Nikola Stedul – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia – Momentous Day For Victims Of Communist Crimes

August 28, 2016 by inavukic 16 Comments

From Left front: foreign and internal affairs minister Miro Kovac, minister for culture Zlatko Hasanbegovic, defence minister Josip Buljevic, minister for employment and retirement Nada Sikic
Photo: vlada.gov.hr

23 August was the Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in Europe and this August 23rd 2016 the Croatian Parliament devoted itself to this remembrance for the first time since its independence and secession from communist Yugoslavia in 1991. Minister for the culture Zlatko Hasanbegovic representing PM Tihomir Oreskovic, foreign and internal affairs minister Miro Kovac, defence minister Josip Buljevic, minister for agriculture Davor Romic, minister for social politics and youth Bernardica Juretic, minister for employment and retirement Nada Sikic, minister for science, education and sport Predrag Sustar, members of parliament, diplomatic core representatives, members of the academic community and religious and business representatives made this day a truly great one for Croatia.

This has been a truly momentous day for Croatia’s democratic government.

This is so because the former communists, who call themselves antifascists even though they hold nothing in common with world’s anti-fascism due to the multitudes of crimes committed in their communist name and regime, holding power in Croatia throughout this past quarter century have been fighting fiercely against even the notion that communism left many innocent victims behind it, let alone acknowledging the awful truth of horrendous communist crimes and purges. The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism was established by the European Parliament Declaration of 23 September 2008 while the same parliament confirmed August 23 as a Europe-wide day of remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes by its resolutions dated 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism. In 2011, Croatia’s lawmakers adopted a declaration designating 23 August as a memorial day for victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes but observance of this event, a commemoration, was never before brought into the chamber of Croatian parliament, instead gatherings occurred at the many mass grave and pits sites where remains of victims of communist crimes lay. The Croatian parliament 30 June 2006 passed a declaration on the condemnation of crimes committed during the totalitarian communist regime in Croatia 1945-1990, which states that all totalitarian communist regimes were without exception marked by mass violations of human rights.

By marking the Black Ribbon Day, Croatia joined most of the EU member states that, in accordance with a recommendation by the European parliament, advocate contemplation of delicate and complex issues from our collective past as well as its preservation so that next generations could learn from it and build coexistence based on democracy and respect for the fundamental rights.

Zeljko Reiner
Speaker – Croatian Parliament
Photo: Hina/ Tomislav Pavlek/ tp

Croatian Parliament Speaker Zeljko Reiner said on 23 August 2016 that crimes committed by Nazis, Fascists and Ustasha in WW2 had been prosecuted and punished while crimes “committed by Communists against tens of thousands Croats” had never been prosecuted nor punished.

Addressing the commemoration, Reiner further said that the Communist regime resorted to repression in an attempt to send into oblivion the existence of Croats and some Jews, Germans and members of their ethnic groups “who were killed only because they had a different opinion“. Reiner accused the Communist regime of persecuting and killing intellectuals, middle class members, clergy and nuns or the wealthy only to confiscate their property.
“In that, everything was wrapped up in a veil of silence and fear because the regime to its very end cruelly punished all who dared to speak about that… Instead of deserved punishment the criminals received medals, apartments and villas that were stolen from their victims, top positions not only in politics but also in administration, in companies, universities… Even in verbal condemnation of communist crimes we lagged by years behind other countries who previously had communism and had implemented lustration – they shone a light upon the dark era of their history and Croatia had not done that.”

Reiner went on to say that a kind of “deja vu ” of Nazi-Fascism happened in the form of spreading a Greater Serbia idea in 1990’s and the aggression against Croatia, and he called for bringing an end to manipulations with historical truths.

