Ustashi – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: President’s Somewhat Misguided Address To Nation

May 11, 2016 by inavukic 36 Comments

Croatia’s President
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
Addresses the Nation 9 May 2016
Photo: Screenshot HRT TV news

Monday 9 May marked Victory Day – World War II victory against Fascism in Europe. In Croatia, just like for example in Russia, those that celebrated V-Day were descendants of or supporters of murderous communists who, unlike the defeated Fascists, systematically built trails of despair, destruction, oppression and slaughter of innocent people for decades to come after WWII.
Monday 9 May 2016 was the day when Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic decided to address the nation from her Office in Zagreb via a televised special event, which caught many Croats by surprise and which left a great deal of mixed feelings; probably unease, bitterness, defiance and approval in equal doses spread across the nation.

Not unexpectedly, the international press that is more often than not anti-Croatia interpreted her address as an “appeal for reconciliation between right and left wing supporters for the sake of the future,” and not missing the opportunity to say to the world that in the same appeal Kitarovic said Croatia faces “an escalation of intolerance, hate speech and glorification of destroyed criminal regimes,” “referring to both the Nazis and Communists.”

There has never been a Nazi regime in government in Croatia but, hey, for much of the twisted world media that does not matter – truth is cheap.

She said the current divisions “destroy the foundations of the state.” Also, her address gave the international press yet another opportunity to vilify Croatia’s new government as “right-wing government has been accused of turning a blind eye to the surge of the far right and contributing to a surge of fascist sentiment in Croatia.”

Of course, Grabar-Kitarovic is no clairvoyant nor can she (as far as I know) look into a crystal ball and predict the future, but she could have easily predicted that her address to the nation of this magnitude and content would pour more oil onto the fires that maliciously paint Croatia as a country with a fascist renewal.

“In recent times we have witnessed an escalation of intolerance, hate speech and the glorification of failed criminal regimes…

Once again, loud and clear, I will say the Ustasha regime, with its ties to fascism and Nazism, maiming parts of Croatian territory and with criminal acts of mass expulsions and killings had in the worst way abused and severely tarnished the then legitimate desire of the Croatian people for their own state.

Likewise, we must strictly separate anti-fascism, as a value of modern Europe and modern Croatia, recorded in our Constitution, from the criminal Yugoslav communist regime under which tens of thousands of different nationalities and ideas were brutally executed as enemies of the people without trial or any human rights.

The modern Croatian state rests upon the reconciliation between the children of the Ustasha and the Partisans. If we were so divided in 1991 as we are today, we would certainly have not, under the Croatian President Dr Franjo Tudjman’s leadership, realised our dream of free Croatian state…

I ask a question to the Croatian government and all state institutions: Are you aware that busloads of our young people are leaving the country on a daily basis, not only because of lack of work, but also because of the unbearable pollution with hatred and intolerance of the atmosphere of the public space. Snap out of it! Stop quarreling and get to work! …
Otherwise, this spiral of competition to justify regimes that do not deserve justification, will escalate into the streets, the tram, the stadiums, and then there will be no more chance for corrections…”

Well, it is true: ideological divisions between the “left” and the “right” are rife in Croatia but aren’t they everywhere else! One only needs to look at the US Presdential Elections or the British general elections coming up, or the French or … to see the gaping divisions filled with hate and intolerance and lies. That is the political fight that’s seizing the world like a plague.

In Croatia, though, this division is not as “simple” as just ideological, as president Grabar-Kitarovic calls it – it has much to do with unfulfilled justice for the victims of communist crimes and it bothers me very much when this fact is put in the same basket as “ideological differences”. The roots of divisions are amply in the fact that Croatia has not dealt properly with the communist Yugoslavia past, it itself calls criminal. The Ustashe regime has been criminalised through banning of its symbols etc but the communist has not! So, I am once again most disappointed in President Grabar-Kitarovic’s address as it stands for rhetoric and a kind of parental reprimand, which never goes down well among the adult population. She, one can see, has not made a move it seems to urge the Croatian government to legislate for the banning of communist symbols etc.

