Croatia political crisis – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatian Communists Of Today: Hypocrites, Vultures and Yo-Yos

May 2, 2021 by inavukic 18 Comments

Military Police Operation Flash – Croatia 1995

Yesterday, 1^st May 2021 marked the 26^th Anniversary of Military-Police Operation Flash! Croatia marked the 26th anniversary of Operation Flash in the town of Okucani today, honouring the Croatian police and army that liberated about 500 square kilometres of territory occupied by Serb aggressors in Western Slavonia. The operation was launched on May 1 and ended on May 3, 1995. In that short time the Croatian troops and police regained control of 500 square kilometres of land, including the main west-east motorway and the railway line leading to Eastern Slavonia. 42 Croatians were killed and 162 wounded.

During the war, Okucani was the centre of the Serb rebellion and a staging area for their terrorist attacks in Western Slavonia. As their defeat progressed, the Serb aggressors organised and ordered the missiles attacks on Zagreb, Karlovac and Jastrebarsko. During the attacks against Zagreb on 2 May 1995, seven civilians were killed and 218 wounded. Serb rebel leader Milan Martic was sentenced by the UN tribunal ICTY to 35 years for war crimes committed during those missile attacks.

All the while, during the entire Croatian Homeland War today’s President Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic hid, away from battle zones, from Croatian lines of defence and liberation, hid outside Croatia, wishing that Croatia never succeeds in its independence plight, in its defence from brutal aggression.

“We do this (passing unique law on veterans’ rights) because we are convinced that the Homeland War is the foundation of the Croatian state, that the freedom given to Croats by Croatian defenders is the most important value that we must nurture and protect and respect their sacrifice. Therefore, in the future we will do everything for the dignity of the Homeland War, for the respect of Croatian veterans and their families,” said Prime Minister Plenkovic in Okucani yesterday.

“On this day, now many years ago, Croatian heroes liberated this part of Croatia with determination, knowledge, patience and courage, and after the ‘Maslenica’ ’93 action they enabled a few months later in August ’95 that Croatia be finally merged into a whole and liberated. Those were a few good and a few brave people. It was about hundreds, maybe thousands of people. The rest of us were in Zrinjevac, Geneva, personnel services, and here, and on other battlefields in Croatia, a small number of people fought and to them eternally thank and glory to Croatian heroes,” President Milanovic said in Okucani yesterday.

What a bunch of hypocrites! They could not care less about these Croatian heroes of the 1990’s who sacrificed their lives and many of whom lost their life or limb for democracy, for freedom from communist Yugoslavia. The legislation regarding war-veterans’ rights Plenkovic boasts about is a sham and is still leaving thousands of Croatia’s defenders without a veteran status and access to health and pension services.

The hypocrisy of both the Prime Minister and the President of Croatia lies in many purposeful “omissions” and the most important one is that they have done absolutely nothing in removing from the Historical Foundations (of independent Croatia) of the Constitution of the Republic Croatia this paragraph:

“- the establishment of the foundations of state sovereignty during the course of the Second World War, as expressed in the decision of the Territorial Antifascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia (1943) in opposition to the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia (1941), and then in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Croatia (1947) and in all subsequent constitutions of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1963-1990) …”

In essence the above paragraph that keeps or validates the communist regime and its mindset that prevents responsive legislation. Yugoslav communist regime did not, as they purport, liberate Croatia from Yugoslavia but kept it enslaved and oppressed within it. It murdered hundreds of thousands innocent Croats who actually fought for independence during WWII. It filled over a thousand of mass graves with Croatian patriot bodies. It falsified Croatia’s WWII history in order to promulgate hatred against freedom-loving Croats. Both Plenkovic and Milanovic promulgate the same lies about WWII independence fight in Croatia; they fail to even offer small amounts of funding for new research that is shedding light on the colossal lies their communist predecessors have heaped up against patriot Croats. They do, however, find funds to fund various NGO’s that continue justifying communist crimes and communist Yugoslavia!

In May 1991 almost 94% of Croatian voters voted to secede from communist Yugoslavia, which led to the declaration of independence. This also led to the bloodiest and most brutal escalation of Serb-led Yugoslav onslaught against Croatia. It was only a few years after the Homeland War ended that this war of defence was inserted into the Historical Foundations of independent Croatia of today. But the paragraph relating to Antifascists (communists) was not deleted! And therein lies the main reason why lustration did not occur!

Former communists in high positions, communist Yugoslavia operatives, retained positions to work against the very concept of an independent Croatia during peace time.

Prime Minister Plenkovic keeps rubbing salt on the Croatian independence fight wound, keeps insulting the very sacrifice Croatian defenders and people made for Croatian independence during 1990’s by embracing the 1990’s rebel Serb minority representatives in the Croatian Parliament as coalition partners in his government. “Thanks to Plenkovic” these Serbs, whose brothers, sisters, parents etc slaughtered Croatians during 1990’s, ethnically cleansed them from their homes, devastated and destroyed their properties, raped their women and girls…now dictated the political scene and government rudder that still tries to equate the aggressor with the victim!

