Tudjman's Croatia continues the policy

of the fascist Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945)

Since Tudjman took over in Croatia in 1990 and the adoption of the present Constitution, which does not mention Serbs as a constituent people, it has become evident that the strategic goal of the new Croatian authorities is the creation of an ethnically pure Croatian State. Now, following the aggression of the Croatian Army against Western Slavonia on 1 May 1995 and against Krajina from 4-8 August 1995, even Tudjman's closest friends and allies find it difficult to prove that this is not true. The latest aggression of Croatia against the Serbian people of Krajina, with the engagement of about 150 000 troops, tanks, heavy artillery and aviation, destruction of all major towns in Krajina, expulsion of over 250 000 Serbs, mass calculated killing of civilians, mass-scale war crimes, strafing and shelling of the helpless columns of refugees, destruction and devastation of everything that is Serbian, has opened the eyes to many in the world and provided to those better acquainted with the situation the unambiguous basis to conclude that the strategy of the annihilation of the Serbian people in Croatia under Tudjman's Government today is not at all different from the same strategy of the fascist Government of Ante Pavelic, leader of the so-called Independent State of Croatia which was created under the auspices of Hitler and existed from 1941- 1945.

The fascist creation of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) was proclaimed in Zagreb on 10 April 1941 and lasted until 9 May 1945 until the collapse of fascism. It encompassed the territories of Croatia (except Istria, Hrvatsko primorje and some islands), Bosnia-Herzegovina and Srem. Hitler brought to the helm of the Independent State of Croatia Ante Pavelic, a Croatian emigre in Italy and the founder of the illegal fascist organization Croatian Ustasha Movement. The Ustasha programme of the Independent State of Croatia provided, inter alia, for the extermination of the Serbian people, the Jews and Romanies from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia and for the creation of "a pure Croatian nation", i.e. an ethnically pure Independent State of Croatia.

Ethnic cleansing under Pavelic and Tudjman. The Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) took over the racist laws of Nazi Germany. By its cruelty, brutality and macabre killings, the regime of Ante Pavelic astounded even the German SS formations stationed in the Independent State of Croatia.<Report of SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner to the Military Commander for Southeast, 3 September 1941; documents of the Personal Staff of the SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, MA 328, No. 651866>

The ethnically pure Croatian State was the strategic goal of the fascist Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic. What Pavelic and Hitler failed to achieve from 1941-1945, Tudjman managed to do from 1991-1995. Since the outbreak of the Yugoslav crisis to the latest aggression against Krajina, over 500 000 Serbs have been expelled from their ancestral lands and homes.

The denial to the Serbs of the capacity of a constituent people in 1990 and the subsequent declaration of the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia signalled the beginning of the expulsion of the citizens of Serbian nationality.

The mass exodus of the Serbs, which began in the summer of 1991 continues unabated. From June 1991 to July 1995, the Croatian authorities expelled from the territories under their control more than 350 000 Serbs. The ethnic cleansing of Serbs has taken place all over the Republic of Croatia, particularly in Western Slavonia. Serbian villages were systematically burned down and destroyed. According to the information collected until 15 August 1992 by the Serbian Sabor relating to the persecution of the Serbian people and its ethnic cleansing in Western Slavonia by the authorities of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, published as an official document of the General Assembly of the United Nations, 183 Serbian villages and 10 towns have been fully cleansed and 87 Serbian villages partially cleansed from Serbs.

In his report of May 1993 (S/25777) the United Nations Secretary-General says that 250,000 Serbs have been expelled from their homes. The number includes only the registered cases of the expelled Serbs who found shelter in the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Most of the Serbs who lived in many Croatian towns in large numbers left these towns because of a perfidious method of pressure: 30,000 from Karlovac, 28,000 from Zadar, 30,000 from Sisak, 5,000 from Gospi~, 15,000 from ~ibenik, 10,000 from Vinkovci and 10,000 from Slavonski Brod. (The Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia submitted documented data on the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from Croatia to the United Nations on a number of occasions, including its four reports on war crimes, submitted in accordance with Security Council resolution 780).

According to the information reaching the European Union from Zagreb, at average up to 500 Serbs leave Croatia every day mainly for the Republic of Serbia, Republic of Srpska or the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

The Serbian civilian population in Eastern Slavonia, Medak Pocket and in other ancestral Serbian lands has also been liquidated on a mass scale.

