Croatian Constitution – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Remember The Months of November!

The month of November is coming up.

In 1942 it was the month that, I believe, sealed the brutal fate of Croatian independence for decades to come like no other in the history of Croatian people.

It was the month that saw the communists of Yugoslavia hold their first organised congresses or meetings at which the communists, opposing the fight for and the creation of an independent Croatia, declared themselves as legitimate representatives of the Yugoslav people, that is, peoples living within the territory of the failed Serb-led Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This was the time when Croatia had already declared independence from the dark Kingdom of Yugoslavia and was fighting for it amidst German occupation and communist aggression to save Yugoslavia. The criminal thugs against freedom, the communists put on the cloak of “antifascism” and convened the so-called Antifascist Council of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia/ ”AVNOJ” (Bihac 26 November 1942 and Jajce 29-30 November 1942).

The fact was and remains that the communists’ army, the Partisans, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, were nothing more than terrorists, torturers and mass murderers – for power and control over multiple nations and their territories (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia). The tragedy of this for the plight of Croatians for self-determination and independence was not only the fact that this plight was murderously silenced during WWII, it continued after WWII and it continues to this very day even though Croatia had won its war of independence in 1990’s and its formal breakaway from communist Yugoslavia in October 1991.

The tragedy against Croatian independence and democracy continues to this day perhaps because the wretched AVNOJ is embedded into the Croatian Constitution giving it wrongfully some credit in the historical achievements or milestones in the path to independent Croatia of today. This fact gives wings to former communists and their subscribers to continue running down Croatian independence and to continue giving Serbs and their declared anti-Croat Chetniks a power in decision-making at the high levels of Croatian politics and, therefore, awful macabre reality.

The reality is that the process of equating the Croat-victim with the Serb-aggressor of 1990’s Croatia remains on the appalling government’s agenda and this is done under a pretence of desired reconciliation just like the WWII Yugoslav communists killed off the Croatian independence fight under a pretence of antifascism! And hence, the history of Croatian independence plight was written by communists, filled with lies and half-truths against Croats and the same continues today where Serbs play a major part in this.

Between 1945 and 1948, the Yugoslav communist government punished wartime fighters for the independence of Croatia. British forces in Austria captured members of disarmed Croatian Ustashe and Home-Guard forces along with thousands innocent refugees. These were returned to Yugoslavia, where Partisans summarily executed thousands of innocent Croats. The Communists often used collaboration charges to stifle political and religious opposition, as well as economic and social initiatives that would see communist Yugoslavia bankrupt anyway. The Roman Catholic Church bitterly opposed the new communist order. After the war, the Yugoslav authorities executed over 200 priests and nuns charged with participating in alleged Ustashe atrocities. The Yugoslav communists had kept open the Jasenovac camp in Croatia until about 1951 (!), which was labelled as a concentration camp where the Holocaust came to life with the extermination of Jews and others. Any attempts to research the true nature and numbers of Jasenovac victims are being dealt harsh blows – they gets called historical revisionism, with negative connotations, of course.

The irrefutable fact remains that open and unequivocal communist denunciations of anti-Semitism and reported exterminations of the Jews was not of any importance to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Indeed, the Communist Party made no efforts, urgent or otherwise, in any rescue of Jews. Whether that was because within it were many powerful Serbs who were evidently agreeable to Serbia being proclaimed Jew-free in 1942 after the extermination of some 94% of Jews in Serbia, is a point that deserves attention of historians, and political analysts. On the contrary, proclamations against anti-Semitism by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia were few and painfully sporadic, and acts of rescue or aid even more rare and painfully sporadic. Most importantly, however, the question of anti-Semitism and the unfolding European-wide Nazi genocide simply did not figure prominently on the Yugoslav communists’ agenda – which itself is a revealing fact about their ‘Jewish policy’, insofar as there was a consistent policy, or even one at all. Rescue of the Jews from the hands of the Nazis or any of their collaborators was thus never formulated as a stated objective of the Yugoslav communists.

The rescue of Jews in WWII Croatia was a strong characteristic in Blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac’s efforts, indeed. He was not a communist sympathiser and, hence, to this day his enormously good deeds are more or less ignored and shunned by the powers in Croatia that have among them a large number of former communists and a relatively large number of anti-Croatian independence Serbs.

The Yugoslav Communists with their Serb Chetnik partners go to enormous lengths in covering up the atrocities they committed against freedom-loving Croats. The discovery of some 1000 mass graves of victims of communist and Chetnik crimes on Croatian soil after Croatia set on its path of independence from Yugoslavia in 1990 is a disturbing witness to the Partisans’ terrorism and murder and torture. It’s almost every week that Croatia learns of new crimes committed against its people during WWII and after WWII.

