Croatia: Nationalist Or Sovereignist Vote?

Consolidation of the nation-state, not sovereign-state, is and should be at the very heart for progress in Croatia. Hence, at this time of political polarisation occurring around focus words for elections as prelude to imminent European Parliament elections in late May of this year (and general elections next year), the Independents for Croatia (Neovisni za Hrvatsku) got it right and Croatian Sovereignists (Hrvatski suverenisti) haven’t! The president of the Independents for Croatia, Bruna Esih, describes her party and its endeavours as “nationalistic”! That seems to set the mood and direction this party is taking: Croatian people!

The distinction between “Croatian sovereign-state” and “Croatian nation-state” is vast and it is hoped that voters in Croatia will recognise this.

The media hyped-up notion of “need to” unify, for the sake of unity alone, behind the political group “Croatian Sovereignists” has created a sense of disloyalty to Croatia if one doesn’t unite behind them! This group frequently mentions Croatian unity as the only socio-political value that would save Croatia! Consequently, many voters seem to be placed in an uncomfortable position when it comes to deciding whom to vote for. This is evidenced by many mainstream and independent media outputs as well as lamentations about some lack of unity one comes across in social media posts.

“Unity” is the new buzzword some politicians use to claim now is the time for all patriotic right-leaning political parties, citizens’ initiatives, individuals… to come together and heal the divides, which, according to them, even if the flesh of such divisions is not firmly defined, are to blame for everything that is going wrong and has gone wrong in Croatia in the past two decades. You know, unity sounds wonderful, especially in the midst of European Parliament, parliamentary or presidential election seasons in Croatia. If unity they talk of were to be achieved then one concludes that families would no longer be feuding about which individual politician each member will vote for, individuals do not need to choose between two, three…or more election candidates they like (equally?), and Facebook could return to being a place where we primarily share photos of our children, pets and meals.

Unity would be a welcome respite for those who are exhausted from the years of hard battles over decommunisation, engaging and including Croats living outside of Croatia in meaningful and impactful investment programs, Croatian citizenship process woes, brain drain or mass emigration, voting rights and justice issues, to name just a few of the concrete problems Croatia is grappling with.

Readers, beware!

Beware the sweet lull of that siren song calling for “unity” and for patriots to “come together”. It appears as the latest incarnation of the call for “civility,” and is just as dangerous. Unity for its own sake cannot be the goal for Croatia or anybody else. It serves well those holding power that thrive on the shrapnel that disperses itself across the community, causing mayhem and confusion. Sovereignty on its own cannot be the goal for Croatia as it has already been achieved in the strictest sense of the word and concept. The Homeland War and its defenders (veterans) had achieved the goal of a sovereign state of Croatia through blood, sweat and tears!

The goal Croatia had set itself (in its Constitution) prior to the escalation of Serb-aggression and Homeland War was to be “a state of Croatian people…” (giving acknowledgement to other national minorities). It is this goal that has not been achieved and the repetitive, ongoing devaluation and marginalisation of Croatia’s Homeland War as The foundation of the Croatian sovereign state serves as evidence of that fact.

Candidates or parties who run on their own platforms for the advancement of Croatian nation-state (as opposed to sovereignist state), who are either jointly or individually at the forefront of fighting for a vigorous justice system overhaul to reflect its independence from any former or current political baggage that breeds corruption, expanding access to Croatians living outside Croatia to the Croatian economic and political life, protecting Croatian voting rights across the globe, to just name a few, are suddenly painted as fringe or extreme in parts of the Croatian community at large.

Never mind the fact that these issues brought forward by those who have not succumbed to the latest political fad of “union of sovereignists”, such as the Independents for Croatia party (Neovisni za Hrvatsku), are not political, but moral. For, morality guides legislature! There is a moral obligation of all Croatians to ensure that in all its social and political layers Croatia develops into that which is bestowed upon it by its very Constitution: first and foremost “a state of the Croatian people…”. Once this is asserted (having in mind that the national minorities also mentioned in the Constitution as belonging to the state of Croatia) then Croatia is likely to shape up as intended: into a functional democratic state.

So, it appears obvious that the call for unity is really just a call to stop rocking the centrist boat; the boat of those whose allegiances appear to be distancing them away from the Croatian nation as a formidable factor and concept in local and world affairs.