The aggression against Western Slavonia of 1 May 1995 was aimed at ethnically cleansing that part of Serbian territories. In a matter of days, over 15,000 civilians, women, children and the old were expelled, while over 3,000 of them were liquidated.

In its undisguised aggression against the Serbian territories in Western Bosnia, a foreign territory, Croatia occupied pure Serbian towns of Glamo~ and Grahovo. Croatia expelled over 50 000 Serbian civilians from this area.

150,000 Croatian troops engaged in the genocide in Krajina. The genocidal policy of the extermination of the Serbian people pursued by the Croatian State culminated in its aggression against Krajina on 4 August 1995 . This aggression, in which 150,000 troops were engaged, brought about a mass suffering of civilian population, exposed to outright, deliberate and incessant attacks by artillery and airplanes. Many people, especially women and children and the old were either killed or wounded. The aggression brought many war crimes and mass exodus of about 250,000 people in its train, who fled to former Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This caused enormous humanitarian problems unprecedented in recent history: on 6 and 7 August 1995, the Croatian aviation and artillery killed the refugees in long columns on a mass scale in the areas of Martin Brod, Petrovac, Banja Luka, Topusko, Glina, the Topusko Dvor road, in the vicinity of the Bojna settlement, on the northern borders of Krajina and Bosnia. Tens of thousands of women, children and the old and ailing were killed.

The ethnic cleansing is carried out through physical liquidation of civilians, arrests, organized demolition of Serbian houses, evictions, dismissals, prevention of religious life, refusals to grant Croatian citizenship, etc.

Carl Bildt: Tudjman responsible for war crimes. Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt accused President Tudjman publicly already on the first day of the aggression of the atrocities committed by the Croatian armed forces in Krajina and said that it was possible that the President of the Republic of Croatia be brought before the International War Crime Tribunal in The Hague. Croatia responded by declaring EU representative in the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt persona non grata.

The genocide. The Independent State of Croatia will go down in history as a creation which ushered in a systematic and pre-planned genocide against the entire Serbian people. The regime of Ante Pavelic brought the order on "the final solution of the Serbian question", the annihilation or expulsion of the Serbian people from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, six months before the Nazis took the decision on the total annihilation of the Jews.

Over 1 900,000 Serbs, accounting for almost one third of the overall population of the Independent State of Croatia, were outlawed by the Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic (1941-1945) by a system of laws. Over 900,000 Serbs were killed.

Serbian territories, but without Serbs. The victims of the Independent State of Croatia were hundreds of thousands of people bestially murdered by being thrown into karst pits or rivers, burned alive or slaughtered in prisons and concentration camps. The concentration camp of Jasenovac on the Sava River banks in the Independent State of Croatia was the largest killing field in the Balkans and one of the few in which 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Romanies were killed.

The armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia fought the anti-Hitlerite coalition throughout World War Two (1941-1945). As early as the middle of July 1941, the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) dispatched to the Eastern Front against the Red Army the re-enforced 369th infantry regiment numbering 3 865 men, entering in this way the war against the Soviet Union. During 1941 and in the first half of 1942, the Independent State of Croatia dispatched over 8,000 legionaries of all services to this Front.

On 14 December 1941, the Independent State of Croatia declared war to the Allies, including the United States of America and Great Britain.

Today, 50 years later, continuing its genocide against the Serbs, the Croatian regime is, unfortunately, being supported also by the leaders of some influential countries.

Despite the fascist basis and roots of his regime, President Tudjman established this year a Committee to mark the 50th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Side by side with this Committee, he established a Committee to mark the 50th anniversary of Bleiburg and the "road of the cross" commemorating Croatian fascists. He was received in the Holocaust Museum in Washington and invited to the commemoration of the victims of fascism in London on 8 May 1995.

An international "scientific" seminar was held in Zagreb in May 1995 on "Bleiburg and the Road of the Cross 1945-1995" under the auspices of the highest Croatian authorities at which it was, inter alia, pointed out that "the seeds of present-day Croatia sprung up from the blood of the Bleiburg martyrs". Instead of the ceremony in commemoration of the victims of fascism, Jasenovac was shelled on the day of the 50th anniversary of the victory over fascism.

On 1 May 1995, Franjo Tudjman dispatched an enormous number of soldiers, tanks and planes equal to the number of inhabitants against the Serbs in Western Slavonia on which occasion over 3,000 civilians were killed, Pakrac, Lipik, Jasenovac and Oku~ani were ethnically cleansed, while about 15,000 Serbs were expelled. Out of 20,000 inhabitants before the attack, 1,200 inhabitants at most remained in the region, in accordance with UN information.