Regretfully, she has not in her address to the nation given any concrete guidance as to what may be done to improve the things of ideological quarrels and divisions that alarm her; she does not for instance say: I will lobby and urge the government and the parliament to pass legislation that will make the communist Yugoslavia regime a criminal regime by law not only by hearsay.

She should not go about leaving the impression that she is unperturbed with living a double-standard that the lack of such legislation points to and expect the people throw blind eyes at it! It’s not a good look for a president otherwise well loved and respected.

Furthermore, it is not entirely true that Croats were not divided ideologically in 1991, as she said – it’s an established fact that when Croatian Parliament went to vote for secession from communist Yugoslavia the League of Communists/today’s Social Democrats walked out of the Parliament as they did not want an independent Croatia. They wanted Yugoslavia then and they want it now! The alternative for them is to accept and bear at least an unwanted ideological burden of the criminal heritage they carry from being tied to the communist regime!

The only ones who need to “Snap out of it! Stop quarreling and get to work” are indeed the government and the public institutions dealing with legislature. Pass the law outlawing communist Yugoslav regime and its expressions and the future will turn for the best. Stop living double-standards, stop spewing rhetoric that reminds of former president Stjepan Mesic who would prostitute himself politically to anyone who pays but never really do much in actually disarming the residue of communist Yugoslavia activists within independent Croatia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ban communist symbols, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslavia, criminal regimes, Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Ustashi, Victory Day

Croatia: Jews Commemorating Holocaust Fuel Political Havoc

April 17, 2016 by inavukic 58 Comments

Ognjen Kraus, front left,
head of Croatian Jewish Councils Coordination
at Jasenovac 15 April 2016
Separate commemoration of victims of Holocaust
Photo: Nikola Cutuk/Pixsell

Some 300 Croatian Jews from Croatian Jewish Councils have held their own Holocaust commemoration at the WWII Jasenovac camp site Friday 15 April, a week ahead of the official commemorative ceremony, in protest at what they say is government inaction in the face of what they maliciously insist is surging neo-Ustashi (pro-Nazi) sentiment in the country. They refer to, among other individual incidents, some “pro-Ustashi” chants at soccer games no government without taking away freedom of speech and bringing the army can control (!). The ceremony at Jasenovac was attended also by representatives from a handful foreign embassies in Croatia, by Croatian members of parliament representing the Italian (Furio Radin) and Serbian minorities (Milorad Pupovac) in Croatia, the ex-president communist die-hard Ivo Josipovec, some handful of other so-called antifascists in Croatia whose sole role in society seems to be negating and covering up communist crimes, which by the way were larger in numbers of victims than the Holocaust.

“We have commemorated the victims of Jasenovac but also all the Jews who had perished in NDH (WWII Independent State of Croatia) under the then race laws. We came here because there is a presence in Croatia of a revitalisation of the WWII Ustashi movement and a complete negation, regardless of some statements made after we announced our intentions not to participate in the official ceremony at Jasenovac,” Jewish association leader in Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, said, accusing the First Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, of never having set foot on the Jasenovac Holocaust memorial site.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
President of Croatia

The “statements made” Kraus refers to here include the statement made by Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, president of Croatia, concerned about the divisions with regards to commemorating the Holocaust victims in Jasenovac, said 11 April 2016 that “NDH (WWII Independent State of Croatia led by the Ustashe forces) was the least independent and it protected the interests of the Croatian people the least, and that the Ustashi regime was a criminal regime. Anti-fascism is in the foundations of the Croatian Constitution, and modern Croatia has grown from the foundations of the Homeland War.”

Croatian Constitution may be based on anti-fascism but certainly not on communism and given that Croatia’s communists who arise from Yugoslav communists call themselves antifascist even if they were nothing like anti-fascists but thugs and criminals, President Grabar-Kitarovic made a serious error here in missing this opportunity to make that distinction and calling the communist/Partisan WWII opposition to Ustashas also a criminal regime, then. For that is what they had proven to be and today’s leaders of Croatia must acknowledge that, no matter what the pain and what the political cost to them personally.