Nation and nationalism – the former, a form of society, the latter, an ideology – are two complementary social realities that emerged from the capitalist revolution. Nationalists generally look for their national roots in bygone times, but today there is near-consensus among scholars to the effect that the nations and national revolutions that led to the formation of the nation-states are a modern phenomenon. And Croatians must not shy away from that, even when branded as ultra-nationalists!

No doubt in my mind – asserting a Croatian nation-state will reset Croatia to its intended moral values based on democracy, justice and freedom for Croatian people to carve their own destiny and role within the international community – and cement The Homeland War as the state’s foundation stone.

Nationalism remains essential as economic competition between nations becomes increasingly stiff the more the markets open to it – it is therefore a nationalism expressed through a national development strategy or national competition strategy: a conjunct of institutions, policies, agreements and practices that create investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and unify the nation. It is through nationalism that a society seals its identity and sets its goals. Nationalism is just this self-reflection, or, an authentic consciousness of the national reality. Nationalism is how a nation sees itself reflected in two fundamental objectives: economic autonomy and development.

The first nation-state in history was England, and it is no accident that Henry VIII was the pioneer in the practice by founding the Anglican Church!

There is a relationship of mutual reinforcement among the nation, State and nation-state: the first being a form of society; the second, its main institution; and the third, the politico-territorial unit proper to economic development and living standards. Territorial nationalism, the cause of many conflicts throughout history, is still alive and well (Serb aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are one proof of that) but this is not the nationalism Bruna Esih is talking about. What one reads in those Esih words is the need to assert the Croatian nation-state, which is regretfully still in an arrested state of development. And politically placed siren calls for undefined “unity” being heard these days do no justice nor favour to asserting that Croatian state Croatia’s own Constitution speaks about.

The Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), headed by Karlo Starcevic, appear to have recognised this siren call of “unity” from the so-called sovereingnist camp for the buzzword it appears to stand for, and have joined forces with the Independents for Croatia European Parliament election list; where also the Croatian Parliament Independent Member for the Croatian Diaspora, general Zeljko Glasnovic, stands.

Article 9. of the Constitution of the Independents for Croatia party says that it is “a political party that represents and promotes Croatian national interests, the quintessence and identity of the Croatian people, its committal and the historical heritage, in particular the values of the Homeland War and the right of the Croatian people to a free and independent state.”

That is the nationalistic line Croatian voters should take on board and rally behind and vote for! Nationalism – also referred to as patriotism – fortifies and accentuates sovereignty. It does not happen the other way around.

So far, it’s been a tough-fought campaign, and it has only just started, with lots of strong candidates and piles of good ideas as well as self-serving rhetoric. But I think I’ve made my decision. I’m supporting the candidates who clearly stand behind a Croatian nation-state, and there are quite a few that stand out from various parties and groupings. Political parties’ “unity” has become an empty buzzword. It assumes unity for Croatia but does not define the essential tasks this union would work on for Croatia as a nation. Frankly, given the constraints for it we have been dealt lately, I’ve got “unity” fatigue. Ina Vukic

Psychological Operations And Information Warfare Against Croatia and Croats – Part V

Click on Banner image to enlarge

Click on Banner image to enlarge

Guest Post
By Ante Horvat

The former Yugoslav regime elements and their children spearheaded subversive activities against the facts, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Croats from the 1990s, through to today.

While overtly Yugoslav nationalist in their rhetoric, still to today expending taxpayer resources celebrating the Communist “liberation” and 1945 Partisan (private property) “liberators” of Croatia, they were the first to declare any opponents of their sham anti-war agenda as “nationalist,” “primitive nationalists,” etc. – blaming “nationalists” on “both sides” for the war, and not the marriage of greater Serbian fascism and retrograde Yugoslav Communist Titoism and the detailed Serbian General Officers plan for aggression, beginning with the reorganization of Territorial Defense in the mid 1980s, through to the ‘Yogurt Revolution,’ trampling of the SFRY Constitution, quasi-legal attempt at Kosovizing Croatia and the rest of then Yugoslavia, and of course the Rampart (RAM) Plan, with the explicit order to target civilians to demoralize ‘enemies,’ and overtly stated goal of creating a Greater Serbia at the expense of most of Croatia and the whole of B&H, with access to Croatia’s coastline.

Among the more vocal propagandists in the front of the charge was none other than Croatia’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, and unofficial Shadow Foreign Minister of Serbia, Vesna Pusic, sister of UJDI (Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative) co-founder and current GOLJP head (Citizens Committee for Human Rights), Zoran Pusic.

