revisionism – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: The Real Jasenovac

July 16, 2022 by inavukic 9 Comments

The need to resist falsifications of history in historical science of former Yugoslavia should and must be recognised by the Croatian government as a national problem and priority. The Croatian governments since year 2000 have failed consistently and, evidently purposefully, to recognise publicly and in their national strategy the need for corrective measures that would address historical misinformation and falsified Croatian history from World War Two. This need for corrective measures arose and persists given that falsifications have cruelly blackened the reputation of Croatian people worldwide and people and communities suffer because of that. It is a widely accepted fact that misinformation occurs when people hold incorrect factual beliefs and do so confidently. The problem, first conceptualised by the American political scientist James H. Kuklinski and colleagues in 2000, plagues political systems and is exceedingly difficult to correct. Over time, scholars have elaborated on the psychological origins of political misinformation and although there is an extensive body of research on how to correct misinformation, this literature is less coherent in its recommendations but, overall, scholarly research on political misinformation illustrates the many challenges inherent in representative democracy. And Croatia is no exception – relatively too many members of parliament are either former communists of Yugoslavia or their children who all, one may safely assume, either participated in falsification of Croatian WWII history or supported the falsifications.

It is regrettable that the Croatian government has not supported, nor does it support those whose research has taken them and takes them to uncovering the historical truth and correcting the misinformation sowed by Yugoslav communists and their supporters for decades throughout the world, often making the life of Croatian expats living in the diaspora a nightmare fuelled by lies, defamation and degradation spilling down from the communist agenda that relied on misinformation for its survival. Whether, therefore, Croatian powers that be hold that lying is a virtue, just as communists did, is a question that may not be difficult to answer even though the answer shocks every decent and truth-loving human being. The fact that no Croatian government since year 2000 has in any shape or form supported the research undertaken to uncover the terribly defiled truth of WWII Jasenovac camp, such as the most credible research including the ones carried out and completed by Stipo Pilic and Blanka Matkovic or Igor Vukic … speaks volumes of how very profoundly the Croatian governments have been and are saturated with communist ideology, mental set and cover-up of communist crimes including those perpetrated at Jasenovac camp post WWII by communist Yugoslavia. Perhaps a future government, different from the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ or Social Democratic Party/SDP ones Croatia has had so far will have the courage to assist the passage of historical truth to the surface.

When people firmly hold beliefs that happen to be wrong, as is the case due to falsified history of WWII Croatia making it about victims of the Ustashi regime, grotesquely inflating the numbers of people that perished, instead of making it about the fight for freedom from oppressive and dictatorial, harsh Serb-led Kingdom of Yugoslavia, efforts to correct the misinformation will be and is met with resistance and this resistance is frequently labelled as “revisionism” in the negative sense even though revisionism is a positive concept as it seeks to correct the wrongs. The truth will out though, eventually, thanks to dedicated historians some of whom I have mentioned above. The myth and lies about Jasenovac will fall one day under the overwhelming weight of truth.

The latest addition to the above-mentioned research and pursuits of truth about WWII Jasenovac is a new book titled “The real Jasenovac” (Stvarni Jasenovac), written by Tomislav Vukovic, with the subtitle “documents and discussions”. The book brings more than 150 documents, photos, and facsimiles, many of them for the first time in public! The book was published by the Society for the Research of the Triple Jasenovac Camp, and it strongly adds to the increasing body of scientific and truth research works on the World War Two (WWII) concentration camp in Jasenovac, Croatia, aiming to correct the misinformation about the camp (and WWII Croatia) served to the world by Yugoslav communists and their friends.

From the back cover of the book we find that “the documents, photographs and reprints presented in this book show the real Jasenovac as opposed to the ideologised and exaggerated depiction of the camp as it prevailed in the period of communist socialist Yugoslavia. Such a distorted view has survived in some circles to this day in the independent Republic of Croatia. The author of the book is Tomislav Vukovic, a long-time journalist and the editor of the Zagreb Voice of the Council and a contributor to a number of other Croatian public media did what every historian dealing with this topic should do: he went to the Croatian State Archives and looked for documents about Jasenovac that were discussed in public. He found them, read them and photographed. On this basis, a newspaper feature in Glas Koncila was created, which was also the basis for this book. In addition to the documents, there are also a number of reviews and polemics with the advocates of the falsified and mythologised depiction of the camp in Jasenovac. The book is therefore a valuable contribution to the discussion of history the camp and the effort to present it in a realistic form…”

The book ‘Real Jasenovac’, authored by Tomislav Vukovic, is a continuation of Igor Vukic’s contribution to the elucidation of the ‘Jasenovac myth’. What particularly impresses is that the book was printed with financial assistance not from the Government or government agency but from the Canadian-based Croatian expat benefactor Dr. Ivan Hrvoic.

