Ivica Racan – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Still Bypassing Diaspora In Correcting Mistakes Of Communism

March 20, 2016 by inavukic 28 Comments

In late 1980’s and early 1990’s it was the conservative, centre-right political ideology that gathered 94% of Croatia’s voters behind Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ to vote for and fight for Croatia’s secession from communist Yugoslavia and Croatia’s independence as sovereign and democratic state. Under the leadership of its first president, Franjo Tudjman, Croatia was set on a path that would see the shedding from all aspects of public life and administration of remnants of communist habits and detrimental processes. Tudjman’s speeches contained recipes for Croatia to develop and grow into a democracy including using foreign consultants from developed democracies, training Croatian leaders political and business in leading the changes that had to occur if Croatia was truly to move away from communist regime of Yugoslavia, etc. But Tudjman died just a year after the final piece of Croatia’s sovereign territory occupied by Serb aggressor was re-integrated into Croatia. Tudjman’s HDZ lost government as well a couple of months after his death, much so due to the communist lobby that had become strong with Stjepan Mesic’s leadership and public lobby. In early 2000 the League of Communists/known as Social Democrats by then won government and Stjepan Mesic became the president. Of course, any plans to shed communist Yugoslavia from Croatia’s public administration and government initiatives disappeared into the dark of night.

Every time general elections came around after that there have been high voter expectations and conservative election candidates’ promises that an incoming conservative government if elected would deal decisively in stemming out the remnants of communism that stifle progress both economic, social as fit in a well-functioning democracy. Dealing with communist crimes and putting lustration in place were among the formally and informally bandied ways of cleansing Croatia’s democratic future from past communist habits and processes and so too were legislative changes needed to accommodate progress and a vibrant, entrepreneurial, economically viable and prosperous Croatia. Ivo Sanaders’ HDZ government (December 2003 to January 2008), whose leader ended up in courts for corruption, and that of Jadranka Kosor’s (July 2009 to December 2011) made no strong moves in this direction and, indeed, they continued with the alienation of the Croatian diaspora (that amazing resource of positive support Croatia had harnessed in the 1990’s and without which Croatian independence would simply not have been achieved) started in 2000 by Stjepan Mesic and Ivica Racan’s Social Democrat/Communist League prior government. Then came the Zoran Milanovic Social democrat/Communist League led government in late 2011 to January 2016 and it, of course, was not in the business of shedding from Croatia the ideals of communist Yugoslavia it still held close to its heart. To be fair though, there were certain legislative changes that needed to be brought in during this mandate as essential part of the path to EU membership, however, even these changes of legislative nature did not change the hearts of former communists – Croatia was and is still riddled with red tape and behaviours at public administration levels that, in essence, stifle progress and democracy. Zoran Milanovic’s government coincided with communist Ivo Josipovic’s presidency, who won office after Stjepan Mesic held two mandates – so conveniently positioned to evade the necessary changes away from communist past. Centre-right aligned president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic was inaugurated in February 2015 and she brought with her an apparent wealth of experience and democratic wisdom from having studied and worked abroad for many years. Then came the new government in Croatia in January 2016, mainly consisting of conservative centre-right HDZ but in coalition with MOST independent list with prime minister Tihomir Oreskovic as the leader alighned with no political party but, like Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, bringing in a wealth of corporate, business and entrepreneurial knowhow picked-up through working abroad in the “real and competitive business world” of the world.

The 2016 new government was ushered in with high expectations from the public for tackling the remnants of communism that stifle democratic progress, healthy public dialogues and economic development. Lustration, condemnation of communist crimes, legislative and procedural changes to aid and ease the process of investments and economic growth, tapping into the potential and significantly positive knowledge, economic and demographic resources that lie with the diaspora are just some examples of the plethora of measures popularly thought of as necessary to carry Croatia into the originally drawn plans for democracy, freedom and prosperity. But the evidently desired progress in moving away from communist habits is not yet visible to the originally desired degree and constant suspicions as to the democratic intentions of some politicians of note keep reverberating in Croatia’s public life. As to harnessing the resources from the diaspora for the betterment of Croatia, for movement far away from communist tracks, nothing solid or reassuring is seen on the horizon: just lots of talk from politicians and leaders but little if any right action.

Slobodna Dalmacija’s journalist, Tihomir Dujmovic, has recently in his article “America” addressed so eloquently and so clearly the detrimental, stifling effects of communism in Croatia.