Vesna Pusic helped form Erasmus Gilda in 1993, a declaratively pro-European organization, along with Slavko Goldstein, and other post-1990 self-styled “human rights” activists (the systematic violations of human rights before 1990 was apparently not a problem to them as they were silent and remain silent about them) and disinformation luminaries who all just happened to be against Yugoslavia joining the European Community prior to the first free elections in 1990, because the EC was a free market economy.

Along with the previously mentioned outlets like Arkazin, Feral Tribune and others regurgitating Belgrade’s propaganda on a weekly basis, Erasmus gatherings, published articles and their eventual failed magazine that generous USAID funds could not save, touted the line and gave the anti-fact agenda political legitimacy as they included many academics who rose to prominence within Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Here was yet another case of foreign aid subsidizing another controlled opposition – who foreign governments would openly put into power in 2000, and again in 2011.

The main propaganda agendas of these foreign-subsidized controlled opposition fronts, and foreign-financed controlled opposition political actors, as well as Belgrade’s propaganda, was during the war and remains the following, in no particular order:

  •  Push the “all sides are guilty” and “civil war” lie to spin Serbia’s aggression and the moral responsibility of the Western powers that overtly and tacitly supported Serbia’s aggression diplomatically and through domestic media filters and planted stories;
  • Equate Croatia’s defensive war effort with Serbia’s offensive aggression;
  • Equate Croatia’s defense of B&H in 1992 and the HVO’s defense of B&H Croats in the face of Serbian and later Muslim aggression with Serbia’s aggression against Croatia;
  • Push the Karadjordjevo fable and “Tudman divided B&H” myth;
  • Criminalize any and all symbols of Croatian statehood (the Kuna currency, Croatia’s Grb, etc.) by tying them to the Independent State of Croatia (WWII NDH);
  • Look for “Ustashe,” if you can’t find them, make them up;
  • Blow any Croatian backlash or isolated criminal act during wartime out of proportion and tie it to the highest levels of power while entirely ignoring the top-down, bottom-up systematic war crimes by the YPA/Yugoslav Peoples Army and VRSK/Army of Serbian Republic of Krajina (see the Zec family politicization since 1991, with the recent street naming ruse);
  • Lobby for “Krajina” political legitimacy at Western embassies and in Western capitals while domestically attack the government for being weak for not defeating “Krajina” while simultaneously claiming the “Krajina” is too strong to fall and Serbia will get involved if Croatia operationally engages it, implication being that it is better to leave it alone and recognize it;
  • Criminalize the Homeland War, all Generals, and all Veterans, with phrases like “turbo-Generals,” “Oluja/Storm was ethnic cleansing, “fake veterans,” “drunk veterans,” “gambling veterans,” etc. – anything to do with the Homeland War, the men who led it or the men who fought in it must be all negative, all the time with qualifiers regarding “our crimes” at any opportunity, all under the banner of “de-Tudmanization”;
  • Sack competent wartime and intelligence commanders whenever possible;
  • Legitimize ICTY political prosecutions and show trials of Croats from Croatia and B&H and applaud all politically-charged, logical acrobatic convictions based off of cherry-picked misquotes out of context, evidence suppression, and constructing events entirely out of chronological order;
  • Stay silent on Momcilo Perisic, Franko Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic’s acquittals, as well as no ICTY convictions of any Army of B&H commanders for the systematic war crimes and gunpoint ethnic cleansing of Croats in Central Bosnia and North Herzegovina between October 1992 and the1994 Split Agreement;
  • Paint Franjo Tudjman as a warmonger and authoritarian; compare to Ante Pavelic and Adolf Hitler when possible;
  • Push anything and everything Serbian in social and cultural spheres, no matter how low-brow (Baja Mali Knindza, Ceca, Cajke, how to be a Sponzorusa program on RTL, etc.);
  • Rehabilitate the cult of Tito and Communist Partisan “liberation” and infallibility myth at every corner, with if not daily then weekly stories referencing the “glories” of Tito and the Partisans, and make sure to have a weekly Yugonostalgia session on HRT by airing second rate, low-budget Yugoslav Communist political cinema;
  • Continually push WWII debates as if it was ongoing to cover up for failed policies and collapsing economy and no actual long-term political or economic strategy;
  • Frame all political and economic discourse about independent Croatia, especially the Homeland War, in a negative context while simultaneously framing any discussions about Tito’s Yugoslavia in a positive, at a minimum, neutral context;
  • Demand Croatia “come to terms with its crimes” of the 1990s while savagely denouncing any suggestion of the same in regards to the Communists’ crimes during and after WWII, or that the Serbian community in Croatia do the same in regards to both the 1990s, WWII, and the first Yugoslavia;
  • Ridicule the very idea of lustration laws being passed; label it “nationalist” to nip it in the bud;
  • Do everything possible to drive a wedge between Croatia’s diaspora and the Homeland;
  • Demand that Croatia abide by every single UN, EU, or ICTY demand, no matter how idiotic or how much of a double-standard, especially when they negatively affect Croatia’s sovereignty, national interests, and national security while simultaneously using all means available in defending the CCP (KPH/Communist Party of Croatia) and UDBa Octopus (Yugoslav Secret Police) at the expense of diplomatic relations with Germany and the EU;
  • Criminalize the very thought of Herceg Bosna or any Croatian legal or political equality, economic freedom, local self rule, or even following the Dayton Agreement as was agreed upon, and always support Sarajevo’s line, or remain silent on the burning Croat question;
  • Push a pro-London, anti-Berlin and anti-Vienna policy – sign a strategic partnership with the one state that comes in second to Serbia only in terms of damaging Croatia politically and diplomatically (UK) once foreign subsidies and foreign subsidized (and facilitated in foreign media) propaganda bring you to power;
  • Ignore Central Europe, never speak of the Visegrad Four (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), and speak only of the “region” to Croatia’s south, not to its north, northeast or west – never even entertain the idea of making the Visegrad Four the Visegrad five, and never demand Serbia meet the same criteria and extra criteria Croatia had to fulfill for EU entry;
  • Accept money from anyone, including those “capitalist pig” governments who were supposed to submit to the superiority of Yugoslav Socialist Self-Management;
  • Denounce, decry and try to legally bar the right of Croatia’s Diaspora and Croats in Herceg Bosna to vote while not demanding the same for Croatian citizens of Serbian origin in RS (Serbian Republic) and Serbia, who do not pay Croatian taxes – organize bus transport for them to vote in Croatia;
  • Thwart any meaningful investment with bizarre regulations, a monstrous tax code, bureaucracy, and torpedo any business investment, including sweet-heart deals, at the strategic and state level through incompetence if they conflict with Anglo-American business or geopolitical interests (see the Qatar debacle).
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About the author: Ante Horvat was born in the USA in 1970′s. He has recently moved to live permanently in Croatia and although spending most of his life in the USA he had made several temporary residence visits to Croatia during that time. His education and professional development in history and international relations also spans across the two continents. He is an active observer of and participant in the development of democracy in Croatia since the early 1990’s and its correlation with the developed Western democracies.

