totalitarian regimes – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Yugoslav Communists Did Not Liberate Croatia In 1945! Remembering Bleiburg Genocide

May 24, 2020 by inavukic 15 Comments

Cardinal Vinko Puljic (bottom centre) leading an online prayer
of Croatians across the world on Saturday 23 May 2020
Photo: Screenshot

“There is method in the madness” idiom originates I believe from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1602). Whoever wishes to subscribe to practicing double standards vis-à-vis victims of crimes, in order to justify an oppressive political regime such as communism, is on their own as far as humanity is concerned. Or at least, it should be that way!

There is no spectacular revelation one can make today regarding the radical evil of Yugoslav communist regime (and all other communist regimes particularly in Eastern Europe). That is, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 what has emerged from the secret archives (and there are still many more to be examined once full access is granted) and other verifiable sources regarding the former communist regimes confirms the long-held view that communists engaged in revolutionary and brutal civil war to accomplish the total transformation of the economy, society, and culture. What is disturbing even more is the comprehensive and systematic justification of communist crimes that defines the method in the madness that is plaguing the world and humanity well into the 21st century. When comparing the number of victims of the communist regimes (between 85 and 100 million worldwide) with the number of people who perished under or because of Nazism (25 million worldwide) then in comparison by numbers of victims one can capture the dimension of horror of communism and its follower’s vicious attempts to avoid due condemnation of communism.

When despite the fact that the European Parliament had late 2019 declared communism, Nazism and fascism as criminal regimes of the past, Croatian politicians and antifascists celebrate even today the 15 May 1945 as the day of liberation of Croatia the world is brought to its knees in despair and misery that lies can inflict upon humanity, upon common sense, upon decency and dignity – upon the truth we seek and strive for.

Let’s get this straight Croatia was not liberated in May 1945 – Yugoslavia was liberated from masses of people who in WWII fought for liberation from oppressive Kingdom of Yugoslavia, led by Serbian Monarchy, so that communism could be installed. Whatever WWII Croatian Independent State (NDH) may have done, whatever crimes may and have been committed in the name of that state the irrefutable fact remains that an overwhelming majority opposing communist forces fought for an independent Croatia and did not indulge in committing crimes against anyone or anything. And for this they were punished, massacred, banished into exile, oppressed … and for this they are being punished and vilified even today!

The communist sympathisers’ protest in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in front of the Catholic cathedral when Cardinal Vinko Puljic held a commemorative mass on 16 May 2020 for the communist Yugoslavia victims at Bleiburg, Austria, in May 1945 and months and years that followed WWII, and the support these protesters rustled up from the World Jewish Congress, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a number of former communist operatives from former Yugoslavia including its last President Stjepan Mesic attracted worldwide media coverage, which clearly exuded madness that attempts at justification of communist crimes promote. It is in essence pathological madness that is exuded. To discriminate among victims of true crime is a pathological trait that lingers on among human society, making it a truly sick one. The Mass in Sarajevo honoured all innocent victims of the war and post-war era, including all those killed without trial.

The protests or objections to this mass in Sarajevo rested on the rhetoric that hundreds of thousands of Croatian people murdered by Yugoslav communists after WWII ended do not deserve remembrance and respect owed to all victims; that they were murderers of Jews in WWII, of Serbs, of Roma; that they were all Ustashe or fascists… In New York Times one could read: “Honoring ‘the genocidal Ustasha state (NDH) is not only an insult to its victims and their families, but also to all those who opposed the crimes committed by the Ustasha,’ the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement on Thursday…” The Times of Israel, Reuters, The Associated Press, Haaretz, Al Jazeera America, Deutsche Welle etc all promulgated and fired up the protesters’ views and opinions regarding the commemorative mass for victims and barely any promulgated the views and opinions of those who stood behind such a mass; indeed they were labelled as revisionists of WWII fascism and nationalism.

What a sad, sad time for humanity and truth!

If the protesters and their supporters think they scored new points for justification of communist crimes they need to re-examine their conscience, and reality! Nothing was gained from this protest and media frenzy apart from new lies added to the list of methods and tools communist followers use in order to justify the unjustifiable.

