justifying communist crimes, to name only a few of his public activities that actually vilify the very country in whose parliament he sits.

Anti-Jewish poster issued in Serbia in autumn of 1941 for the Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition in Belgrade from October 22, 1941, to January 19, 1942. The exhibit focused on the alleged Jewish-Communist-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination with the intent to increase hatred against outsider groups that opposed Nazi Germany.

The truly distressing matter in Zuroff’s and Pupovac’s claims regarding the preposterously impossible numbers they say were killed by Croatia’s Ustasha regime is that they talk of these fabricated numbers as fact in order to make their vilification against Croatia even larger. I am astonished at the fact that no one in any national authority that protects the public from such terrible falsehoods has yet called these two men (and others in this category of disturbing undermining and promoting of false history and today) to account and compelled them to prove beyond reasonable doubt the numbers of victims they claim are true, are a verifiable fact.

A thing about the Holocaust in Serbia that bothers multitudes across the world is that Serbs themselves have put the whole blame for the exterminations upon the Germans who occupied Serbia! On the other hand, the Serbs will not do the same when it comes to the Holocaust related crimes perpetrated on WWII Croatian soil under German occupation! The Serbs will keep on vilifying Croatia by calling it a Nazi Germany puppet state and yet they will not do the same for Serbia that was, actually, more of a Nazi Germany puppet state than Croatia (Croatia’s WWII goal for independence, for self-determination, appears to have been much stronger than Serbia’s).

While it appears that Israeli Efraim Zuroff, and Croatian Serb Milorad Pupovac, will stop at nothing to cover up or at least dilute to a kind of insignificance the horrors of the extermination of Jews in WWII Serbia, it is incumbent upon us all that the truth, the real truth that can be verified, is told. One thing is for sure, Serbia itself and Serbs were the exterminators od Jews in WWII Serbia and not Serbia’s occupiers, the Germans as Zuroff and Pupovac would like the world to believe. Serbs were most willing partners in getting Serbia to the Jew-free status among European nations; they did it swiftly, they did it by May 1942!

Dr Esther Gitman

Dr Esther Gitman, a leading historian specialising in the rescue and survival of Jews during WWII especially in the region of former Yugoslavia (mainly Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia) has on several occasions in recent times commented strongly in criticism of Efraim Zuroff’s ludicrous claims about the enormity of Holocaust crime related matters in WWII Croatia and Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in particular that do not stack up to any verifiable findings and about their pursuits in attempts to cover up or minimise Holocaust related crimes in WWII Serbia. She has often reminded her public that research findings confirm the fact that WWII Serbia was one of the first European countries to declare itself Jew-free (May 1942) – with pride, to boot! On speaking recently to Dr Esther Gitman, I asked about where her research has led her to as far as WWII Serbia was concerned.

“The essence of it is that Serbia was not an occupied state, Milan Nedic was the military prime minister. They had their freedoms provided they fought the communists and killed Jews. They did a very good job in concealing the truth from the world. My preliminary research and summary are here only to demonstrate how many armies they had in Serbia and what was expected of them. Serbia to a certain extent was controlled by Nazi Germany and at time by Bulgaria but in essence they were free to print their own stamps and with their own name. For so many years most of us believed that Serbia was an occupied country and that it was the Nazis who killed Jews, Roma, Croats and others. The Nazi regime had no time to run after the so-called Serbian enemies, the Serbs themselves did it. It is highly recommended to send some students to the USA, (DGFP, Department of State. Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945. Series D, Vols. 11-13, Washington D.C., 1960-1964. See also, United States” National Archives. Microcopy,– Roll—Frame, and United States, National Archives. Record Group).

By not searching for truth Croatia has been duped by Serbia for more than seven decades. They taught you and your children how you murdered 1,700,000 or 700,000 and you believed them even though it makes no sense. In Croatia, in total, there were approximately 2,500,000 and Serbs about 750,000, the whole story that the world and the Vatican are accepting makes no sense. Please go and make sense of what has happened to you from 1918-1941 and from 1941-1945,” Dr Gitman emphasised.