The truth is that while there were killings committed by both sides in WWII, the Ustashas goal was an independent Croatia and the Partisans’ one was communist Yugoslavia – no independence for any of the states forced previously into the Serb-led oppressive Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the president and all would do well to remember that especially when relating to the 1990’s Homeland War behind which is the thousand-year of Croat plight for independence.

A pot cannot call the kettle black and get away with it. People at large are neither blind nor stupid. If President Grabar-Kitarovic was intending to settle the political spirits causing upsetting divisions around the Holocaust victims commemorations then her statements needed to cover fairness to all victims of WWII and post-WWII not just one side. She did disappoint quite a lot of people this time and demonstrated that her advisors may have absolutely no skills in political conflict resolution, which Croatia needs to rid itself of remnants of the criminal communist regime.

That is what today’s Croatia, today’s world – require and demand. Throwing sand into the eyes was a thing that may have worked in the past – not today, not in a world of democracy where everyone’s rights are equal and knowledge-base and courage of “ordinary” citizens are much larger than decades before.

Zlatko Hasanbegovic
Minister for Culture, Croatia
Photo: zagorje.com/ Kruno Pavlina

Whilst attending a cultural event in Krapina, Zagorje region outside capital Zagreb, Croatia’s minister for culture, Zlatko Hasanbegovic, responded to Kraus’ statements that Tomislav Karamarko had never been in Jasenovac and to his organisation of a separate commemoration in Jasenovac:

“I regret that we are placed in situations where such statements can be heard, especially at the time leading up commemorations when we pay respects to the innocent. Whoever heard what Tomislav Karamarko was saying, can conclude that those (statements like Kraus’) are not truthful statements… the organisers have had their reasons for organising one more commemoration and I respect them. We live in a free country,” said Hasanbegovic.

The blind, let alone those with full vision, can see that such public displays of lies as has come out of the Jewish organisation’s leader Kraus, particularly representing a place of note – like the Croatian Jewish council coordination in this instance – seem to be more about desperate measures to protect communist crimes from full exposure and avoid a possible scenario where in relation to WWII and post-WWII Croatia the Holocaust crime would, in relation to number of innocent victims, take a second place in the realm of the worst and most atrocious crimes in human history to the crimes committed by the Yugoslav communists. Wanting to acknowledge and unearth further the true extent of communist crimes in Croatia is labelled, sadly, it seems, even by some Jewish representatives as a return to Ustashi regime, to Nazism – in the hope perhaps to intimidate those trying to unearth the whole truth of communist crimes!

One can imagine nothing crueler towards victims of crimes than this.

As far as I am concerned and from this vantage point, Ognjen Kraus and those who attended the commemoration designed to shun the official one to be held on 22 April under falsehoods and malicious accusations against the current centre-right government can hang their head in shame.

Using remembrance of the Holocaust victims for dirty communist crime cover-up politics is just not the world of piety I want to be a part of.

Attempts to uncover the full truth of communist crimes in Croatia have been labeled as resurgence of Nazism, Ustashism, of historical revisionism in the negative sense that allegedly negates the truth of the Holocaust. And so it seems WWII Croatia when it comes to “bad guys” only had the Ustashas and not the Communist Partisans under Josip Broz Tito. What utter codswallop.

Nobody has the right to stop or intimidate those wanting to unearth the truth about crimes and victims – not even those commemorating the Holocaust. In fact, I believe, that those commemorating the Holocaust should all encourage the seeking of the truth for all innocent victims.

James M. McPherson.
Historian, Princeton University

The eminent American historian James M. McPherson, Princeton University, said in 2003, “that historians know that revision is the lifeblood of historical scholarship. History is a continuing dialogue, between the present and the past. Interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage of time. There is no single, eternal, and immutable ‘truth’ about past events and their meaning. The unending quest of historians for understanding the past — that is, revisionism — is what makes history vital and meaningful…Without revisionist historians, who have done research in new sources and asked new and nuanced questions, we would remain mired in one or another of these stereotypes.”