About 200,000 soldiers from the WWII Croatian defence forces marched to Bleiburg in May 1945 and about 500,000 civilians (including the elderly, women and children) went with them. They wanted nothing to do with communist Yugoslavia. They all wanted an independent Croatia, away from Yugoslavia. Isn’t self-determination a right that the world celebrates?

The Sarajevo protesters in front of the Catholic Cathedral on May 16^th and their supporters, including the Jewish World Congress and Simon Wiesenthal Centre are saying to the world that all those among the 700,000 Croatians fleeing communist Yugoslavia at the end of WWII – out of which more than 500,000 were murdered by that communist regime post WWII – deserved to be killed so brutally and massively because they all committed crimes against others!

They did not! If among them there were individuals that may have committed crimes during the War that did not and does not justify accusing of crimes without evidence everyone who was there. It is a depravity; it is evil to do so.

Talking to Croatian Catholic Radio, Cardinal Vinko Puljic said that “the Church has always respected innocent victims” and that the mass was not intended to celebrate anyone. He added that a “crime cannot be defended by (another) crime.”

“We want that double standards in respecting the victims of hatred and massacre be stopped,” Cardinal Vinko Puljic said after he held the mass in Sarajevo for victims of communist crimes.

Due to coronavirus restrictions only about 20 people attended the service which, like the protest, ended without incident. It is the world’s media passing on the WWII pro-communist sentiments and crimes’ justification that turned the mass into a spectacle of disorder; a disorder where certain crimes are justified on political grounds, devoid of humanity.

Cardinal Vinko Puljic
Photo: Fena

Sarajevo Times reported on May 17:

“In a sermon during the mass in the Sarajevo Cathedral on Saturday, Vrhbosna Cardinal Vinko Puljic pointed out that the victims of Bleiburg and all victims of hatred cannot be spoken of without ‘special tremors of the heart’ and that this is the main reason why he agreed to lead the Mass on the anniversary of 75 years of suffering in Bleiburg.

Prayer is the most sacred act, an act of respect, remembrance of them, the price of freedom that we build,’ stated Cardinal Puljic and added that this is how the evaluation of living is renewed. Cardinal Puljic said that the fate of peace was largely entrusted, not only to official state institutions. Human justice must prosecute crimes – said the cardinal, but also added that justice stands far from any blind urge for revenge and is guided by the common good.

We owe equal respect to every victim,’ – said the bishops and added that ‘liquidations without a court are always a grave crime before God and people.’

The Archbishop Puljic reminded that he was born in the time of Bleiburg, that all these years, as he said, the graves of the victims were not discovered, that they died without trial, ‘by the arbitrariness of those who boiled without hatred’. That is why yesterday he prayed for the victims of the Bleiburg field of Jasenovac, Glina, Srijemska Mitrovica, Dravograd, Sarajevo, Foca, Siroki Brijeg …

When the silence will rise from these graves depends on today’s authorities,’ said Cardinal Puljic. He added that a climate of coexistence, forgiveness, trust and reconciliation should be created here and today.”

The executions and mass murders known as “Bleiburg massacres/genocide” (although most murders happened away from Bleiburg once the Croats fleeing communist Yugoslavia were forcefully handed back to Yugoslavia by the British forces there) remained a taboo topic until the breakup of communist Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. A large event to commemorate the victims has for many years been held annually in Bleiburg. The Bleiburg commemoration of 2020 had been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic and masses such as the one in Sarajevo were held instead, in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The protesters against the mass in Sarajevo and their supporters viciously attacked the holding of the mass also on grounds of coronavirus related restrictive measures – that it should not be held, that rules of restrictive measures must be adhered to by those who commemorate victims of Bleiburg. However they failed to do the same for the commemoration for the WWII Jasenovac camp victims (Jews, Serbs, Roma, Croats) held only several days before in Croatia!

Alarmingly, the antifascists (or communists in this case, wearing a cloak of false antifascism) do try forcing different rules for different “classes” of victims even though all are in one and the same class: victims!