He called for “shedding light of the truth” on that dark side of Croatia’s recent history. “Generations brought up on untruths, on myths by which attempts are made to justify or at least minimise communist crimes and on keeping silent about the crimes have no future because, as St Paul had said a long time ago: ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness”. That’s why the European Parliament called upon all communist and post-communist parties in their member state countries, who had not already done so to review their communist history and their personal past, to clearly distance themselves from crimes perpetrated by totalitarian communist regimes and fully and clearly condemn them.”

Reiner said that the Croatian parliament expressly gives its support to democracy and all the values and human rights upon which it rests. “In doing so the Croatian parliament follows and promotes that which was expressed by the citizens of Croatia at the beginning of the last decade of the last century and for which more than 15,000 veterans had lost their lives.”

Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
with Nikola Stedul
survivor of 1988 assassination attempt in Scotland
by Yuogoslav communist secret police
Photo:Neja Markicevic/Cropix

On the same day, 23 August 2016, Croatian president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic bestowed a medal of honour “Stjepan Radic” to the former Croatian political émigré and victim of the 1988 attempted assassination in Scotland by Yugoslav Communist Secret Police UDBA Nikola Stedul for his exceptional and long-lasting fight for national and social rights and the advancement of the Croatian people. On that occasion president Kitarovic emphasised how it is time to “morally and politically condemn the Yugoslav communist regime as totalitarian and to implement judicial processes in order to determine the guilt for the worst kinds of state terror committed during those times”. I do hope that president Grabar will work harder at influencing the Croatian government and parliament into actually delivering the means by which the judicial processes she talked of will be possible and unhindered.

What a great thing it was to see that day when the Croatian Parliament consisting of many representatives that are directly associated with the past communist regime either through personal functions/job or as children or grandchildren of highly positioned communist operatives in former Yugoslavia actually got to remember the victims of communist crimes. Somehow though, the loudly calling for shedding of light upon those crimes in the Parliament, which actually is The place for the passing of laws that would enable such a lustration, does not leave one with full confidence in such a prospect of due justice. Unease niggles on. It’s election time in Croatia and former communists and pro-Communists are pushing to get elected into the new government. If they are successful, Croatia’s path to reckoning with communist crimes will once again be shoved backwards into corridors of darkness and injustice. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bernardica Juretic, Black Ribbon Day, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Davor Romic, European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, Josip Buljevic, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Miro Kovac, Nada Sikic, Nikola Stedul, Predrag Sistar, Remembrance of victims of totalitarian regimes, Zeljko Reiner, Zlatko Hasanbegovic

Purging Croatia Of Darkness Of Tito And Communism

November 4, 2015 by inavukic 31 Comments

Zagreb, Croatia 31 October 2015
President of Croatian National Ethics Tribunal
Dr Zvonimir Separovic
Opens the proceedings against communist Yugoslavia’s
Josip Broz Tito
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

It does not need to be pointed out that a country cannot step into a democratic political system from a communist dictatorship overnight, or without dedicated resources that would draw up and act on plans to help rid the country of a remnant communist mindset. It’s been over 25 years since Croatian people voted overwhelmingly in April 1990 for a multi-party parliament based on campaign for a greater sovereignty and eventual independence of Croatia from communist Yugoslavia. At the first sitting of the parliament on 30 May 1990 President Franjo Tuđman announced his manifesto for a new Constitution (ratified at the end of the year) and a multitude of political, economic, and social changes, and how best to achieve them, that would be the backbone of the independent and democratic Croatia. The war of Serb aggression quickly ensued against Croatia and did not completely end until 1998. This of course meant that much of Tudjman’s prescriptive manifesto for how best to achieve democracy and shed communism could not be implemented. And, of course, after his death in December 1999, former and die-hard communists came to government as well as the office of president and this saw a most damaging period for democracy in which de-Tudmanisation occurred based on lies and falsehoods especially regarding the Homeland War whereby victim was being equated with the aggressor; a period in which those in power sought to feed nostalgia for communist Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito even though Tito (who died in 1980) and Yugoslavia were much hated by much of the Croatian population. One could say that the powers that be in Croatia at this time after Tudjman’s death worked against the sentiments and political moral fiber of much of the Croatian population.

Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
Zagreb Croatia 31 October 2015
Judgment Day for crimes against Croatian people
perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito
and his followers
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

It goes without saying that to move truly into a democracy Croatia must confront and condemn the dark side of the communist era under Tito and his followers and this has been difficult as opposition and sabotage are very active. When faced with a government that proclaims Tito’s righteousness even though it is undeserving then a huge problem and perpetual division among people exist. But, every once in a while we come across a positive and notable step towards ridding Croatia of the dark ghost of Tito that continues stifling democratic progress in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

31 October 2015 Zagreb, Croatia
Dr Zvonimir Separovic (middle) confers
with members of Croatian National Ethical Tribunal
(dr Zdravko Tomac – left and Zvonimir Hodak – right)
regartding proceedings of the day
condemnation oif crimes of Josip Broz Tito
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

Thousands filled the Vatroslav Lisinski Conert Hall in Zagreb on Saturday 31 October 2015 to witness and be present at the posthumous judgment against Josip Broz Tito, the President, the Marshall, the Judge, the Jury and the Executioner, the Dictator of the former communist Yugoslavia delivered by the Croatian National Ethical Tribunal for his crimes against the Croatian people. As these things go in a country like Croatia where communists and former communists control the mainstream media one did not find out about this most important event via that media. Many distinguished guests, academics, former Croatian parliamentarians and government ministers spoke but perhaps at this point it is most significant to note the words of the last speaker of the day – Franc Breznik, member of parliament of Slovenia (Slovenian Democratic Party):

“Today in Croatia, with the ethical condemnation of Tito, Croatian Nurenberg occurred. After the Nuremberg trials, which commenced on 20 November 1945 began the process of De-Notification of Germany. Today’s ethical condemnation of Tito and his ideological followers will start the DE-comunisation of Croatia, Slovenia and other parts of other states that were once part of communist Yugoslavia. Now it is up to us in Slovenia to follow your example Croatia,”said the Slovenian parliamentarian, earning thunderous applause.

Thousands came to witness
the hearing of testimonies of
victims of communist crimes in Croatia
Zagreb, Croatia – 31 October 2015
Croatian National Ethical Tribunal
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

People came from all over Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and from around the world – especially representatives of the Croatian diaspora. Also present were representatives of many major veterans associations, from those who have stood in protest for veterans’ rights for almost a year now at Savska 66 in Zagreb to members of the Committee for the defense of Croatian Vukovar.

Prior to the judgment being delivered Dr Marko Veselica – a former dissident and a former political prisoner in Tito’s prisons – and Mr Nikola Stedul, who survived an assassination attempt (five bullet hits) by UDBA’s (Tito’s Communist Yugoslavia Secret Police) agent Vinko Sindicic in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1988, spoke. Then Anto Kovacevic, who spent seven years in hard-labour prison for telling a joke about Tito, also gave witness as to the criminal acts and depraved revenge Tito effectuated against all who dared think differently. Kovacevic’s clearly articulated and unequivocally adopted position that without lustration, democracy or economic recovery were not possible for Croatia was met with resounding applause. Other, speakers among many included Eva Kirchmayer Bilic, Dzemaludin Latic and Mladen Pavkovic.

Nikola Stedul
A victim of and witness to
communist crimes by
Tito and his followers
Zagreb, Croatia 31 October 2015
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

Ante Glibota, vice president of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and Literature spoke about lustration as intercession for a democratic future. For ethical condemnation criminal Tito and his ideological followers came to a large number of Slovenians, which present very strongly welcomed by long applause. Roman Ljeljak, a well-known Slovenian public advocate for the disclosure of Tito’s Partisan army’s post-WWII perpetration of genocide and war crimes and the UDBA assassinations of Croatian political emigrants in Europe, especially in Austria, spoke about the Huda pit (mass grave of innocent 2,000 Croats, 700 Slovenians and 300 German nationals) and the murder of Croatian emigrant Stjepan Crnogorac by UDBA.