The book is full of valuable documents, photographs and sources of literature that can be checked and independently verified. The author of the book is well acquainted with the subject he is writing about, so the book is worth reading.

“WWII Independent State of Croatia/NDH and Jasenovac mythology”, which the world has been faced with for decades since WWII, are based on the fictional and malicious stories of how Croatia’s Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac personally slaughtered Serbian children in Jasenovac. Or that every fourth victim of ‘Jasenovac’ was a child, or that the Ustashas competed with each other who would kill more internees during the day, and many other ‘hunting stories’ designed and concocted to hide communist crimes.

Reading Vukovic’s book (based on documents) one learns that the Ustashas were not as the ‘anti-fascist’ (communist) literature describes them, and that the camps in ‘Jasenovac’ were treated better than in camps on other continents. Packages regularly arrived at the camp, work was done, crafts were studied, cultural events and sports competitions were held, etc.

Certainly, life in the camp was not a personal choice, and everyone who survived the camp or lost someone in it is rightfully outraged. But due to historical untruths, outright lies and fabrications, it is essential to rise above the personal level and look at the picture in a wider context.

In line of this Dr Ivica Tijardovic, Croatian scientist and publicist, put forth into the public domain recently that there are several questions that need to be answered when writing about or discussing the WWII Jasenovac camp.

First question: How many lives did “Jasenovac” save? In other words, those survivors would not have been so lucky in any other place.

Second question: How many criminals and how many political prisoners were imprisoned in the camp? It is known that many lawbreakers were taken to ‘Jasenovac’ to serve out their prison sentences.

Third question: How many inmates were released after serving their sentence or after being pardoned? The figures in this context from Vukovic’s book are astonishing.

Fourth question: How many inmates went to work in Germany or in real concentration camps somewhere in the north of Europe? It is also an interesting question worth investigating.

Fifth question: How many camp inmates were killed by the Ustasha, and how many by the partisans, i.e., ‘anti-fascists’ (Yugoslav communists)? Given that the Jasenovac camp, as we know it, remained operational after the arrival of the partisans in 1945; more research on this topic is more than welcome. Namely, in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, there were about eighty concentration camps with about 200 thousand internees a few years after the end of the Second World War.

Sixth question: Why was Croatian WWII history falsified, and there is still an unsuccessful attempt to hide the truth with which a growing number of people from Croatia and the world are becoming more and more familiar?

The only unequivocal answer to that question is the following. Given that the crimes against Croats after the end of the Second World War were so monstrous, with the ‘myth of Jasenovac’, thanks to the communist dictatorship, terrible atrocity in the long history of Croats was successfully hidden. The truth will out with all thanks to the several historians who pursue research, often at personal peril and cost, with view to present the truth of WWII Croatia history to the world and the financial and moral support they receive from the Croatian diaspora. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Blanka Matkovic, communist crimes, Croatia, historical fabrication, historical misinformation, Igor Vukic, Independent State of Croatia, Ivica Tijardovic, Jasewnovac, NDH, revisionism, Stipo Pilic, Stvarni Jasenovac, The Real Jasenovac, Tomislav Vukovic

Croatia: It’s Time To Get Rid Of Communist Nebulosities

April 26, 2020 by inavukic 17 Comments

Zeljko Glasnovic, MP in Croatian Parliament for Croats abroad
Photo: Screenshot 24/04/2020

“Now is the time to get rid of these nebulosities from the past. We have been listening to the Partisan ‘truth’ for far too long. Opponents of revision, as well as the promoters of historical forgery, want to hide crimes and the criminals; and the truth. But in vain. No one can stop the truth!” (Zeljko Glasnovic, MP, Croatian Parliament 24 April 2020)