Antisemitic poster Serbia 1941-1945:
“his weapons: democracy, masonry, capitalism and communism leads to death”

“In April 1941, the commander in chief of the German army issued a proclamation defining the conditions of German rule in occupied areas of Serbia…and on 30 May 1941 the first puppet government was established. That is a Commissioner Administration headed by Milan Acimovic… But the above were temporary figures and the German authorities had sound reasons for choosing General Milan Nedić to head the puppet (in name only) government. He was well known among Serbs as an elite General Staff officer of the pre-1918 Serbian and interwar Yugoslav armies, and he had held the two highest military positions in the country. He was regarded as a man of great personal authority, not simply because of his high professional standing, but also because of his commanding behaviour in official positions.

On August 27, 1941, Nedic informed Heinrich Danckelmann by letter that after consulting with the commissioners and leading representatives of the Serbian people, he (Nedic) would be willing to become prime minister if the military commander would agree to specific operating conditions,” Dr Gitman continued.

Dr Gitman’s research concludes that the conditions sought by Nedic were as follows:

First, a Serbian government would be formed that would manage the affairs of the Serbian people under the supervision of the military commander, to conform to German military, political, and economic interests.
Second, the Serbian government would be allowed to develop an armed force (without which it could not assure peace and order in the country), consisting of a gendarmerie of up to 10,000 men and auxiliary armed forces according to need, and, with the permission of the military commander, both of them would be equipped with the Yugoslav weapons captured by the Germans.
Third, Serbian prisoners of war in Germany who were ill, all prisoners over the age of 55, and those prisoners needed for the reconstruction of the country would be released to their homes, and the Serbian government would be allowed to send food supplies to improve the rations of prisoners remaining in Germany.
Fourth, the “economic and administrative boundaries” of Serbia would be improved by having German troops occupy certain areas (meaning, apparently, northeast Bosnia).
And finally, the impoverishment, persecution, and murder of Serbs in Croatia and in Bulgarian and in Hungarian-occupied areas would cease.

In addition to these major conditions, Nedic also wanted a number of other concessions. He asked for a political council to promulgate the new political arrangements. The struggle against Communism was to be considered primarily the concern of the Serbian people and its government, with the German army helping only insofar as the means used by the Serbian government proved insufficient. In cases of sabotage, reprisals were to be applied only against those who were guilty and never against the innocent, and they were not to be undertaken until complete information had been obtained from the Serbian government. And the use of Serbian national and state emblems was to be allowed.

Antisemitic poster Serbia 1941-1942
“be on the lookout/you will not know or be aware”

“From Jozo Tomasevich we learn that there is no written record of Danckelmann specifically accepting these conditions, but in Nedic’s speech on the occasion of his installation, he thanked Danckelmann “for the full power of authority [Vollmacht] which it pleased it would seem that a real understanding existed between the two men, though only in oral form. Other documentary evidence, including a circular sent by Turner to all German area and district commands in Serbia, dated August 2.9.1941, shows that Danckelmann did promise Nedic that the Serbian authorities, under German supervision, would have a large degree of independence. Turner wrote (For Turner’s circular, see Micr, No-T-50, Roll 246, Frs. 190-9 I):

A promise was given to the government that, under German supervision, it will be given the highest possible degree of independence in administration, please, therefore, limit the activity of the administrative groups to purely supervisory functions.” A note from Minister of Interior Acirnovic to Turner, dated September 16,1941, protesting against the interference of German authorities in the operations of the Serbian gendarmerie and other government armed forces, is further proof that the Nedic’s administration understood that it would be largely free in using these forces. Order No. I of September 5, I941, to all government employees and all armed formations under Nedic’s command encouraged government officials, the armed forces, and the public at large to resist the spreading rebellion. It stressed the need for discipline, hard work, honesty, and devotion to the good of the people, point 6 said: ‘All national forces, both of the state gendarmerie and police and of loyal Serbian men at large, can have at this time only one objective, that is, to save the Serbian people from new bloodshed and sacrifices, removing without compromise all those elements in their midst that would want to push the nation into total ruin. Under these circumstances, my orders, directed through the appropriate state organs, must be carried out by all people without hesitation,’ ” Dr Esther Gitman articulated the findings of her research and conclusions they command.

