Croatia: Corruption – The Cradle Of Intolerable Filth!

Left: EPPO Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruţa Kövesi, Top Right: Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his government ministers among latest indictees for fraud and corruption

As I wrote last week, there was a motion by Croatia’s parliamentary opposition to recall the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic with claims, in particular, that he is, among other things, personally responsible for failing to act in curbing corruption which is relentlessly plaguing the country and failing to effectively address and deal with the devastation caused by the earthquakes in Croatia since March 2020. This attempt to depose the Prime Minister from office was not successful. Andrej Plenkovic survived the no confidence vote in the Croatian Parliament on Friday 3 March 2023.  

The 77 against and 56 for the confirmation of no confidence with one abstention and 17 opposition members of Parliament missing in action (did not turn up for voting) in the 151-seat assembly provided a rather clear picture that was expected at this time of political turmoil, economic crisis and living standards uncertainties due to price hikes for food and energy. The governing majority votes favoured Plenkovic as leader and Prime Minister. However, despite the colourful differences in both ideology and policy among the opposition political parties, the parliamentary opposition also rose united as well. Nobody is “crossing the floor” on the matter of Prime Minister’s performance in the above key areas from any side of politics just yet, it seems. But, should the Croatian judiciary act more appropriately and with due and deservingly urgent haste in processing indictments for corruption that occurred in the very heart of Plenkovic’s government, should the judiciary work faster in collecting needed evidence to be tested in court, then anything is possible. Even a catastrophic loss by HDZ in 2024 general elections. In the face of so much corruption, in the face of harsh living standards due to price increases of basic and essential food and other essentials for life, no amount of gloss Plenkovic is painting over the economy will stop the corrosive bitterness and disappointments the voters seem to be expressing every day. Pending the 2024 parliamentary elections in Croatia we are now on a most interesting ride which, God willing, will see increased attacks on the communist mindset polluting the democracy Croatia should be, but is not living.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has recently published its 2022 Annual Report. Since its launch in June 2021, EPPO opened offices in 22 EU countries, including a branch in Croatia. Its main purpose is to monitor, track and investigate the expenditure of EU funds given to a country and its successful funds applicant organisations.

On the face and perhaps the substance of EU funds given this has changed the [corruption] situation significantly. One may say that the corrupt habits acquired during the life of communist Yugoslavia that groomed people who wielded political power who perhaps could have exerted influence over local investigators are no longer that powerful for EU money and under EPPO’s rudder. And while Croatia itself has an anticorruption body USKOK (Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime) attached to the State Attorney’s Office (DORH) as a special operations unit dealing with all except fraud and corruption associated with EU funds attended to by the EPPO, it has been very much like a toothless tiger. Corruption scandals that do not involve EU funds also keep popping up like mushrooms after the rain. I.e., there are still many officials working for the public authorities who think and act as if they are free to do what they please with public funding. This is in part because they think they are untouchable, or because they can pull strings in these bodies, or because they expect membership in a political party will always help them get out of problems, forgive their theft and corruption. The communist mindset still reigns in Croatia, the power is still behind and not in front of the “counter” (with people, with clients, with taxpayers). The ruling political parties since the end of the Homeland War and Serb occupation of Croatian territories in 1998, whether they were HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) or SDP (Social Democratic Party, viz. former Croatian League of Communists), have all equated themselves as being The State. Communist mindset where the political party in government acts as and considers itself omnipotent, in control of people’s lives!

The most prominent scandal investigated by EPPO over the past year and a half in Croatia included a 1.3 million euros case which led to the indictment of the former government minister for EU funds and high-ranking officials of the ruling conservative HDZ party, Gabrijela Zalac, and three of her associates, in December 2021. Zalac, with the director of the Central Finance and Contracting Agency, Tomislav Petric, and two business owners, was apprehended as part of operation “Software” conducted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Croatia. EPPO’s suspected offences against them included an attempt to award a public procurement operation for a software system to one of the indictees without a public tender, and then rigging the price of a subsequent tender. As the saga of Zalac’s criminal/corruption proceedings advance in Croatia, revealing details that may implicate even the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic in shady deals or omissions that may have aided success of fraudulent entries, the ruling party HDZ is shrugging the issues off while the parliamentary opposition unleashed a public outcry saying the affair is a sign of a crisis in government.  

