Croatia: Huffing and Puffing at Huffington Post

huffing-and-puffing

Huffington Post has 27 March conspicuously decided to publish on its website John Feffer’s, a George Soros “Open Society Fellow”, interview with Danijel Srb, president of Croatian Party of Rights, which Feffer equally conspicuously published only 21 March even though the interview was held mid-October 2012!

While in principle the practice of journalists holding onto their material until the “right” time comes for publishing it, the fact that EU Parliament representatives’ election campaign is currently at full swing renders it most conspicuous that Feffer (and Huffington Post) decided to publish an interview which talks about Croatian World War II Ustashe movement (Nazi collaborators) and fails abysmally at noting that there were potent and equally widespread anti- Fascist/anti-Nazi movements in World War II Croatia as well. Furthermore, it surely could not be by accident that John Feffer (and Huffington Post) decided to publish a lengthy interview with the president of a minor Croatian political party (Party of Rights) who has been huffing and puffing about what things are “wrong” in Croatia (and European Union for that matter) and yet has done little, if anything (apart from complaining), to actually solve them. It has failed monumentally in gathering any significant following among the people and that, in itself, could well confirm a wide discord between the Party’s values and program and the nation.

Whether this interview is designed to portray an image of Croatia as a country that does not trust the European Union, or to portray the European Union as a destructive conglomerate, which sucks into oblivion the sovereignty and identity of individual nations that make it up, is a matter for individual preferences, but both impressions are possible.

It is of note that Huffington Post omitted to let its readers know that Danijel Srb – president of the anti-EU Croatian political party – had the day before they published Fiffer’s interview presented himself and his Party’s colleagues as candidates for EU Parliament in the coming elections.

When he presented his Party’s candidates for the EU Parliament Srb said “although they are Eurosceptic, they have put themselves forward as candidates because without them the identity and the sovereignty of Croatia within Europe will be endangered.”  He claimed that the candidates of the two largest parties in Croatia will in EU Parliament be raising their hands to directives and that these will have an advantage over the interests of Croatia.

One cannot avoid the feeling that Danijel Srb and his Croatian Party of Rights know little about the “job descriptions” of EU Parliament representatives, while at the same time shrugging off as unimportant the fact that not a single country member of the EU has lost its identity or its sovereignty throughout the decades of the Union’s existence.

It is of course, a matter of skill to be able to represent and fight for the interests of ones own country in such a wide Union of countries, and Srb’s party do not seem to possess such a skill.

Does Danijel Srb truly believe that “thieves of sovereignty and national identity” fill the EU Parliament and he will come among them to stop them from thieving the Croatian ones!? That is surely the wrong attitude to harbour and certainly the one that brings the least of wanted results.  The right attitude to have would, to my view, be: here we are in the EU, let’s all join forces and make this world better for all the people in it.

Given that we are here on the subject of Croatian parties of Rights, the conservative lean of political orientation linked to right wing ideology, we need to know that there are more than one: Croatian Party of Rights, Croatian Pure Party of Rights, Croatian Autochthon Party of Rights, Croatian Party of Rights Dr. Ante Starcevic, and Croatian Party of Rights 1861.

Among them all, the EU Parliament candidate from the Croatian Pure Party of Rights, dr. Tomislav Sunic (non-party candidate) stand out far above the rest. Sunic, an academic, world acclaimed author of several books, a former diplomat, part of the European New Right movement, is in no way superficial or irrational (as Srb seems to be) when it comes to national identity and the facets of its sustenance within the intricate political and economic weave of the modern world.

Being a EU Parliament candidate myself, I’d rub shoulders with Sunic in EU Parliament much rather than with Danijel Srb. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

In pursuit of justice – Communist crimes

On Friday 4 November 2011 The widely read and acclaimed Huffington Post published an article :

“Josip Boljkovac, Croatia Former Interior Minister, Arrested Over Post-WWII Killings”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/josip-boljkovac-arrested_n_1071271.html

Public debates ran hot last week in Croatia on the issue whether an anti-fascist from WWII should be apprehended and tried for war and post-war crimes.  One could have easily understood from those who spoke against the arrest that the terrible crimes Boljkovac is suspected of having committed were not as important as the fact that he was an anti-fascist.

Having read the article published in the Huffington Post I reacted and commented. The Huffington Post published my reaction:

Ina_Vukic | Nov 4, 2011 9:39 AM EDT

“The sources or contributors for the article seem to exclude the Croatian side, and gives an impression of yet another unfair attack on Croatia and its integrity.It would have been more credible if Mr Elan Steinberg corroborated his accusations against alleged Croatia’s failure to prosecute criminals from WWII by providing actual names of persons that should have been prosecuted but weren’t. The reference to Stipe Mesic’s (ex-president of Croatia) words that Boljkovac was a proven “anti-fascist” somehow alludes to the idea that anti-fascists were incapable of murder and mass murder, or that if one was an anti-fascist and murdered innocent people he/she could not be called to account for such heinous crimes; not even for the brutal filling with corpses hundreds of mass graves in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1945 and after – the documented vicious deeds of so-called anti-fascists. At the end of the day, with lots said, everyone deserves justice including the anti-fascists. So wouldn’t the world be a great place if Croatia was allowed to prosecute, with due process and in an orderly fashion, the alleged murderers on evidence they have?! In February 2010 prominent European politicians, former political prisoners, human right advocates and historians signed a Declaration on Crimes of Communism which called for the condemnation of communism. Ina Vukic, http://www.inavukic.com”.

On the 5th of November 2011 Vecernji List (http://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/mesic-treba-rascistiti-sa-svim-zlocinima-koji-su-se-dogodili-clanak-343329) from Zagreb published an article quoting Stjepan Mesic (former president of Croatia): “A long time ago I said to Karamarko that the antifascist’s battle was the brightest page in Croatia’s history. To wrestle out of a most horrible evil in the history of mankind, we have done that. Were there crimes committed in that? Probably yes … It’s a 70 years distant event but we haven’t heard of a single piece of evidence. They are only indications, but I wouldn’t enter into the police’s work.”

The article further states that Mesic had sent a message that the crimes of anti-fascists have to be viewed in a historical context and that the law should not protect anyone. He also stressed out that all crimes that occurred in that region must be cleared.

The crimes of anti-fascists have to be viewed in a historical context! According to Mesic!

Would that mean that historical events such as WWII victory should be used as an excuse for mass murder of innocent people?

Does that mean that because communists or anti-fascists gained victory and power over Yugoslavia in 1945 their war crimes are not really bad crimes, or that being an active anti-fascist is a mitigating factor in the crimes of murder?

The only historical context that comes to my mind for those WWII mass murders – if they were committed – is that they were committed. It does not matter where or when – murder is murder and nothing can excuse nor mitigate it.

I gather (from Mr Mesic’s past public statements) that when he talks of “a most horrible evil in the history of mankind” he is talking about Nazism/Fascism… BUT the facts of history are that many, many thousands of innocent Croatians who were neither pro-Nacism/Fascism nor pro-Communism lost their lives in mass graves of Communist/ Anti-fascist war crimes and post-war crimes.

Croatia was and is filled with millions of people who had no political affiliations nor sympathies with either Ustashi or Communists during and after WWII.

Hundreds of thousands had emigrated or fled to the West – distancing themselves in their daily lives from that harsh political dichotomy which was imposed upon the Croatian people, as though nothing else existed, without any regard to those who stood firmly outside it. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb), B.A.,M.A.Ps.(Syd)

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