False Invalids in the Top Army Ranks

Zagreb Jun 27, 2000

AIM Zagreb, June 17, 2000

On Wednesday, June 13, State Commission for the Revision of Military Disability Pensions (fully named: Government's Commission for the Determination of False Military Disabled Veterans of the Patriotic War) revealed to the public the findings of its months long research. The brief summary of its work was truly shocking for the Croatian public. According to the Commission, eighteen high officials, including as many as ten generals of the Croatian Army, are false invalids who may be criminally persecuted for fraud and illegal acquisition of material gain, while those in this group who are still in active service may be fired, i.e. dishonourably discharged from the Army! To make the spectacle even greater, no one else but the Minister of the Croatian defenders and an SPD member, Ivica Pancic himself, announced the names of the swindlers complaining for being forced to miss his usual morning jogging because of that announcement. Actually, the entire Government supported Pancic, because just a few hours before the names were published, the official stand was that the problem should be dealt with "behind the scenes".

More surprising than the fact that as many as ten generals are men of dubious morals, are their names. Namely, practically all these people were until yesterday the HDZ pillars of society, highly placed officials, arbiters of good and evil, lords of life and death. The famous Branimir Glavas, a man who ruled Slavonia for ten years was named among the false invalids! Other persons on the list of false invalids are no "also-runs" either. Also named was, for example, General Mile Cuk, Tudjman's bodyguard and a person who enjoyed his special confidence for a time and after that, for quite a while, a commander of the elite Croatian military unit, the First Croatian Guard Corps. Just behind him on the list is Ivan Tolj, former unsuccessful poet who, during Tudjman's rule, made an "impressive" military career and became even Major-General, i.e. until the last elections was Chief of the Political Department of the Croatian Army(HV) - so to say, the HV political commissar.

At the time the scandal broke out, Tolj was chief of Department for Patriotic Education of the War School "Ban Josip Jelacic". A false invalid is also the commander of Military Police, Mate Lausic - a man whose name was mentioned earlier in connection with various scandals, such as smuggling of stolen cars from Croatia to Bosnia, but which never had an official epilogue. Chief of the Department for Housing and Business Premises of the Defence Ministry, Brigadier Matko Kakarigi has also been included in the list of bogus war invalids. Apart from the mentioned invalids, the following persons also lost the disability status: General Zivko Budimir, Kresimir Cop, Djura Srnec, Milan Gveric, Darko Bestek, Josip Perisa and Zvonko Sesardic. Questionable is also the disability of General Marinko Kresic, but since literally no documentation could be found for his case, his disability status will be subsequently verified.

As of this month, fake invalids will no longer receive their disability allowances, while in certain cases only the right to nursing assistance will be revoked (General Nojko Marinovic), while others will have to give back all the money they have received on account of their disability so far. However, all those named have already suffered irreparable damage as their reputation has been irretrievably spoiled. That's why the reactions of all named were more than violent. Matko Kakarigi was harshest when he called the publication of names of false invalids none other but a new Bleiburgh! Actually, Kakarigi got diabetes but will not appeal against the Government Commission's decision because, as he said "one must keep one's pride".

Branimir Glavas, "a knight of the Slavonian plain" called this act "a political elimination of generals", adding that his disability - which he sustained in a car accident during the war - can be corrected, but that he would love to see someone take it from him. According to Glavas this is a "Rankovic style persecution". Some generals have announced appeals against the decision, while others - like Ivan Tolj - even lawsuits. For its part, the Government Commission stated its intention to continue the revision of disability pensions, since the number of disabled veterans in Croatia has reached 32 thousand! Apart from being unbelievable, this figure naturally represents a heavy burden on the state budget since the treatment of the disabled veterans in Croatia during the HDZ rule has significantly improved, partly for propaganda reasons, which was, among other things, reflected in high allowances.

The SUBNOR (former Alliance of War Veterans' Societies) mentality has spread all over Tudjman's Croatia and was more present than after World War II, and became a serious financial problem which even Tudjman's Government tried several times to resolve by revising the pension system but, for political reasons, always stopped halfway.

However, after the elections the political situation changed significantly and the young minister of Croatian defenders, himself a fighter from Vukovar, Ivica Pancic, decided to clear the ground irrespective of protests. Findings of the mentioned Commission are mostly his work, but he had behind him not only the Government, but all those who wanted the rationalisation of the social system of Croatia, as well as settling of accounts with the malignant HDZ heritage. Realising what was going on, the leadership of the former Tudjman's party recognised this so that its Vice-President Vladimir Seks called the naming of fake disabled veterans an attempt of the new authorities at destroying not only the reputation of generals, but also the dignity of the Patriotic War. With fake invalids, the new government has embarked on perhaps the hardest encounter with the HDZ inheritance ever, but also a harsh competition with the right wing parties who were badly defeated at the elections.