Another high-ranking official recently investigated by EPPO is former agriculture minister Tomislav Tolusic, who was detained in July 2022 in an investigation over suspected irregularities over around 600,000 euros in EU funding he spent to equip his privately owned winemaking business.  This led to State Attorney’s Office/DORH also filing an indictment against three other former ministers in the government of Andrej Plenkovic/HDZ – Darko Horvat, Boris Milosevic, and Josip Aladrovic, as well as four other suspects in two branches of the investigation launched due to alleged illegalities with dishing out incentives. In addition to the four ministers, USKOK/anti-corruption office also filed indictments against Horvat’s assistant Ana Mandac, former state secretary of the Ministry of Regional Development Velimir Zunac, director of the administration for assisted areas Katica Miskovic and the mayor of Zupanja Damir Juzbasic. Eight defendants are charged with abuse of position and authority, inciting, and aiding in abuse of position and authority, trading in influence and assisting in trading in influence.

If we label corruption as filth, then the governing political parties in the past two decades or so in Croatia have been its cradle! Despite their political ideology and operational differences they all share common ground on not doing much to punish and stop corruption that is prevalent across all public administration sectors.

A large portion of the public in Croatia is currently standing on tenterhooks, waiting to see if Croatian judiciary will drag its feet in processing these indictments until the 2024 general elections are over! That way HDZ Party and Prime Minister can keep playing the innocence cards and keep denying that there is a real problem of corrupt culture in the entire public administration system. Any decent and non-corrupt government, faced with serious indictments with serious crimes of several of its ministers, would have already triggered an independent review of all practices and procedures, instigated checks and balances at all spots and levels of public money receipts and expenditure. Not Croatia, though. As reflex reaction it forms Commissions and on them may sit compromised individuals with shady past and encounter with corruption, at least the political kind!

In 2022 alone, EPPO’s investigations in Croatia led to eight indictments and six court verdicts and to the freezing of some €400,000 in assets. They also received 51 reports and complaints, with more than half (29) coming from local authorities and another 17 filed by individuals. In terms of the type of funding involved, most cases were related to regional and urban development (7), followed by agriculture and rural development (6).

It is both interesting and encouraging that Croatian citizens submitted as many as 162 reports to the EPPO of suspicions of criminal offences that are not actually within the jurisdiction of the European prosecutor’s office. This is the largest number of reports or allegations of fraud the EPPO likely received from any member country. This among other things points to a concerning fact that Croatian p[eople are increasingly frustrated and irritated by the inaction or alarming inattentiveness of the domestic courts and judiciary. Furthermore, this has led to an alarming increase in public expressions of distrust in the Croatian judiciary coupled with consensus that courts are nowhere near being independent of the government as they should be. The fact that Croatian citizens are choosing to report suspicious corrupt activities to the EPPO, even though the subjects of such reports are not within the EPPO’s jurisdiction, does demonstrate a concerning level of desperation within the population in trying to achieve justice and root out corruption.

According to its 2022 Annual Report the European Prosecutor’s/EPPO Office in Croatia is currently investigating fraud associated with 313 million euros tied to its lodging of 23 court proceedings in Croatia last year. That is, last year, EPPO commenced 23 cases of suspected embezzlement of 313.6 million euros if European money in Croatia. As stated in the Annual Report, these are mainly investigations into misuse of funds from EU funds and the state budget, manipulation during public procurement, and corruption.

Croatia commonly scores high on the annual Corruption Perception Index compiled by Transparency International. In their 2022 report, it ranked 57th out of 180 countries surveyed globally and 24th in the EU, ahead only of Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

It has come to light last year that Croatia (or rather its citizens) is also among other countries implicated in the 2022 biggest investigation of theft and corruption of public moneys embodied in the so-called Operation Admiral in relation to a complex VAT/GST tax fraud scheme based on the sale of popular electronic goods. All the data collected is being analysed, and the investigation into the organised crime groups behind this scheme is continuing. The estimated damages investigated under Operation Admiral currently amount to 2.2 billion euro. It amounts to the biggest VAT carousel fraud, or Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud, ever investigated in the EU. The criminal activities are spread throughout the 22 EPPO participating Member States, as well as Hungary, Ireland, Sweden, and Poland, along with third countries including Albania, China, Mauritius, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