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Part VI – The next installment will look the new and subtle English-language information warfare against Croatia, subsidized by allies no less.

 

 

Related Posts:

PART IV:  http://inavukic.com/2014/04/08/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-iv/
PART III: http://inavukic.com/2014/04/05/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-iii/
PART II: http://inavukic.com/2014/04/02/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-ii/
PART I: http://inavukic.com/2014/03/30/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-i/

Croatia: Boundless Is Love For My Country – The Life And Death Of Zvonko Busic

Zvonko and Julienne Busic Photo: croatia.org

Zvonko and Julienne Busic
Photo: croatia.org

People who have not personally experienced the blighting devastation oppression of totalitarian regimes cause to human lives may find it difficult to understand acts of extreme determination by individuals in efforts to right the terrible wrongs impaled by such regimes. By large numbers, Croatian émigrés, who or whose family fled the communist regime of former Yugoslavia, with which they did not agree, understand only too well the personal sacrifices individuals make in their efforts to keep the hope of freedom and self-determination alive – to help make the hope into reality.

Love for ones country is sublime, but also like a painful disease that grows ever so insufferable as oppression flourishes, and must find a release.

So please, don’t call it nationalism – call it patriotism.  But whatever you call it, examine your soul and see how much love for your country you hold in your chest – you will find that whatever you call this love, it is a great love; it is the place from whence the word “home” arose; it is a place where you are safe and you are – you.

Even though communism in former Yugoslavia had flourished for decades after WWII – much due to “western” admiration of Tito who stood against Stalin in late 1940’s, I dare say – 1970’s was still the time when the oppressive communist state regime of former Yugoslavia engaged in war against Croatian nationals at home and those living abroad. The regime was determined to obliterate Croatian national pride, even if it did pretend to offer crumbs of “ freedom” along the way – e.g. abolishing the mandatory Serbo-Croatian language in official use during 1970’s and introducing Croatian or Serbian languages to be used as one pleased, one or the other.