President Milanovic continues to mimic a yoyo, just as he did when he was the Prime Minister some years ago. He cannot maintain stability of his political views nor his respect for the Homeland War and its true meaning. His statements confuse even the most prominent of political analysts, let alone ordinary citizens. One day he is full of praise of the communist regime and the next day he is full of praise for Croatian Homeland War heroes.

These vultures feed on the corpses of Croatian victims of Serb aggression while dining with the Serb aggressor and all the while their mind is communist red. With this political impasse and mindset, they seemingly retain some 26 to 30 % of voter body. They are the voters who most likely live in apartments and houses stolen by the Yugoslav communist regime from Croatian Jews and from Croatians who in WWII fought for Croatian independence. They are the voters whose families benefitted from the Yugoslav false economy that relied on foreign loans, rather than productivity at work. They are the voters who lift no fingers against widespread corruption and theft. They are the voters who look up to such a government and President for their continued sucking at a foreign purse – this time the EU purse – rather than develop new jobs within Croatia, to sustain independence.

It would be understatement to say that Croatia is now in a political crisis much more than ever in the past twenty years. The roots of this crisis are embedded in the fact that the meaning and values of the Croatia’s Homeland War and secession from communist Yugoslavia are simply not receiving due respect nor the deserved place in this nation of developing democracy. To illustrate this here is a translation of a poem published yesterday by Pater Ike Manduric, a leading Jesuit priest in Croatia in spiritual well-being of the community, a war veteran:

“The enemy thought that Croatia was weak,

That there is no strength.

But it didn’t know that there waa love.

And love is strong.

Like death.

The enemy believed it had greater rights than others.

And that the Croatian home is not holy

That it is not important to God

That communism is God.

But it was all a lie.

Then the Flash exposed the lie

The occupier was struck by the truth:

Communism is a fraud and a lie

Croatia is as strong as life

The Croatian home is sacred.

Congratulations on the Flash!

And I want and invoke a new Flash

Which will shed light on the lies again

Because they started going crazy again

Again, some rely on lies.

And there will be a Flash, some new one, for this time, with new weapons, and by all the signs of the times it can be read yes, to the one who loves the Homeland.

I know that!

Congratulations on the FLASH!”

Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 26th Anniversary of Croatia's OPeration Flash, Andrej Plenković, communist ind set in Croatia, Croatia, Croatia political crisis, Croatian Homeland War, Military Police Operation Flash, Pater Ike Manduric, Zoran Milanovic

Croatia: When Business Mixed With Politics

May 10, 2017 by inavukic 2 Comments

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic (L)
Extraordinary Commissioner for Agrokor, Ante Ramljak (R)

When Croatia’s government recently took over the administration of its largest firm – Agrokor – that employs some 60,000 people it also took over the solving of the company’s six billion dollars in debt. A possible collapse or bankruptcy could bring the new government that’s at the moment barely holding onto life down with it – unless a miracle happens in a way of new and substantial investments that would create significant number of jobs or consolidate those in jeopardy.

Agrokor – which began as a flower-growing operation in a single greenhouse in former Yugoslavia in the 1970s – underwent an expansion drive over the past decade that saw it run up debts to creditors and suppliers of 50 billion kuna (about 6 billion euros).

Moody’s is quite upbeat:”In the short run we don’t anticipate a complete suspension of business activities, given the importance of Agrokor’s domestic supermarket network and other activities, as well as the standstill agreement with creditors,” it said in a recent report.

But an earlier Moody’s forecast was for Agrokor’s adjusted (gross) debt to EBITDA Earnings Before Interest Taxes, Depreciation, Amortisation) to hit 6x at the end of 2017, or 6.8x including PIKs (payments in kind, see below).

Even in the liquid retail sector and immature markets such as Croatia, this debt-to-EBITDA ratio is dangerously high, placing Agrokor’s bonds in ‘junk’ status.

Furthermore, this still rather dire scenario also assumes that Agrokor will be able to stem the erosion of its EBITDA, which fell by 9.6 percent to 3.02 billion kunas (400 million euros) in the first nine months of 2016.

Standard&Poor’s rated the company ‘CC’ in March of this year, one notch above ‘Selective Default.’ If the company is unable to meet payments on bonds that are imminent – the next is August 1 – it will officially default.

Agrokor has three major bond issues outstanding, with a total face value of 925 million euros: a 300 million euro bond due in 2019 and two notes that mature in 2020, one for 325 million euros and the other for 300 million euros.Bondholders reportedly include T Rowe Price and Axa.