In only four days, i.e. 4 to 8 August 1995, 250,000 Serbian civilians were expelled from Krajina. That was the main goal of the Croatian aggression against Krajina. Serbian lands, but without Serbs is the motto of the regime of Franjo Tudjman, taken over from his role model Ante Pavelic. This is evinced also by the statement of Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Grani} of 6 August 1995, made to the Associated Press to the effect that he expected that up to 99 per cent of Serbs would leave Krajina.

First on 1 May 1995 in Western Slavonia and then on 4-8 August 1995 in Krajina (North-South), Tudjman's war machine set out to destroy all larger Serbian settlements, to kill in a pre-planned way and on a mass scale civilians, women and children, the old and the exhausted, to strafe and shell long columns of helpless refugees, to rape Serbian women and to mutilate savagely civilian victims. It destroyed all documents and the Jasenovac Memorial in which, at this moment, 200 Croatian soldiers are stationed, in forlorn hope to erase the traces of past crimes.

Hitler and Pavelic - Tudjman's role models. Ever since his emergence on the political scene, Franjo Tudjman has sought to portray the Ustasha Independent State of Croatia as any other European State and to equate its leader Pavelic, just as he equated Hitler, with other European leaders of that time. In his book "The Wasteland of History", published by Matica Hrvatska in Zagreb in 1990, Tudjman said that the Holocaust was a natural phenomenon in the history of nations and that there was nothing particular about it. Tudjman admitted that "Hitler was bad", but that "in a sense he was no worse than anybody else".

Tudjman: Jews responsible for genocide. Tudjman's obsession is to justify fascism, reduce the number of the Serbian and Jewish victims and to continuously accuse both of these peoples.Tudjman seeks to prove that genocide existed throughout history and goes as far as to claim that it was invented by the Jews. Tudjman does not completely deny the Ustasha crimes, but seeks to minimize them by "re-defining their place in history". In an attempt to re-write history, Tudjman goes on to say that tens of thousands of inmates, most of them Romanies, Jews and Serbs, as well as Croats, perished in the Jasenovac concentration camp ("The Wasteland", page 316).

Tudjman's antisemitism and Serbophobia. Tudjman imputes that the Jews in the Jasenovac camp administration were responsible for the killing of the Serbs and Romanies as well as of Jews themselves. He accuses the Jews of allegedly appropriating the gold of the Romanies and claims that this was the reason for their execution ("The Wasteland", pp 318-319). Under Tudjman's reign, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and Serbian churches and cultural and spiritual centres are simultaneously attacked and destroyed.

What the new Croatian State was to look like was no secret to anybody, particularly not to the threatened Serbian people. Speaking on Jela~i} Square (until 1991 Republic Square) in Zagreb to the welcoming crowd upon his return from New York, after the admission of Croatia into the United Nations, Tudjman said threateningly that "everybody must know that nobody can rule Croatia now but Croats themselves. The Serbs in Croatia must understand and accept the fact that neither Yugoslavia nor Serbia exist any more; the world no longer recognizes it. The Serbs in Croatia must recognize Croatian authorities, if they will not do it, they would better go and look for their homeland elsewhere in the world".< Prime-time News of Croatian Radio-Television, Zagreb, 24 May 1992.>

Tudjman's consistency. Under the pressure of the Jewish lobby, Tudjman himself tried to correct his positions from the said book. He had reduced the number of the Jewish victims in World War Two to under one million and then apologized and said that he was going to rectify the mistake in the next edition of his book with respect to Jews, but not Serbs.