Antisemitic poster Serbia 1941-1945:
“New York Times: the press in the USA is 97% in Jewish hands”

It is difficult to know how long the Holocaust and other victims of WWII Serbia will have to wait for justice, but one thing is crystal clear: it was Milan Nedic and his government’s operatives and loyal followers and the Serbian Chetniks (loyal to the deposed Serbian Monarchy) that actively brought WWII Serbia to be one of the first European states to become “Judenfrei” (Jew-Free); the Nazis did not bring the victims to slaughter, the Serbs did it in the name of Greater Serbia. During the Second World War, the Serbs were ethnically cleaning Jews out of their homes in Serbia, just as they ethnically cleansed the 1990s Croats in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina out of theirs, and the role of Serbs in communist crimes committed during and after World War II was so great that its disclosure could shock the entire humanity of the world. This is not hate speech, this is the documented and verifiable truth! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Chetniks, dr Esther Gitman, Draza Mihailovic, Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust denial, Holocaust in Serbia, Jew-free Serbia, Judefrei Serbia, Milan Nedic, Milrad Pupovac, Serbia antisemitism, Serbia Nazi puppet stae

Croatia: Betrayal Of Truth In Face Of Relentless Serb Aggression

June 27, 2015 by inavukic 25 Comments

Serbian delegation at Jadovno, Croatia
21 June 2015
Aleksandar Vulin, left

Reactions by the Croatian government, the Opposition and the office of the President to the attacks made on Croatian soil by Serbia’s minister for employment and social affairs, Aleksandar Vulin, against Croatia’s Blessed Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac and the practice by which all victims of WWII and post-WWII, regardless of who committed the murders – whether Nazis, Fascist or Communist – deserve same respect and compassion, have been appalling.

On Sunday 21 June 2015 Serbia’s minister Vulin represented Serbia’s government at the commemoration for the victims that perished at the WWII concentration camp Jadovno run by the Ustashe. The commemoration was organised by the Serb National Council (SNV), the Co-ordinating Body of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia, the Karlovac Serb Orthodox diocese, and the Association of Anti-Fascists and Anti-Fascist Fighters of Croatia.
Serbia’s minister Aleksandar Vulin came there with the intention of offending today’s Croatia and today’s Croatian people, and the truth about Blessed Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac who is due to be pronounced a saint by the Vatican. In an angry and hateful voice Vulin shouted as he repeatedly referred to Aloysius Stepinac as the “Ustashe Vicar”:
“What do I say to the murdered Serbian children who after 74 years, on the streets of the most beautiful cities, hear the same song and names of those who had thrown them into the pit? What kind of a life is it that recommended the Vicar of the Ustashe to be made a Saint,” insinuating ominously that WWII-style fascism fills the streets of today’s Croatia.
Vulin then yelled, as if struck by vicious rabies, that the “same hands cannot lay wreaths at Bleiburg and Jasenovac”. With the latter he meant that the victims of the Holocaust and the victims of Communist crimes cannot be considered equally as victims! Even if both groups were butchered or slaughtered by equally brutal means and politically similar intents. This is so very wrong and the world and truth have no chance of peace with such views.
There have certainly been many efforts across the world by various personalities in differentiating between the victims of the Holocaust and the victims of Communist crimes. Efforts to place victims of the Holocaust much higher than those of Communist regimes on a scale that measures some concocted “severity of victimhood” – as if being a victim of murder isn’t a state of equal atrocity in all circumstances. The tantrum and the insulting words said by Serbia’s minister Vulin on Croatian soil must be condemned and discredited strongly by Croatian state leadership. All we’ve heard from them so far is that “Croatia is above Vulin’s provocation”, “Vulin is not our problem, he is not Croatia’s problem … Vulin is Serbia’s prime minister’s problem”, “Vulin does not deserve attention”, “this is not the time nor the place to react to such statements”… Appalling! Evasive! Half-baked! Offends!
Not good enough!

