Croatia: The Horror of Communist Crimes Still Swept Under The Carpet

_{iFilms and Croatian Film Institute Youtube Channel – a wealth of truth}

If it weren’t for truth-dedicated people like USA-based Nikola Knez and those involved in the Croatian Film Institute, iFilms and KnezTV and the wealth of truth they endow the world with, most of communist Yugoslavia and Serb crimes against the Croatian patriotic and independence-loving people would be buried deep, never to be seen and/or prosecuted in the mind if not courts of law.

As the 77^th Anniversary of May 1945, the end of World War Two, approaches it is most distressing that Croatia, which seceded from communist Yugoslavia paying an enormous price in blood, still has not paid due respect and recognition to the hundreds of thousands of communist crimes victims found so far in 1000 mass graves and pits (1,700 across Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina so far) but it has a few days ago, 27 April, raised yet another big monument to the victims of the Holocaust and the WWII Ustashi regime! It goes without saying that I do not begrudge commemorating and honouring the victims of the Holocaust, however I do think that it is an abomination to use the memory of these victims, raise monuments to them, to deny the same to all victims of the times relating to World War Two. Indeed, in Croatia, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current powers that be are made of former Yugoslav communists’ sympathisers and protectors, of those who committed horrendous crimes during and after the War against freedom-loving Croatians and they have much invested in life to cover up their or their ancestors’ sins that were within the parameters of Croatian borders many times more numerous and more murderous than any Holocaust-related events that had occurred there. Croatian government and authorities should have also raised a monument to the victims of communist crimes on this 27 April and before since Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia in early 1990’s. Placing a wreath at a mass brave or a pit where in each say lie 15,000 or more bodies, as the government does from time to time, to show it cares for victims of communist crimes, is nothing compared to grandiose monuments communist Yugoslavia raised to victims of the Holocaust and Croatia now follows suit, ignoring completely the thousand mass graves its communist predecessors dug up and filled. And the government and all Croatian authorities in power, laced with communist blood, tell us that respecting human rights is their priorities! The Yugoslav communists used to say the same but the human rights they respected belonged only to communist regime lovers and supporters – the same continues to this very day!

I take then this opportunity to, once again, draw the readers’ attention to an extraordinary source of historical information and accounts of communist crimes against patriotic Croats and those who during and since World War Two fought for Croatian independence and truth as well as accounts of the hard and merciless fight in the 1990’s to achieve an independent Croatia away from communist Yugoslavia. That source of course is the iFilms’ Croatian Film Institute based in Texas USA, headed by Nikola Knez, producer and film director. On the Croatian Film Institute’s Youtube channel there is an amazing selection of documentary films, interviews and presentations in both the English and the Croatian languages.

Approaching the 77^th Anniversary of massacres of Croatian people by communist Yugoslavia operatives, which are many, but the massacres known as the Bleiburg Massacre are extremely well presented in the Croatian Film Institute documentary ”Bleiburg: Tito’s License for Genocide.”

“In 1945, just a few days after the end of World War II, Tito and his Partisans initiated an extermination campaign against men, women, and children they viewed as enemies of the regime. The mass slaughter began with the forced repatriation of 700,000 civilians and soldiers who fled Croatia and Slovenia seeking asylum in Austria immediately at the close of the war. The refugees, deceived by the British into believing they would be provided with a safe haven by the Americans in Italy, instead were loaded onto trains and sent back to Yugoslavia. Large numbers were massacred outright, others died on forced death marches and in mass executions across the country.

Through filmed interviews with survivors, confessed perpetrators, British officers, military intelligence officials, and scholars, as well as through the analysis of historical documents and newly released evidence of mass graves, the film traces the violations of the Geneva Conventions and international law that resulted in what has come to be known as The Bleiburg Massacre. Through analysis of historical documents, newly released evidence of mass graves, and interviews with survivors, witnesses, confessed perpetrators, military officials and scholars, the film examines the atrocities in the context of international human rights law, with discussion of subsequent promulgation of protocols for the protection of refugees, asylum seekers, and prisoners of war from crimes against humanity and genocide.

