communist purges – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Yet Another New Mass Grave of Communist Crimes Victims Discovered

October 15, 2023 by inavukic 7 Comments

Covering up or largely ignoring communist crimes, that were above all – horrendous, is an assault on truth.

Pits and mass graves such as Jazovka in the Zumberak Mountains area (and there are more than 1400 so far discovered in Croatia since its secession from communist Yugoslavia) filled with skeletal remains, rusted wiring they were bound together with when dumped into the pits alive or dying from bullets or knife wounds and rotting attire of thousands of communist Yugoslavia crimes’ victims, like so many other places where the partisans executed their crimes, was erased from history until the fall of the communist regime soon after Berlin Wall fall in 1989.

Jazovka pit is the symbol and definition of communist partisan brutality and crimes against patriotic Croats, those who wanted nothing to do with any form of Yugoslavia, just independence. On 15 May 1945, a week after the end of World War II, communist partisans took numerous wounded Croatian soldiers who fought for and independent Croatia from Zagreb’s hospitals and brought them to the psychiatric hospital in Vrapce on the outskirts of the Zagreb, an institution then run by the Sisters of Charity. Once there, all the prisoners were strangled or butchered in the basement of the hospital. After killing them, the partisans loaded the corpses into trucks and transported them to Jazovka and other mass graves. Three nuns, Sisters Geralda Jakob, Konstantina Mesar and Lipharda Horvat, witnessed the massacre. The communists saw the sisters and decided to murder them so that there would be no witnesses to the horrific crime. The three nuns, along with many others, were thrown into the Jazovka pit.

Until 1989, under the communist Yugoslavia regime, mass graves and pits filled with victims of communist crimes were kept as buried secrets and nobody apart from communist party operatives and the perpetrators of those crimes knew anything about these massacres of Croatian people. In fact, it could be called genocide against a political will for freedom and independence. In 1989 Jazovka mass grave was rediscovered by a speleologist, Mladen Kuka, but the exhumation of the victims’ remains would not take place until July 2020, when the Croatian Veterans Ministry began work and determined that there were at least 814 skeletons at a depth of about 40 metres. The first victims were Croatian soldiers captured in January 1943 and executed by the partisans. In 1945, the partisans used the pit for victims from Zagreb hospitals: wounded prisoners, civilians, doctors, nurses, and Catholic nuns. Most were dead when they were thrown into the pit, but others were thrown in alive to die in terrible agony.

The officials of Gospic, a town in the mountainous and sparsely populated region of Lika in Croatia, announced late last week that the third phase of exhumation of the newly discovered remains of people killed in the Second World War at the Gospic cemetery officially ended on Friday 13 October 2023, and a total of 253 victims of partisan-communist crimes have been found there. This is the date that overlaps with the day of the victims of nearby Siroka Kula, brutally killed by Serb rebels on the ethnic cleansing spree on October 13, 1991 in the midst of Yugoslav Army and Serb aggression against Croatia as it pursued exit from communism and independence.

The mass grave at Ovcara, Vukovar, is also one of the most tragic reminders of the sufferings of the Croatian Homeland War when 200 wounded persons from Vukovar Hospital were taken away by Serbs and executed near the estate of VUPIK (Vukovar Agricultural Industrial Complex) at Ovcara. The first public insights into the occurrences near Ovcara were provided in October 1992 in the article published in Vjesnik entitled “The Wounded were Taken Away Through the Rear Exit” on the basis of the testimony of a survivor, later a prisoner who was exchanged in Nemetin in 1992. Similarities in the manner and cruelty of crimes committed by Yugoslav communists after WWII and Serbs during the 1990’s War are enormous, and I believe not coincidental at all – both hated Croats for asserting their independence and freedom.

The 253 newly found victim of communist crimes in the area of Gospic will, reportedly, be buried in a common grave, i.e. the ossuary where the other exhumed remains of communist partisan crimes were buried before. In agreement with the Ministry of Croatian Veterans, if time permits we will continue the exhumations in Ličko Osik and Musaluk this year, otherwise exhumations are already planned for April and May next year in the area of Gospic and Lika-Senj County, stated the Gospic Town officials last week. And these exhumed finds are one small stone in the mosaic of the Croatian demographic breakdown that is currently happening throughout Croatia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, we send the message: “May it never happen again!”

