Josip Dakic – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Give Yourself A Tattoo With A Razor Blade Without Anesthetics

Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic (L)
President of Croatia
Aleksandar Vucic (R)
President of Serbia
Photo:Pixsell

Metaphorically speaking, “give yourself a tattoo with a razor blade without anesthetics” is the kind of feeling many people in Croatia are expressing as an intended impact of their president’s current invitation to Serbia’s president for a state visit.

A very significant number of Croatian people are outraged at President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s invitation to Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic for an official visit to Croatia mid-February. How Grabar Ktarovic indends to dust off the red carpet to greet Vucic in Zagreb is indeed proving to be a vexing question that goes to the core of the Croatian still largely uncompensated and unrecognised suffering at the hands of Serbia in the early 1990’s.

Serbia’s President Vucic has long, using blatant lies publicly despised, denigrated, vilified and maligned Croatia and Croatian people. Vucic, as did all Serbs who were active during the aggression, embarked on a personal mission during their aggression against Croatia in the early 1990’s to occupy and ethnically cleanse of Croats and other non-Serbs one third of Croatian territory. Croats liberated that territory but were faced with incalculable costs to Croatian lives and at enormous cost to Croatian property by the enemy’s hand. None of which damages have been reconciled to a degree that could satisfy at least a part of due justice.

At the time when Serbia holds its exhibition in UN New York building through which, using lies and half-truths, purposefully tries to show Croatia up as the worst Holocaust perpetrator in Europe the Croatian president invites its president on a visit!

The invitation at such a time may indeed prove to be a gaffe of monumental proportions by the Croatian president, whose approval ratings are already floundering.

It’s a known fact that apologetic gestures via their implications of recognition of past wrong doing contribute positively to a reconciliation process. However, there’s no sign that Vucic intends to offer any apologies with regards to the bloody, murderous aggression against Croatia in the early 1990’s in which he himself actively participated by fueling the Serbian intent to kill, plunder and rape in Croatia.

Given the public outcry and condemnation in Croatia regarding this invitation, including from some well-known intellectuals and politicians, the only way this meeting could end “well” is that Croatia’s president takes Serbia’s president to one of the monuments dedicated to victims of Serbia’s aggression; such as the one in Vukovar, in Skabrnje, in Tovarnik … to mention but a very few.

Anything less certainly appears as a betrayal of Croatian trust and interests that is almost treasonous in its own right; for untold number of unresolved Serb perpetrated crimes during their aggression against Croatia and untold Serb pursuits to vilify Croatians on a world stage even to this day draw one to such a conclusion.

Negotiating successfully with the enemy, an unrepentant one such as Serbia, on points that are outstanding as a matter of reconciliation would indeed be a political art of high-ranking. In essence, Vucic has taken, for the moment at least, the no-concessions view to ongoing requests from Croatia for the location of the many hundreds of Croat victims still recorded as missing from the Homeland War, Vucic continues equating the aggressor with the victim, he continues usurping politically superior rights over the Serb minority of Croatia even if they are Croatian citizens bound to Croatian laws thus maintaining Serb-imperialism over Croatia…

He said a couple of days ago that he “will seek the assistance of authorities in reviving Serb villages and speak of what Serbia can do for their Croatian minority.” The fact that Serb minority has three seats in the Croatian parliament whose line of representation and the fact that Croatian state budget channels significant funds in support of its ethnic minorities doesn’t appear praiseworthy to Vucic – he intends meddling in Croatia’s affairs over its own population, he continues denigrating Croatia in business that is not his!

Milijan Brkic
HDZ Member of Croatian Parliament
and Deputy Speaker
Photo:MP

One must wonder why deputy Speaker of Croatian Parliament (HDZ), Milijan Brkic, stated on Friday 2 February 2018 that he supports President Grabar-Kitarivic’s invitation to President Vucic because “Serbia is our friendly and neighbouring country. Mr Vucic has had in his history some derailment from the path, he wandered a bit, but its time we all take our foot off the ball, all together and that we stop concerning ourselves with the past.”