The English historian Edward Augustus Freeman defined history as “Politics of the past” and Sir John Seeley extended the concept into saying that “History is past politics; and politics present history.” In the case of May 1945 Bleiburg massacres, as well as massacres and murders also committed post WWII by the former Yugoslavia communists of hundreds of thousands of innocent Croatian people who fought for or were associated with the efforts for an Independent State of Croatia, the fact that often vocalised reasons for these mass murders and massacres (and over 1000 of mass graves of victims of communist crimes have been unearthed in Croatia so far!) remain to this day un-condemned on a national level speaks volumes into the truth behind Freeman’s and Seeley’s above mentioned assertions. Croatia’s former communists at heart and current ones like to call themselves antifascists! Given the murderous history of communist regime in Croatia, in former Yugoslavia, this label or name they have usurped for themselves actually gives antifascism, which the West has known and knows, the connotations of profound darkness and human depravity.

Psychological science argues that all human beings have a constant need to improve their sense of self and belonging. This seems to depend on historical, cultural, and situational context of a nation.

By the end of the 20^th century there was much talk worldwide of the decline of the nation-state: the institutions that had once defined politics appeared to have been bypassed and undermined by ‘globalisation’ on the one hand and consumerist, empowered individuals on the other. In this period of the 21^st century, particularly given the national priorities installed within each nation for itself due to COVID-19 coronavirus crisis and significant economic downturns, significant potential exists for the “people” to be active in the making of their nation’s history. To revisit their history particularly when that history as is the case with Croatia was written to represent an overwhelming lie designed to vilify a nation of people. Former Yugoslav communists were masters at that and today’s powers that be are not far from this as they continue defending the indefensible despite the fact that even the European Union Parliament has recently declared the former communist regimes of its member states – criminal!

Andrej PLenkovic (L) Croatian Prime Minister, Zpran Milanovic (C), President of Croatia, Goran Jandrokovic (R), President of Croatian Parliament. In Jasenovac 22 April 2020
Photo: WDR/Darko Bandic

Last week in Croatia was particularly a painful one for Croatians and indeed, a very strong herald for the absolute necessity to change Croatia’s political leadership, from the President down! During these times when due to COVID-19 coronavirus restrictions throughout the world all public commemorations, memorial gatherings and the like, have been cancelled as per restrictions to social distancing towards minimising risks of the virus spread in the community Croatia’s leaders have decided to break their own rules and measures and held a public gathering, commemoration for the victims of WWII Jasenovac camp but have cancelled (due to risk of coronavirus spread!) the Bleiburg commemoration that was to be held mid-May. Jasenovac camp symbolises the crimes of the WWII Independent State of Croatia regime, while Bleiburg symbolises the vast and vaster crimes of the Yugoslav communist regime. The Jasenovac camp history has been under historical revision by a number of historians and their work and discoveries show and point to an entirely different truth about the camp than the one Yugoslav communist operatives and their allies had written after WWII. The discoveries and historical fact findings that the Jasenovac camp was kept open until 1951/52 and contains masses of communist crimes victims (recorded in history as victims of WWII Croatia regime!) are being suppressed and research into the historical truth increasingly suppressed by the powers that be. The same goes for the overwhelming enormity of victims and mass graves of victims of communist crimes discovered so far across Croatia.

To add salt to the wounds of Croatians, independence-loving Croatians, while attending the Jasenovac camp memorial on 22 April 2020 President Zoran Milanovic (former Social Democratic Party/SDP Prime Minister of Croatia) had gone truly too far, insulting the 1990’s Croatian Homeland War veterans, insulting the fallen defenders of Croatia, insulting the very foundation upon which today’s independent Croatia exists. In Jasenovac, regarding the plaque honouring 11 fallen Croatian Defence Forces’ soldiers in Jasenovac in 1990’s, he said that “the HOS plaque (commemorating the fallen in the Homeland War) should be discarded, thrown away somewhere because it bears no connection to the Homeland War” (!). Then he went about saying: “They who fought with ‘For Homeland Ready’ slogan (Za Dom Spremni) in 1991 did not only fight for Croatia but also for the restoration of the state that came into existence in 1941.” My goodness can a nation which won its independence, after 94% of voters voted to secede from communist Yugoslavia and war of brutal Serbian/Yugoslav aggression ensued, be served a worst blow than this one, which its President had served upon it! I do believe that the President, in saying what he did, brutally breached the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia he presides over. Milanovic attempted to simmer down the widespread protests and revulsions his statements had caused by saying that he did not mean to “devalue the sacrifice and bravery of those who had fallen and whose names are on the Jasenovac plaque”.