Franjo Tudjman incorporated the ideas from his book in the programme of his Croatian Democratic Community, the ruling party of Croatia. On 24 and 25 February 1990, Tudjman said: "The hegemonists and unitarists forget that the Independent State of Croatia was not only a 'quisling' creation and a fascist crime, but also an expression of the historical aspirations of the Croatian people for its independent State and a cognizance of international factors". By putting out the request for "the territorial integrity of the Croatian people in its historic and natural borders", Tudjman said that by this it is meant that according to its present-day constitution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is also the State of the Croatian people. "This is the reflection and continuation of the Croatian politicians Star~evi}, Pavlinovi}, Trumbi} and Radi}, all of whom spoke about Bosnia Herzegovina from the position of its unity with Croatia and the West, and had no second thoughts as to where its people would decide in a referendum its place was."< The regime of Franjo Tudjman considers Ante Star~evi} the "Father of the Croatian nation". In his well-known book "Magnum Crimen" (Zagreb, 1948), eminent Croatian historian Victor Novak wrote that the ideology of Ante Star~evi} and his political heir Josip Frank, the founder and leader of the Croatian Party of Right, was hued with undisguised racism about pure Croatness. Their racist nationalism, Novak went on to say, was very militant and intolerant, exclusive, anti-Orthodox, anti-Yugoslav. What they stood for was best evinced by what they put on their banners: "Croatia to the Croats", "There is only one political people in Croatian lands - the Croats", "No Serbian nationality, no Serbian name are recognized in Croatia" and "Axes for Serbs".>

The same symbols in 1941 and in 1991. Tudjman propounded similar ideas in his statement at the celebration of the 155th anniversary of the publication of the national anthem of present-day Croatia "Our Beautiful Homeland" which was also the national anthem of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945). Today's Croatia has the same symbols as the fascist Independent State of Croatia - the same national flag, coat-of-arms and the same national currency (kuna).

The State as a mechanism for the extermination of all non-Croats. The Croatian Democratic Community and Franjo Tudjman carried out a revaluation and a thorough rehabilitation of the Ustashe and the Ustasha movement.< The Croatian Democratic Community espoused, elaborated and began to put in practice the basic political ideas of A. Star~evi} and his Croatian Party of Right, which he established together with Eugen Kvaternik in 1861. Star~evi} was the author of the idea about the racial, national and religious superiority of Croats over Serbs. He considered that the Croatian people could not restore its national State without prior extermination of the Serbian people. Denying the political individuality to Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, he and his followers contended that the Serbs were "Orthodox Croats". In his opinion, the Croats were a superior and the Serbs an inferior race. The creation of a pure Croatian and Catholic Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) in World War Two was an attempt to put into practice the racial theory of Ante Star~evi} and his political heirs, Frankovci and Ustashe.> Mile Budak, the second-ranking official in the Independent State of Croatia and its Minister of Education and Faith, has been fully rehabilitated by a decision of Franjo Tudjman. Many Croatian schools have been renamed after him and the Croatian "newspeak" is being created according to his teachings from the time of the Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic so as to establish and emphasize its separateness from the Serbian language. That very same racist approach of Budak towards the Serbs is a very salient feature of the Croatian Democratic Community and the State policy of Croatia.

Immediately after its assumption of power, the Tudjman regime expunged the Serbs from the new Croatian Constitution (in all the Constitutions of the former Yugoslav Federal Republic of the SR of Croatia, the Serbs had the status of a constituent people and not of a national minority) and refused to grant the Serbs, in practice, even the basic civil, human and national rights. Even at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Serbs were represented in the Parliament in Vienna and were recognized as a separate entity, but not in Croatia after Tudjman's accession to power. They are dismissed, evicted, their villages, churches and cemeteries are devastated, all Serbian cultural institutions are abolished as well as their language and script, etc.

Minions of both Pavelic and Tudjman. Upon its taking over of power, the Croatian Democratic Community began to propagate the Ustasha ideology more and more openly. Increasing publicity on Croatian Radio and Television was being given to people like Danijel Crnjan who, at the time of the Independent State of Croatia, said that Croatia had radically solved the Jewish question, Dinko [aki}, the warden of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Pavelic's son-in-law Sre}ko P{eni~nik (the leader of the emigre Croatian Liberation Movement), Mate [arlija (whose real name is Nijaz Batla, Croatian Army General, Counsellor in the Croatian Embassy in Sarajevo), Ante Stojanov an accomplice in the murder of Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden Vladimir Rolovi} of 1972 and Sabor deputy Vinko Nikoli}, an ideologist of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) and the member of the Ustasha headquarters and the ideologist of the Ustasha youth.<D. Djakic: "I am proud of my past, of everything I did at that time. Only the chosen few could occupy the post I occupy. If the Independent State of Croatia had not existed during the four war years, the 30 May 1990 could have never been possible. The Independent State of Croatia was the foundation on which today's Croatia was built. If we say the whole truth about the Independent State of Croatia today, we have nothing to be ashamed of, we can only feel proud since we defended Croatian interests, we defended the State on whose foundation the present-day Croatia emerged". He went on to say: "There were no mass killings at Jasenovac. Considering the duration of the camp, considering the number of people in it, deaths were natural and normal - there were always about 3 000 inmates in the camp at a time. If we did execute, we did so at the order of the competent court on the basis of law. I am only telling you that the rule of law obtained". (Interview to the "Magazin", Zagreb, 8 February 1995)>