Considering the size and complexity of the Gospic mass graves location, test excavations and exhumations were carried out in several phases of work, which were preceded by an extensive investigation of the location. Thus, a series of field surveys and aerial photographs of the location were carried out, as well as test excavations at several likely locations – along the cemetery fence, on the east side of the road and inside the playground, which confirmed the findings of human remains.

The first phase of test excavations and exhumations was carried out from October 18 to November 5, 2021, when the remains of 84 victims were exhumed. During the second phase of test excavations and exhumation, from June 27 to July 21, 2022, the remains of 69 victims were exhumed. The third and final phase was preceded by the raising of a 678m² asphalt layer of the road, and from September 20 to October 13, 2023, the remains of at least 100 more victims were exhumed. In total, in all phases, the remains of at least 253 victims were exhumed.

As expected, in the surrounds of the government heavily laced with protecting the former communists and Serb aggressor against Croatia, almost nothing of this awful find in Gospic was recorded by Croatia’s government-controlled mainstream media. Lack of memory, or worse, selective memory, is increasingly common in Europe and in Croatia it has been force-fed to people for decades – since Croatia’s independence from communist Yugoslavia in 1991. It is sometimes enforced by memory laws that determine which victim deserves to be remembered and which to be forgotten. In Croatia no law has been passed to condemn the communist crimes, the symbols of communism. Communist butchery of patriotic Croats still awaits legislative, government and public condemnation.

These remains found in Gospic are victims, like hundreds of thousands of other Croats, of Yugoslav communist-partisan crimes, so we thank God for small mercies by which the bodies of people killed brutally, without court proceedings, human rights or justice, will be buried with dignity after almost 70 years.

The injustices of communism were not limited to mass murder alone. Even those who survived the communist deadly purges still were subjected to severe repression, including violations of freedom, of speech, freedom of religion, loss of property rights, and the criminalisation of ordinary economic activity. No previous tyranny sought such complete control over nearly every aspect of people’s lives as communism did.

Although the communists promised a utopian society in which the working class would enjoy unprecedented prosperity, in reality, they engendered massive poverty. Wherever communist and non-communist states existed in close proximity, it was the communists who used walls, shutting of borders, and the threat of death to keep their people from fleeing to societies with greater opportunities. Many fled nevertheless and they and their descendants are still a threat to the remnants of communist ideology still breathing in Croatia; some holding the reins of power, unfortunately.

The vast power necessary to establish and maintain the communist system after World War Two in Yugoslavia attracted quite a number of unscrupulous people, including many self-seekers who prioritised their own interests over those of the cause. But it is striking that the biggest communist atrocities were not exclusively perpetrated by corrupt party bosses, but by true believers like Josip Broz Tito. Precisely because he was a true believer in communism and socialism, he was willing to do whatever it might take to make his utopian dreams a reality. Ordering mass murders or tortures in political prisons was Tito’s modus operandi. In the end Tito made it to the top ten list of biggest murderers of own people of the twentieth century. Tito created a regime where many people tried to do as little work as possible at their official jobs, where possible reserving their real efforts for black market activity and corruption. As the old Yugoslav saying goes, workers developed the attitude that “no one can pay me as little as I can work!” No wonder that by 1989 the inflation in former Yugoslavia had escalated to about 1100%, shop shelves empty of most products, bead or petrol lines as long as eye could see…

Only with truth can a decent and, above all, a nation with a future be built. The better and the more we learn the painful lessons of the history of communist Yugoslavia, the more likely it is that we can avoid any repetition of its horrors. Hence, the recently discovered victims of communist crimes in Gospic are vital for Croatia’s future and its well-being. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: communist crimes, communist purges, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Gospic, Jazovka, Josip Broz Tito, mass graves

From the Trail of Communist Crimes Against Croatian Patriots

March 26, 2022 by inavukic 12 Comments

_{Đuro Zagajski (Djuro Zagajski) Murdered in Germany as part of Yugoslav communist purges 26/27 March 1983}

Former Yugoslavia was the most aggressive among socialist countries in using assassinations, murders, as a means of protecting the communist state and the communist party from its opponents. Over its 45-year existence, the UDBA, the Yugoslav State Security Service, murdered several dozens of its political enemies, mostly Croats, abroad. These do not include mass murders of hundreds of thousands of Croats immediately after World War Two whose remains lie in 1,000 pits and mass graves so far uncovered. To know that children or grandchildren of these murderers still enjoy the perks their ancestors received from the communist regime for participating in these murderous sprees sends shivers down the spines of all who hold justice dear. To know that some of the descendants of these communist murderers may be holding powerful positions in today’s Croatia is unthinkably cruel. We know, nothing has really been done in systematic processing of communist crimes committed against Croats in Croatia during the existence of former Yugoslavia. This tragedy, for sure, is one of the fundamental reasons why Croatia has not made progress with democracy in which the rule of law and justice are paramount.