He must not be let off that lightly!

War veterans’ associations and Croatia’s war veterans’ minister, Tomo Medved, have condemned President Zoran Milanovic for his above statements. “I strongly condemn the statement made by President Zoran Milanovic… because it undermines the sacrifice of Croatian defenders, members of the Croatian Defence Forces,” his Press Release said. “I underline that the unfounded stigmatisation of Croatian war veterans cannot be the official position of the Republic of Croatia,” he added. But guess what, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has kept conspicuously silent on this matter, so one truly needs to question the resolve of official Croatia on words stated by Medved! But then, both Milanovic and Plenkovic never volunteered to fight in the defence of Croatia from Serbian/Yugoslav brutal military aggression in the 1990’s! They made themselves scarce and now enjoy the fruits from the sacrifice of others!

Lylian Fournier (L) Jean-Michel Nicollier (R)
Photo: Screenshots

Croatians were truly touched by the reactionary letter to President Milanovic after his statements in Jasenovac written last week by the mother (Lylian Fournier) of Jean-Michel Nicollier, a French volunteer fighter in the Croatian Homeland War for independence who was killed in action:

“I am thinking about how to begin this address to you, President, above all, to the heart of the dear Croatia in which the bones of my HOS volunteer son lie. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, my son, my child, my Jean-Michel.

He was, you know, about the same age as you were when the Greater Serbian aggression against the Republic of Croatia began, and he came to help a nation of which you are now President, and now he could have been having coffee with his family and friends somewhere in Paris. But no, he went where he felt he needed to go, to Croatia, to Vukovar, while you did the opposite, you left Croatia.

My son and Croatian volunteers have made it possible for you to be the President of this country today, which is obviously more mine than yours, according to your statement today, which deeply hurt not only me, but all mothers still seeking their sons’ remains who gave their lives for this beautiful country, all those who defended it while you were waiting for war to be over. And finally, the victorious Croatian army created the foundation of present-day Croatia, and instead of being proud of it, you are clearly longing for the past times, because saying this today, that the plaque for the fallen Hosovians should be removed and cast away is a reflection of your longing for regret, for a failed communist creation. President, you spat on all the sacrifice of Croatian veterans, on the brave knights who, through their lives, weaved themselves into the foundations of present-day Croatia, you spat on all parents of the fallen, missing and deceased Croatian veterans, their families, all proud Croats and Croats who to your regret are still here!…

I reject with disgust this statement of yours from today, you should feel ashamed if there is any humanity in you. Because that son could have been you if you knew how to love, it just seems to me that your bones and your monument would obviously be on the other side of the river Danube. My heart beats for my son, my Hosovian, my Frenchman, and again more a Croat than you will ever be, for my Jean-Michel. And I, his mother, to this day, when I am 75, proudly, from the depths of my soul, I cry FOR HOMELAND READY, and you, you should be ashamed for grossly hurting the feelings of brave people. May dear God forgive you, I cannot!”

Not only have the Yugoslav communists and their sympathisers of today’s Croatia, that hold power in the country, at every step, at every opportunity continued the psychological warfare of lies against Croatia and Croatians that hold freedom from both former Yugoslavias dear but they do it without shame, without an ounce of truth or reference pertaining to the backbone of the fight for independence and democracy. Certainly, the terrible cycle of hatred and hate speech instigated by President Milanovic at Jasenovac last week should be extinguished with vicious and determined force.

Zoran Milanovic, President of Croatia (top)
Andrej Plenkovic, Prime Minister of Croatia (bottom)

On 24 April 2020, retired general Zeljko Glasnovic, Independent Member of Croatian Parliament for Croats living outside of Croatia, gave a speech in the parliament that reflects the current escalation in political mood within the large patriotic body politic in Croatia. It remains to be seen whether political forces will emerge to actually at the coming General elections due towards the end of this year deliver changes in Croatia. Changes (away from communism and communist inheritance) have been desperately needed since the Homeland War ended but the need for them so acutely felt post President Milanovic’s repugnant and evilly tendentious statement in Jasenovac.