The collapse in Agrokor’s bonds means they now yield more than about 20 percent across the capital structure.

This is in fact a decent return for junk bond investors, especially if one takes into account this is a company that has been seen as too big to fail and has been historically so politically well-connected.

The company’s crisis is a “typical combination of fast expansion, overinvestment, low profitability and high-cost borrowing, which resulted in not enough cash flow to service its credit obligations,” Financial consultant Andrej Grubisic told Politico.

“It has become an example of the unclear links between business and politics in the Balkans,” Mus says.

If the agreement with the banks collapses and the government steps in to provide the 300 million euros in liquidity needed, it would widen the government deficit by around 0.6 percentage points to an estimated 2.8 percent of GDP, from 2.2 percent in the current forecast.

Such support would also have to be in line with EU state aid rules and it is not clear what this might entail.

Meanwhile, trading at about a third of their face value, the company’s euro-denominated notes are reportedly an “interesting” proposition for speculators.

Russian investors are reportedly eagerly looking for higher returns in Agrokor’s distressed bonds. Sanctions imposed by the US and EU have stopped some of the biggest companies from issuing new debt since 2014, leading a lack of supply. “Agrokor is the new game in town “for Russian investors, Aleksej Gren, a fixed-income analyst at Exotix in London, told the Bloomberg news agency recently.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and finance minister Goran Maric both probably know the old-style comfy alliance of business and politics in Croatia is dieing out. But shining light into the dark corners of this opaque world may reveal even more unpalatable truths for these torch-carriers of the brave ‘new Croatia.’

Agrokor and all the companies in the Group have published last weekon their websites an invitation to creditors to report their claims, as well as the accompanying procedure and documents according to Law for the Extraordinary Administration for Companies with Systemic Importance for the Republic of Croatia. The creditors are invited to report their claims to the Extraordinary Trustee within 60 days since the Extraordinary Administration procedure over Agrokor was activated. The timeframe for claim reporting started on 10 April 2017 and lasts until 9 June 2017.

Agrokor this week was unable to pay its existing loan interest dues and it is abundantly clear that without a sizeable new loan the company will crumble. Or perhaps be bought by new investors and saved?

In the wake of last week’s political crisis, while it achieved the success of electing a new parliament Speaker – Gordan Jandrokovic – the current political surrounds in Croatia are charged with speculations as to whether the government will be able to form a governing majority in parliament. If not then snap elections are inevitable for Autumn or even earlier. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Agrokor, Andrej Plenković, Croatia, Croatia political crisis, mixing business with politics

Which Way Croatia: Liberal or Illiberal Democracy?

June 12, 2016 by inavukic 33 Comments

Front: Tomislav Karamarko, HDZ president
Back: Milijan Brkic, HDZ Deputy-president
Photo: Goran Stanzl/PIXSELL

Next week seems set to shed light as to whether Croatia’s Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic has indeed been a weak Prime Minister, failing to adequately implement the needed reforms that were promised to the voters of Croatia at last elections, late 2015, and whether he has, as Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ claims, been more preoccupied with his own political niche and agenda that is in contradiction with the technocratic, professional role (towards implementing set reforms) he was appointed as Prime Minister to pursue.

Croatian parliament will, during the coming week, entertain the subject of HDZ’s (Croatian Democratic Union/ majority party in coalition government) motion for vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic and Oreskovic will, as announced, step before it in an effort to defend himself. Hence, the end appears nigh for the current lot of tortuous speculations, allegations against specific members of Croatian government and endless sensationalism served by the media. Next week, then, is likely to deliver some reprieve to the confused, angered and tortured public. Furthermore, the Croatian independent authority deliberating on whether there had been a conflict of interest to pin against Tomislav Karamarko, leader of HDZ and the First Deputy Prime Minister, has announced it would publish its findings around noon Wednesday 15 June.

Hopefully, then, next week is likely to shed some further directional light as to the source/s of the staged political crisis Croatia has been exposed to ever since February 2016 or earlier when vicious attacks began against HDZ’s ministers and leaders.

Many Croats in Croatia and probably all Croats living in the diaspora had, as they fought and supported Croatia’s efforts to secede from communist Yugoslavia and grow into an independent democratic state, did so in the expectation that Croatian democracy would be modeled on the so-called Western democracy:

• On Liberal democracy that protects the rights of the individual and has those rights generally enshrined in the law;
• On Liberal democracy that defends and increases civil liberties against the encroachment of governments, institutions and powerful forces in society;
• On Liberal democracy that restricts or regulates government intervention in political, economic and moral matters affecting the citizenry;
• On Liberal democracy that increases the scope for religious, political and intellectual freedom of citizens;
• On Liberal democracy that questions the demands made by vested interest groups seeking special privileges;
• On Liberal democracy that develops a society open to talent and which rewards citizens on merit, rather than on rank, privilege or status;
• On Liberal democracy that frames rules that maximise the well-being of all or most citizens.

