Independent Croatia: To Expose Yugoslav Communist Enemy Within

Zoran Milanovic (L) Zeljko Glasnovic (R)

Croatia survived 45 years of communist rule under the lie of “brotherhood and unity” in Yugoslavia, emerged victorious in the 1990’s in fighting off the bestial enemies of its independence and democracy, only to keep having salt poured over the wounds it sustained in achieving independence and its continued struggle for a full democracy. In Croatia, former communist domination has been increasing since year 2000, alienating and degrading those who fought against the communist aggressor in early 1990’s. Make no mistake: Croatia’s very future is still at stake, despite the glorious victories of its defence forces. The best example of such alienation and degradation, which to my view verge on treason or bombarding of foundations of a state can be found in the acts of Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic only a couple of days ago, on Friday 22 January 2021.

On Friday, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanovic, from the city of Zadar, cancelled his participation in the commemoratory program marking the 28th anniversary of the Croatian Military and Police undertaking called “Maslenica ’93”, which retook territory in northern Dalmatia and Lika from rebel Krajina Serb forces, with the military objective of pushing the Serb aggressor back from approaches to city of Zadar, Maslenica and Karlobag, allowing a secure land route between Dalmatia and northern Croatia to be opened. Milanovic abruptly cancelled his presence at Maslenica commemoration after he learned that some participants there, invited as part of official participants, were wearing clothes with the “HOS – For Homeland Read” (HOS – Za dom spremni) symbols, the same clothes worn by the paramilitary Croatian Defence Forces (HOS) who took a great part in defending Croatia from Yugoslav/Serb aggressor and, therefore, are unequivocally included among the pivotal creators of today’s democratic and independent state of Croatia. Of course, as their leader Milanovic, the Chief of the General Staff of the current Croatian Armed Forces, Admiral Robert Hranj, and all military commanders withdrew from the commemoration program after Milanovic announced his withdrawal.

“Since afterwards it was established that people wearing Ustasha insignia and inscriptions were also participating in the official commemoration protocol, the president cancelled his participation in the programme,” the statement from Milanovic’s office said.

This is not the first time that Zoran Milanovic insists on blatant lies about HOS and “For Home Ready” greeting! In fact, he has been consistent and uglily pushy on this! The fact that HOS that participated in defending Croatia from Yugoslav/Serb aggression was not an offshoot or continuance of WWII political environment but rather an arm of the 1990’s Croatian people’s decision to secede from communist Yugoslavia is a fact that Milanovic insists on burying and lying about.

To me, and I gather to many, this can only mean one thing and that is that Croatia’s President despises those who freed Croatia from communist Yugoslavia and fought and contributed to creating the free and independent Croatia.

That is among the reasons why Croatian government and Presidents since 2000 have persistently downplayed the role of Croatian defence forces in Croatia’s secession from communist Yugoslavia; and persistently keep on a course of degrading the value for the country of its liberating forces that fought off its brutal, bloody aggressor. Just imagine if political leaders in Britain or United States of America pursued a path of hunting down and belittling all those who during World War Two, or any war for that matter, guided their resolve to participate in freedom-creation with the motto “For God and Country!” or “For Home and Country!” Would they be impeached or banished from public positions? I think so!

And so, are Croatians supposed to accept as the country’s leader a man (Milanovic) who did not want an independent Croatia, who hid away from war battle zones when Croatian territory and people were being defended from Yugoslav/Serb aggression? I say not!

Retired General of the Croatian Army (HV) and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) Zeljko Glasnovic has yesterday in relation to the above actions and promotion of lies about HOS forces by President Milanovic published the content below, which I have translated into the English language from Croatian:

Zeljko Glasnovic Facebook page screenshot. Embedded image portrays human (and HOS uniform) remains of Zarko Manjkasa Crvenkapa in a mass grave of Serb aggression victims near Vukovar

 “You run from this?

If you run away from this, you are also running away from the man on whose bones the state of Croatia arose.