The problem with this is that Serbia has clearly shown via its UN exhibition last week that it is still no friend to Croatia. And that is only a small part of its unfriendly and aggressive activities against Croatia and its people. People are neither fools nor blind and to call an active enemy a friend is insulting to human intellect.

The situation on the ground regarding President Grabar Kitarovic’s invitation to President Vucic is that a significant number of people within the HDZ ruling party do not support it and the same goes for the opposition. Besides the sentiment expressed by Milijan Brkic the following exemplify the ones that are opposite to Brkic’s or deal with outstanding issues Serbia is expected to deliver:

Stevo Culej (L), HDZ Member of Parliament
Zeljko Glasnovic (R), Independents Member of Parliament
Photo: Screenshot

Stevo Culej (HDZ Member of Parliament) said: “75 Croatian citizens were killed in Tovarnik and no one has been made duly responsible for these killing nor have the remains of the killed been found yet, and I expect, if Serbia’s president comes to Croatia to try in his Serbia find information for at least one person still missing killed in Tovarnik and bring that information to Croatia with him…”

Josip Dakic (HDZ Member of Parliament) said: “as you know, I would rather he is in Remetinec (prison in Zagreb) than on a visit to Croatia…”

Zeljko Glasnovic (Independts Member of Parliament) said: “we have $34 billion war damage, and what’s with the raped, with the murdered, what’s the damage to the victims … since 1945 Germans paid $89 billion in damages to the victims of Nazism, what have Serbs the Greater Serbia imperialists done? I mentioned it before the youngest victim murdered in Croatia was 6 months old and the eldest 104 years old, the youngest rape victim was 5-year-old girl and the eldest 80 … who will pay for these people’s destroyed lives, families etc…”

Another concerning thing is for certain and that is that by inviting Serbia’s president to visit Croatia at this particular time when Serbia’s international propaganda activities based on lies are particularly viciously geared against Croatia President Grabar Kitarovic has served an unpleasant and disquieting surprise to her people. The surprise whose goals and reasons that justify this timing are completely obscure to the masses and politicians as well as the government itself. How is that for preparing the terrain for a visit Grabar Kitarovic claims is good for Croatia when its people are vulnerable still from the ravages and devastation of Serb aggression and are deeply insulted by Serbia’s recent UN exhibition? Grabar Kitarovic would presumably have had a more accommodating public reception to her invite had she clearly stated to the people at least some of the important points on her meeting agenda – which coincide with people expectations – with Serbia’s president on Croatian soil. Ina Vukic

A Croatian Misery: War Veterans Denied Request To Address The Parliament

Front: Djuro Glogoski, invalid war veteran
one of the leaders of
Croatian War Veterans Protest
Photo: Screenshot hrt.hr news 29 January 2015

It’s been over three months of continued protest by Croatian war veterans in which they are camped out in front of the War Veterans Ministry building in Savska street, Zagreb, seeking among other things better treatment for war veterans, especially for the disabled veterans, a legislative protection of veterans’ rights, a move to remove veterans’ rights from the country’s “social welfare” laws and returning the same into laws and regulations that deal exclusively with veterans’ rights, a cessation of current government’s attempts to equate the victim with the aggressor, as well as resignation of War Veterans Minister Predrag Matic and two of his close advisors.

These men and women who protest in the Savska street tent were the warriors who stood up for freedom when, after the 1991 plebiscite 94% of Croatian voted elected to secede from communist Yugoslavia, many rebel Croatian Serbs and Serbia waged brutal was of aggression on Croatia’s sovereign territory.

These protesting men and women are among those who make up the very heart of independent Croatia today. And that is why they are gaining widespread support of Croatian people as well as veterans’ associations and many politicians.

On Thursday 29 January 2015 representatives of protesting war-invalids veterans walked out of parliament shouting “Shame on you” after the Speaker Josip Leko, citing Standing Orders, refused to allow them to address the parliament. Parliament was to have discussed reports on the implementation of the law dealing with veterans’ rights, the rights of their families and the operations of the Fund for veterans and their families. Josip Dakic, HDZ member of parliament asked that the veterans be given ten minutes to address the floor but this was denied.

