Croatia, Corruption, and Serb Ethnic Minority Terror

Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic (Front); Back row from Left to Right: Deputy Prime Minister Boris MIlosevic, Minister for Pension System, Family and Social Policy Josip Alardovic, (former) Minister for Construction and Public Property Darko Horvat (arrested), former minister for Agriculture Tomislav Tolusic

Identifying and processing corruption in Croatia that defined Croatia under communist Yugoslavia as well as all these past thirty years since the secession from communism still yields the impression of governments playing peekaboo or hide and seek game. Whether it be the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) or SDP (Social Democratic Party) led government, fighting corruption had not been consistent nor determined. Undoubtedly, the reason for this lies in the fact that many former communists and their family members had indulged in corruption and theft of public goods or the practice of either hiding the crimes of corruption and theft or being heavily involved in it continued. And so, every once in a while, the Croatian government had seemingly gladly permitted the processing by public prosecutor, government attorney, or anti-corruption authority of crimes perpetrated by some current or ex-high-government functionary so as to leave the (false) impression how the government is serious about fighting corruption. However, the office of public prosecutor has evidently never in the past thirty years been independent of government in its activities of pursuing processing of crimes and suspected crimes just as this was the case under the communist party regime in former Yugoslavia.

Everyone will agree that to successfully transition from communism into democracy (or any totalitarian regime for that matter) it is essential to shed habits and behaviours practiced especially by authorities and their collaborators at all levels – local, regional, and national – that were shaped and condoned under the communist regime. Croatia has failed miserably at this, and the failure appears purposeful. Too many people in important or powerful positions or their family members have had, and still have, their fingers stuck in the proverbial cookie jar. Corruption exists in all countries, however, in the developed democracies it does not define a nation and its governments like it does Croatia – still.

On Saturday 19 February, another case of corruption probes surfaced in Croatia when the police began searching the apartment of the government minister for Construction and Public Property Darko Horvat in Donja Dubrava, Zagreb. Furthermore, and at the same time, the police broke into his house in Medjimurje County (North of Zagreb) due to suspicions of his connection with the abuse of power by his former assistant, and now the suspect in crimes of corruption – Ana Mandac. According to Croatian media Horvat is suspected of 2.6 million kuna in illegal incentives. Reportedly Horvat requested funds (non-refundable) from the program ‘Development of small and medium enterprises and crafts in areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities’, i.e., to benefit some companies and people who were not entitled to those funds, this time of Serb ethnicity.

Soon after the search of Minister Darko Horvat’s house he was arrested and taken away by the police for further questioning. Almost immediately, Horvat reportedly requested from the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic that he be removed from his duties as government minister and Plenkovic did relieve Horvat of his ministerial duties late Saturday afternoon 19th February.

“If someone is arrested, he cannot be a minister, it is clear as day. Especially if he stays there,” Plenkovic said at a press conference in Banski dvori Government Offices convened over Horvat’s arrest and an investigation into several other current and former state officials. Officials, including some ministers…Someone had a motive for this timing to be right now. To me, that timing doesn’t seem neutral. Neither the State Attorney’s Office nor anyone else will overthrow the Government, but this is interesting,” Plenkovic said.

Well, it is evident that the current government in Croatia is all about timing and control of corruption revelation and processing of those crimes. Why else would Prime Minister question the timing of these arrests!? Did he, himself, in fact know of possible corrupt practices but did nothing about them because “it was not the right time”!? Or is Plenkovic so odiously arrogant that he dares to question the timing of arrests for suspected crimes or is he sinking further into a political mudslide that will see him disappear into oblivion of power-hold.

Shady and unsavoury business of politics indeed.

In addition to Horvat, the Croatian mainstream media reports that the police and USKOK (Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime) also hold suspicions against the current Minister of Pension System, Family and Social Policy Josip Aladrovic, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic and former Minister of Agriculture Tomislav Tolusic. Aladrovic is suspected of suspicious employment in the period from 2017 to 2019, when he was the director of the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute. Milosevic and Tolusic are suspected of awarding grants to small and medium-sized enterprises in 2017 and 2018, while Ana Mandac was Horvat’s assistant, and they both allegedly lobbied for Serbian entrepreneurs who had no right of access to these funds.