“…I have roamed across America…listened to the destinies of hundreds of displaced Croats. Hundreds of sad destinies caused by communist sadism, which forced thousands of Croats to establish their homes far away from their beloved country,” writes Dujmovic and continues: “As far as possible away from Tito’s terror! …When I watch our people in America, when I compare them in their past years to us and when I watch our former poor that have regularly achieved a decent life living abroad, a person cannot but curse communism … It is here (in America) that we can truly see what Tito had done to us, it’s here that you can see in what misery and poverty our parents lived at home (in Croatia) and we with them, it’s from here that you can truly see the level to which the (communist) system had destroyed us…In that sense, today as a state we are really not doing anything else except correcting the mistakes that communism brought us.

In the first instance, the communist mentality that is not being extinguished…for example look the Cadastre registries…they (communists) took your land, invented the Cadastre and entered their names into the land register! We have not to this day solved this question. And there is a whole sea of similar topics.

When you listen to our people living abroad and when you listen to their counterparts in Croatia the first thing you see is a mound of zombies in the homeland whose every business enterprise has been nailed down with a hammer. In Cleveland I met Ivan Katic who has been living there for 40 years, he started without a single dollar in his pocket and without high diplomas, but his business spirit is such that he now employs a hundred people and his annual business turnover is $30 million. Look at him and his business sense that was developed by America, the standard America permitted, and then look at his counterpart in Slavonia, from where he went to America, and you will see what communism has done to this nation. If you were not a part of the communist elite, in order to live like a man, in order to be permitted to earn money, in order to develop your own business sense, in order for your children to be educated outside the communist ideology, you had to go thousands of miles away from that hellish fire.

So, what have our people found in America? Nothing except the opportunity Tito had not given to them. The opportunity to work and earn well, an opportunity to develop without needing to sell their soul to the Party! I watch them and I watch my parent’s generation and I can grab with my hands that crime that was perpetrated here (in Croatia). Because communism took away our soul, killed all creativity, nailed to the ground all business entrepreneurship, crushed the national conscience and destroyed the work culture, which our grandparents fundamentally had.

So, while Tito’s satraps masochistically taunted us, America and the West offered their hand to the Croats who knocked on their door, offered their hand to their creativity, rewarded and encouraged their entrepreneurship and let them attend church and hold the Croatian flag with pride, without being followed by secret police…That’s why I hold communism and Yugoslavia in contempt because they have stolen half a century from us. Because they murdered generations and stole their opportunity to live like people. Thousands of Croats would not have moved from their villages were they permitted to live like people, thousands upon thousands of Croats would not have left the land had there not been talk of impending liquidations of biblical proportions during the first days of revenge in 1945…They decided how much land you will cultivate, they decided how many square meters you will live in, they decided what you may sing and when you could revel. With what right? With the right of a pointed gun to the head! With head jerking towards Huda pit (mass grave of mass murders/communist crimes), in which you will end up if you don’t stop saying what you think. There’s still a sea of emotions towards the homeland within the Croatian diaspora, a sea of good will to return and, once again, it is the homeland’s move. This is the time of crossroads and truly the last chance for the homeland to offer it hand towards the emigrated Croatia that has been waiting for too long for that hand.”

While Dujmovic may have omitted to address the contribution Croatian diaspora could make to a better and more prosperous Croatia without necessarily returning to Croatia to live, the clear message remains: the governments of Croatia have done nothing much since the death of Franjo Tudjman (1999) to truly make the diaspora a continuing active, equal and vibrant part of the imagined prosperous Croatia. Not counting those individuals living in the diaspora continuing to contribute to the betterment of Croatia the lack of large-scale involvement from within Croatia towards diaspora is alarming and detrimental to Croatia in every way. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Communist Yugoslavia, correcting mistakes of communism, Croatia, Croatian diaspora, Franjo Tudjman, Ivica Racan, Ivo Josipovec, Ivo Sanader, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Stjepan Mesic, Tihomir Dujmovic, Tihomir Oreskovic, Tomislav Karamarko

Croatia: Bonjour Tristesse

February 9, 2013 by inavukic 29 Comments

Ethnic cleansing of Croatians of Vukovar 1991 Photo: daily.tportal.hr

What tragic consequences await the people led by governments which, in their hunger to fit into international halls of applause, look away from their people to abide to what others who are beyond borders say, rather than looking in to put their own nation first, may perhaps prove to be nothing less than what Françoise Sagan immortalised in his classic novel underpinned by lack of moral fiber that eventually destroys the main characters’ life.

One may go so far and say that governments of Croatia since Franjo Tudjman’s death (1999) have been more concerned with what “must” be done (that which foreigners want) in order to pursue membership in the European Union and what unreformed Communists cooked up in order to thwart full freedom from communist mindset, than furthering the noble cause of democracy and sovereignty for which the people had suffered terribly.