Whether about corruption, about nepotism, about fraud, about theft, about improper government minister behaviour, new scandals persistently pollute the life of Croatian people. I remember a comment I once read on communist mindset and habits as Croatia was in the throws of seceding from communist Yugoslavia: leaving Yugoslavia will not mean we have also left the thieves behind, and that is why strict anti-corruption laws, and their implementation will be essential for democracy to thrive. Today, in 2023 the implementation of such laws is pathetic or largely non-existent in Croatia. Audits and spot checks are not fully independent, checks and balances to do with government grants and funding practically do not exist as the concept in functioning democracies intends, leaving ample space for embezzlement and theft and other corrupt means. Corruption runs in the blood of former communist operatives and their descendants. Croatia badly needs a political blood transfusion! Ina Vukic

Croatia: HDZ vs SDP – Pot Calling The Kettle Black

It is becoming tiring that new corruption scandals, involving the government or highly positioned officials or politicians of any creed, are unravelling just about every month before our eyes and there seems to be no end to this agony for the Croatian nation.

Almost as soon as the Croatian media published various mobile phone SMS messages exchanged between numerous public servants and the former director of the public company Croatian Forests, now a suspect with Croatian State Prosecutor’s Office for the Suppression of Organised Crime and Corruption (USKOK), the content of those messages became the main focus of discussions and demands made in parliament, February 1, 2023. The opposition, particularly SDP/Social Democratic Party accuses HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union officials, including ministers in the government, of influence peddling, fixing jobs and employment. A procedure has reportedly been initiated in which the impeachment of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is requested. While the ruling HDZ denies any wrongdoing that points to nepotism and corruption, the opposition comes out with the opposite assessment and calls Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Croatian parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic, who were also mentioned in those phone messages, to account, putting the Prime Minster forth for impeachment. The SDP complaint clearly states that the HDZ brought the country to a deplorable state where without the influence of the Prime Minister and high-ranking HDZ party officials and dignitaries it is impossible to secure a job in Croatia and that it is HDZ that brought Croatia to this sorry state (HRT News Dnevnik 2, 01/02/2023).

Job-fixing, nepotism, is the root of much evil that has diseased Croatia, resulting in hundreds of thousands people leaving the country in the past decade looking for work and a decent life elsewhere. Addressing this new corruption scandal and plucking out the guilty officials and persons would be a strong start to ridding Croatia of nepotism.  

While it is certain that nepotism is one of the main problems of corruption in the labour market in Croatia under HDZ government, SDP’s opposition also did nothing to eradicate or at least significantly reduce this corrupt practice while it, itself, was in government and other power such as the Office of the President.

Pot calling the kettle black, as it is now done in the Croatian Parliament, and even in the last couple of decades, may be what people call a normal political practice between “warring” political parties vying for power, however, when it comes to eradicating corruption and nepotism this strategy should not be tolerated. It keeps suffocating Croatia from true progress in all fields of life; it is not a solution for the betterment of Croatia. It just keeps corruption alive.

The best thing that could happen for Croatian people and Croatia is to wipe the slate clean from both HDZ and SDP governments and vote in new blood at coming general elections in 2024. Both have proven that they are either incapable of making changes forward away from overwhelming corruption or that they do not want changes.

If one said that, currently and perpetually, Croatia is in a big mess, politically, economically, or otherwise, one would sadly be justified. The current Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has maintained a stand of aggression and intolerance towards the Office of the President of Croatia regardless of who was/is in that office during his time as Prime Minister.  Of course, again, one blames the other for the intolerance; again, the pot calling the kettle black!

The same can be said for the President Zoran Milanovic and for the former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. They could not find a common language with Plenkovic and Plenkovic could not find it with them. The result is an abysmal image of Croatia as a nation. There is no excuse for such destructive behaviour and ways of collaborating can always be found, unless, of course, neither the Prime Minister or the President of Croatia care much about its independence and the blood spilled for that! So it may well be in their personal political interests and leanings (towards the failed former communist Yugoslav state) that they make no effort in bringing harmony to that country that has as a nation suffered so very much through the ages. 

Each will say the other one is to blame for the scandalous discord at the top echelons in the two “towers” of power in Croatia, when harmony and collaboration is required to achieve the best possible transition out of communism.

Then, last Monday Croatia’s president Zoran Milanovic criticised Western nations for supplying Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons in its campaign against invading Russian forces, saying those arms deliveries will only prolong the war. He said that it’s “mad” to believe that Russia can be defeated in a conventional war.

“I am against sending any lethal arms there,” Milanovic said. “It prolongs the war.”

“What is the goal? Disintegration of Russia, change of the government? There is also talk of tearing Russia apart. This is mad,” he added.