Whether Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic reaction to his minister Horvat’s arrest and suspicions of corruption being aired against two of his other ministers and a former one is associated with his fear that his HDZ-led government is experiencing fatal crumbling is not clear. There are strong indications that his, HDZ’s, coalition as minority government with the SDSS (Independent Democratic Serb Party in Croatia) is experiencing continued heavy blows from the public or voter body, including within HDZ party itself. A coalition with Serb minority party would most likely never have been a problem had that Serb party in Croatia been made up of Serbs living in Croatia who fought with Croatians (not against) to defend it from Serb aggression in the 1990’s Homeland War but SDSS is closely and personally associated with the 1990’s rebel Serbs and those Serbs who committed horrendous crimes against Croatia and its people. The fact that, say, a brother or sister or niece of a rebel and murderous Serbs are part of current government coalition in Croatia is simply unthinkable and unacceptable to most people. Besides heavily damaging and thwarting the implementation of Homeland War values such a coalition increases the chances of successful equating of victim with the aggressor. This simply cannot be permitted for a nation that lost rivers of blood in defending itself from Serb and communist Yugoslavia aggression.

Having the above bitter reality in mind, minister Horvat’s arrest pending further investigation into corruption is a heavy blow to both the government and HDZ Party; it may rattle and shatter both to the core. Reported suspicions of influencing government subsidy funding to companies owned by members of Serb minority population in Croatia who had no right even to apply for such funding, the fact that Boris Milosevic. Deputy Prime Minister of Serb minority extraction in parliament, is suspected of favouring certain persons during the awarding of grants from the program “Development of small and medium enterprises and crafts in areas inhabited by members of national minorities” – corruption and nepotism favouring Serbs associated with rebel Serb politics during Serb aggression against Croatia in the 1990’s is enough to make one both ill and angry, as well as bitter. Such outpours of corrupt politics have been known in history to ignite people to (political) arms.

Obviously HDZ as the leading political party in government will need to reinvent its governing strategies and its coalition choices very quickly if it intends on surviving this time. Post minister Horvat’s arrest some opposition parties are calling upon Prime Minister Plenkovic to disband his government and call for new general elections. It is close to mid-term in its government mandate and HDZ constantly continues to experience and/or generate scandals that have the capacity of paralysing the nation into political crises, one after another. These scandals and crises bring about not only possible new elections, shakedown of government coalitions and loyalties but also the likelihood of causing more voter fatigue, which always brings about further reduction of voters turning up at next elections. Of course, the electoral legislation in Croatia needs changes but its current and past panorama has seen an ever-decreasing number of voters turning up to cast their vote. In such a climate some party has and will always win a relative majority, but such lack of voter number strength creates significant illegitimacy of representation within the nation and deeper insecurities for livelihood and living within it. Minorities, including the Serb one in Croatia, simply do not have strong potential of contributing to increasing decisively voter numbers in Croatia. On the other hand, other “right wing” or conservative political milieu has those potential numbers which could strengthen HDZ chances at winning minority government in the next elections. I say this because it is, to the regret of many, still not possible to even imagine the “right wing” or conservative political milieu to win the next government without HDZ being a part in that winning formula, however seemingly leftward HDZ may have drifted. Relatively narrow spans and directions of political activities engaged in by these smaller patriotic political parties on the right are the reason why perhaps they scrape into the parliament with a limited number of seats that, even if joined, could not form a government, not even a minority one. If things will shift away from the current HDZ politics in government, it is essential for HDZ party itself to shift its internal politics towards working with patriotic right-wing parties and not parties that condone Serb aggression and actively engage in any form of equating victim with the aggressor.

Obviously, the Serb minority leadership in Croatia, in coalition with HDZ government is heavily compromised with these new revelations of possible corrupt and criminal activities syphoning government funds to benefit Serbs in Croatia that have no right of access to such government funds. It is a form of sheer and intolerable corruption. One would see it logical for HDZ at this time to recalibrate its weapons of ideological political values and rid itself of the coalition with the SDSS, that is so directly associated with politics against independent Croatia in recent past.

There is no doubt in my mind that HDZ would do well to consider “changing horses midstream” at this time – extinguish its coalition with SDSS and enter a new one from the pool of patriotic political parties represented in the parliament. Otherwise, all that Croatians have to look forward to, for the remainder of this government’s mandate, is more poison being fed into the values of Croatian Homeland War and standard of living generally. The imminent entry into the Eurozone in January 2023 when Croatia plans to swap its kuna currency with the euro will dawn with distressing political crises and thousands more living below the poverty line.