HE Eric Nelson, the U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, said for the public, Radio Free Europe, on May 15 that commemorations should “focus on remembrance, not revisionism. Especially this year, when we mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, it is important for everyone to focus on two values of democracy – reconciliation and inter-religious dialogue.” The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia called “on those organising the Bleiburg commemoration in Bosnia and Herzegovina to refrain from historical revisionism and retrograde rhetoric.” It is a pity and a shame that he even said that – since when is commemoration of victims a revisionism in the sense his words implied! Be that as it may, the facts of history must be revised. We clearly see the need for that when the protesters in Sarajevo and their supporters from the above-mentioned Jewish organisations and also Serbian Orthodox Church actually accuse, abominably, all of the 500,000 and more Croats murdered and executed by the communist regime of Yugoslavia as having been murderers themselves during WWII.

Some might call such commemoration as the one in Sarajevo an “opening of old wounds” but it’s blatantly evident that those who call it that with a view of criticising it have a great deal of guilt to hide. It is obvious for the sake of peace, for the sake of truth, that factual revision of WWII history of Croatia (written by the communists and their sidekicks) is no longer a choice. It is a must! Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bleiburg massacres, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, commemoration of victims of communist crimes, communist crimes, communist purges, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croatian Independent State, NDH, revision of history, Sarajevo mass for victims of Bleiburg, Simon Wiesenthal Center, totalitarian regimes, World Jewish Congress

Croatia: Abomination In Hauling Out Communist Memorabilia

January 31, 2018 by inavukic 11 Comments

“…look at the money these constitutional, supreme judges have
in all of them squats a lilttle little Tito…
They cannot change!”
Zeljko Glasnovic, Member of Croatian Parliament
Photo:Screenshot

The time has come – communist threads must be torn away.

The mind boggles at the reality today that there are still too many pro-communist Yugoslavia people walking the streets of Croatia. The nostalgia for the long-gone days of Yugoslavia encountered on the streets often wears the cloak of misguided memories of a life that was supposedly carefree and good, of course missing all the elements of personal responsibility for a greater good (the Party, or foreign debt took care of everything).

The communists in Yugoslavia suppressed or significantly limited free markets, stole private property, crushed political dissent, murdered or imprisoned political opponents, imposed materialist ethics, installed a culture of intimidation, forced multitudes into exile or emigration, and exalted ruthless dictatorship. The result was a sustained assault on the history, traditions, ethics, and very essence of the Croatian people.

No wonder the Croatian people at a referendum voted overwhelmingly (94%) in 1991 to secede from communist driven Yugoslavia!

While Croatia cannot escape its history, it should stop glorifying the country’s turn down of one of history’s great deadends. Although an unjust despotism, Josip Broz Tito as the absolute master of former communist Yugoslavia (1945 to his death in 1980) left behind in his dedicated followers those that fostered the culture of absolute Party power albeit in some cases by stealth through placing in key positions of public service only the politically fit. Hence, weaved into almost every point of high-level decision-making the communist mindset survived even one of the bloodiest of wars Croatia has had to fight in the early 1990’s in order to secede from Yugoslavia and go it alone into democracy and sovereignty.

The obstacles to change into a true democracy, after the military victory over the Serb/Yugoslav aggressor that opposed secession, remained great as the highly positioned former member of the former Communist Party either backed away from some reforms promised via Croatia’s new Constitution or dodged true democratic changes by keeping much of the country’s legislation fundamentally unchanged or maintaining the communist practices and processes in applying any true reforms through new regulations. Such was the response in Croatia to the 1990’s Homeland War victory that secured Croatia’s sovereign borders.