Prior to winning presidential election in 2019 Milanovic had Prime Minister between 2011 and 2016, then been disgraced as the leader of the Social Democratic Party to make a comeback as President as a left-leaning liberal candidate, a stark contrast to the middle of the road conservative government currently in power. But he has since made a turn to populist nationalism signs of which he started displaying as Prime Minister.

The fact that the Croatian government headed by Andrej Plenkovic supports Ukraine and its defence against the Russian invasion and aggression and the President does not is yet another marker for the hopeless situation Croatia is in on the road to achieving a semblance of harmony and unity.

Then, also last week, President Milanovic went on to make a grandiose statement in which he claimed that Kosovo was stolen from Serbia! The Croatian government headed by Andrej Plenkovic recognises Kosovo as an independent state and has established diplomatic relations and other cooperative processes! Milanovivc’s statement regarding Kosovo has provoked many reactions of anger and repulsion. Given that Kosovo was created as part of dissolution of former communist Yugoslavia one is thoroughly justified in being abhorred at such a statement by Milanovic. But then again, at the time, being a prominent member of the League of Communists, he was against the dissolution of communist Yugoslavia and never fought for independent Croatia. The latter part could also be said for Prime Minister Plenkovic.

Croatia is led by two politicians of communist Yugoslavia background and leanings, who never wanted its independence, its freedom, in the first place nor fought for it. A terrible paradox is being lived in Croatia. The concerning issue is that this situation and the outward discord between the Office of President and Cabinet of Prime Minister could well be a reeling out of planned action to keep Croatia unstable and keep former communist Yugoslavia looking “attractive”?

It is certainly an ugly discord, and one finds it incredulous that it is permitted to continue for so long.  

On Monday, the Croatian president expanded his narrative by saying he believes that Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, will never again be part of Ukraine.

After months of hesitation, the U.S. said it will send 31 of its 70-ton Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, and Germany announced it will dispatch 14 Leopard 2 tanks and allow other countries to do the same.

Milanovic said that “from 2014 to 2022, we are watching how someone provokes Russia with the intention of starting this war.”

Although the presidential post is mostly ceremonial in Croatia, Milanovic is formally the supreme commander of the armed forces. One finds in Western media comments such as: Milanovic’s latest anti-Western outbursts have embarrassed and irritated Croatia’s government which has fully supported Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s aggression. Well, the aggression, the discord, the ugly fights between the two have been going on for years but the West hardly noticed. Perhaps because this discord between the Croatia’s powerful did not brush against the policies the West was implementing internationally such as that for Ukraine?  On Monday, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic reacted to the president’s positions on the West and Ukraine by saying they “directly harm Croatia’s foreign policy position.” Well that’s a lukewarm reaction given the depth and intensity of the discord between the two! One would have expected Plenkovic to use much stronger words in response to Milanovic’s rants against the Western politics on Russia and its aggression against Ukraine. The coming year may indeed reveal what lies under the surface of the perpetual, tiring animosity between Croatia’s President and Prime Minister. Whatever the case, voters should not tolerate this destructive and disruptive state of discord, corruption and nepotism amidst the pretence that all is fine. True democracy should have its day! Ina Vukic   

Croatia: No Time For Passive Patriotism

“We are fed up with affairs of theft and corruption, we are fed up with the communist government, we are fed up with networked cells and everything. Everyone!” – chanted protesters against the Croatian HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) government on Saturday 10 September 2022, outside the Party headquarters in Zagreb.

The grand theft of about US$107 million from the country’s major oil and gas company “INA” recently uncovered, and dubbed the heist of the century, was without a doubt the trigger for this protest that openly flagged its intention to sack the government. On a visibly large scale in Croatia (as well as in its diaspora, which is economically very important to Croatia) people are sick and tired of the corruption and scandals occurring in the country against which the governments since 2000 have not in earnest waged any real attack – particularly at the grassroots where it counts the most and where real changes to the culture of corruption commence and solidify for the whole nation. This latest eruption of scandalous theft seemed the last straw of tolerance towards the government to quite a few people even if the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had swiftly and ceremoniously, a couple of days before the protest, announced that the funds stolen from INA had been found and secured and that “the money will not be running away anywhere”.  But still, a significant proportion of the Croatian population does not trust Plenkovic or his political party nor do they trust SDP (Socialist Democratic Party) that was also in government from time to time since year 2000.