Nostalgia for Ustasha leaders. Croatia is rehabilitating the leaders of the Ustasha movement, renaming streets, squares, schools and other institutions after them. The Victims of Fascism Square in Zagreb has been renamed in Great Croatians Square, anti-fascist memorials are being pulled down (over 2 000 memorials commemorating the victims of fascism have been demolished in Dalmatia alone), Pavelic's pictures are flooding the barracks of the Croatian Army, Croatian military units are given the names of notorious Ustashas such as Franceti}, Boban and Luburi}, cafes and restaurants are named "Poglavnik" (the Supreme Leader, the title given to Ante Pavelic during World War Two), "Ustasha" or "U" and Pavelic's pictures are displayed in public places. On 6 August 1995, Croatian units entered the defeated and ethnically cleansed Knin singing Ustasha songs and waving Ustasha symbols.

Fascists given positions in Tudjman's Government. The Tudjman regime has appointed former Ustasha officials to high positions in present-day Croatia. Former members of the Ustasha movement have filled the ranks of Croatian diplomacy, military and police. Among them, as reported by "The New York Times", is an Ustasha woman terrorist in the Croatian Embassy in Washington.

President Tudjman has also rehabilitated the high-ranking Ustasha official from Dubrovnik, Ivo Rojnica, appointed him Croatian Ambassador to Argentina and decorated him with a high Croatian order. Rojnica had said that he would have done what he did from 1941-1945 over again. He signed a racist order of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 and was decorated by Ante Pavelic for his "dedicated work in carrying out the entrusted duty in the Ustasha movement".

By a decision of President Tudjman, Vinko Nikoli}, member of the Ustasha General Staff and the ideologist of the Ustasha youth, who from 1941-1945 participated in the genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Romanies, has been appointed member of the House of Counties of the Sabor of the Republic of Croatia.

Medals for killing Serbian civilians. "Croatian veterans" from World War Two, Home Guard members and the members of the fascist army of the Independent State of Croatia also paraded before President Tudjman during the celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Republic of Croatia on 30 May 1995. On that occasion, Tudjman conferred the high Croatian orders of "Nikola [ubi} Zrinjski" also on S. Rinac, the killer of the Serbian Zec family in Zagreb, who admitted to have committed this crime, but has not been arraigned yet, T. Mer~ep, responsible for the massacre of Serbs from Pakra~ka poljana to Gospi}, M. Bare{i}, Ustasha terrorist and the killer of Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden Vladimir Rolovi}, S. Praljak, former TV Director and now a general in the Croatian Army at whose orders the world-known cultural and historical symbol of Mostar - the Old Bridge, was destroyed.

Rehabilitation of former Ustashe. The books of prominent Ustasha officials from the time of the Independent State of Croatia are being published under the sponsorship and financial assistance of Croatian Government departments.

The book of Eugen Dido Kvaternik called "Remembrances and Observations 1925-1945, Addenda to Croatian History" was published with the assistance of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia and promoted on 21 March 1995 in the Entrepreneurs' Centre in Zagreb. The author of the book was the head of the Ustasha Supervisor Service and the head of the Administration of public order and security and the main organizer in 1941 and 1942 of all racial and religious persecutions, mass killings, genocide and war crimes, and the promotion was intended to provide a "scientific verification" in the form of the "addenda to Croatian history".< By the proclamation based on Art. 3 of the legal provision on the Croatian State Sabor (Parliament) of 24 February 1942, No. XXXV 232-Z-1942, signed by Head of State Ante Pavelic, Eugen Kvaternik and Slavko Kvaternik were proclaimed members of the Croatian State Sabor ("the memorial book of the First Anniversary of the Independent State of Croatia 10 April 1941-10 April 1942", published by the State Reporting and Promotional Office in Zagreb).>

"Free" press. The Croatian authorities instructed the Croatian information media not to report of the Nazi past of Germany. At the same time, speaking at the party congress of the Croatian Democratic Community in Zagreb on 15 October 1995, President Tudjman proposed that "the remains of the victims of communism" also be transferred to the memorial complex of Jasenovac and that tribute be paid at one place both to the "victims of fascism and the victims of communism, to the Jews and victims of the homeland war".< "Ve~ernji list", 1 November 1993> At the end of 1993, the Coordination Committee of the Jewish community of the Republic of Croatia in Zagreb protested the planned "rehabilitation of the Ustasha State" taking place in Croatia, as well as the idea that the Ustasha criminals be buried in concentration camps which they once established and ran themselves.