Indeed, on 30 May 1990, at the inaugural assembly of the Croatian Parliament, Croatia’s first president Franjo Tudjman said: “The new Constitution of Croatia must be free from all ideological dissents; it must be based on experiences of creating a Croatian state and in the spirit of the most democratic traditions of modern Europe and North American reality and science of law.”

This month. 25th June 2016 will mark 25 years since Croatian parliament voted for secession from communist Yugoslavia and thus, put in place the Liberal democracy its 1990 referendum sealed as its future path. Croatians have always considered themselves as being more Central European in culture and geography than being Balkan. Hence, the democracy they voted for, by a staggering 94% vote, in the 1990 referendum, was a Liberal one modeled on the “West” rather than some hybrid of democracy which could amount to an Illiberal one; the one reminiscent of government or significant elites’ controls they experienced under communist regime in Yugoslavia.

Tihomir Oreskovic
Croatia’s Prime Minister
Photo: Marko Lukunic/Pixsell

The Financial Times’ recent article by Tony Barber widened my concerns about the slow and communist heritage stifled direction of democratic development in Croatia. Comparing the efforts signaled in 1990 for a Liberal democracy to the current and staged political crisis in Croatia one may indeed ask as to whether the crisis is associated with some political push to move Croatia further away from Liberal and closer to an Illiberal democracy, which has been taking hold of Poland, Hungary and perhaps Slovakia in Eastern Europe? Illiberal democracy “means a type of government that preserves the forms of democracy but falls well short of North American or Western European standards of freedom.”
So far Croatia has struggled in achieving the standards of Liberal democracy but the witch-hunt against individual HDZ members of the government and the feeling one gets that the Social Democrat opposition and its coalition as well as the Prime Minister appear to ignore and even downplay the individual’s right to a defense and due process against alarming allegations does make one question whether in fact there is a background truth in the thought that Illiberal democracy may indeed be at Croatia’s door, if it already hasn’t permeated in. One’s suspicions of this are ever more strengthened by the fact that the Catholic publication “Glas Concila” published 12 June a political commentary by priest Ivan Miklenic, Editor in Chief of that publication, which includes the following: “When the affair ‘the consultant’ (meaning HDZ’s leader’s wife’s consultancy business dealings with Hungarian MOL company prior to him being elected into current government) broke out in public and when it became more than clear that regardless of whether there was guilt under the law or responsibility, moral and political responsibilities unquestionably arose and instead of making moves that serve real common good came the moves that meant the saving of only one man (meaning Tomislav Karamarko, leader of HDZ) at all costs, at all high costs. There was no inclination nor will in the largest political party for the acceptance, the understanding and the realization of common sense reasoning in accordance to which neither a political party, or the Government, or Croatia cannot be a hostage to the interests of one person or one project… The question why the strongest political party, that has large merits for the creation of independent Croatia, is suddenly becoming incapable of recognising what it is that serves the common good, serves Croatian interests and what brings down that party and damages Croatia is likely to remain unanswered once again…”

Regretfully, it appears that this priest, the Chief Editor of the Catholic Glas Concila publication does not consider the rights of individuals as legitimate, as the most important rights Liberal democracy must uphold! This individual the above Glas Concila article refers to is indeed a member of the political party in government but in the eyes of the public he is still an individual with rights to due process that are same as the rights of individuals not in government. Indeed, to my view, the individuals in government must uphold and fight for the rights of individuals (including self) under any and all circumstances otherwise the door to illiberal democracy is wide open. How close reported Opus Dei activists in Croatia who are said to be among advisors to the Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic (e.g, formerly New York based Stjepo Bartulica) are associated with this appalling commentary in the Catholic Glas Concila is anyone’s guess, but certainly the guessing game does become easier once matters of possible influence are placed in the context of Liberal versus Illiberal democracy; the latter being considered as acting against rights of individuals and promoting pressure from political or other elite groups.

Zdravko Maric
Croatia’s Finance Minister
Photo: hrt.hr

If we look deeply into the fight Karamarko and HDZ are fighting right now it certainly is not about some conservative nationalism one sees in Poland, Hungary or Slovakia but it is more about individual rights as the cornerstone of Liberal democracy Croatia lost rivers of blood for in the 1990’s Homeland War. Those rights are of Croatia’s national interests and not some nebulous national rights those attacking HDZ and Karamarko are spitting out daily. Indeed, the faith in HDZ as a guardian of the cornerstone of Liberal democracy appears further justified by the fact that the party has Saturday 11 June decided to put forth Zdravko Maric, current finance minister, as the next Prime Minister of Croatia, hence demonstrating that its fight in the political crisis has not been about one individual’s position – Karamarko’s – but about the principles of individual rights and due process. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)