And now I come to the reason for this post. Zvonko Busic, a Croatian emigrant whose boundless love for Croatian freedom and freedom from oppression has earned him both fame and infamy on an international scale.

Zvonko Busic used fake explosives in 1976 to hijack a TWA plane out of La Guardia Airport, New York, and planted a bomb beneath the Grand Central Terminal in New York which, upon efforts to detonate it at a bomb disposal polygon well away from where it was left a police officer was killed. Hijackings for political reasons were quite common during 1960’s and 1970’s – especially when such drastic and desperate measures had the aim of exposing brutality and oppression by a state, a government …
Zvonko Busic, who was 30 at the time and living in Manhattan, said at the time he wanted to draw attention to Croatia’s struggle for independence from Tito’s Yugoslavia.
He and his American wife Julienne Eden Schultz, as well as three Croatian men (Frane Pesut, Petar Matanic and Mark Vlasic) who had also been living in the USA, boarded the flight on the evening of Friday, Sept. 10. The plane, a Boeing 727, was carrying more than 80 passengers and crew members bound for Chicago.
Today, The New York Times writes:

During the flight Zvonko Busic handed a note to a flight attendant, who delivered it to the pilot. The note said that he and his co-conspirators had five bombs on board and were commandeering the plane, and that another had been planted in a subway station locker under Grand Central. Implicit in the note was that they would detonate the devices if their demands were not met.
The hijackers demanded that a declaration of Croatian independence be published in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The International Herald Tribune in Paris, the next morning. They also demanded that authorities drop leaflets printed with the declaration over London, Paris, Montreal, Chicago and New York.
Their demands were largely met: all the newspapers except The Herald Tribune printed the declaration, and leaflets fluttered over all five cities, some from an escort plane, some from helicopters.
But what the hijackers had displayed as one of their bombs was actually a metal pot with wires and clay cobbled together to look like the real thing. The hijackers had smuggled the components through security and assembled them on board. Only the one below Grand Central was real, as the New York City police discovered after being directed there while the hijacking was in progress.
In his note, Mr. Busic explained where the bomb was hidden and how to remove it safely. He never intended to detonate it, he said later; it was a ruse, to convince the authorities that he had real bombs on the plane.
The police officers took the device to a bomb squad demolition range in the Bronx. There, as officers tried to defuse the bomb, it detonated, killing Officer Brian J. Murray, partly blinding Sgt. Terrence McTigue and wounding Officer Hank Dworkin and Deputy Inspector Fritz O. Behr.
Meanwhile, the plane was heading for Europe under the escort of a Boeing 707, making four stops to refuel; the 727 was not designed for trans-Atlantic flight. In one stop, in Gander, Newfoundland, 35 hostages were released.
The French government allowed the plane to land in Paris when it became clear that it was low on fuel. Surrounding it at Charles de Gaulle airport, the French police shot out its wheels during a 12-hour standoff that ended with the hijackers’ surrender at 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 12.
None of the hostages were harmed.
“I wish them well,” one passenger, Warren Benson, told The New York Times. “They had nothing against us, but wanted only to get a story across. They were concerned for our welfare, and we were treated well during most of it.”
Returned to New York, the hijackers were charged with air piracy resulting in a death and conspiracy. Croatian partisans helped pay for their defense, and the defendants had $4,000 converted into a trust fund for Officer Murray’s two young children. The officer’s widow, Kathleen Murray, later said she regretted accepting it.
All five were convicted in 1977. Mr. Busic and his wife received mandatory life sentences, while the others — Frane Pesut, Petar Matanic and Mark Vlasic — received 30-year sentences”.

Julienne  Eden Busic was released on parole in 1989 after serving thirteen years in the minimum security Federal Correctional Institution at Pleasanton, California. She remained dedicated to her husband Zvonko Busic and their deep and purest love for each other as well as for Croatia. She initiated and maintained contact with police officer Brian Murray’s widow Kathleen for a number of years afterwards.  Julienne also wrote a bestselling account of the plane hijacking and political activism for Croatian independence at the time in her book “LOVERS AND MADMEN: A TRUE STORY OF PASSION, POLITICS, AND AIR PIRACY

Finally, after serving 32 years of prison of his life sentence in USA Zvonko Busic was released on parole in 2008 and, with is wife Julienne, made his way back to his beloved Croatia – the Croatia – the free and democratic Croatia – he dreamed about but for which he committed unthinkable and desperate acts of air piracy and planting a bomb with which it’s said there was no intention of hurting anyone.