Undoubtedly, there are those who argue that responding to a fool’s words (and Vulin is a fool, to say the least) dignifies both the fool and his/her words and so, it’s best not to react, not to reply…The problem with this train of thought is that by following it one actually achieves the exact results that the fool (Vulin) wanted and these are: the wounding and the hurt of the people one is supposed to protect from hurt!

Vulin is Croatia’s problem because he insults the truth, he insults the Croatian people who live and have lived and have given their lives for the Croatian truth! Every Croatian politician, every leader must protect and defend that truth and not permit anyone to spit on the memory of the truth such as the one that comes with the goodness of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac and the suffering of all victims of crimes inspired by any motives.
Not a single Croatian leader had, at least, reminded Serbia’s minister Vulin, and thereby – Serbia, that Croatia’s WWII Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac is being prepared for sainthood in the Catholic Church because of his good deeds, which include his significant role in saving many Jews, Serbs, Roma etc. from WWII Nazi extermination! After all, all are aware of indisputable research findings by Dr. Esther Gitman (Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945) and yet failed to mention even that in response to Vulin’s profound insults to the truth!

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac
Oil painting Croatian Church Chicago

What chance has the truth got without its champions; without its champions whose voices are heard far and wide? None!

What truly offends every decent human being is that Vulin comes from Serbia to condemn the Nazi-led exterminations in WWII Croatia and neither says or suggests even a tiny squeak about Nazi-led exterminations in Serbia under prime minister Milan Nedic and the Chetnik butcher Draza Mihailovic, executed after WWII for collaboration with the Nazis and rehabilitated by today’s Serbia – Vulin’s Serbia!

Serbia’s Prince Pavle Karadjordjevic with
Adolf Hitler

Vulin’s WWII Serbia was the second country in Europe, after Estonia, to be declared “Judenfrei” (Jew Free) as it exterminated 94% of its Jews by mid-1942. It collaborated with the Nazis with open arms and, sadly, there was not a single politician in Croatia last week that took the time to remind the world of this fact – loudly and decisively rejecting Vulin and his hateful speech at Jadovno.

Serbia’s World War II
Prime Minister Milan Nedic
Delivers a speech of Holocaust support

The places for Vulin’s condemnation are on Serbia’s sites of the WWII concentration camps Sajmiste, Banjica, Topovske Supe … not on Croatia’s sites! I have had enough of Serbia’s leaders pointing fingers at WWII camps in Croatia in order to hide those in Serbia! I am so desperately disappointed at Croatia’s leaders for failing to protect the whole truth of WWII and failing to show Vulin the way back to Serbia and Serbia’s perished Jews and Romany people at the hands of Serbia’s WWII thugs.

Banjica concentration camp,
Serbia World War II

Vulin as almost all Serbs I have come across, met or read about, are very eager and willing to talk about the Holocaust in Croatia, because the dominant narrative there is that Serbs perished with Jews! But if you ask them about Serbia, it is a remnant of how things were seen in the communist Yugoslavia era, in which there was no recognition of the Holocaust in Serbia! Also – no recognition of extermination of Romany people even if they did perish alongside the Jews in WWII Serbia. And if one stumbled upon some recognition of the Holocaust in Serbia then that Holocaust was somebody other than Serb’s fault! Well the occupying Nazi did not and could not achieve the extermination of Jews in Serbia without crucial collaboration from the Serbs and Serbia’s government.