Djuro Zagajski is just one of many Croatian emigrants, Croatian patriots, who fled communist Yugoslavia, who were closely monitored by the Yugoslav Intelligence Services UDBa even after they left Yugoslavia, with the goal of organising assassinations of Croats monitored. According to a report by the Council for the Identification of Post-War Victims of the Communist System Killed Abroad, which operated within the 1991-1999 Commission for the Identification of War and Post-War Victims, the Yugoslav Communist Service murdered 63 Croats abroad, however this number has risen to 74 by research completed in June 2020 (Tomislav Djurasovic). In addition, 25 Croats survived assassination attempts in the diaspora, 5 still considered missing and 5 kidnapped. Djuro Zagajski is one of about 30 Croats assassinated by Yugoslav communist secret services within the borders of Germany and to date nobody has been held responsible for his murder 39 years ago, this weekend.

_{Croatian patriots murdered by Yugoslav Secret Services UDBA by country in which they lived and by year} _{(Source: Tomislav Djurasovic)}

_{Top left: Croats missing in diaspora, Top right Croats kidnapped in diaspora in communist purges, Bottom columns: Croats who survived communist purges’ assassination attempts in the diaspora} _{(Source: Tomislav Djurasovic)}

After the quashing of the “Croatian Spring” in late 1971, which was a mass movement that lobbied for greater autonomy of Croatia within communist Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav communist Party headed by Josip Broz Tito admitted that even after hundreds of arrests and imprisonments much still remained to be done “to liquidate all the remaining chauvinist hotbeds in the society.” According to Tanjug, the official Yugoslav press agency, Croatia’s Communist party leaders made an appeal on 15 December 1971 to all organisations and members to join the fight against “nationalist aberrations.” Hence, the communist murderous hands extended to the Croatian patriots living outside Croatia and Yugoslavia with greater frequency and depraved viciousness.

The Croats made up 22 per cent of Yugoslavia’s 20 million inhabitants and had contributed the most towards Yugoslavia’s government revenue. The enormous economic problems of Yugoslavia that evolved had contributed toward reviving Croatian antagonism toward the central Government, which has diverted some of the revenues of Croatia’s highly developed industry for investments in more backward republics. Croatian Spring movement was to bring a better balance, but it caused an acceleration of assassinations, murders, and purges of Croatian patriots.

Djuro Zagajski, born on October 2, 1939, in Zagreb, attempted to escape from Yugoslavia several times as a minor. Political persecution and oppression by the communist Yugoslavia regime often resulted in murder or assassination of patriotic Croats within Croatia and within the diaspora to where multitudes fled. Djuro once succeeded to flee across the border, but was returned to Yugoslavia by the Austrian authorities, where he first spent two months in prison and was later sent to serve in the compulsory military service. Returning from the obligated service in the Yugoslav People’s Army to Zagreb, he was arrested again and sentenced to two years in prison for “enemy propaganda”. Finally, in July 1967, Zagajski again decided to flee Yugoslavia and went to Germany, where he was granted political asylum. In the following period, he took part in many demonstrations and public rallies against Yugoslavia and followed emigrant publications.

On 22^nd January 1982, the State Security Services (SDS) Operational Centre Zagreb initiated and began “Operational processing” of Djuro Zagajski.

The operational treatment of him was proposed by Zdravko Mustač, head of the SDS Zagreb Centre, and Josip Perkovic, head of the Second Department of the SDS Headquarters of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, and was approved by Vinko Bilic, the head of the SDS Socialist Republic of Croatia, while the operational processing had since been led by Milan Munjas, an operational worker of the SDS Zagreb Centre. (As a reminder both above mentioned Zdravko Mustac and Josip Perkovic were in 2016 both sentenced to life imprisonment by the German Court for abetting the murder of Croatian emigrant in Germany, Stjepan Djurekovic, as part of their role in the Yugoslav State Security Services/SDS, which was about purges of Croatian patriots and political opponents of communism.) The SDS Operational Processing of Zagajski as with all similar cases meant the drawing of pathways and information about the movements of the target with the aim of his assassination.