Very few people know, for example, about the gruesome Chetnik massacre of Croats that took place on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in Dugopolje near the city of Split. The crime began on October 2, 1942 and lasted for several days. Don Mijo Marović from Mravinci (Split) reported the crime to the NDH authorities on October 19, 1942. In the Chetnik massacre in Dugopolje and Kotlenice, 32 Croats were killed in the most brutally possible ways: by throwing them into the fire, gouging out their eyes while they were alive, breaking their skulls, cutting off and pulling out their hearts, etc. See full article on Narod.hr portal.

In reporting these atrocities to the NDH authorities don Kajo Marovic wrote on 19 October 1942: “… According to the above-mentioned years, it can be seen that the people who died were all old and could not escape and were weak children. Four of these were thrown into the fire, where they ended up in the most severe torment. Seven were killed with revolvers, and the rest were all slaughtered and brutally tortured. Some had their skulls cut open, their brains removed, others had their eyes gouged out alive, they were tortured and slaughtered. Others had their hearts taken out again and thrown into the field. Once they cut off a man’s head, then put his head on a pig and placed it among the horses and pigs they slaughtered. They were disfigured, it was a horror to watch them. All were buried on October 5 in the church cemetery in Dugopolje, and some even later, when they were found.

All the people of Dugopolje, 3,200 inhabitants, fled before these horrors to Dicmo, Sinj, Klis, from where they have not yet returned home from fear. One part of the people returned and took refuge in the houses that were spared. A large number of people do not even think of returning, because they have nowhere to come or anything to live on…”

For a thorough presentation of details of communist’s and Chetnik’s victims in Digopolje area I would recommend the reading of the 2011 book by Blanka Matkovic and Josip Dukic: “The Victims of Dugopolje” (Dugopoljski žrtvoslov).

As in November 1942 so too in November 1991 the Croatian plight for independence was suffocated with atrocities committed against it. In November 1991 the Serb and Yugoslav forces massacred hundreds of Croatians in Vukovar and its nearby Ovcara and expelled more than 20,000 Croats from that Croatian town! In November 1991 Vukovar was ethnically cleansed of its non-Serb population amidst the rivers of Croatian blood spilled for Croatia’s independence.

As Croatia in November 2020 marks commemorations of Vukovar and sufferings of Croats during the 1990’s Homeland War for independence it should also remember November 1942! The same suffering and terror were put in place, installed, in 1942 as were in 1991.

AVNOJ or Yugoslav communists have no place in the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and I would personally like to see that all commemorations of victims for Croatian independence also begin to include a strong pressure and resolve to remove the mention of AVNOJ from the Constitution as a contributor to the creation of the modern democratic and independent Croatia. AVNOJ stopped independence in WWII, AVNOJ tried to stop independence during 1990’s. The truth must begin to root out the communist lies, the Serb lies and what a good time for that is November 2020! AVNOJ was written into the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia in 1990 – at the time when president Franjo Tudjman and leading figure in the movement for the independence of Croatia hoped for reconciliation between all WWII sides but since then Croatia had endured a war and an ongoing onslaught against full independence from former communists/Partisans and of course anti-Croatia Serbs. Surely, evidence enough that former communists have not given up on carrying a torch for the criminal regime that communist Yugoslavia was and even carrying a torch for the Greater Serbia lies and destructive depravities. Ina Vukic

Croatia: The Case Of Journalist Karolina Vidovic-Kristo And A Rude Awakening To Denial Of Human Rights

Karolina Vidovic-Kristo
Photo: Patrik Macek/Pixsell

One would think that the firing or hiring of a journalist (or any employee, anywhere) is a matter that is not newsworthy and that any breaches of employee’s rights in the process are private legal matters to pursue. However, when the firing or hiring alerts one to blatant breaches of human rights, to the fact that employer’s Codes of Ethics may be in violation of the country’s Constitution as well as UN convention on Human Rights then such cases are newsworthy and such cases require action with view to protecting democracy – especially when we are dealing with a major public information source such as state-run radio and television. And, when it comes to Croatia – a country still obviously in transition from communist totalitarian regime of former Yugoslavia, then the citizens’ vigilance upon the state of democratic processes is all the more justified and necessary.