Sister Bernardina Crnogorac
spoke of her brother Stjepan’s murder in 1972
and that the communists still
hold secret the place where his remains were left
after his murder in Salzburg by communist secret police
Photo: Oskar Sarunic

Dr Zvonimir Separovic, the president of the Croatian National Ethical Tribunal (and Croatian Victimology Society), then moved that the Tribunal attends to the main point on the day’s agenda.
The Croatian National Ethical Tribunal in this its Fifth Judicial sitting, deliberated in this trial against Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Communist totalitarianism on the ethical charges brought on 25 June 2015 for genocide and other serious crimes committed against Croatian people. The tribunal comprised of thefollowing members: Zvonimir Separovic – President of the Tribunal and members Nikola Debelić, Zdravko Tomac, Josip Jurcevic, Zdravko Vladanovic, Zvonimir Hodak, John Kozlic, Bozidar Alic, Ante Beljo, Nevenka Nekic and Tomislav Josic. Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav communist totalitarianism were convicted of these criminal charges by the Tribunal.

Furthermore, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic was also condemned and convicted for being Tito’s and his ideology’s follower. “ In the past year the Ethical Tribunal has delivered convictions against Ivo Josipovic, Stjepan Mesic, Vesna Pusic, Milorad Pupovac, Budimir Loncar, Vesna Terselic and now the turn has come for Zoran Milanovic,” said dr Zdravko Tomac.

“Hence, it’s by pure chance that Zoran Milanovic’s case as one of the remaining Tito’s followers has come up at this time. He is judged on two bases: as a follower, a man who even after the discovery of 1700 mass graves and Huda pits he had the audacity to repeat that Tito was the best thing that Croats ever had”. The Ethical Tribunal thus convicted Milanovic.

JUDGED AND CONDEMNED FOR COMMUNIST CRIMES
Portrait of Josip Broz Tito
President of former Communist Yugoslavia
Portrait in oil: Charles Billich

Croatian National Ethical Tribunal is a great thing that has happened to the Croatian social conscience scene since 1990 as it gathers large crowds that deal head-on with the dark past of communist crimes that must be dealt with – it is a great pity that government authorities in Croatia look past this as if it had to do with some other people not their own descendants or those victims still living. It is by no measure an easy thing to do what the Ethics Tribunal is doing for these champions of democracy are quickly and maliciously and above all undeservedly labeled by communist nostalgics as fascists or Ustase. It goes without saying that much of the opposition to the process of condemning the Yugoslav communist regime for its crimes is ingrained in the resistance for such in descendants of communists or former communists themselves. Purging itself of communist past with decisive condemnation of its crimes continues to be a most difficult task for Croatia but – not an impossible. Persistence is the key to success! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ante Beljo, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslav secret police, Croatia, Croatian National Ethics Tribunal, Croatian Victimology Society, Dr. Zvonimir Separovic, Franjo Tudjman, John Kozlic, Josip Broz Tito, Josip Jurcevic, Marko Veselica, Nevenka Nekic, Nikola Debelic, Nikola Stedul, Tomislav Josic, UDBA, Zdravko Tomac, Zdravko Vladanovic, Zoran Milanovic, Zvonimir Hodak

Spies for Tito and murderous Communist Yugoslavia infiltrated the BBC

March 30, 2012 by inavukic 7 Comments

Mitja Mersol 1974 Photo:njena.sl

According to Jack Grimston of the Sunday Times (25 March), and The Australian, newly released secret files in Slovenia (a former Yugoslav state) revealed that BBC World Service was infiltrated by a ring of informants run by the secret police of Communist Yugoslavia (UDBA).