This film examines the long-term challenges to democratic nation building that have resulted from the forced repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Croatian civilians and military personnel to Yugoslavia at the end of World War II. Data suggest that violations of the Geneva Conventions led to the death of many of these asylum seekers at the hands of Tito’s Partisans in both death marches and in mass executions.”

”Bleiburg: Tito’s License for Genocide”

http://hfi.mobi/tito’slicensefor.html

Besides dealing with the World War Two and Post WWII massacres and oppressions of Croatian people Nikola Knez and his Croatian Film Institute have also produced a series of documentaries/ interviews with various known dignitaries and activists in relation to the Croatia Homeland War of 1990’s, of Serbian aggression against Croatia, of the amazing efforts that went into creating the modern independent state of Croatia.

The latest series of the interviews for the Globezoom sector of KnezTV for Croatian Film Institute and iFilms includes:

Interview with Peter Galbraith

An interview with US based Peter Galbraith (in English), United States of America Ambassador to Croatia 1993 – 1998. The interview covers the Croatian Defence War and the war for independence and independence (Homeland War), negotiation missions, about Serbian crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, about Operation Storm, about driving a tractor, about Dayton, about President Franjo Tudjman.

Interview with Count Nikolai Tolstoy

An interview with UK based English-Russian Count Nikolai Tolstoy (in English) about his findings on the English repatriation of Croats, Slovenes and Cossacks (army and civilians) on the Bleiburg field in 1945. They all had assurances from the English that they would be accepted and forwarded to safe American zones in Italy. Instead, they were fraudulently handed over to Yugoslav and Russian communists who, without trial, liquidated them in massacres.

An interview in two parts with myself, Ina Vukic (in Croatian), as the most prominent Croatian woman in Australia – in this interview I talk about my contribution to the creation of the Croatian State, about the cooperation with the President of the Republic of Croatia Dr. Franjo Tudjman, about the embezzlement of money raised for Croatia from Australia, on the Croatian Spring, on my family, on the Communist Yugoslavia Security Services UDBA and the Croatian Yugoslavs in Australia, about Croatian emigrants and their attitude towards the war in Croatia.

Interview with Ina Vukic Part I

Interview with Ina Vukic Part II

The unresolved and horrific legacy communist Yugoslavia left behind remains a terrible burden for those communist crimes’ victims left behind; the victims themselves remain unimportant as if cattle that had to be slaughtered. All that and more to ensure the life of communism! The Croatian governments since year 2000 and all its Presidents since then have purposefully and cruelly brushed aside and trodden upon the vitally important moral reckoning and legal responsibility for the crimes committed by the communist regime of Yugoslavia.

Every day, we come across strivings to remind the world that communism is the most vicious idea in human history, one that has murdered, enslaved, and ruined more lives than any other, by a massive margin. It has already killed more than a hundred million men, women, children, infants, and unborn across the world. It has massacred, murdered, and purged hundreds of thousands of Croats, wielding knives and guns and barbed wire not only at home but also across the diaspora. How long can Croatian people endure the utter and perverse disregard for the victims of communist crimes while victims of the Holocaust keep on receiving the attention and recognition due to all. All victims of crime deserve justice, but all are not receiving it. Accountability for communist crimes can wait no longer in Croatia and until it happens, we are so fortunate to have been blessed with avenues of Croatian truth, such as Nikola Knez’s Croatian Film Institute, the world can walk along and keep the memories and truth alive. Ina Vukic

Croatia: Government attempting to belittle WWII Communist Crimes

Section of Tezno mass grave - 15,000 victims - Photo: Ben Freeman

While the Croatian Social Democrat led government has declined to continue sponsoring the WWII Bleiburg Tragedy commemorations, its leaders have decided to pay respects to victims at the Tezno mass grave (about 15,000 murdered there).