Achieving full and meaningful sovereignty in essence requires resolve and determined assertion of rights to self-determination. Croatian people had asserted the foundations for those rights through defending their life and property from Serb aggressor. But terrible wounds of war and pain remained while the governments that paraded over the people through the past two decades appear to have done very little, if anything, to heal the wounds through instilling and building pride for the cause so many had died in defending. It is more than apparent that the governments embarked on shattering rather than truly furthering the pride that sovereignty brings. This, one may safely conclude, is one of the sad consequences of the circumstances when the majority of people wanted out of Communist totalitarian system but many of its powerful leaders still remained loyal to the communist creed based on the control of the powerful and the powerlessness of people whose daily lives that creed affects.

Franjo Tudjman warned everyone of these dangers even as early as 30 May 1990, in his speech at the Inaugural assembly of the Croatian Parliament:

“… According to my personal persuasion, the first and the most important task of the new democratic government in Croatia should be the creation of all spiritual, material and legal preconditions for the sense of legal civil and national security of all its citizens, for peace and trust among them. Not only the big scriptwriters from the opposing and especially hegemonic Unitarian and dogmatic camps, but also all those people who are tied to the past and who are confused by democratic movements and traditions to which they are not accustomed, do and will do everything in order to obstruct the realization of our goals, to inhibit and compromise the introduction of the rule of law system, order, work and morality. Luckily for us, and them as well, they must quickly come to understand the general internal and international circumstances, especially the omnipresent unavoidable collapse of the real Socialist system render their scenarios as futile historic anachronisms. That, of course, does not mean that we can afford to underestimate the dangers from different forms of threats, blackmail and even provocation which come our way almost daily from anti-Croatian and anti-democratic lairs and headquarters. On the contrary, that has to motivate us even more to jointly, all of us, and each individually, do everything so that reason, freedom and progress conquer passions, the rage of darkness and backwardness...”

The former president Stjepan Mesic surfaces as the apparent and active main engineer and driver that pursued in multitudes of ways (covert and overt) in the spread of confusion about the Homeland War and the defence of Croatian right to self-determination. He opened this road of confusion and bitterness in the late 1990’s by spreading hatred and lies against Franjo Tudjman and inciting suspicion into the cause of defending Croatian independence by “announcing”, fraudulently, to the world that Tudjman really wanted part of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Croatia. Mesic had totally and intentionally omitted the fact that Croatians of Croatia, in solidarity with the threatened and attacked Croatians of Bosnia and Herzegovina did the just and universally moral and correct thing by rushing in to help those in need. Then, when he finally realized his dream and became the president of Croatia in 2000, Mesic started purging from the corridors of power the brave Croatian Generals who had dedicated their lives to the defense of Croatian self-determination in the Homeland War.

Along came multitudes of foreign and domestic demands for reconciliation between Croats and Serbs of Croatia but those demands rarely, if at all, considered the rights of Croatian people – indeed, the rights of Croatian victims, as priority, were almost ignored. The whole world seemed to buzz with criticisms regarding the slowness of reconciliation between the Croats and the Serbs; regarding the slow pace of Serbs returning to Croatia after they had fled from it in 1995. Hardly anyone mentioned the slowness of return to their homes of hundreds of thousands of Croats and Muslims who were ethnically cleansed from their homes. Hardly anyone batted an eyelid to the sad fact that more than 2000 Croatian war veterans had committed suicide from despair; hardly anyone said: hey, wait a minute, it’s all good to worry about the Serbs who fled Croatian after they’d reaped havoc and destruction there, but how about the Croats who sustained the horrid injuries and damage from that havoc and destruction! Hardly any of these foreign or domestic political power brokers said: Stop! Let’s first heal the wounds, let’s first deal firmly with all crime committed, let’s not forget the many thousands of women raped by the very Serb men who are allowed to walk the same streets as their victims – freely!

Let’s put Croatia first! No one said, but everyone should have!

That was the intention of Franjo Tudjman and the 94% of voting citizens who had elected democracy and sovereignty, self-determination, in 1990. But that intention fell into the water as power-hungry politicians paraded across Europe, to and from Croatia, neglecting severely the needs of the victims who suffered horribly in order for Croatia to realize it’s dream, its intention to set up and live democracy. Confusion about the righteousness of the pursuit of self-determination and democracy reached boiling points when the trend to equalize the aggressor with the victim began gaining ground throughout the years of Stjepan Mesic’s presidency over Croatia.