When in 1977 the US court pronounced his criminal conviction he said to the court: “I did not do this act out of adventuristic or terroristic impulses, it was simply the scream of a disenfranchised and persecuted man.”

Last Sunday, 1st September 2013, Zvonko Busic was found dead by his wife Julienne. He had taken his own life with a gun. He was 67 years old and evidently crushed by the current caustic political state of the very beloved independent Croatia he fought so hard for.
According to Croatian news Zvonko left two farewell letters. To his wife Julienne, to his family and friends as well as to Croatians in which he asks for forgiveness for taking his own life, but he could endure no more.  He beseeches Croats to continue fighting for Croatianess and for Croatia. In one paragraph of his letter to his wife Julienne he wrote that he could live no longer in Plato’s cave. That’s a picture that tells us how Zvonko may have been experiencing today’s circumstances and how there is a large difference between the picture of Croatia he carried with him, and because of which he faced a tragic life, and the circumstances in which he found himself in.

On Wednesday 4 September 2013, in Zagreb, prominent Croatian politicians joined thousands of others in giving him a hero’s funeral.  For, despite the terrible acts of air piracy and planting a bomb – which cannot easily, if at all, be justified, his selfless sacrifice for Croatian independence, freedom and democracy is the marrow of which heroes are made. Personal, willingly, and beyond any call of duty bar duty to ones own convictions for freedom.

Many in Croatia (including many government agents – whose political predecessors by the way were the communists Zvonko Busic acted against) only see the acts of terrorism he had committed, viz. hijacking a plane and leaving a bomb.  And when writing about Zvonko Busic this matter cannot be ignored. I dare say, even if I did not know Zvonko Busic personally, he too would not want it ignored for it had seized most of his life on this earth.

Those who only see these acts of terrorism in the full context they arose from they also do not bother to understand them. One does not need to condone while understanding, but understanding certainly brings things into perspective (especially in case of Croatia when we know that in 1990 the overwhelming majority voted to secede from communist Yugoslavia).

And so, whether or not certain acts are terrorism is, I believe, very much dependent on the observer’s political/moral bias. However, while expounding no moral judgment whatsoever, let’s remind ourselves here of some instances where (by definition) terrorism was used and brought about a greater good for the society.
• The American Revolution – prior and during the War the colonists used terrorist tactics to incite fear into British tax collectors, British loyalists, and those who weren’t on the side of their revolution.
• The struggles of the Maoists in Tibet; using tactics that the West have labelled “terrorism” against an oppressive monarch.
• The French Revolution has often been cited as being plagued with terrorism yet brought about the end to absolute monarchy in France (until Napoleon).
• Examples throughout history where individuals who acted against an oppressive government and were then, even if only for a while, labelled terrorists – and are heroes of today – Nelson Mandela comes to mind and there are many…
Were the individuals who participated in these events “terrorists?” This is a highly debatable issue, for the apparent success rate of these movements is apparent in history today.

Zvonko Busic was buried in Zagreb’s Mirogoj cemetery; his grave is next to Bruno Busic’s – the Croatian political dissident, fighter for freedom from communist Yugoslavia who was slain in Paris in 1978 by agents of Yugoslav secret police UDBA. Bruno Busic’s mission in life was to “fight for freedom, equality and the formation of a free Croatia based on democratic principles”. Same as Zvonko Busic’s. On the other side of Zvonko Busic’s grave is the grave of Gojko Susak. Gojko Susak returned to Croatia from Canada to join Franjo Tudjman’s political initiative in late 1980’s for a free, independent and democratic Croatia; he was Croatia’s wartime minister of defence and died in 1998.

These three graves in Croatia’s capital Zagreb are a proud reminder of the Croatian diaspora, that second Croatia which, I freely say, will never rest until the last breaths of communism and oppression are extinguished in Croatia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Zvonko Busic laid to eternal rest at Mirogoj, Zagreb, Croatia 4 September 2013  Photo: Dnevno,hr

Zvonko Busic laid to eternal rest at Mirogoj, Zagreb, Croatia
4 September 2013 Photo: Dnevno,hr

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