And not just on his bones but on thousands of bones.

You are distancing yourself from this?

If you distance yourself from this, then you also distance yourself from the function you perform.

Being President is like being an officer – service, not honour. No one ‘rewarded’ you by electing you President but indebted you. Remember.

You cannot be the President of a state whose foundations you despise.

You cannot be the President of a state despising the people who created that same state.

Despising emblems.

Despising flags.

Despising symbols.

As you bow at the grave to a man who is buried with this symbol on his uniform, at the same time you drive his comrades from the grave for that same symbol.

You can’t have double standards.

If you despise the world in which you live, you also despise its Creator. It is inseparable.

You cannot praise the act of creating a state and despise its founders.

Call them provocateurs, and until yesterday saviours and liberators.

You cannot say that you respect the sacrifice of the defenders, and at the same time spit on the symbols they proudly wore while bleeding for that same homeland.

You can’t be miles away from the battlefield, waiting for an outcome in the safety of your home and 30 years later condemning the flag under which others gave their lives to so that you could live.

You should be grateful.

With your head down.

Your hands clasped.

If not in prayer, then in silence.

In pride.

On your knees, because they deserve that.

It is easy to be a Supreme Commander in peace.

Where were you when the bloody battle was being fought?

It is easy to command the army to retreat as birds sing around you.

Do you know what it’s like to give an order while the air around you smells of death?

Do you know what it’s like when you’re surrounded, when you have no air, when you’re lying wounded?

Do you know what it’s like to be a commander when you lose 20 men in one day?

And you must move on.

Do you know what it’s like when you have to come to the door of the mother of a killed soldier and tell her that her only son is gone?

And you were his superior.

Do you know what it’s like when they mutilate your brother, rape your mother, imprison your grandparents and take everything away from you?

Do you know what it’s like to look into the eyes of a raging horde of animal instincts as they torture and kill your army?

Do you know what it’s like when your wounded tortured soldier dies in your arms?

Do you know how it is when your soldier with triple bullet wounds still stands at frontlines, refusing to leave his post.

Till death.

What to say to a mother whose son has been killed, who calls you and asks you to come sleep in his bed?

What to say to a soldier who asks you for 2 days off after 4 months on the field, and you can’t give them to him because there are no people, there are no shifts, but maybe there would have been shifts had the offices of the golden youth not been full.

Do you know what it’s like when there’s no time to grieve after your comrades are killed, when you have to move on like nothing happened.

And the heart bleeds.

Do you know what it’s like to remember all your life the last words of a murdered medical corps heroine: ‘If I had 10 lives, I would give them all for Croatia.’

Do you know what it’s like when a commander is wounded and his soldiers take turns carrying him, wounded, in a tent flysheet for 2 days, not wanting to leave him?

That’s an honour.

That’s pride.

They are brothers.

That’s loyalty.

That’s fidelity.

These are concepts that you will find difficult to understand.

A commander on paper – in peace – is not the same as a commander on the ground in war.

Some are not worthy of war,

and some are not even worthy of peace.

Have we given so many lives so that you could mock?

Did we shed so much blood so that you could jubilate?

Did we fight so that you could be ashamed of us on anniversaries?

Did we create this country so that the Commander-in-Chief could suppress us?

You are not worthy of our sacrifice.

You are not worthy of being called the President.

You are not worthy of the authority of the Commander-in-Chief.

In other countries, people bow in respect to war veterans, grateful for their life made possible through their sacrifice.

In Croatia, war veterans are being killed due to injustice, disrespect, belittling and mocking the shedding of their blood.

Thanks be to God, we even fought for people like you. The ungrateful, narcissistic and arrogant, who today spit on the foundations of their homeland, trample on the sacrifice of its defenders, mock those who made life possible for them and they call themselves presidents. Until when?”