And now many are surprised why many Croatians are protesting against the introduction of Cyrillic in Vukovar area. Indeed, many outside of Croatia will say that the protests signify intolerance of Serb minority in Croatia; denial of human rights Serbs have… WRONG! Croatians have rights also and their rights as victims are a priority. There is no country in the civilized world where a government would allow the language of a murderous and raping aggressor to be used on official signage in the places where still-suffering victims walk. Only the misguided and the rotten, the morally corrupt would allow such deepening and such prolongation of torture of victims.

How can one have Serbian Cyrillic on street signs where so many rapists walk the same streets as their victims! How can one have Serbian Cyrillic on street signs where there are still over 1,700 missing people from the times of Serb aggression!

After the Vukovar protest against Cyrillic signage, the protests are spreading further and the government still doesn’t listen to the people. There is loud talk in the corridors of power proposing that Constitutional law must be applied regarding ethnic minority rights to own language on official signage but that perhaps, given the widespread protests, Cyrillic signage could be excluded from war memorials such as the Ovcara massacre one!

Can you believe this degradation of human dignity!

One simply cannot isolate grief and suffering into small pockets when it affected the whole area!

How hard can it be to realize that the controversial Constitution law was made under Stjepan Mesic’s presidency and under Ivica Racan’s government – in 2002?! Both of these men: communist die-hard, anti Croatian independence from Yugoslavia.

How hard can it be for the government to temporarily place a moratorium over the introduction of Cyrillic in Vukovar, as the parliamentary opposition led by Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ proposes! How hard can it be for the government to bring about a temporary law of inapplicability of the parts of the Constitutional law that relates to ethnic minority language on official signage, as the Croatian Party of Rights “Dr Ante Starcevic” propose! How hard can it be for the government to be effective in reviewing a Constitutional law that evidently and strongly brings unrest and upheaval among its people!

While, in regards to the protests against Cyrillic in Vukovar, President Ivo Josipovic stated a few days ago that if there is no will to respect a Constitutional law then that law must be changed. What a pity that the government appears not to have heard this statement, which was widely publicised in Croatia and beyond. But still, if he is true to his words then Josipovic could easily make a move to have the law that is causing so much unrest in Croatia, changed. There are certainly many, many ways of respecting the ethnic minorities’ rights in daily lives, without having to erect bilingual or trilingual or multilingual official signage on streets and buildings. “Western” democracies have, one can safely say, perfected this through access to interpreters, translators, translations of public service brochures into applicable ethnic minority languages, subsidising ethnic language classes, subsidising ethnically or culturally specific nursing homes or retirement complexes … and the list goes on. But signage in official spots – streets, government buildings, etc. – stay in the official language of the country.

Sadly, it would seem that the Croatian government lacks the moral fiber similar to the one, which those who have read Françoise Sagan’s novel “Bonjour Tristesse” encountered. In the case of Croatia today, of Croatia of the past two decades, that lack of moral fiber has to do with the neglect of Croatian people and the neglect in asserting and strengthening their hard-won struggle for self-determination; that lack of moral fiber has to do with psychological and political warfare against the Croatian patriots by the die-hard Communists. But, thankfully, Croatians are largely intelligent and good people and it would not surprise me if the government, by pursuing the hard rule of existing laws, without utilizing the freedom it has to change laws in order to achieve its majority people’s needs, will drive itself into political suicide. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bonjour Tristesse, Communism, Constitutional law, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian Party of Rights "Dr Ante Starcevic", Cyrillic, democracy, ethnic cleansing, ethnic minority rights, Franjo Tudjman, HDZ, Ivica Racan, Ivo Josipovic, sovereignty, Stjepan Mesic, Vukovar

Europe demands justice for victims of Communism – Croatia must follow

June 26, 2012 by inavukic 12 Comments

http://www.communistcrimes.org

Seeing crimes of communism for what they are and getting them prosecuted legally – this was the topic discussed at the conference on the legal settlement of crimes of communism at the EU parliament in Brussels, 5 June.

At the conference, Sandra Kalniete, Chairwoman, Reconcilliation of European Histories Group said:

“Today every school child knows that Nazi was an evil regime. There’s a confusion about communist crimes. We have to raise this issue and deprive it of all the ambiguity. Because if not, then these crimes will be perpetrated again and again.”

Egils Levits, Judge, European Court of Justice, said: “Victims should have experience of not only injustice, now they should experience justice and especially for this reason I think a legal settlement of communist crimes is necessary”.

At the conclusion of the conference an announcement was made that “The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is calling for the creation of a supranational judicial body for the gravest crimes committed by the Communist dictatorships.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is founding an international legal expert group to work on a road map for establishing a supranational institution of justice.