The war veterans wanted to have a say before the members of parliament on matters that affect their lives and welfare directly, and which matters are closely associated with the parliament’s agenda of the day! The Speaker refused to allow them to speak!

How awful and disgraceful!

The opposition parties, HDZ and HDSSB, requested a break after Leko turned down their request that veterans’ representative Djuro Glogoski address MPs before the reports were submitted.
Speaking after the break, Ivan Suker of the HDZ said Glogoski should have been allowed to take the floor “so that you can see that they are not protesting for material rights, greater rights, but for dignity and respect for those who defended their country with bare hands.”
Suker accused the ruling coalition of lack of sensitivity. He said veterans “put parts of their bodies into the foundations of the Croatian state and are asking that what they did doesn’t get forgotten.”
Speaker Josip Leko insisted, in cold blood: “I’m in charge of protecting procedure and this is a guarantee that parliament acts on democratic foundations, and some Standing Orders provisions concern the Constitution. Who can speak in parliament is part of the democratic procedure. I don’t intend to bargain with love for veterans and the Homeland War by arbitrarily running the session.”
A standard should be established beforehand, Leko said. “Otherwise we will turn into a debate club and I want no part in that,” he said.

The déjà vu here from the communist Yugoslavia times is astounding! Indeed, shame on Leko and shame on the Croatian parliament!

The Croatian parliament’s rules of procedure, in Article 224, for example, says that the Speaker suggests the agenda for the sitting/meeting, in writing… that the Speaker can during the parliamentary sitting change the Agenda in a way whereby he/she will take out certain items or add new items to the Agenda if at least 1/3 of representative request the change in writing…And since the Speaker Leko waved the connection of Standing Orders with the Constitution it’s shameful and alarming that he did not, after refusing the war veterans to speak to the parliament on Thursday (because of allegedly not fitting into the Agenda or Standing Orders), mention the constitutional provision for the parliament to call an emergency session on this issue which has been crippling Croatia for months!

Also, the opposition parties HDZ, HDSSB … should “put their money where their mouth is” and instead of just commenting on and criticising the move by the Speaker to deny the war veterans’ speaking to the parliament, start and finish the formal process of seeking an emergency session of parliament which would give the war veterans the floor for the day and in relation to the law that directly affects their welfare.

Speaking to the press afterwards, Glogoski voiced his bitterness, saying everyone could be discussed in parliament except war veterans. He rejected the Standing Orders interpretation of who was allowed to take the floor and said Leko disappointed him. “Anyone can address parliament if the speaker and the parliamentary groups agree on it,” he said. “This incident convinces that, after all, the Croatian parliament if not a home of all Croats and that only certain people can speak in it, those elected by the people but not those who are most deserving for the creation of the Croatian homeland,” Glogoski continued.

One cannot but shudder from horror at what ensued after the above incident in the Croatian parliament: word spread that the police were planning to swoop down on the war veterans tents on Savska street in Zagreb and forcefully bring the protest there to an end. While the war veterans minister Predrag Matic denied any knowledge of this, or that it had substance, he stated: “The only thing I can confirm, and I hope you’ll understand that I am ironic, is that we have 100 or 200 special police force members, armed to their teeth, staying in the cellar of the ministry building and all are of Serbian nationality…”. This statement is no irony; it’s a direct attack on and intimidation of war veterans who defended Croatia against Serb aggression and an attempt to continue vilifying the justness of Croatian War of Independence. It’s a direct vilification of Croatian war veterans for not in one single moment during the 106 day protest have any of them said anything against Serb nationals; one does not expect much better from a minister who obviously draws his strength from the former communist regime but one does expect the people in a democracy to do their best and hardest to rid Croatia of such political garbage.
The man, Predrag Matic, has no place being a minister for veterans’ affairs and this latest statement of his adds to the justification of the protesting veterans’ plight. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)