Zagreb, September 10, 2022, anti-government protest outside the HDZ ruling party headquarters/ Photo: Pixsell/Matija Habljak

What is more alarming in Prime Minister Plenkovic’s reaction to Saturday’s protest, after a 17-year old lad had been arrested for possession of two Molotov Cocktails and an improvised knife, is that he said that in Croatia there are “people who are ready to use force to overthrow the democratically elected government, and that there are people who are organised, arming themselves and trying to change the government by force.” He and his political party have stood behind this blatant threat to freedom of expression and democracy, dressed up as some deserving comment for the good of all. How would the public know that the 17-year-old Molotov-Cocktail-carrying youth was not planted there by the government!? It’s not as if the public can trust the rotten and corrupt police services (led by former communist operatives) to get to the truth of it, especially if that truth points to the government or its associates. But, if it was true that extremist, violent groups exist in Croatia and are organised with intent of toppling the government, even by force, why has there been no such item of the nation’s security program, said members of the parliamentary opposition a few days after the protest!?

 Well, of course there are people everywhere expressing publicly their dissatisfaction with their government, their democracy, and tax-paying, guarantees them that right and obligation. Just look at the human history of mass anti-government protests. One does not try to intimidate all protesters just because one or two are found to have had “weapons”, which could have been planted there for political gain or intimidate the public against future protests of the same goal. One does not cast aspersions of violence or violent intents against a group of concerned citizens demonstrators just because one or two acted badly, independently. But to HDZ it seems that “the son is responsible for the sins of the father”. How tragic for a democracy.

Many, including myself, wish that there were more people that joined the peaceful protest on 10 September, all of them surely have no objection to police dealing with individuals who bring along weapons that could injure or kill people.

The painful truth that must be eradicated in Croatia is that the fight against corruption has been a lot like a cosmetic job whereby only a handful of large lumps of sums stolen from public coffers into private ones of politicians and highly positioned directors of public companies had been pursued for correction and convictions. Overall, court cases for this corruption and theft tend to drag on for a decade or more and somehow most of the money stolen remains mysteriously unaccounted for to the public. Plenkovic as Prime Minister has done absolutely nothing to change this media spinning profile of “corruption fighting” to include fighting corruption at all levels of public administration and services, from the lowest to the highest. 

From living as part of communist Yugoslavia for half a century Croatia inherited a profoundly infectious and destructive disease known as corruption that is heavily laden with nepotism, embezzlement, and theft. Abominably, odious corrupt habits for personal gain at every level of public administration have defined Croatia as a “economic basket case”, heavily reliant on EU handouts for survival. Corruption and nepotism are the number one problem and yet independent audits, and financial controls are largely missing or scandalously ineffective and national standards of service delivery under any legislation are inexistent and certainly not in circulation for purposes of rule of law, checks and balances. The life of ordinary people plunging into increasing poverty as the country’s economy plummets into an abyss of failed companies, thieved companies, failed farmers and fisheries particularly due to EU imposed quotas… the definite feel one gets from it all is that bribes are rampant at every public service counter, at every public service job opening at every appointment with a medical specialist in public health, at every enrolment in public schools of praiseworthy repute…    

10.09.2022., Zagreb, Croatia – anti-government protest “We dismiss you” / Photo: Matija Habljak/PIXSELL

While there are quite a few people who believe that nothing can be done to rid Croatia of corruption, that it is too deeply rooted into the public administration machinery and culture. Many people who have grown accustomed to perks from a corrupt government that dishes out rewards to those who don’t stir the pot, as it were, tolerate corruption just as many did during the era of communist Yugoslavia. Thankfully, there are also many who feel a strong sense of fidelity to Croatia’s democracy as intended by the War of Independence or Homeland War of the 1990’s. It is to the latter that this predicament of widespread corruption presents greater challenges with intent to eradicate corruption than what it does for those who are willing to abandon or be complacent towards meaningful fight against corruption and are supporting (or tolerating) the governments whose main impetus since 2000 has been to act in concert with the Serb aggressor and its cells in Croatia with view to equate the victim with the aggressor.