Serbia’s World War II Prime Minister
Milan Nedic with Adolf Hitler

Vulin’s hateful speech at Jadovno, Croatia, Sunday June 21, is another notch that clearly demonstrates the fact that when sponsoring Holocaust memory Serbia actually has other ideas in mind rather than promoting human and minority issues. In Serbia the Holocaust memory is utilised and tailored in such a way that while in theory it preaches human and minority rights, in practice, it not only actually promotes nationalism and Serbian victimhood “but also disguises the discourse on the role of Serbia in the wars of the 1990’s…This role of victim turns out to be a comfortable one for shutting down any political spaces where open public discussions on the role of Serbia in the wars of the 1990’s would be possible: if I am a victim I cannot be responsible for anything, and no one can argue with me because it would be showing a lack of respect for a victim. It is actually a powerful position and it is used to escape any responsibility for the crimes in the wars of 1990’s,” (History and Politics in the Western Balkans, Srdjan M. Jovanovic and Vjeran Stancetic, 2013) and it is used to escape any responsibility for WWII and any other wars in which Serbs butchered mercilessly. The latest example of obscene use of tailored Serbian victimhood is in Serbia’s announcement that Serbia and Serbian Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina (created on genocide such as Srebrenica, on ethnic cleansing) will jointly be commemorating August 5th as the Remembrance Day of Serbian Victims and Deported! Remember, August 5th is the day that Croatia celebrates victory the 1990’s Serb aggression and occupation!

Serbia says it wants to join the European Union. That process will surely require more work in resolving regional tensions that originate especially from WWII, post-WWII and during the 1990’s wars of Serb aggression since communist Yugoslavia crumbled. Hopefully the process will bring pressure on Serbia to confront the fate of many thousands of Serbian Jews. Serbia is a signatory to the non-binding 2009 Terezin declaration, Holocaust Era Asset Conference , committing to return property to the families of Holocaust victims and to ensure mass graves are identified and protected. Even if the implementation has been stalled – it will come, it will, it must. Perhaps the lack of due reaction from Croatian leadership to Vulin’s insults against Blessed Aloysius Stepinac and victims of communist crimes has something to do with the fact that Croatian leadership, like Serbia’s is filled with former communists who have divided the most valuable assets belonging to exterminated or exiled Jews among themselves after WWII! Hopefully, the process of reaching EU membership will also bring pressure on Serbia to own up to the atrocities it perpetrated in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1990’s.
Serbia lags alarmingly behind several of its neighbours in recognising the crimes committed against Jews on its soil. Neighbouring Hungary, Croatia and Macedonia each have museums dedicated to the Holocaust. A small museum in Serbia, founded in the 1960s, looks at the general history of Jews in Yugoslavia. Serbia has mastered the art suppressing its ugly truth and the art of air brushing certain historical episodes while burnishing others to its undeserved benefit and it seems Croatia’s leadership is letting Serbia’s envoys blacken it’s brilliant son – the Blessed Aloysius Stepinac – on its own soil. It seems Croatia’s leaders of today are going along with Serbia’s efforts to suppress its own WWII ugly history! How painfully disappointing! The huge elephant in the room – the Croatian enemy that Serbia still is – exists; stop pretending it does not! Croatian people deserve better words and deeds from their leaders than what they experienced around the Vulin insults at Jadovno last Sunday 21st June. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aleksandar Vulin, Aloysius Stepinac, Bleiburg, Chetniks, communist crimes, Croatia, dr Esther Gitman, former Yugoslavia, Holocaust, Holokaust in Serbia, Jadivno, Jasenovac, Serb aggression, Serbia, Serbian concentration camps, Terezin declaration, Ustashe

Psychological Operations And Information Warfare Against Croatia and Croats – Part V

April 30, 2014 by inavukic 13 Comments

Click on Banner image to enlarge

Guest Post
By Ante Horvat

The former Yugoslav regime elements and their children spearheaded subversive activities against the facts, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Croats from the 1990s, through to today.