Certainly, the terror over the Croatian nation caused by ethnic minorities having parliamentary representation seats, needs to stop. It is unnatural, it is damaging. Instead of allocating seats in the parliament (where a seat can be earned at elections with merely a few dozen of votes) government departments/offices ensuring ethnic minority rights and services as is the practice in fully functioning democracies should be opened to cater for minority needs. Ina Vukic

The Perils Of Enemy Of The People Climbing Into Croatia’s New Government

 

While getting relatively most seats as single party, Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ did not get enough votes in recent General Elections in Croatia on 5th July 2020 to form a majority government. It will need coalition with other parties.

Touting on Croatia’s streets and media that the composition of the new government could include a former rebel Serb whose immediate family, if not he himself, participated in ethnic cleansing and murder of Croats during the Homeland War, is generating increasing bitterness and despair among people such as the one were Israel of today to appoint a high-ranking WWII Nazi official as one of its deputy Prime Ministers. Certainly, any Croatian Prime Minister’s plan for the appointment of Milorad Pupovac as one of the deputy Prime Ministers would push a large number of Croatians to the brink of despair and there is no telling which way that would evolve if Andrej Plenkovic embarks on that path in the composition of his new government. Would it set off a higher than the usual high number of people leaving Croatia, or would it trigger massive unrests? Milorad Pupovac has stated publicly a couple of days ago that candidature for a high position (such as deputy Prime Minister) in Croatia’s government would be discussed in his Serbian party room early next week; indications are that it could also be his condition for forming part of the coalition of the new HDZ minority government.

Milorad Pupovac has been re-elected into the parliament by his Serbian minority under the Croatian electoral laws that permit an ethnic minority representative win seats with barely a couple of hundred votes! There are 8 seats in the Croatian Parliament reserved for ethnic minorities! It’s no secret that Pupovac’s seat in the parliament has always been the subject of condemnation and strong opposition with the Croatian population. Essentially because he works against Croatian people and the truth.

Indeed, it is no secret that the leader of the Serb minority community in Croatia went to his village of Ceranje Donje near Benkovac during the 1990’s war of Serb aggression against Croatia and during Serb occupation of Croatian territory, which the Chetniks (Serbs) kept under control after ethnically cleansing all Croatians and other non-Serbs from that region of Croatia. Pupovac’s brother Vojislav was a member of the murderous Serbian paramilitary forces in Croatia, and his other brother Mladen wasn’t far behind. There have also been testimonies and conclusions in the Croatian media over time that Milorad joined his brothers and rebel Serbs in Croatia in the armed aggression against Croatian people.

Justifiably, serious concerns and disapproval by people regarding any possibility of appointing of Milorad Pupovac as deputy Prime Minister is a warning of sorts that increased conflicts about the values and goals set in the Homeland War are likely to erupt even more in the not so distant future.  It is almost unfathomable why a government that is supposed to serve the values cemented in the foundations od the state’s very existence would actually take the road of purposeful insult against its own people. Yes, appointing Milorad Pupovac as deputy Prime Minister

  • would be a deliberate and ultimate insult against Croatian people who fought off the Serb aggressor in the 1990’s;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against the thousands killed during the war;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against hundreds of thousands of Croats ethnically cleansed from their homes and sent on a road of torture, rape and murder;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against the enormous material damage done to Croatia by the Serbian aggressor;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against independence Croatians paid for with life and blood;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against facts of history of Croatian suffering;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against common sense and human decency and dignity;
  • it would be a deliberate insult against the human right of self-preservation;
  • it would be a deliberate insult to me personally and, I am certain, to millions of others.

And, at the end of the day if, by any chance, an excuse for such deputy-primeminstership appointment is claimed within the bounds of reconciliation then that excuse would be nothing short of a lie! One cannot achieve reconciliation by inflicting pain upon subjects of such reconciliation. Offenders against Croatia’s independence and its people and their representatives must be brought to suffer for their wrongdoing and not rewarded! How can Croatia ever even hope to achieve the sought result of Serbia and Serbs paying compensation for war damages to Croatia and its people if its government places a representative of those who perpetrated the damage almost at the helm of its government!?

Reconciliation requires that facts must be faced, nor avoided. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is and has been avoiding the facts of Serb aggression against Croatia in 1990’s in many instances. The fundamental truth of the stories of those in Croatia who were murdered, who were raped, who were tortured and placed into torture camps, who were ethnically cleansed and banished from their homes and their pain, cannot be denied.

Reconciliation requires accessibility to records and all state archives. This is not done in Croatia. Reconciliation requires culturally appropriate healing, and this is not being done in Croatia. Reconciliation requires placing the victim of aggression at the forefront of politics and human rights, and this is not being done in Croatia. Indeed, if Croatia’s new government appoints Milorad Pupovac as deputy Prime Minister it would make yet another abominable step in trying to water down the brutal aggression against Croatian people and deny the victims the human right to justice.