I hope Croatia’s leaders in government and others will know how to draw strength and courage from the words of this brilliant historian when it comes to pursuing the truth of communist crimes. In Croatia as part of communist Yugoslavia, investigating WWII and post-WWII crimes committed by communist regimes, as well as a revision of the ‘official history’ about the events that took place during the Second World War, was not possible before 1990, after the democratic changes in Eastern Europe and Croatia. Resolution 1481/2006 of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly strongly condemned human rights violations committed by totalitarian communist regimes and the 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism stated that these crimes were comparable with Nazi crimes but very few people have been tried for committing such crimes.

Moreover, 28 years later, in former Yugoslav republics (e.g. Croatia) “this topic is still a matter of political and scientific debates, and those who dare to ask ‘new and nuanced questions’ are often labeled as the revisionists who should be treated by medical specialists,” said Blanka Matkovic, PhD dissertation Warwick University, UK. And “thanks” to the likes of the Jewish Councils coordination head in Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, those who question WWII crimes or their extent against the form we have been led to believe, those who cannot control or prevent extremist outbursts of individuals in the streets or sports arenas… – are Nazis! Nothing less than Nazis! What an outrage! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Blanka Matkovic, communist crimes, Communists, Croatia, Croatian Jewish Councils, Holocaust, Jasenovac, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Ognjen Kraus, Political havoc in Croatia over World War II crimes, Tomislav Karamarko, Ustashi, Zlatko Hasanbegovic

Nazi Crimes Hunter’s Deplorable Interference With Croatian WWII Pensions

June 7, 2015 by inavukic 45 Comments

Croatian Regular Army Formed 1941 as
Kingdom Of Yugoslavia Folded
Home Guards/Domobrani march in Gospic 1941

Efraim Zuroff, Nazi war crimes headhunter, head of Israel based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, has according to the media revealed that he wrote a letter, in May, to the Croatian Prime Minister, Zoran Milanovic, calling for Croatia to withdraw pensions given to members of WWII Independent State of Croatia armed forces (Ustashi as well as soldiers of the Home Guard Army – Domobran). Efraim Zuroff said last week that such pensions are an embarrassment to Croatia and an “insult to their victims”!

“In view of the horrendous war crimes committed in the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH)… such a policy is inherently mistaken,” the centre’s chief Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff said in a letter to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.

I find it deeply disturbing that due criticism and condemnation from Croatia has not, to my knowledge, been adequately directed at Zuroff for this letter and its reported contents. I find it incredulous that not enough teeth have been bared at Zuroff for even contemplating, let alone going ahead with labeling every single WWII Croatian soldier with war crimes. Zuroff, a man who has hunted and hunts individuals, individual persons for WWII war crimes of the Holocaust, has now it seems moved his reach beyond the scope of his ‘job description’ and is on a rampage that inflicts collective guilt upon innocent individuals.

Deplorable!

He has almost run out of individuals to hunt and is evidently now on a road of placing “plaques” of collective guilt wherever he wants to!
It means nothing to him that not a single person in receipt of the Croatian pension who had served in WWII Croatian Armed Forces has ever been charged with, let alone convicted of any war crimes!

This move by Zuroff is deplorable in many ways, but let’s just name two! First – his depraved finger pointing goes at innocent men in Croatia conscripted into the regular army (Home Guards/Domobrani) once the Royal Army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia dissolved in 1941 and honourably defended Croatia from external and internal enemies. Second – his attack on these pensions in 2015 have come 22 years after their introduction in 1993, when Croatian legislation provided for pensions to all armed forces of WWII, and it is blatantly obvious that with this move Zuroff may hope to add to the defence of indefensible communism, i.e. obstruct the battles currently being waged in Eastern Europe in particular to bring communist crimes to justice.