While overtly Yugoslav nationalist in their rhetoric, still to today expending taxpayer resources celebrating the Communist “liberation” and 1945 Partisan (private property) “liberators” of Croatia, they were the first to declare any opponents of their sham anti-war agenda as “nationalist,” “primitive nationalists,” etc. – blaming “nationalists” on “both sides” for the war, and not the marriage of greater Serbian fascism and retrograde Yugoslav Communist Titoism and the detailed Serbian General Officers plan for aggression, beginning with the reorganization of Territorial Defense in the mid 1980s, through to the ‘Yogurt Revolution,’ trampling of the SFRY Constitution, quasi-legal attempt at Kosovizing Croatia and the rest of then Yugoslavia, and of course the Rampart (RAM) Plan, with the explicit order to target civilians to demoralize ‘enemies,’ and overtly stated goal of creating a Greater Serbia at the expense of most of Croatia and the whole of B&H, with access to Croatia’s coastline.

Among the more vocal propagandists in the front of the charge was none other than Croatia’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, and unofficial Shadow Foreign Minister of Serbia, Vesna Pusic, sister of UJDI (Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative) co-founder and current GOLJP head (Citizens Committee for Human Rights), Zoran Pusic.

Vesna Pusic helped form Erasmus Gilda in 1993, a declaratively pro-European organization, along with Slavko Goldstein, and other post-1990 self-styled “human rights” activists (the systematic violations of human rights before 1990 was apparently not a problem to them as they were silent and remain silent about them) and disinformation luminaries who all just happened to be against Yugoslavia joining the European Community prior to the first free elections in 1990, because the EC was a free market economy.

Along with the previously mentioned outlets like Arkazin, Feral Tribune and others regurgitating Belgrade’s propaganda on a weekly basis, Erasmus gatherings, published articles and their eventual failed magazine that generous USAID funds could not save, touted the line and gave the anti-fact agenda political legitimacy as they included many academics who rose to prominence within Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Here was yet another case of foreign aid subsidizing another controlled opposition – who foreign governments would openly put into power in 2000, and again in 2011.

The main propaganda agendas of these foreign-subsidized controlled opposition fronts, and foreign-financed controlled opposition political actors, as well as Belgrade’s propaganda, was during the war and remains the following, in no particular order:

Push the “all sides are guilty” and “civil war” lie to spin Serbia’s aggression and the moral responsibility of the Western powers that overtly and tacitly supported Serbia’s aggression diplomatically and through domestic media filters and planted stories;

Equate Croatia’s defensive war effort with Serbia’s offensive aggression;

Equate Croatia’s defense of B&H in 1992 and the HVO’s defense of B&H Croats in the face of Serbian and later Muslim aggression with Serbia’s aggression against Croatia;

Push the Karadjordjevo fable and “Tudman divided B&H” myth;

Criminalize any and all symbols of Croatian statehood (the Kuna currency, Croatia’s Grb, etc.) by tying them to the Independent State of Croatia (WWII NDH);

Look for “Ustashe,” if you can’t find them, make them up;

Blow any Croatian backlash or isolated criminal act during wartime out of proportion and tie it to the highest levels of power while entirely ignoring the top-down, bottom-up systematic war crimes by the YPA/Yugoslav Peoples Army and VRSK/Army of Serbian Republic of Krajina (see the Zec family politicization since 1991, with the recent street naming ruse);

Lobby for “Krajina” political legitimacy at Western embassies and in Western capitals while domestically attack the government for being weak for not defeating “Krajina” while simultaneously claiming the “Krajina” is too strong to fall and Serbia will get involved if Croatia operationally engages it, implication being that it is better to leave it alone and recognize it;

Criminalize the Homeland War, all Generals, and all Veterans, with phrases like “turbo-Generals,” “Oluja/Storm was ethnic cleansing, “fake veterans,” “drunk veterans,” “gambling veterans,” etc. – anything to do with the Homeland War, the men who led it or the men who fought in it must be all negative, all the time with qualifiers regarding “our crimes” at any opportunity, all under the banner of “de-Tudmanization”;

Sack competent wartime and intelligence commanders whenever possible;

Collaborate with UK, US and other foreign intelligence agencies in maligning not just General Ante Gotovina and all associates, but the Homeland War itself and actively wage information warfare against it;