Ultimately, reconciliation is about bringing in justice and there is no justice in appointing and active anti-Croat such as Pupovac as a member of executive government of Croatia.

Among the communist left, there is a common tendency to see fascism within every manifestation of nationalism or patriotism. Indeed, the very Milorad Pupovac has constantly labelled all patriotic Croatians as fascists or Ustashe! The fact that he himself stood behind and is aligned with Serb Chetniks does not seem to bat an eyelid of the present Croatian government nor any government reeled in since Dr Franjo Tudjman’s death in late 1999. In right-wing circles, in contrast, “fascism” is a curse that is to be evaded, a kind of persistent suspicion that must be rebuffed – as exemplified by their much-portrayed image and desire for a full democracy, for lustration, and national identity that would stand by its people through thick and thin.

Croatia’s, the nation’s, values are being eroded by former communists, by universal liberal tenets and by “foreign” influences, including those within the European Union. The British fought for retention of national values by voting for Brexit; I hope that Croatians will have the strength and determination to fight off this prostitution of national values as is entertained by some with the very notion that Pupovac could have a role in the executive government.

It’s very possible that the constant sense of crisis in which the Croatian political consciousness has been immersed for two decades, hinders the creation of a feeling of a single, sharp and acute crisis that would spur or incite the masses into action for needed change. The ongoing state of emergency in economic downfall, in the continual degradation of Homeland War veterans who brought independence, the ongoing belittling of Homeland War values, the ongoing corruption and nepotism and clientelism akin to former communist Yugoslavia, the ongoing denial of basic rights such as voting to the massive diaspora … dulls the sting of urgency:

When “bombs” slam regularly into parts of the country’s existence, they too become routine, albeit a lethal routine.

In parallel, Croatia’s political and legal institutions have also undergone further erosion as former communists continue holding key positions. If bringing a rebel Serb, such as Milorad Pupovac, around the table of executive government doesn’t bring the sting of urgency to save the Croatian people from the pit of hand-to-mouth existence – nothing will! The reality is that for most Croatians in Croatia there is hardly enough food or money to live on, hence tens of thousands leave the country each year. The government is about to blame Covid-19, coronavirus, for all the country’s perils; why else would it appoint dr Vili Beros, the leading personality in the build-up of public coronavirus panic since February this year, who was relatively unknown before that, as new Health Minister!

We can argue all we want about the appropriate role of government in the economy, but the outcome will be determined in the political sphere, not the intellectual one. And the political reality in Croatia is that while some voters (at 2020 general elections only about 17.5% of voters voted HDZ in as leading party to form new government) appreciate what governments do for them, they generally feel that public policies are beholden to powerful special interests. And they are not wrong – concentrated interests are powerful and do dominate much policymaking. Those concentrated interest groups in Croatia revolve around former communists; those who help corruption and theft, clientelism, thrive! And now, if Milorad Pupovac enters as deputy Prime Minister, added to that we can, regretfully, be certain that these interest groups are not only about holding on tight to communist mindset but also about degrading and terminally running into the ground those groups who fought for, suffered for, sacrificed for the independence of Croatia from communist Yugoslavia.

To top the insult against the Croatian people, the very people Pupovac and his Serbs attacked viciously in 1990 with the aim of wiping them off their very own lands, said a couple of days for the Croatian media that “he wants to be an equal partner in the Croatian government”! The audacity and disrespect of that man is repugnant! He or any other enemy cannot be equal partner in the government that arose from bloodied ashes of Serb aggression against Croatia. Croatian people were not aggressors they were victims of Serb aggression! Ina Vukic

Remembering Vukovar And The Smut Of Erdut Agreement

Ivo Lucic
Photo: screenshot

This is the week we remember the victims in the November 1991 fall of Croatia’s Vukovar (and all the victims of Serb aggression against Croatia), brutally attacked, destroyed, slaughtered and tortured by Serb rebel paramilitary as well as Serb-led Yugoslav Army forces. This is the week that in our mind the thoughts of forgiveness and reconciliation inevitably intrude upon those of profound sadness for the victims and the search for that light of justice due for all. Forgiveness, though, is only truly earned by those that repent. This, though, is not the case for the Serb who are, these days, on an accelerated and noisy rampage of trying to justify the crimes because of which Croatia was put into the situation of having to defend the self-preservation of its own people and land from the onslaught.