The only problem is that Tezno mass grave is only one of many places of WWII, and after, where communist crimes against innocent people occurred and commemoration at Bleiburg honours all the victims, everywhere along the locations of the so-called Way of the Cross (death marches), after World War II ended.

It would seem clear that the government’s move to pinpoint Tezno as THE place to pay respects is a move to belittle and degrade the symbol that Bleiburg has become and to ensure that Jasenovac is seen as the place of terrible and widespread WWII war crimes in former Yugoslavia.

This way, they attempt to reduced in importance and severity of the communist crimes committed at Bleiburg and along the Way of the Cross.

Even though the government will not sponsor the Bleiburg Tragedy commemoration it is still to be held on Saturday 12 May. Its sponsors include Western Herzegovina county, Osijek-Baranja county and émigrés from California. It is announced that Tomislav Karamarko, candidate for president of Croatian Democratic Union (largest political party in Opposition) elections to be held in May, will deliver a keynote speech at Bleiburg.

In an interview by Croatian HRT TV News (28 April 2012) Croatia’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that he would not attend the commemoration of the World War II tragedy (massacres) but that instead, he, Boris Sprem the Speaker of the Parliament and President Ivo Josipovic will attend a commemoration at Tezno, Slovenia, on May 15. Milanovic said that “the real victims of the execution” fell there and not at Bleiburg. Tezno was where the scaffold was, not Bleiburg, he added.

Well that is not the truth and Milanovic knows it. Real victims fell in many places.

His use of the word “scaffold” – the platform from which victims are executed – should not have been used for Tezno only as mass graves of innocent thousands of Croatians antifascist Partisans murdered in 1945, after World War II, have been discovered in multitudes.

“As the prime minister of Croatia, I feel the obligation to pay my respects to the people who were killed there in their thousands. We are going to Tezno because the execution site there carries both actual and symbolic weight. Bleiburg may carry symbolic weight for some people, I can accept that, but that’s not the place to commemorate the victims”, Milanovic said for Croatian TV.

Mile Prpa, Portal HR.Svijet, in his article 22 April Bleiburg Tragedy – the Hypocrisy of Politics: “Imagine, to date there have been more than 1,600 mass graves (in some there are several tens of thousands of victims) strewn across Slovenia, Croatia (equally in parts where there were and where there were no Ustadshi), then across Bosnia and Herzegovina, but numerous also across Serbia to Macedonia. Out of the multitude of victims the names of the majority were not known, there was killings of people that were not acceptable to the government, among them about 80% Croatian”.

“Bleiburg is the concept covering the destruction of almost the whole of the Croatian youth of the time, among whom there was a very, very high percentage of innocent or not even couple of percent of guilty, it’s also the concept for mass destruction of the large part of Croatian intelligence of all possible professions from journalists to priests. Bleiburg symbolizes an attack against entire people, everything that was vital had to be destroyed, when it was armed and unarmed and when they posed not even a minute threat. Rarely have people in the newer era, mainly during peace era, experienced so much and such tragedy. And those who have experienced it, have done so under the communist authorities”.

If Milanovic, Sprem and Josipovic are serious about paying respects to places where the “scaffolds” were then they must visit every pit, every mass grave of innocent lives taken by their antifascist predecessors, not just Tezno. Milanovic has been to Tezno as leader of the Opposition (Social Democratic Party) in 2009, he could have chosen another mass grave this year if he doesn’t want to go to Bleiburg. Saying that Tezno is the places where actual executions took place is wrong because Tezno is only one among many.

That is why Bleiburg commemoration is so very important – it is the place where all victims of the WWII and post-WWII communist purges are remembered. Death marches back to communist Yugoslavia started at Bleiburg. In “Bleiburg Massacres” by Count Nikolai Tolstoy one can see the very significance of Bleiburg and why that is the place to commemorate the victims without politics that Croatian current government is playing upon this terrible, sad, sad chapter of Croatian history. Ina Vukic, Prof.(Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)