Last year Josip Broz Tito’s name was taken down from the most beautiful city of Zagreb squares and replaced with Republic of Croatia Square. This was a move that signaled a dying-away of Titoism, of idolising Tito (and communism) in at least some circles of local power brokers that could catch-on in other places across Croatia. After all, Tito was no humanitarian whose dream was perverted by his successors. He likely the murder of hundreds of thousands of Croats after WWII. Tito insisted on solitary Communist rule despite all the committees and presidencies flaunted around as some form of collective government, tolerated no dissent even within the Party, established the UDBA secret police that hunted down worldwide any opponents to his political agenda, employed terror against opponents, and led the supposedly “victorious” side in one of history’s most horrid periods for people desirous of independent Croatia.

With Tito’s name coming down from city square and street names it would appear that Titoists in Croatia have recently found a new way to keep the memory of Tito and his communist Yugoslavia alive in Croatia! And this is distressing.

A once imposing but now rusting yacht (Galeb/Seagull) that in 1953 took the Yugoslav leader Tito up the Thames to meet Winston Churchill is to be turned into a museum and tourist attraction in Croatia. During WWII it found itself in the crosshairs of the Allies and was sunk by Allied bombers in 1944 on the coast of Croatia. After WWII it was hauled up from the seabed, restored and converted into an official yacht for Josip Broz Tito. He used it not only as a floating residence and office, but also as a party boat, hosting celebrities and high-calibre politicians including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Naser, Greek King Peter, Moroccan King Hasan H., UK Prime Miniser Winston Churchill, USSR President Nikita Khrushchev, Libia’s Moammar Gaddafi, Sudan’s General Abboud and so on. For years the 385ft-long ship has been quietly rusting away in the Adriatic port of Rijeka in Croatia.

Rusting hulk of Galeb/Seagull and Tito

Around mid January 2018 it was announced that some 6 million Euro from EU funding has been approved to restore the yacht and turn it into a museum. That’s 6 million Euro that Croatia does not have to return to EU coffers!

In a country on its knees economically, such as Croatia, one would expect applications for EU funds of that size to be dedicated to creating jobs and bettering the standard of living, which by the way, has not improved since its steep dive during 1980’s Yugoslavia when inflation reached astronomical 1200%!

If this isn’t a gigantic step back in the struggling but urgently needed attempts to rid Croatia of the communist mindset, what is? No one can tell me that such a museum will not feed and maintain the romantic notions of how great communist Yugoslavia was. How great Tito was! What a disappointment. There are plenty of existing museums dedicated to life in Yugoslavia that tourists can visit so why erect another one! Especially one that blatantly covers up and shamelessly negates the actual reality of how horrible and destructive a person and a leader Tito was to Croatian people who pursued independence and freedom.

Whatever happened to banning all symbols of totalitarian regime in Croatia? Communism is still enjoying free displays of its symbols and EU itself – that declared its member countries should observe European Remembrance Day of Victims of Totalitarian Regimes and condemn them all and yet it funds one of the largest new monuments to the totalitarian communist regime! Catastrophe for human kind! Utterly abominable towards the hundreds of thousands of Tito’s totalitarian regime victims!

Someday Croatians will be truly free. Not just from communism, but also of less forms of soft authoritarianism that trickles through from the communist mindset. Liberation will come only through the Croatian people’s own efforts, however, not from the EU or the West. Only they can make their own future. The day this liberty arrives will be the real end of Croatia’s Homeland War. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Communism, communist crimes, Croatia, Croatian Homeland War, decommunisation, Josip Broz Tito, totalitarian regimes, transition from Communism, Zeljko Glasnovic

Croatia: Sorry Prime Minister – There’s Nothing Sober About Communist Crimes

January 29, 2017 by inavukic 20 Comments

Croatian Prime Minister
Andrej Plenkovic
Photo: Screenshot HRT TV news

Like in some disturbingly teasing political oh-no-not-this-reality-show-again, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic keeps showing us through his actions that he is out of touch with reality when it comes to duly acknowledging the serious divisions in society sprouting from the past totalitarian regimes and is alarmingly way off the mark when it comes to dealing with the victims of the communist regime, which topic, by the way, is a cancerous wound dividing the country – and he knows it. Plenkovic’s bluntly dismissive and discriminatory approach towards victims of the communist totalitarian regime is shocking and intolerable – utterly unacceptable!