While the Erdut Agreement reached on 12 November 1995 for a peaceful reintegration into Croatia of its Serb-occupied territory in the vicinity of Vukovar, the region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium established all transitional arrangements, including a transitional administration that would facilitate the return of refugees in the region, the protection of refugees and their property rights, and the deployment of an international force to maintain peace and security in the region, Croatian Serb leaders including member of parliament for Serb ethnic minority Milorad Pupovac, undoubtedly propped-up by Serbia’s support, are resurrecting these days the Erdut agreement as though it was a permanent fixture in the way independent Croatia should proceed to develop itself as a sovereign democratic state, and as though it gave the Serb aggressor absolution for its crimes and rights to go on with life as though no aggression, murder, ethnic cleansing of Croats from the region, torture – occurred back then! Pupovac said this week at the marking of the anniversary of the Erdut Agreement that the agreement would be satisfied in full when there is Serb representation in all municipal councils of Croatia, in all government ministries, in all institutions…!

Whether the Erdut Agreement had in fact clauses or addendums that stipulate any such representation or not, is beside the point as in fact and de jure agreements have a life span that cannot be extended or shortened without due legal processes. The Erdut Agreement had the life span of transitional nature and if anyone has issues with its implementation the world of judicial pursuits upon which any “complaints” should be adjudicated in democracy is open to all, including Serbs. But I somehow doubt Pupovac has a leg to stand on in the scheme of things that occurred with Serb aggression and their tremendously destructive consequences for the Croatian citizens and the development of the democratic state.

Erdut Agreement was largely a brainchild of Peter Galbraith, US Ambassador to Croatia, who along with Russian Ambassador Leonid Karestadjians and German diplomat Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, concocted in January 1995 the so-called Z-4 Plan for Croatia where autonomy (to Serbs) would be given on a significant part of the occupied Croatian territory! It actually planned for a legal Serb state within Croatia! There’s more than one way of succeeding in extending the borders of Greater Serbia, it seems – if Croatia’s leaders permit Pupovac and his followers the reign of drunken, hateful, disrespect for the victims of aggression and Croatia’s victory of independence as a sovereign state. There was not a single word of remorse for the genocide committed against Croatian people, across Croatia. Pupovac made the point of saying that Erdut Agreement brought peace to the region but failed to address why it was essential to bring peace and what was behind it (Serb aggression).

The fact that Pupovac rhetoric regarding infiltrating public administration and decision making with members of ethnic Serb minority brings about torrents of traumas to the Croatian public because, among other disquieting thrusts that suggest Serb victory within Croatia, it represents the notion that all crimes of aggression against Croatians and Croatia should perhaps be erased as acceptable and forgotten as if nothing happened! Pupovac move here is a clear example of attempting to solidify the equating of victim with the aggressor.

That which medical doctors did in Vukovar hospital in 1991, healing all patients, even those belonging to the enemy, is something that is rarely seen and we can be proud of that. With this book I wanted to tell that relatively unknown story because we know quite a bit about the battles for Vukovar and about defending it but the story about the heroic doctors has remained somewhat in the shadows,” said dr. Ivo Lucic in Zagreb, Croatia, on 14 November 2014 at the promotion of his book “Vukovar hospital, the lighthouse in the historic storms of Croatia’s East” (“Vukovarska bolnica svjetionik u povijesnim olujama hrvatskog istoka”).

The hospital was also a warning for those who approached, and who has destroyed Vukovar just before that. The hospital sent the message to watch how they approach the institution marked with a red cross and protected under international laws. However, they did not accept that message and ran aground the cliffs of crimes, did everything that is already known to us, in Ovcara and other places, murdered the wounded and civilians and that is something that will remain in their conscience forever,” dr. Lucic emphasised.

By the end of its three-month siege at the hands of Serb forces in November 1991, Vukovar had become utterly devastated and its Croatian and non-Serb population ethnically cleansed. The capture of the town was an important strategic objective for the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. It was designed to consolidate Serb control over the region of Croatia known as Eastern Slavonia.

When the Serb forces took control of Vukovar on 19 November 1991, several hundred people took refuge in the town’s hospital in the hope that they would be evacuated in the presence of neutral observers. But instead of the hoped-for evacuation, about 400 individuals – including wounded patients, soldiers, hospital staff and Croatian political activists – were removed from the hospital by Yugoslav army and Serb paramilitary forces and taken to Ovcara farm near Vukovar. The detainees were beaten up. Some died of their injuries and approximately 260 of them were executed and then buried in a mass grave.

Lest we forget!

Ina Vukic

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