Ina Vukic

Croatia: Reconciliation Cannot Be Achieved With Denial Of Truth And Lacking Love For Nation Of People

Ina Vukic, August 2020

 

Many people are asking me these days what is the reaction of the Croatian diaspora to the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of victory in Knin on August 5.

The celebration of the 25th anniversary of Operation Storm, was neither visually nor morally nor truthfully a celebration of the great and deeply sacrificial victory over the brutal and obscene Serbian or Yugoslav aggressor! What that celebration was is a false picture of the truth and reality of that time and now!

During the Homeland War, Croats and anti-Croatian Serbs did not sit together in any rows, let alone in the front row of the battlefield, but on opposite sides. On one side, aggressive brutally murderous Serbs, and on the other side, Croats whose lives were endangered in the middle of that Serbian aggression.

Then in Knin on August 5, we saw and heard General Ante Gotovina who, without a shred, without a shred of shame or embarrassment, dishes out some lesson that discipline is needed in war and in peace! Of course, this mention of discipline certainly referred to the HOS (volunteer Croatian Defence Forces), whose defenders of the Homeland War and Operation Storm  were standing at that time on the streets of Knin during the celebration of Operation Storm with police threats directed at them. Because, you see, their slogan For Homeland Ready (Za Dom Spremni), which infused courage and determination for an independent Croatia, bothers the current government of the Republic of Croatia. This slogan was decisive in the defence of the Republic of Croatia, i.e. in the establishment of independence.

Then, General Gotovina, straight-faced, gave himself the right to speak about discipline, which in this case should surely keep HOS defenders, under police pressure and threats behind the lines, the police lines, while others, undeserving others, celebrated part if not the whole victory to which they contributed, to which HOS contributed and deserve to be a part of its celebrations.

So, I have never seen such perversion anywhere in the world. That something like this should happen, that the celebration of victory should be denied to those who contributed to that victory, in national defense or in national victory.

Perversion itself!

It is not just about discriminating against HOS defenders in this case, it is about perversion against the Homeland War, perversion against victory.

HOS Veterans denied access to celebrations
of Victory/ Operation Storm
in Knin, Croatia, 5 August 2020
Photo: Screenshot

And then so that this discrimination and perversion could become even stronger or better – worse! – at almost the same time not far from Knin in Grubori, the Croatian government, that is, Serbian politics in Croatia, organised a commemoration for victims of a crime against six Serb civilians that took place some three weeks after Operation Storm. The crime was committed by individuals who, in fact, with that act of crime violated the policy of the Croatian defence, the policy of Franjo Tuđman, the policy of Gojko Šušak, also now deceased. So, this commemoration in addition to the victory celebration in Knin was simply planned in order to diminish the value and the validity of the victory of Operation Storm. That’s why they sent Tomo Medved (Deputy Prime Minister) there. The appearance of Tomo Medved in Grubori at the commemoration for the victims of a crime committed by disobedient individuals who violated the policies and orders of the Croatian defence. This appearance by Tomo Medved there undoubtedly symbolises also that the top of Croatia wants to attribute this crime committed by individuals to the overall Croatian defence in the Homeland War. And that is nothing else but an another step in equalising the victim and aggressor in the Homeland War.

So, a perversion, perversion which I and I believe many others have not experienced before.

What courage against the Croatian people!

But, all this said, Croatian diaspora was before the Homeland War, during the Homeland War and after the Homeland War “For Homeland Ready” and for God and Croatia,  democratic Croatia, ready!