The Platform endorses the initiative of the Reconciliation of European Histories group in the European Parliament to give the national archives which harbour information on the crimes of totalitarianism a status of European importance and is calling upon institutions of the European Union and national governments worldwide to support this work”.

The moves within European Union to finally deal with communist crimes, in the way that truly and loudly counts – legally – and not just talk about them, record them or condemn them are, I believe, of crucial benefit for Croatia when it becomes a member of the EU.

Within EU, the bravest sector of Croatian establishment that has for years been obstructed, ridiculed and criticized for attempting to prosecute communist crimes, will gain allies in pursuit of justice for victims of communist crimes.

The situation in Croatia with former communists (the Social Democrats led government and the president of the Republic) is outrageous.

Even at the celebration of Croatian Statehood Day (25 June/ day of independence) this leftist lot had the nerve to lay a wreath at the grave of late Ivica Racan (Chairman League of Communists of Croatia 1989/1990; President Social Democratic Party 1990/2007) who actually protested in Croatian parliament in June 1991 against the proclamation of independence (he and his leftist colleague didn’t want Croatia to become independent but advocated for a new kind of union between seceding Yugoslav republics).

By this act they attempt to equate Racan with dr Franjo Tudjman when it comes to giving credit and worth for the achievement of Croatian independence and sovereignty.

Absolutely and alarmingly disrespectful of the achievements that must be attributed to dr Franjo Tudjman, for if things panned out the way Racan advocated we wouldn’t be celebrating the 21^st birthday of Independent Croatia – of the greatest achievement of the majority of Croatian people in history.

But that’s not all, Croatia’s former communists, while celebrating the WWII antifascists did that in the spirit of equating them with the priceless value of Croatian defenders from the Homeland War of 1991-1995; at the same time justifying murders and massacres perpetrated by the antifascists/Partisans.

This is how Croatia’s well known journalist Mario Profaca commented on Facebook on the events in Croatia on Friday 22 June 2012 – and I could not agree more:

“Not to mention by name the horrendous pit Jazovka, near Sosica on Zumberak, at which tribute and honour to the soldiers and civilians killed by the Partisans during World War II and after it dumped into the pit was bestowed with a commemorative Mass. Laying of wreaths and lighting of candles, in his speech for celebrating the public holiday Day of antifascist battle, 22 June 2012, speaking about the crimes committed also by Tito’s Partisans, Croatia’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic inaugurated a new ‘antifascist’ concept – ‘the right to revenge’.

President Ivo Josipovic (who ‘himself is a son of Partisan’) liked that, as well as Milanovic’s opportunistic meditation on how, during World War II, the ‘member countries of anti-Hitler coalition also murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, women and children, and this was justified then’.

In the live TV broadcast from Brezovica, Milanovic uttered that sentence exactly at 11.59 a.m., and at that moment the live broadcast was cut due to regular News broadcast on HTV 1 at 12.00 noon, and so we couldn’t hear whether there were more of such big thoughts from a small mind.

We also must not neglect the bad in the events of 1940’s. But Croatia was on the right side, we know that it was just to participate in antifascist battle. What Partisans were then, our war veterans from 1990’s are now’, Josipovic said with inspiration.

In accordance with Milanovic’s and Josipovic’s inspired emphases of the analogy between antifascist battle and our Homeland War some idiot from Milanovic’s government could come up with the idea of inserting ‘the right to revenge’ into the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia as a Constitutional category. Only, in that case criminal prosecutions against Croatian defenders (war veterans) would need to be stopped.

That’s why it’s understandable that Milanovic’s ‘antifascist’ Cock-a-doodle-doo coalition has not yet forwarded to the parliament its proposal for the introduction into the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia the antifascist ‘right to revenge’, and when it will – we don’t know.”

The men, women and children Tito’s antifascist regime (including Partisans) murdered during and after WWII form multitudes; the bones of most are in over 1200 mass graves. All of them – symbols of love for Croatia.

These were not random slayings.

It was genocide.

It came from the top of the communist echelon. It was systematic and planned; so planned that even decades after the war the Yugoslav secret police UDBA ravaged the Croatian diaspora, intent on murdering the strongest human links to the love for Croatia.

The time has come when strong positive and decisive actions need to be put into place in Croatia so that prosecuting and dealing with communist crimes reaches a nationally supported level – for justice for victims. I have no doubt that gladness for increased efforts in justice for the victims of the communist regime would land into overwhelmingly supportive hands of both Croatia and diaspora – just like the movement for independence and sovereignty did in late 1980’s and 1990’s. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)