“Now is the time to learn the true history, not what we have been listening to for fifty years and are still listening to these days; history is a branch of science, not a tell-tale. There are so many lies being written on Yugoportals; a lie detector would fall apart from them and there are also nebulosities being spread – I would say misinformation campaigns related to the past, not so distant past, and we are looking at the consequences of that system today. For example, we look at unresolved property title issues… these are all consequences of the former system. Some people mention revisionism. What is revisionism? Well, every one of those Yugo-nationalists took the jargon on. Revision is the backbone of every scientific branch, revisions, meaning any new discoveries are open to interpretation. I wonder are these mass graves around Zagreb, Zapresic, are a revision of history? This is new evidence of the criminal regime some are defending here. Evidence… Now is the time to get rid of these nebulosities from the past – we’ve been listening to this Partisan truth for long enough…,” said Zeljko Glasnovic among other things in parliament on Friday 24 April (see video of that speech in Croatian language below).

Revision and research of history are vital for and meaningful particularly to the nation (Croatia) that has spent the 20^th century being denied historical truth and fact, and as a result, the sense of belonging to one nation is dichotomous. The disquieting dichotomy, which erodes a sense of nation, can only in Croatia’s case, be remedied or reduced by revising and researching history without the process being labelled – revisionism with negative connotations. Psychologically, it is understandable, but not acceptable, that those who or whose ancestors have benefitted personally from the atrocities of the former Yugoslavia communist regime will fight tooth-and-nail not to admit to the grave sins of their fathers, or themselves. Not only are the communist mass murders and purges of innocent people at the forefront of this needed historical reconciliation and revision but also the amassment of wealth through corruption and theft. They, the former communists and their sympathisers are not going to voluntarily or with contrition give up the good life they, with criminal activities, secured for themselves, their families. This must be done with resolve and force by those who truly want Croatia to prosper, democracy to prosper. Lustration must occur; condemnation of the communist Yugoslavia regime must occur. There is no time like the present! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej Plenković, Bleiburg, Bleiburg massacres, communist crimes, Croatia, Croatian War Veterans Associations, Jasenovac, lustration, revisionism, Tomo Medved, transitioning from communism to democracy, Zeljko Glasnovic, Zoran Milanovic

Croatian Parliament: The Detrimental Representation of Ethnic Minorities (?)

September 25, 2016 by inavukic 13 Comments

From Left/Front row:
Furio Radin, Milorad Pupovac, Andrej Plenkovic
Photo: V.P.P./ Hina

At the time of its formation in 1990 Croatian parliament and a rather large number of NGO institutions were devised and established in such a way that Croatia’s diverse population in the ethnic sense was and remains rather well represented. There are currently eight (out of 151) seats in parliament dedicated to representing ethnic minorities living in Croatia … Many have and will say that the extent to which ethnic or racial minorities are present in legislatures can be viewed as a litmus test for the effectiveness of a country’s democratic system. However, Croatia has the troublesome misfortune of having to deal with and accommodate into its democracy and parliament an ethnic minority – Serb – that attacked the Croatian majority and other non-Serbs in Croatia and committed war crimes in the early 1990’s against the Croatian people and their property in order take one third of Croatia’s sovereign land for the purposes of creating a Serb, ethnically clean republic that would eventually be attached to Serbia. As such, a number of ethnic minorities in Croatia have not been contributing towards the development of a democratic system in Croatia but have most often tugged the ropes their way with view to securing individual benefits.

This is certainly no enviable situation for any democracy let alone Croatia where the perpetually elected leaders of the two largest ethnic minorities – Serb (Milorad Pupovac) and the Italian (Furio Radin) – are still ideologically and practically loaded with communist Yugoslavia agenda and, to boot, the Serb minority with the help of Serbia continues its irritating, angering and utterly unjust quest of trying to equate the Homeland War aggressor with the victim. The ethnic minority part represented by Pupovac do not appear as living in and holding Croatia as their homeland, as their country, but ethnic minority that still in many ways primarily identifies with Serbia and, in many ways the same could be said for the Italian minority led by Radin. Although there are 3 parliamentary seats representing the Serb minority in Croatia the one Pupovac sits on is the loudest, the obnoxiously divisive one that, sadly, gets relatively most left-leaning media coverage.