Modern Croatia’s founding values are without a doubt those that were set in motion with the overwhelming national determination to secede from communist Yugoslavia and it is almost past the time of reckoning with the extent of damage perpetrated against the Croatian national story by any political party or government since year 2000, strongly laced with communist roots and operations from former Yugoslavia. Hence, protests such as the one that occurred in Zagreb on Saturday 10 September may indeed be a sign of strength in the people rather than a whim of few individuals, would be leaders or politicians. The disabling factor, though, is that there are too many individuals in Croatia who tend to their own handful of followers, form a political party or movement, and claim they, and only they, can “change the world”. A leader must be identified and supported for any joint political force in Croatia that would indeed be successful in “sacking” or dismissing any government that harbours communist Yugoslavia values and morals, that places the aggressor above those who defended the country from that aggressor.

It is a fact that every nation is a unique story upon which its survival depends.

That fact remains regardless of the globalist and leftist push to muddy those individual national stories and blend all into an amorphous mass of subservient people across the globe to a powerful few.

A national story is almost never a simple one. National identity itself, and therefore – prosperity, invariably depend upon how we tell the story of our nation – about our past, our present moment, and our future. Croatian story in essence is the one that tells us that Croatia started as rightful Kingdom of its own in early 10th century, continued independent until 1102 AD to be forced into becoming a subservient nation to various occupying and imperialistic foreign kingdoms, empires, or republics to be finally freed in 1995 because of the victorious Homeland War, defending itself from brutal Serb and Yugoslav forces of aggression. The latter, therefore, is what in its story the Croatian nation must accentuate for the sake of its own survival and prosperity, regardless of the fact it is now an EU member state. Neither the HDZ nor the SDP have shown the capacity to tell the story of the Croatian nation. They both missed or downplayed intentionally the crucial significance of the 1990’s Homeland War for the nation’s story. They insisted and still insist on inflicting pain upon the Croatian nation by collaborating in government not with the Serb minority that fought in the war to defend Croatia from Serb aggression but with the Serb minority directly associated with the anti-Croatia aggression, murders, destruction!

Many national stories are rooted in a particular ethnicity or religion that forms the core of that national identity. In Croatia, as in some other countries around the world, things are more complicated. Since the founding of modern and independent Croatia that sought secession from communist Yugoslavia, Croatia’s national identity has been the story that is constantly poisoned by former communists and their descendants. Be that from the writing of Croatia’s Constitution by former communist operatives just before the Serb and Yugoslav aggression started, to the failure in changing promptly that Constitution once the victory over the aggressor was achieved. At that point in time all references to any communist Yugoslavia “achievements” for independence of Croatia should have been removed from the constitution because communists/partisans in World War Two fought to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia, not to free it from it. But such changes to the Constitution were not made!

There lies the greatest culprit for the boldness of former communists and their descendants for the licence they have written for themselves to underplay the victory in the War of Independence or Homeland War as the centre of the Croatian national story.

The door opened to democracy in Croatia by the Homeland War victory is worth saving indeed. If not via elections (which are reputed to be corrupt) then on the streets with more and more peaceful protests. No government had ever welcomed a protest against it, and it rings so true that if a government told and lived their nation’s story then there would be no protests against it in the sense of bringing it down completely.

Croatian people need to save the soul of Croatia. The soul that achieved its independence in the 1990’s. That was the last time Croatia had a real sense of purpose and that sense was felt nationwide.

To achieve such a national sense of purpose the success will require political leadership and the mobilisation of citizens and various sectors of Croatian society—including cultural, media, and business institutions that have often been reticent to engage in debates that drift in the direction of politics. The wielding of political leadership and power achieved via dismal voter turnouts is no real national leadership.

10/09/2022 Zagreb Croatia – Anti Government protest (You have stolen our future, we dismiss you)/ Photo: Cropix/ Dragan Matic

This is no time for passive patriotism!

Croatian democracy will not survive if Croatians lazily assume that enough people will just come to their senses and recognise that it must be saved—that there is something fixed in the national character that ensures people will live decently and have all opportunities for advancement a democracy offers. There’s nothing inevitable at all about the verdict of history because the history depends on the people creating it. The reliance upon government coffers and corrupt practices has given many families in former Yugoslavia an acceptable standard of living – that was simply the political way communism sought to survive; this though cannot last but Croatia is significantly impoverished through corruption and poverty is on the increase. Croatians must fight for their national story to be weaved into their legislation, into their everyday lives and it is becoming very clear that organised massive and peaceful protests in the streets are becoming the only tool available to the promise of success in living the national story for which rivers of Croatian blood were spilled in the 1990’s.  The transition from communism to democracy demands people power. It is everyone’s responsibility and duty to ensure Croatia becomes free of communist Yugoslavia completely. Ina Vukic

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