Of course, if one were to pay closer attention to the media then one would come across a long raft of articles coming out of Serbia supporting Zuroff’s call of collective guilt for Croats! And isn’t that interesting: all this at the time when Serbia rehabilitates the Nazi collaborator and executed WWII criminal Draza Mihailovic and keeps silent about the fact that it – Serbia – was among the first WWII countries, after exterminating 94% of its Jews and blaming others for it – to declare itself “Jew free” in May 1942. Mind you, the Serbs and Zuroff will easily tell us that it was the occupying Germans that did all the extermination in Serbia, conveniently hiding the historically long-standing antisemitism in Serbia, the anti-Semitic Milan Nedic’s government of WWII Serbia and its supporters, who were – after all – the real killers of Jews. The Nazi crimes headhunting website “Operation Last Chance”, in which Zuroff is seen as very involved, does not even bother listing the Jews in WWII Serbia and one must see dirty politics rather than justice behind even that! How sad for the victims of that part of the Holocaust.

It was in October 1993 that the Croatian Parliament passed the amendment to its ‘social security’ legislation by which it made it possible for individuals who were members of the WWII “Croatian Homeland Army” to claim a pension for their service where every one year in service was worth two years for the purposes of working-life sum required for all pensions.

It’s blatantly obvious that all victims are not equal to Zuroff – the victims of the Holocaust are more valuable to him than the victims of communist crimes even if both groups of victims arose from sheer and mad crimes! Indeed, it seems that to him WWII Croatian Ustashi forces and the Home Guards were/are one and the same thing, presumably because they both loathed communism and fought for an independent Croatia, as opposed to Yugoslavia!

A great turning point came in the last decade of the 20th century, when former communist countries in Eastern Europe began digging deeper into and unravel the real truth of World War II, emerging with the sad and true story of ‘two equal genocides,’ Nazi and Soviet (Communist) – the Holocaust had since then started disappearing as a unique event with the discoveries of many more mass graves dug by the communists, many more exterminations of innocent people than what the Holocaust had seen. Some call this process a “new history”, “revisionism” – but whatever it’s called it is the right path – the path of real truth.

In the West’s fight against the scourge of Islamic terror and Judeophobia we must be careful and mindful to act in a way that respects the rule of law. That means we must be forceful against any sort of terror act carried out by anyone, no matter his or her ethnic or religious origin. This is what distinguishes us from the barbarians who indiscriminately target civilians. We could say that our condemnation of all terror no matter from which quarter is a direct contrast from those whose school textbooks, religious and political leaders, media and followers preach hate against Jews, Christians and infidels. But then, we perhaps cannot say the same for people like Efraim Zuroff, who for political reasons or not, go for collective guilt; go for the jugular of a whole army of conscripted soldiers that defended their own country, such as the Croatian Home Guards were; who go for the jugular of the so-called fascist regime and not for the communist one when, in fact, terrible crimes were committed in the name of both.

Efraim Zuroff has stated on more than one occasion that no matter how long it takes we must hunt down and bring to justice all those who committed war crimes during the Nazi years. It’s a shame he does not seem to think the same of communist crimes perpetrators.
It would seem that Zuroff failed to mention in his letter to the Croatian Prime Minister that in his suggestion for a review (removal) of pensions given to the members of WWII Croatian armed forces a review of pensions given to the Partisans since WWII must also include an analysis of the crimes communist forces committed against innocent people – and pensions withdrawn!

So, if Croatia were at all mobilised by this letter Zuroff wrote (and it should not be) and started touching these pensions, paid from the Croatian taxpayers’ money (Many of whom are direct descendants of members of WWII Croatian Armed Forces) not Zuroff’s purse, then, given the horrendous magnitude of the number of victims of communist crimes all Partisan pensions must also be reviewed and taken away, for the Paritsans belonged to the communist forces that led the movement of mass murders and liquidations of innocent people rivaling those of the Jewish Holocaust. Obviously, Zuroff has nothing to offer in the justice for victims of communist crimes – let’s keep that in mind and the victims will see justice done in their name in the end. Democracy and truth demand nothing less! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)