A person of special trust of Đuro Zagajski was Stjepan Mesek, who was an agent of the SDS Zagreb Centre under the code names “Karlo” and “Dubravko”. He was kept in communication pathways from November 1981 to March 1983 by Miso Deveric and Milan Munjas – employees of the Second Department of the SDS Centre Zagreb.

The associate that was known under the code name “Emin” was kept in the loop and operations by the employees of the SDS Varazdin Centre, Milan Tesla and Ilija Dodik, and as instructed by Josip Perkovic.

Dušan Sime Peris was hired on June 12, 1981, and his code name was “Dukat”.

Zlabnik Damir and Roguljic Mladen, employee of the Second Department of the SDS Zagreb Centre at the time when the head of the Centre was Franjo Vugrinec.

The statement of the associate “Jerko” dated December 2, 1982, signed by him says the following: “I, Branko Sklepic, born on January 7, 1947, temporarily working in the Federal Republic of Germany, Munich, voluntarily and without coercion, declare that I will undertake on a voluntary basis, to loyally provide data to Security Services. Since I am moving in the company of extreme emigrants in Munich, such as Zagajski Djuro, etc., I will share all the information, either in writing or in direct contact with the SDS service. ” “Jerko” was led by the employee of the Second Department of the SDS Zagreb Centre Damir Zlabnik, at the time when the head of the Centre was Franjo Vugrinec.

The collaborator “Pjesnik” was Miro Skrinjaric, led by employee of the Second Department of the SDS Zagreb Centre Miso Deveric, at the time when the head of the Centre was Franjo Vugrinec.

In addition to them, a certain Milan Doric also played a big role – under the code names of “Hanzi”, “Milan”, “Flora” and “Pagan”.

In the night between Saturday and Sunday, March 26-27, 1983, emigrant Djuro Zagajski, a native of Zagreb, was killed.

The dead body of Đuro Zagajski was found in the morning in an open field in the Pheasant Garden Park in Munich. Zagajski was a friend and collaborator of Stanko Nizic (killed on August 23, 1981, in Zurich), Stjepan Đurekovic (killed on July 28, 1983 in Wolfratshausen near Munich) and Luka Kraljevic (survived several assassinations).

Months before Zagajski’s murder, an associate of the Zagreb UDBa under the pseudonym “Karlo” submitted reports on the activities of Croatian emigrants in Germany and Switzerland. The main person in these reports was Djuro Zagajski.

Associate of the Varazdin UDBa under the pseudonym “Emin” in a statement dated February 25, 1983, a month before the murder, he claims that Djuro Zagajski has gained complete trust in him and that lately he has been able to mostly come to his apartment and stay longer, while he previously avoided going anywhere outside public places together. Now he is ready to drive alone with “Emina” in his car… preparing patriotic Croats for slaughter was the modus operandi leading to murder… the grotesque character of the communist Yugoslavia still haunts. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: communist crimes, communist purges, communist Yugoslavia secret police, Croatia, Djuro Zagajski, Duro Zagajski, murder s of Croatian patriots, UDBA, Yugoslav Secret Services assassionations of Croats

ARCHBISHOP ALOJZIJE STEPINAC IN THE DOCK

November 28, 2021 by inavukic 6 Comments

This year of 2021 the Advent begins on Sunday 28 November, and we prepare for the birth of Jesus. And in that preparation for the birth of Jesus I trust and pray that The Holy Father Pope Francis will reconsider the role he maintains the Serb Orthodox Church has in the canonisation of Croatia’s WWII Archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, Blessed Alojzije Stepinac since October 1998 when Saint John Paul II, then Pope, beatified him.

With this article I step back in the time of October 1946 when the Yugoslav communists (among whom was an overwhelming number of Orthodox Serbs) wrongfully convicted the Archbishop, wrongfully treating him, wrongfully accusing and convicting him and others so that the communist regime may do what it pleased and that sick “pleasure” was in mass killings of Croats who fought for independence as well as women and children and the elderly.

Hence, I have here transcribed an article from the renowned newspaper The Scotsman, drawn to my attention by Dr Esther Gitman, the historian who has performed thorough research about Stepinac’s many activities in rescuing Jews, Serbs and others from sure death in the whirlwind of political and aggressive madness of WWII.