He says that his announced commission for dealing with Croatia’s past, with the 20th century totalitarian regimes needs to condemn the WWII Ustashi regime up front and then sit back and analyze, soberly, what occurred after 1945 under communist regime even though there are more innocent dead in the hundreds of communist crimes’ mass graves than in the graves of those killed under the WWII Ustashi regime! What a perverse, wicked, mocking way of discriminating against the victims of communist crimes, whose mass graves have been unearthed just as those of the other victims have!

January 26 on HRT TV news interview regarding the first 100 days of his government Plenkovic, after being informed that the Croatian Jewish Council has announced its boycott of all events commemorating remembrance of victims of the Holocaust because the memorial plaque for the Croatian defenders killed by Serb forces in Jasenovac 1990 with For Home Ready/ Za Dom Spremni inscription on it had not been removed, he was asked what he would do about that. His reply recited his “resolve” that he “will fight against anti-Semitism, intolerance, hate speech and against any type of discrimination in our society … yesterday I have even spoken to Mr Kraus (Ognjen Kraus, president of Jewish Communities in Croatia)…we will work on a commission that will in professional and pluralistic way, legal, historic … formulate a framework on basis of which we could reach a political consensus and state our position vis-à-vis 20th century totalitarian regimes and their symbols, and the plaque there in Jasenovac is not a plaque that praises some leaders from WWII … it is a plaque for the 11 killed defenders who lost their lives in the defensive and just Homeland War…”

And surely enough, not even a day passed since this TV News appearance and PM Plenkovic announced matters regarding the commission to be formed, which will deal with the Croatian past. And in his announcement he does what he said he would fight against: discriminates. Discrimination against the victims of communist crimes.

Judging from Plenkovic’s announcement about what the commission will do, forget about this commission being independent of government in its deliberations, fair and reasonable and truthful to the past – the commission it seems will do what the Prime Minister says with doubtful freedom to set its own priorities and deal fairly with the past within the terms of reference set for it; unless, of course, the composition of the commission’s membership is strong enough to fight against Plenkovic’s announcement and analyze both regimes equally before any is condemned ahead of the completion of the commission’s work. The Prime Minister has already set the political tone of its work and its research and capturing of pure truth about all totalitarian regimes has thus been poisoned. He has done that practically by saying that the commission must condemn one regime straight away and then “soberly” analyze the other (the communist one).

Plenkovic had just returned from his visit to Israel last week and sought to use that event where he paid respects to the victims of the Holocaust to inflict yet another awful wound to the victims of communist crimes. “Croatia must seek consensus and establish its position towards the question of the past, the 20th century totalitarian regimes, clearly condemn the 1941 to 1945 regime, that is the Ustashi regime during which numerous crimes were committed, but also in a sober way analyze everything that had happened after 1945.” He said that that discussion had never been thoroughly carried out in modern Croatia and that “using dialogue we can come to qualitative solutions with which those questions could be put forth for discussion among the most professional people from differing professions and, with that, close the still open questions regarding the 20th century history”.

He further said that the terms of reference and members of that commission will be ready by end of February, reiterating that the interest in it is quite large.

Well of course the interest in that commission is large, it’s announced to deal head-on with what happened in the past and most politicians still really have not placed communist crimes where they should be – condemned. There’s nothing sober about communist crimes or communist criminals. One does not need to analyze, as Plenkovic insists, what occurred in Croatia after 1945 because there are hundreds of mass graves everywhere. That evidence alone, just as the one to do with the Holocaust, must be enough to condemn first up and then analyze, if you must – so to speak. Just like he intends to do with the Ustashi regime. Or, better yet: no condemnation by the commission of any totalitarian regime until the commission’s work is done. This of course would remove the pressure to “act as expected by the Prime Minister” and yield much more valid results; ensuring, of course, no political subscriber to any of the totalitarian regimes should sit on that commission. Fat chance of that after Plenkovic’s “directive” that the commission will first condemn one crime and not the other! Sad and unjust times for victims of communist crimes continue in Croatia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)