Zlatko Hasanbegovic
Minister for Culture
Croatia
Photo: Grgo Jelavic/Pixsell

Last week, Friday 23 September, both Pupovac and Radin have expressed views that they would not collaborate with the new government of Croatia if it re-appoints Zlatko Hasanbegovic as minister for culture. Their apparent sense of self-importance is so obscene that they assume their power includes making decisions about government cabinet members even if they are not in the political party that won majority seats in parliament. They, like a large slice of communist Yugoslavia fans in Croatia and outside, that keep fighting against prosecution of communist crimes and keep calling those who advocate for lustration as well as prosecution of communist crimes – nationalists and Ustashe (as in WWII Ustashe regime in Croatia) – keep promoting the new anti-Croatian trend, which says that under HDZ government Croatia has moved far-right and revisionist inclinations are gathering more and more ground. Zlatko Hasanbegovic has been the one “copping” most of of the “blame” for this vicious construct of defamation and vilification against Croatia and, yet – he remains the brightest light Croatia has had in the parliament for quite a while that keeps insisting on unraveling the truth in Croatia’s history.

Having in mind the cruel divisions and utterly unfair agenda behind accusing without foundation in facts Croatian minister for culture Hasanbegovic of revisionism, the two leaders of ethnic minorities (Pupovac and Radin) are perpetuating, as well as other cruel agendas, like equating aggressor with the victim or defending/justifying communist crimes, and amplified by the rhetoric of these two ethnic minorities representatives (and at times others),it is blatantly clear that the word “ethnic” – as in ethnic minorities – has outlived its usefulness in Croatia.

The word “ethnic” has become divisive and derogatory in more ways than one.

Croatian government, and parliament, would do well by turning their efforts away from the political and practical pursuits of engaging in business of seeing what benefit an individual ethnic minority might receive and turning towards the agenda of seeing what individual ethnic minorities will and can contribute to Croatia as a whole. Indeed, the government must be and is committed to ensuring that all Croatian citizens have an opportunity to be active and equal participants in the Croatian society, free to live their lives and maintain their cultural traditions – this is enshrined in Croatia’s laws and the constitution. It’s just that the existence of ethnic minority representatives in parliament has led to an unwanted result: instead of uniting Croatian citizens it mainly divides them as ethnic minority agendas are not often in harmony with Croatian national interests.

Indeed, many – including myself – believe that having an ethnic Member of Parliament has led to high expectations among members of their ethnic community about what will be achieved for them.

For the second time in one year Croatia has held general elections and both times a minority HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union led government formed, although forming the new one has not yet happened as HDZ continues coalition discussions with various smaller parties and independents. It is at such times of minority government that the existence of reserved (dedicated) seats contradicts the strict electoral equality of one-vote, one-value and challenge the ‘liberal, individualist notion of political equality’.

The fear that a representative holding a dedicated seat may control the balance of power – a scenario seen as lending too much power to a minority group. It is also a scenario capable of causing division within the community, particularly if it is possible for a member to be elected to a dedicated seat with fewer votes than are needed to be elected to a general seat. Allocating seats on the basis of ‘skin colour, ethnicity or any other trait, could by definition be seen as threatening democracy’s principles… it threatens to encourage tokenism and discrimination.

HDZ and its leader Andrej Plenkovic would do well in steering away from forming a government with ethnic minority representatives. The past quarter of a century has shown that this causes more damage than good for Croatian national interests. Having ethnic minorities dedicated seats for representation in the parliament for a quarter of a century in Croatia has evidently and essentially given a rise to a reality that tells us that the balance that is struck between the representation of minorities, and the maintenance and development of an overarching sense of national identity and purpose is detrimentally wrong.

The fact that the Croatian parliament also has 3 seats dedicated to Croatian citizens living abroad in the diaspora does not present the same problematic issues primarily because these seats are for electorates where Croatian citizens live regardless of their ethnic make-up. If anything, there should be at least 3 more dedicated seats to Croatians living in the overseas diaspora (not living in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina) as their population is almost as large as the one in Croatia and the agenda of Croatian government to encourage Croats living abroad to return to Croatia and/or invest in Croatian economy is omnipresent.

Croatian parliament appears in an urgent need of re-grouping so its every seat represents all people living in every electorate regardless of their ethnic make-up and the enactment of laws that would see the establishment of government department and non-government organisations responsible to an appropriate minister of the government (ideally a minister for ethnic affairs) for dealing with matters arising from or exclusive to ethnic origins or cultural/religious practices of citizens. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)