On January 5, 2015, Croatian Radio & TV/HRT Director-General Goran Radman summarily dismissed journalist Karolina Vidovic Kristo, saying that her employment contract was terminated because she insulted and disparaged him by putting his name in the context of the former totalitarian Socialist Yugoslavia and mentioning his previous position as director of the then Television Zagreb.” Reportedly the dismissal was preceded by in-house debates about banning the reporter from participating in the Croatian Catholic Radio’s program “Why I believe”, and which ban the HRT management made in line with the HRT Code of Ethics.
To refresh the reader’s memory, Karolina Vidovic-Kristo came under a sharp public spotlight in early 2013 after she was suspended as the editor of a cancelled TV program “Picture of Croatia” for the Croatian expatriate community over a broadcast entitled “Pedophilia as Basis of Sexual Education?” in which she expressed fears that Croatia’s school sex-education curriculum was being influenced by those who used pedophiles in research of child-sexuality/ Kinsey Report.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, as recognised by article 19 of the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights/UN), and an integral element of a democratic society. As the European Court of Human Rights has expressed it:

Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential freedoms of a democratic society and one of the basic conditions for its progress and for every individual’s self-fulfillment … it is applicable not only to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no ‘democratic society’ (Case of Plon [Societe] v France ECHR 200 [2004]).
As noted above, although Croatia would be a signatory to the ICCPR, article 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia guarantees “respect for and legal protection of a person’s private and family life…” and in its article 38 it “guarantees freedom of thought and freedom of expression”, there are evidently no efforts being invested by the state authorities to ensure that the Code of Ethics implemented by the state-funded Croatian Radio & Television (HRT) reflect the implementation of commitment to these human rights.

In its statement dated 22 January 2015 the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights “on the summary dismissal of Karolina Vidovic Kristo and the responsibility of the Director in Chief Goran Radman for the situation at HRT”, the Committee agrees “that Karolina Vidovic-Kristo was right when she alleged that the Code of Ethics for journalists and creative staff and the General Rules were in violation of the Constitution of the RC and international standards of human rights, which also include the right to freedom of speech, opinion and religion”.

Article 47 of the Code of Ethics of HRT states that “Journalists and creative staff must be aware of the fact that everything they do, write or send to the public will be deemed to be an act of HRT”.

“Therefore”, stated a Croatian journalist, “not only our religious convictions, but everything we do in public, all our free-time activities presented in the public, are deemed to be acts of HRT, although they are not presented in the name of HRT but in our own name. Indeed, this gives the impression that we are someone’s property.”
All those present at a meeting discussing the HRT Code of Ethics agreed that these positions taken in the Code of Ethics and the General Rules are a violation of fundamental human rights and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, and that in fact, “they deprive journalists of elements of their creativity and character.”

Indeed, one may go a step further and say there are cases in Croatia where a person is punished for expressing their personal opinion! And the case of Karolina Vidovic-Kristo is evidence to that. Indeed, which country bar a totalitarian state permits the practices of denying an employee a private life, expression of private opinions? In which country can a fact-based opinion expressed about ones work supervisor/manager/colleague lead to summary dismissal!? Where are the proper mechanisms to assert as to whether an opinion offends or insults someone or whether, in fact, the opinion is expressed in good faith in order to further a greater cause, a greater good; in this case – a furtherance of democratic practices!?

This is absolutely shocking!

In communist Yugoslavia, people knew only what the communist government wanted them to know; communist operatives were required to live and breathe communist party lines.

Director in Chief of HRT was appointed by the Croatian parliament and his political affiliation was ensured by the majority seats in the parliament, hence leading to leaving the public informing through that media outlet biased to the advantage of the outgoing president Ivo Josipovic and the former communist party members and affiliates currently leaning towards the Social Democrat, left-leaning, government that is evidently failing miserably at monitoring the implementation of and compliance with democratic principles contained in the Constitution and beyond.

Be that as it may, the Director in Chief of HRT/Croatian Radio and Television (Goran Radman) must be held accountable and responsible for maintaining and promulgating the Code of Ethics for the employees that are, more likely than not, in blatant breach of the country’s constitution and laws on freedom of expression and human rights. This matter cannot be fixed by changing that Code of Ethics to comply with legislative requirements, it can only be fixed by the sacking of the Director in Chief and replacing him with another person whose priority is compliance with the legislation and democracy. On that note, I am pleased that the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is supporting the initiative of Mr Branko Hrg MP to the parliament that Goran Radman, as Director in Chief HRT be dismissed. My Lord, he should have been suspended from duties, pending an investigation, the very moment Karolina Vidovic-Kristo had alerted to the likely and serious constitutional and human rights violations within the HRT Code of Ethics! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)