On 10 March 1995, Vjesnik, the standard-bearer of the official Croatian press (there is hardly any independent press in Croatia) carried the photographs of the Ustasha criminals J. Franceti} and R. Boban (many units in the Croatian army are named after them now) and the text of the Ustasha march "Evo zore, evo dana, evo Jure i Bobana" ("Here Breaks the Dawn, Here Breaks the Day, Here Come Jure and Boban"). Many magazines in Croatia have Ustasha leanings and the most notorious amongst them are "Vinkova~ki hrvatski vjesnik" with a front page motto "Serbs be damned wherever you are" and the new "Hrvatski vitez", whose editors would stop at nothing to demean the Serbs.

As soon as he took over power in 1990, Tudjman dismissed over 1000 editors and journalists and introduced iron discipline in all newspapers in Croatia. Dismissals and the sending out of circular instructions to editorial boards is a very salient feature of the media policy of present-day Croatia.

The anti-Serbian atmosphere and trends in the Republic of Croatia are well illustrated also by a consistent and almost complete expunction of the text of Serbian authors from elementary school textbooks (B. ]opi}, D. Radovi}, B. Miljkovi}, D. Maksimovi}, A. Vu~o, P. Ko~i}, J. Jovanovi} Zmaj, V. Karad`i} or J. Sterija Popovi}, while Ivo Andri}, the 1962 Yugoslav Nobel Prize winner for literature is given only a fragmentary reference). All Serbian writers, representative of literary trends and epochs, have been left out from secondary school textbooks too.

No textbook references to Ustasha crimes. School books contain no lessons at all on anti-fascism and the anti-fascist struggle in Croatia because they are necessarily reminiscent of the contribution and identity of the Serbs. They do contain however the texts from the so-called Croatian primers from 1941-1943 in an attempt to prove that those were the times when people "lived a normal community life". The "revaluation" of history by way of issuing new textbooks is designed to imbue the children with hatred towards the entire Serbian people. This was also the case with the textbooks issued in the time of Ante Pavelic according to which the Croats were always threatened and shackled with Serbian hegemony, while all the evils emanate from the Serbs.

The Serbian language and the Cyrillic script are no longer in use, while the spiritual and cultural identity of the Serbian people is being denied. There are no Serbian dailies and radio and television programmes in the Serbian language. The Serbs are racially discriminated against in which way Croatia violates the basic provisions of the Convention of the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination to which it is also a party.

Conversion of Serbs and Muslims. The Independent State of Croatia of Ante Pavelic (1941-1945) converted forcibly 240 000 Serbs. Tudjman's Croatia uses Pavelic's experience and methods. Ever since the beginning of the armed conflict in former Croatia in 1991 about 20 000 children have been forcibly converted. Simultaneously, Croatian authorities are forcibly converting Muslim children in Bosnia where about 17 000 Muslims have been converted in the last three years.

Neo-fascism. On 28 December 1993, a large commemoration of Ante Pavelic, the fascist leader of the clerical and fascist Independent State of Croatia from 1941-1945, was held in Zagreb. "Without him, there would be no present-day Croatian State," was the official explanation.

Up and down Croatia (the central celebration was held in Split), the adherents and upholders of Ustasha tradition marked also this year the anniversary of the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia on 10 April. This was a unique case that the establishment of a collaborationist fascist State as had been the Independent State of Croatia was being freely celebrated in a European country, that fascist crimes were being denied or at least downplayed and that those who had committed them were being presented as "freedom-fighters and anti-fascists who had made only sporadic mistakes".< In its programme "Review of the Activities of Political Parties" of 12 April 1995, the Radio-Television of Croatia broadcast the marking of 10 April - the Day of the Independent State of Croatia - by the Croatian Party of Right in Split on which occasion youths wearing black uniforms saluted those attending the event with stretched right hands like Mussolini and Hitler.>

All the media in Croatia carried the "Proclamation to the Croatian Nation" of 10 April 1995 of Mladen [varc, the founder of the New Croatian Right Party, in which he requested the Croatian Government to rescind the humiliating 21 June and proclaim the 10 April as the day of Croatian statehood.