The Scotsman (1921-1950); Oct 18, 1946; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Scotsman

pg. 4

“An Archbishop in the dock

Trial of the Yugoslav Primate

By Patrick Maitland

“To reaffirm faith in the fundamental human rights, in the dignity and value of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women,” the United Nations signed the San Francisco Charter.

The above is the phrase in the Charter Preamble, to which Mr Dean Acheson, Acting U.S. Secretary of State, called attention last weekend with reference to the Zagreb trial of Monsignor Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb and Catholic Primate of Yugoslavia, on seven counts. “It is the civil liberties part of the thing which causes us concern,” he said.

The Archbishop was sentenced to sixteen years hard labour on charges of collaboration with the puppet Croat regime of the Ustashi leader, Pavelic, during the war, of responsibility for compelling Serbs, members of the Orthodox Church, to become Roman Catholics; of becoming Chaplain-General to the puppet Croat Army; of conspiring with Dr Matchek, the (now-exiled) leader of the Croat Peasants’ Party, with General Mihailovitch and others; and of issuing a pastoral letter on the eve of the Yugoslav general elections last year, “falsely depicting the state of affairs in Yugoslavia and encouraging the Ustashi and other traitors to commit further crimes.”

Mr Dean Acheson’s comment said the worrying aspects raised questions “as to whether the trial has any implications looking toward impairment of freedom of religion and of worship”; and he pointed out that, for example, the Supreme Court of the United States had always set aside as illegal all trials “in Courtrooms dominated by feelings adverse to the defendant by demonstrations of prejudice.”

No transcript of the trial has yet reached Britain, and one is eagerly awaited, for not only has the judgment provoked the first excommunication of the head of a State in more than a century, but this is the first occasion within recent years when an Archbishop has been brought before a lay court and so condemned on what amount of political charges.

The trial comes at a time when the world is looking for implementation of the Four Freedoms which are enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and when the Nuremberg Tribunal has set an all-time model for the dispensation of justice without prejudice.

TENDENTIOUS REPORTS

In the absence of a full report on the trial, it is worth noticing that agency reports from the Courtroom, and the reports issued by Tanjug, the Yugoslav official news agency, paint a fairly consistent picture. The Associated Press reported that a number of witnesses desired by the defence were never called. And the Archiepiscopal defendant was only one of several. It was a collective trial after the manner of that of General Mihailovitch whereat, also, the calling of a number of witnesses desired by the defence was ruled out of order.

The Tanjug reports would have brought an instant writ for contempt if they had been published in Great Britain during a British trial. Here are some excerpts: The defendants’ “witnesses mostly discredited the intention of defence counsel by the contradictory testimony … they were nonplussed when the Public Prosecutor proved” &c.: “Stepinac declared he did not want to answer questions put to him, in the first place in connection with the proofs of his criminal activities”; of a reference by the defence to alleged forced conversions: “Here Stepinac is using sophistry and verbalism … He did not speak of his Ustashi activity.”

Another day Tanjug incorporated into its report the phrases: “Despite all the proofs piled up against him” and made this reference to the “Caritas” organisation: “although it had been proved that the society was a lair of robbery.” Again: “The Judge dealt with Stepinac’s anti-national activities just before the liberation.”

No matter how grave the charges, the mere incorporation of these and kindred phrases in the report of the official news agency tends to bear out the implication of Mr Dean Acheson’s suspicion that the atmosphere in which the trial was conducted was hostile to the defendant.

ARCHBISHOP’S SPEECH

Mgr. Stepinac’s speech in defence has not been published abroad, save a few short phrases. It is fair to conclude that the foreign correspondents covering the trial, especially American correspondents writing for a Press which must cater for a considerable Catholic readership, tried to report this. The obvious conclusion is that the censor interfered. The Vatican organ. Osservatore Romano, however, clearly obtained at least some passages of the Archbishop’s speech, for it was able on October 5 to reproduce the following passage: –

“You speak of liberty and of religion in Yugoslavia and you say there is more liberty in the country than ever before. I reply that a great number of priests have been killed. You could have arrested them, but you have not the right to put them to death. The people of the country will never forget this. There has never been a greater scandal. Not a single bishop, not a single priest in the country knows in the morning if he will see the light of the next dawn. You ask for our loyalty and we ourselves are obliged to ask you to respect the least of our rights.”