Legitimize ICTY political prosecutions and show trials of Croats from Croatia and B&H and applaud all politically-charged, logical acrobatic convictions based off of cherry-picked misquotes out of context, evidence suppression, and constructing events entirely out of chronological order;

Stay silent on Momcilo Perisic, Franko Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic’s acquittals, as well as no ICTY convictions of any Army of B&H commanders for the systematic war crimes and gunpoint ethnic cleansing of Croats in Central Bosnia and North Herzegovina between October 1992 and the1994 Split Agreement;

Paint Franjo Tudjman as a warmonger and authoritarian; compare to Ante Pavelic and Adolf Hitler when possible;

Push anything and everything Serbian in social and cultural spheres, no matter how low-brow (Baja Mali Knindza, Ceca, Cajke, how to be a Sponzorusa program on RTL, etc.);

Rehabilitate the cult of Tito and Communist Partisan “liberation” and infallibility myth at every corner, with if not daily then weekly stories referencing the “glories” of Tito and the Partisans, and make sure to have a weekly Yugonostalgia session on HRT by airing second rate, low-budget Yugoslav Communist political cinema;

Continually push WWII debates as if it was ongoing to cover up for failed policies and collapsing economy and no actual long-term political or economic strategy;

Frame all political and economic discourse about independent Croatia, especially the Homeland War, in a negative context while simultaneously framing any discussions about Tito’s Yugoslavia in a positive, at a minimum, neutral context;

Demand Croatia “come to terms with its crimes” of the 1990s while savagely denouncing any suggestion of the same in regards to the Communists’ crimes during and after WWII, or that the Serbian community in Croatia do the same in regards to both the 1990s, WWII, and the first Yugoslavia;

Ridicule the very idea of lustration laws being passed; label it “nationalist” to nip it in the bud;

Do everything possible to drive a wedge between Croatia’s diaspora and the Homeland;

Demand that Croatia abide by every single UN, EU, or ICTY demand, no matter how idiotic or how much of a double-standard, especially when they negatively affect Croatia’s sovereignty, national interests, and national security while simultaneously using all means available in defending the CCP (KPH/Communist Party of Croatia) and UDBa Octopus (Yugoslav Secret Police) at the expense of diplomatic relations with Germany and the EU;

Criminalize the very thought of Herceg Bosna or any Croatian legal or political equality, economic freedom, local self rule, or even following the Dayton Agreement as was agreed upon, and always support Sarajevo’s line, or remain silent on the burning Croat question;

Push a pro-London, anti-Berlin and anti-Vienna policy – sign a strategic partnership with the one state that comes in second to Serbia only in terms of damaging Croatia politically and diplomatically (UK) once foreign subsidies and foreign subsidized (and facilitated in foreign media) propaganda bring you to power;

Ignore Central Europe, never speak of the Visegrad Four (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), and speak only of the “region” to Croatia’s south, not to its north, northeast or west – never even entertain the idea of making the Visegrad Four the Visegrad five, and never demand Serbia meet the same criteria and extra criteria Croatia had to fulfill for EU entry;

Accept money from anyone, including those “capitalist pig” governments who were supposed to submit to the superiority of Yugoslav Socialist Self-Management;

Denounce, decry and try to legally bar the right of Croatia’s Diaspora and Croats in Herceg Bosna to vote while not demanding the same for Croatian citizens of Serbian origin in RS (Serbian Republic) and Serbia, who do not pay Croatian taxes – organize bus transport for them to vote in Croatia;

Thwart any meaningful investment with bizarre regulations, a monstrous tax code, bureaucracy, and torpedo any business investment, including sweet-heart deals, at the strategic and state level through incompetence if they conflict with Anglo-American business or geopolitical interests (see the Qatar debacle).

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About the author: Ante Horvat was born in the USA in 1970′s. He has recently moved to live permanently in Croatia and although spending most of his life in the USA he had made several temporary residence visits to Croatia during that time. His education and professional development in history and international relations also spans across the two continents. He is an active observer of and participant in the development of democracy in Croatia since the early 1990’s and its correlation with the developed Western democracies.

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