Speaking at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Croatian Democratic Community on 25 April 1995, Franjo Tudjman said: "Croatia is being accused of continuing the policy of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945), but it should be known that the Independent State of Croatia was not only a crime, but also an expression of the state aspirations of the Croatian people. Today, the people from either side are invited to rally around the problem of democratic Croatia".

At the celebration of 10 April in Split, Political Secretary of the Croatian Party of Right Ivan Gabelica said (part of it carried by the Croatian Radio-Television and the press): "From the suffering, blood and tears of the Croats rose Dr. Ante Pavelic - all those means that Pavelic propounded and that he used to establish the Independent State of Croatia should be used against the Serbs also today".

Miko Tripalo, President of the Action of Social Democrats of Croatia, wrote: "Those attempting to rehabilitate the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustashe advocate in effect the war option. The rehabilitation of the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustashe is assuming worrisome proportions and is manifested through a flood of Ustasha symbols and photographs of Ustasha criminals. 10 April, the Day of the Independent State of Croatia, is officially celebrated and is stage-managed by the Croatian State and military".< "Novi list", April 1995.>

In a public letter of Dalmatian anti-fascists it is, inter alia, said: "Neo-fascism is our daily reality and it is our duty to warn of it on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Death was the goal at the time of the Independent State of Croatia; it was provided false dignity by totalitarian laws: the Law on the racial belonging of citizens, Law on permanent summary courts, Law on the expulsion of non-Croats and conversion into Catholicism and the Law on concentration camps. These laws were implemented by the mass extermination of other blood, other race, other thought. The worst mistake in the new present-day State was committed by establishing links with Ustasha emigres who understood it as an opportunity to try to achieve what they failed to achieve in the last war. The kuna conduced to the definitive official identification of present-day Croatia with the so-called Independent State of Croatia, voted at the behest of the Great Leader: the nostalgic circle has thus been closed - neo-fascism has evidently pitched camp in Croatia, fascism is our daily reality, fascism is being reincarnated as a way of ruling Croatia."

Tudjman's Croatia the greatest threat to peace. At the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on European Security, held in Warsaw on 5-6 May 1995, it was frequently pointed out that "the most important factor of European instability is present-day Croatia, burdened with the new army and replete with memories of the Ustasha State of World War Two."

Greater Croatia. Hitler presented the Independent State of Croatia to Pavelic as Greater Croatia which, fortunately for Europe and the Balkans, did not last long. Today, Tudjman is doing everything to have Greater Croatia presented by Germany, the United States and the Vatican, reconstructed from Bosnia and Serbian lands. While a concerted propaganda campaign is being mounted to frighten small Balkan countries with the spectre of "Greater Serbia" and are being offered a protective "umbrella", behind the smokescreen the Washington Agreement from 1994 inaugurated Greater Croatia in which the Muslims are a majority, while the July 1995 Split Agreement consolidated the military alliance between Tudjman and Izetbegovi} and was given the blessings by the United States Ambassador in Zagreb, Peter Galbraith. Both of them have been sent teams of US military planners and experts and they have been rendered military and financial assistance. The United States has unilaterally discontinued the control of the arms embargo against Muslims and Croats in violation of the Security Council arms embargo resolution in whose adoption it participated.

Croatian authorities in Bosnia. From the beginning of the crisis until the present day, thousands of Croatian regular troops have been present in many parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatian flags have been flown and the Croatian, i.e. Ustasha, coat-of-arms and national currency (kuna) have been used. All structures of the authorities in these parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina are directly linked with Zagreb, not Sarajevo.

Ethnically pure Croatian State. The ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from their ancestral lands in Croatia has been a permanent feature of Croatian policy. Croatia is not interested in whatever status or rights of the Serbian people, in whatever level of mutual confidence; its exclusive interest has always been the control of Serbian ethnic lands but without Serbs. The genocide against the Serbian people initiated by Ante Pavelic has been continued by the President of present-day Croatia Franjo Tudjman. The goal of an ethnically pure Croatian State is being realized. Telling proof of this monstrous enterprise is the fact that over 500 000 Serbs have been expelled from their ancestral lands since the forcible secession of Croatia from the former SFR of Yugoslavia to the present day. The most evident example of this is the latest Croatian aggression against the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the mass exodus of the Serbian people from this region, the largest in the last five years of the systematic persecution and extermination.

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