Some will say that by organising the celebration of 25th Anniversary of the magnificent victory over the brutal Serb aggressor in Knin at almost the same time they organised the commemoration for the victims of crime against six Serb civilians that occurred in the nearby village of Grubore, three weeks after the victorious Operation Storm, is good for reconciliation! Well, my professional opinion derived from my substantial training and experience as a Psychologist, tell me that nothing can be further from the truth. Firstly, the killing of the six Serb civilians occurred on 25 August 1995, twenty days after this Serb-occupied Croatian territory was liberated by Operation Storm, and the commemoration should have been planned for that date! Secondly, the ICTY Appeals Tribunal (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) in the Hague had, in its Judgment in the Gotovina & Markac case, in November 2012, stated that “the state and military leadership had no role in their planning and creation” of this crime. So, why join the commemoration for these victims with the glorious victory of Operation Storm!? Utter perversion and political manipulation in the lame efforts to achieve reconciliation between the Serb aggressor and Croatians whom they attacked, perhaps? But here is the reality: one cannot achieve reconciliation through the denial of truth nor through lacking love for one’s people! And the current government with its Serb minority elected coalition clearly possess both of these characteristics that are not reconciliation-friendly: denial of truth and lacking love for the Croatian nation. Ina Vukic

Below is the video in the Croatian language with English subtitles that I have made with the above record of distressing happenings in Croatia around the celebrations of the 25th Anniversary of Operation Storm. Please visit!

 

The Killing of “For Home And Country”

HOS Croatian defence forces formation insignia with “For Home Ready” slogan

The pursuits of “forget the past, turn to the future” within Croatia’s halls of power have for at least two decades echoed ad nauseam. This past particularly being that of WWII past and post-WWII past – the conflicting coexistence of independent Croatia fighters (Ustase) and those who fought to keep Croatia as part of Yugoslavia (Communists). One would have thought that the 2017 creation of the Council for Dealing with Consequences of the Rule of Non-Democratic Regimes,  sparked into being by the politically leftist or pro-communist driven controversy of the slogan “Za Dom Spremni” (For Homeland Ready) behind which slogan stood all fighters for Croatian independence, old and new, would actually deviate potential political earthquakes from political to historical level.

No such fortune in Croatia – regretfully.

The Council was created to work out a response to the question of how to deal with the enduring legacy of Croatia’s 20th Century non-democratic regimes: the WWII Ustasa movement with its legacy, albeit unrealised on a lasting level, of Independent State of Croatia, NDH, and socialist Yugoslavia, led by the League of Communists.

The starting point is a clean break from all totalitarianism,” said Andrej Plenkovic, the prime minister in Croatia’s centre-right government said then in March 2017.

Those that want Croatia to become a truly functional democratic state that has well and truly rid itself of persistent and utterly damaging communist mindset rightly expected that the year zero of Croatian modern state, will be and remain the beginning of the Homeland war (1990).

But, such deserved expectations have proven to be painfully in vain. The Council has last week made recommendations for legal amendments that the salute “For Home Ready” (Za Dom Spremni) be made illegal but to allow the exceptional use of the ‘Za dom spremni’ when for instance marking anniversaries of 1990’s military units who used that slogan as part of their insignia during the Homeland War.

The Council failed to make recommendations that the communist Red Star be banned!

The current war for memory is a war for a dominant reading of the past – the tip of a very large iceberg, that has been standing in the way of Croatian “national reconciliation”. Franjo Tudjman, Croatia’s first president, juggled between the Red and the Black past of the WWII Croatia mobilising popular support for the independence from Yugoslavia. Today, Tudjman’s HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union Party) and its political leadership are pretending to seek heritagisation of his legacy, and emulate his methods in using the present to pacify the tensions from the past. So far, that unifying force that prevented further excursions into the past was a societal consensus on the Homeland war (1991-1995). Next to that, the EU future of the country – backed by all major political parties – was meant to bring Croatia closer to the West, and farther from the Balkans. Yet, after EU accession the country struggles in finding its own place in the family of European peoples, but also in leaving the past behind.

It fought a bloody defence from Serb/communist Yugoslavia aggression in early 19990’s, in Homeland War to leave the past behind and yet the powers that be keep churning up new ways to keep the past alive.

The Council’s failure to address the Red Star, communist totalitarian regime’s insignia in the same way as it treated the WWII salute used by the NDH devotees spells unrest and strangles any chance of true progress with Croatian national state reconciliation. It failed miserably at setting Croatia’s modern history right. It failed to direct the torchlight of a democratic future Croats fought for in 1990’s against communists and communist Yugoslavia aggression.