That passage, coupled with those cited above from Tanjug account, give some idea of the tense atmosphere of the whole proceedings and how the trial was principally a test of political loyalties. While the trial was in progress the Press was forbidden to refer to any of Mgr. Stepinac’s deeds during the enemy occupation, when he is known to have given asylum to refugees of every race and creed who approached him. Among them were members of the present Government. Jews, Orthodox Serbs, Moslems, were repeatedly saved from death by his direct intervention. This much is known.

But the extent of the Archbishop’s personal popularity in Croatia can possibly be gauged from the fact that throughout the trial, the Zagreb churches were packed with people praying for him, and on October 2 the civil authorities banned assemblies of more than five persons outside any church. The ban is reminiscent of those attempted by Pavelich regime when, during the occupation, the Archbishop’s fiery denunciation of Nazi tyranny drew such crowds that he was compelled to preach from outside his Cathedral instead of within it.

“FORCED CONVERSIONS”

Of the charges laid against the Archbishop, several are unsavoury. The most disagreeable was clearly the allegation that he had encouraged, or at the very least consented to, “forced conversions”. That many thousands of Orthodox Serbs living in Croatia were, in fact, compelled to join the Roman Catholic Church there is virtually bo doubt. But there is doubt about the nature of the force used. And a revealing letter reached the writer a few weeks ago from a Zagreb Serb giving a version hitherto unknown in this country. According to this source, the Pavelich regime issued decrees instituting certain civil disabilities for Orthodox, Jews and Protestants. The decrees constituted an inducement to the careless to abandon their church allegiance and join the Catholic Church with menial reservations.

This letter explains that the Orthodox Serbs of Croatia are actually deeply grateful to the Archbishop because he revised the formularies to which it is customary for a convert to assent in such a way as to make this nominal transfer of loyalty easier and less humiliating to those making the change from motives of security. To such folk, this writer asserts, the Catholic Archbishop was a hero and a protector.

This letter is not mentioned in any attempt to whittle away the evil of the practices which went on in outlying parts. In many parts of Bosnia the procedure was horrible and degrading. But the Archbishops defence has not been heard by the outside world, and this surprising tribute has been written from the centre of the crimes with which he was charged. It nay be worth adding that the Archbishop has been personally known to the writer over a period of years, and has always appeared a man of such deep sincerity that the charge of approving forced conversions would, on the face of it, seem monstrous.

A significant feature of the trial was the white heat of the propaganda with which it was surrounded. The writings and public statements made during the Mihailovitch trial are pale by comparison. The campaign was inaugurated by Marshal Tito hikself in a speech st Split on July 27. “All traces of an artificially produced dissatisfaction (with the regime) emanate from under the cassock,” he said. “To-day, sundry saints and miracles have come to the fore. Now what miracles do we need? We shall create these miracles ourselves by our own labour. Our people are no longer so stupid as to be duped by tales about saints and miracles. Let the saints remain in their churches where they belong.”

POLITICAL MOTIVE

But the motive again and again appears to be political. For in another speech a few days later Marshal Tito revealed to this matter: “There are in Croatia, Serbia, and in other parts of the country priests among those men who are spreading discord among the people … Only a small part of the Catholic clergy goes with the people to-day; a far greater part goes against the people … They have again begun to spread hatred among Serbs and Croats.”

Reports which have lately reached London through uncensored channels – there is now a fairly steady flow of visitors moving back and forth – bring out a particular feature of the present situation. On the one hand, what the Serbs call the “repovi” – the “tails” of Yugoslavia – are generally speaking satisfied with the new regime. There is little talk of discontent in Slovenia, which is in a fair way to acquiring fresh territory in Venezia Giulia, and which is hopefully looking forward to the presentation of a formal claim to incorporate the Klagenfurt area of Carinthia.

The Montenegrins have little to complain of for they played a leading part in the National Liberation Movement from the start and have in general received a heavy share of the good jobs. The Macedonians in the South have won local home rule, and at least till lately enjoyed considerable freedom to defy the orders of Belgrade. Bosnia and Herzegovina have been flattered, likewise, with a degree of home rule. But from throughout Serbia and Croatia, which together must form the kernel of the newly federated State, constant if inarticulate opposition is reported.

It is purely a surmise, but available evidence and many straws in the wind suggest it, that the overall purpose of the Zagreb trial was to whip up Serb hatred against Croats – the cardinal weakness of the pre-war kingdom which enabled the dictatorship to prolong its tyrannical power.

Ina Vukic