The story about fake invalids is both politically and sociologically interesting. It is actually, indicative in a far-reaching sense: its outcome will give some idea as to what will be the ending of the Croatian transition drama.

A more detailed explanation is required here: HDZ front men were accomplices in two criminal processes which had far-reaching effects. One is known under the name "human resettlement of the population"; behind this abstract formulation was a brutal plan of coordinated, violent moving out of ethnic minorities from specific regions. During the war, under the control of the ruling parties, the Serbs moved out Croats and Bosniacs, the Croats resettled the Serbs and Bosniacs, and Bosniacs moved Croats or Serbs (naturally, not the entire nations, but their organised military forces), accompanied by a parallel systematic plunder of national wealth.

And while expulsion or seemingly voluntary moving out of minorities was never recognised as a criminal act, the plundering was, without exception, labelled as irrevocable social evil. Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union did not lose elections because of its ten-year long policy of ethnic cleansing, striking an agreement with Milosevic, attacking a neighbouring country, broadest possible liquidation or various crimes against the Serbs, but because first the media labelled it as thieving, and then the entire nation recognised it as such. In simple terms, it lost the power not because of the murders it had committed but because of thieving.

The majority of the Croatian population would, even today, most probably support the second part of the deal ("human resettlement of the population", i.e. the resolution of the Serbian problem), but no one would defend the HDZ's economic doctrine. And unwritten and unsaid part of that doctrine were precisely the knavish methods of increasing the revenues of the HDZ nomenclature. It was common knowledge for years that a large number of the Croatian defenders had false disability documents, same as it was known that that the total number of war veterans was much larger than the actual number of citizens who took part in the war, either voluntarily or answering the call-up. All earlier commissions which were supposed to carry out the revision of the disability status of the Patriotic War veterans, were dissolved by the decision of the state top leadership because the 1991-1995 war was sacred and any serious dispelling of a myth on the war for homeland would have eroded the HDZ's political monopoly. In addition, public opinion strongly believed that the relief that ensued after the "Storm" and resolution of the Serbian problem were of such great importance - and achieved under the wise HDZ's leadership - that some of their mischief made in that context, should be forgiven.

However, the troubles come up to the neck: the drastically impoverished nation became aware that when national wealth is being stolen that theft is not abstract, but that actually everyone is being robbed. And there we come to the present scandal with false invalids, with two HDZ weights on the pan of the same scales. Namely, the same people who resolved the ethnic problem in Croatia, have been named as notorious thieves whose guiding idea was pure self-interest. How will the nation react? All named, naturally, defend themselves in the only possible way: they claim that this is a political process against them with the ultimate aim of disqualifying the Patriotic War which was waged - as once even Dr.Slaven Letica, a non-HDZ intellectual, noted - in an ethically exemplary way which modern Europe never saw before. Will then the majority of Croats be so irritated that the "sacred Patriotic War" is being violated by some of its main protagonists being named as common Balkan spongers or, quite the opposite, will they be exasperated for having allowed common swindlers lead them for full ten years?

Will, for example, Branimir Glavas and Mate Lausic go down in history as men who won the sacred Patriotic War, or as offenders who were dishonourably discharged from the army? Actually, the new authorities behaved rather cunningly in this case. It would be quite easy to prove that some of the false disability veterans have even committed a war crime against civilian population - the Drava river near Osijek was filled with corpses in early nineties - but such criminalisation of the army top brass or civilian structures would, nevertheless, cause much greater resentment of the public than the revelation of the disability fraud.

Bit by bit, usually threading after Mesic or even sometimes before him, Racan's team is actually "illegitimatising" the entire HDZ by implementing, at least partial and gradual, "de-Tudjmanisation" of Croatia. Although the named fake disabled want to mobilise the public with a view to opposing the "destruction of the sacred things of the Patriotic War", it is highly unlikely that Racan's Government will fail this test. If it succeeds in this round, the Government will continue the exposing of frauds at other levels which - coupled with the successful implementation of economic reforms - could help Croatia joint he company of truly civilised countries. With such, gradual progress, it will also be easier for the refugees to return to Croatia. Then, one day, it will easier to answer the question whether the war for the homeland - led by the people like Tudjman, Glavas, Kakarigi and others - was truly so sacred and those who will be able to give a positive answer to that question will inevitably have to face a sub-question: how could a bunch of swindlers, hoods, selfish people and generally criminals, could lead a Holy War?

The catharsis will not occur in Croatia overnight - that rarely happens anywhere in the world - so that on the long way to truth, the move made by Minister Pancic in unmasking the false invalids, only small at first sight, is actually unavoidable and crucially important.

Boris Raseta