It failed to recognise and acknowledge the plight of the massive Croatian diaspora for true freedom from communist totalitarianism, which drove them away from Croatia post-WWII!

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic first mentioned setting up the Council for Dealing with Consequences of the Rule of Non-Democratic Regimes (totalitarian regimes) in December 2016 during a row over a plaque with ‘Za dom spremni’ installed in Jasenovac as a mark of the area where where a number of Croatian fighters were brutally murdered by the Serb aggressor in early 1990’s, situated near the site of the WWII concentration camp, where Jews, Serbs, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists were killed between 1941 and 1945.

Andrej Plenkovic made no mention at the time of the even more horrific and numerous communist crimes during the era and and the need to deal with those. That certainly send uneasy, fretting messages to all who had hoped that the Council would deal equally with the insignia and symbols of both WWII NDH and communist Yugoslavia.

They were right to fret for last week’s decision by the Council stinks with communist power still on the loose in Croatia.

Former communists did not want an independent Croatia, did not fight for it in any decisive or significant way but usurped the victory of others over communism to hold onto the idea that communism was somehow responsible for Croatia’s freedom and democracy! A revolting state of affairs. Utterly disregarding the horrors of the communist totalitarian regime.

After the final meeting of the Council last Wednesday, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic held a press conference along with the president of the council, Zvonko Kusic, who is also the president of Croatian Academy Sciences and Arts.

Since the issue of the work of this Council was related to the concrete case of the HOS plaque, it’s clear… that this chant on that plaque is contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, there is no dilemma there. But [Kusic] also acknowledged the fact that under strictly prescribed conditions it could be used in exceptional situations,” Plenkovic said, completely bypassing the fact that in announcing the formation of the Council in March 2017 an expectation was created to deal with symbolism of totalitarian regimes in general, not just the HOS (Croatian defence forces) memorial plaque in Jasenovac.

He rejected journalists’ suggestions that the government is not condemning the legacy of the Ustasa regime, but added that this refers to “a completely different context” – the use of the chant by the HOS in the 1990s war.

“‘Za dom spremni’ on the HOS’s coat of arms can be used only exceptionally, only in relation to those situations, sites or cemeteries, where HOS members were killed. This permission does not change the conclusion that the slogan is unconstitutional,” Kusic said.

After Plenkovic’s comment in March 2017 that the point of establishing the Council was to make “a clean break from all totalitarianism”, media have speculated about whether it would suggest a ban on both ‘Za dom spremni’ and the Communist red star, which was used by the Yugoslav anti-fascist Partisans and the Yugoslav People’s Army.

The European Court of Human Rights in 2008 ruled in favour of a Hungarian politician, Attila Vajnai, who was handcuffed and sentenced to a year’s parole in 2003 for wearing a red star, saying the ban violated his freedom of expression.

The ECHR established that the red star is still a symbol of the international workers’ movement and the fight for a more just society, as well as a legitimate symbol of the left that it used by some political parties in Europe.

Kusic also said on Wednesday that the red star and other symbols of Communism carry both positive and negative connotations, and that the link to the anti-fascist struggle is “undisputable”, but lawmakers can decide if some Communist symbols incite violence or hatred.

But Kusic conveniently disregarded the 2012 Knin, Croatia, court decision that ruled that the salutation “Za Dom Spremni” (For Home – Ready) has been known throughout the whole of the Croatian history, from the times of Nikola Subic Zrinski (1556 – 1566), and as such it does not signify any so-called “Ustashe attribute” with which it is burdened. 

No doubt about it – lustration at all levels is called for. Otherwise not only will love for free Croatia perish completely under the communist thumb but with it all dignity for the humanness and justice in the “For Home and Country” mindset known and cherished always by those of the West whose democracies have developed exactly because of it. Ina Vukic

 

 

 

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