Stevo Culej – 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

21st Anniversary of Borovo Selo Massacre – Serb terrorists did it!

“On 2nd May 1991 in Borovo Selo Serbian terrorists slyly and cruelly from ambush committed a massacre and war crime against wounded and captured members of the Special Police Forces of the Republic of Croatia”

At the beginning of May 1991 Serb rebel terrorists from Borovo Selo (Vukovar area) tortured and wounded and placed in captivity two Croatian policemen. The Croatian government quickly sent a convoy of special police whose task was to rescue the two policemen and restore order.

Serbs ambushed the convoy as it entered the village, killing 12 policemen and wounding 21. When the Croatian police retreated, Serb rebels mutilated the dead bodies of Croatian policemen with axes and knives.

Ambulance vehicles from Vukovar hospital arrived soon to the horrible scene. But some Ambulance vehicles had Serbian crews who on arrival started throwing hand grenades on wounded Croatian policemen.

The road to a terrible war was opened – the rebel Serbs, soon joined by the Serbian-led Yugoslav People’s Army, were never going to accept Croatia’s secession from communist Yugoslavia and Croatia’s independence.

Borovo Selo massacres had shown to what heinous ways the Serb rebels were prepared to go in achieving their goal.

On 2^nd May 2012 a dignified procession through Borovo Selo carrying the new memorial plaque for the monument to the massacred Croatian policemen marked the 21^st anniversary of the massacre. Silence, the stone plaque and photographs of the massacred policemen marked the event, stirring profound emotions of sadness and pain.

Croatian news portal Vecernji List reports that in his speech at the commemoration Stevo Culej, deputy commander of the Association of special police whose brother was killed on that day in 1991, rebuked the Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and President Ivo Josipovic for not being present at the commemoration.

The surviving members of the special police force have placed the plaque of truth at the foot of the existing monument to the 12 massacred policemen.

The stone plaque on truth has the following inscription:

“On 2^nd May 1991 in Borovo Selo Serbian terrorists slyly and cruelly from ambush committed a massacre and war crime against wounded and captured members of the Special Police Forces of the Republic of Croatia”

“This crime was committed by residents of Borovo Selo, and not by some being from Outer Space. I remind, only one person has been convicted for this crime so far, and he only got 3,5 years of prison. Nevertheless, their sacrifice has not been in vein because every one of their lives had saved tens of thousands of other lives, as people had realised what will happen to them if they don’t undertake anything”, Culej accentuated, calling upon Ranko Ostojic, minister of internal affairs, to continue with the investigations started by his predecessor Tomislav Karamarko, Tomislav Karamarko is a leading candidate in the current election campaigns for President of Croatian Democratic Union.

The Borovo Selo massacre of 2 May 1991 was one of the first “military” engagements that led to the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. The massacre set the stage for the subsequent outbreak of the wars in former Yugoslavia (particularly Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Majority of Croatia’s Serb minority was opposed to Croatian independence; opposed to democracy and freedom.

The 12 Croatian policemen massacred in Borovo Selo in 1991 lost their lives for democracy and freedom. One would think that these Croatian first victims of Serb brutality in Croatia’s path to freedom and democracy deserved the presence of the Prime Minister and the President at the 21^st anniversary commemoration. But neither Zoran Milanovic nor Ivo Josipovic found time to attend. Perhaps they were tired from dishing out bean soup to 1^st May Labour Day revelers in parks of Zagreb the day before. 1^st of May was a big public holiday in communist Yugoslavia. It’s still a public holiday in Croatia but not as celebrated with red scarves around the neck and Partisan hats on the head as before. Perhaps Milanovic and Josipovic want to bring back the former Yugoslav ways and that’s why they didn’t attend the commemoration in Borovo Selo? In any case their absences from Borovo Selo as well as from the 17^th anniversary of Operation Flash that liberated Western Slavonia from Serb occupation certainly raises a great deal of questions as to their motives and loyalties. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)