The spies had the task of briefing Yugoslav Marshall Tito and his secret service on their Yugoslav and British colleagues and on dissident émigrés living in Britain.

One of the informants unmasked is Mitja Mersol, currently an MP in Slovenia, who worked as an announcer for the BBC World Service during 1970’s. His UDBA codename: “Linguist”

The secret files portray London as a fertile and active ground for covert cold war operations and maneuvering between Yugoslav agents and anti-Communist émigrés,

Jure Brankovic from the Slovenian Pop TV station reported on the secret papers as showing that UDBA received a stream of information from the spies at BBC from 1950’s to 1980’s.

The secret papers show that before Mersol started at the BBC in 1971, he was issued with a special camera by the UDBA to photograph documents and he was instructed in the use of a secret writing system.

“Mersol gained the confidence of colleagues and émigrés, reporting back on topics such as their anti-Communist plotting, their love lives and who was in the pay of Scotland Yard.

The Sunday Times reports that last week Mersol said that he had worked in a way that had ‘harmed no one’.

Adding, “a man does many things in his life. Every man is a judge of his own actions and I have long ago drawn a line under what happened 40 years ago. We at that time lived in a different country, with a different system and in different circumstances.”

Mersol may not have physically harmed anyone but as a spy for one of the most murderous secret services in Europe (more murderous than the Soviet bloc’s one, as claimed by Dr. John R. Schindler, author of book: “Agents Provocateurs: Terrorism, Espionage, and the Secret Struggle for Yugoslavia, 1945 – 1990” )

It stands to logic and reason that he contributed to the information needed by UDBA to plan and execute assassinations, whether her knew what UDBA was up to or not. But in any case, the fact that UDBA was on a killing spree of Croatians and other anti-Communists living abroad was public knowledge and public suspicion so it would seem highly unlikely that he himself did not know anything about UDBA’s operations.

Dr Schindler asserts that Tito was useful to the West, so UDBA crimes were mostly ignored, even when Yugoslav agents killed abroad, frequently.

The former communist regime in Yugoslavia has a terrible history of assassinations directed against its opponents. Between 1946 and 1991 the many UDBA assassinations and assassination attempts victims were mostly Croatian émigrés, although others were targeted. The attacks were usually carried out by small teams consisting of a trigger-man supported by a spotter and were always carefully planned. The attacks were often made as targets entered or left their homes since this was the point at which they were most vulnerable and where a case of mistaken identity was least likely.

The last known UDBA hit in Britain took place on 20 October 1988 when Nikola Stedul, a 51-year-old Croatian émigré, was gunned down outside his home in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. For various reasons, the attack did not go smoothly. Stedul survived it although he was severely wounded in the head. His assailant was arrested a few hours later at Heathrow airport and identified as one Vinko Sindicic—a Yugoslav known to Western intelligence services.

The entire incident demonstrated the bankruptcy of the Yugoslav system, Brian Gallagher wrote in 2003. Furthermore, the article written by Gallagher points to the fact that Sindicic made his way back to Croatia in 1998 and that charges against him for the murder of Croatian dissident Bruno Busic in Paris was thrown out in 2000 for lack of evidence.

No surprise there. In 2000, former Communists (Social Democrats) were in government and former communist Stjepan Mesic was the president. They weren’t going to bend over backwards to look for or produce evidence they may have known about as former high-ranking communists.

One can say that while many Croatian people won independence under Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) slogan “Everything for Croatia” the antifascists within it (aka communists) operated under the slogan that came very close to “Everything against Croatia”.

Who knows what new documents and evidence of such Communist crimes will also see light of day and whether they will be processed in courts as they should. Whatever comes out of these revelations one thing is for sure: another flag of truth about why Croatians had no alternative but to free themselves from the oppression and prison that was Yugoslavia for them. One can only hope that Mersol, having said that under Yugoslavia people lived under a different system and different circumstances, will take the matter further and enlighten the world some more about those circumstances. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

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