ANNIVERSARY OF HDZ

AIM, ZAGREB, February 27, 1995 In February 1990, when the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) held its first major gathering - the First General Assembly of the HDZ, which was a kind of a founding congress of Tudjman's party established a few months before that - the Croatian public had the opportunity to see for the first time what true, genuine nationalists look like. Before that event, the public knew them only from rightly concerned, but utterly flat and ineffective newspaper articles which were published for years with the same super-title: "extremist emigrants".

In the elite music hall "Lisinski", whose upper floors offered a view of all the major Zagreb toponyms, from the Cathedral to the building of the Central Committee of the League of Communists, in that crucial winter, Tudjman organized a gathering where, for the first time after many years of absence from the country, these hateful and somewhat unreal emigrants appeared in the open, and he personally wished them a welcome they could only have wished for, by the statement that Pavelic's Independent State of Croatia was not just a mere fascist creation, but also "the expression of historical aspirations of the Croat people". And yet, this was not the dimension of that gathering that brought the prize to the HDZ which won power less than three months later. The emigrants were just a spice in the main course which consisted of convincing the largest possible number of the Croats and the largest possible institutions they were gathered around, that it was not in any way harmful or offensive to be a nationalist, but on the contrary, that it was healthy and useful. In the matter of just a few months this was achieved, and the effects were so profound that one can believe with good reason that the seed did not fall on completely unprepared ground. That is how the HDZ reached a crucial anniversary which it certainly is not the only one that deserves merit for, but it definitely did celebrate its fifth anniversary, completely convinced that it was the main, what is more, the only creator of modern Croat history.

In fact, Tudjman completely reduced the list of main actors in Croat independence and underlined in his paper for the occasion that "even some of the most competent international experts declared that our economic miracle can be explained only by the fact that Croatia - contrary to some of the other countries - had and still has a leadership which knows what it wants and which is capable of implementing its policy". That is how even HDZ itself, within which Tudjman scored against the defeated "supporters of the so-called Radical nation-building foundations" and "those with the so-called leftist Liberalistic starting-points", became more of a companion to the impeccable leadership, than an independent creator of policy. This could be felt in the atmosphere of the anniversary gathering held in the basketball hall of the "Cibona", where there was no riotous chanting cheering to Croatia and Croatdom - which proved to be a double-edged sword on some previous occasions - and those present half-heartedly listened to the words of their leader who said that in Croatia protagonist of "fascistoid Ustashe movement" cannot sell in Croatia any more, just as "Communists and Yugo-unitarians".

In a sense, one could say that the founder of the HDZ, having extracted the best nationalistic juices from his party, would now prefer to see it like a disciplined conference machinery which politely claps its hands to the well-known thoughts of its leaders. Some colleagues journalists say that they heard a part of the audience grumble that they, "the old Ustashe", were not given seats which belonged to them according to their rank, but this was not the only thing that showed that Tudjman, after five years of companionship, was not ready to fulfill all their whims any more. Probably the fact that he skipped a whole chapter of current political issues had the same intention which the "old Ustashe" certainly believe to be decisive for the "to be or not to be" of Croatia - from the dismissal of UNPROFOR to Z-4 plan. In order to avoid this issue and not take any chances of getting even close to it, Tudjman did not even mention "normalization" of Croat-Serb relations, which surely had no enthusiastic supporters in the audience, and the favourite subject of the majority of his public appearances also failed to be discussed - great "friends" and "allies" in the world who were never liked by the fundamentalist faction of the HDZ, and, as any public test would probably show, who were treated rather as hateful opponents of the independent Croat state.

The only issue concerning which Tudjman was ready to fulfill the wishes of "ardent Croat patriots" (his term) was the attitude towards the opposition. He repeated the accusations that it had neither understanding nor a true wish for creation of the independent Croat state, but this time he even made a step further and identified the opposition with the external opponents and enemies of the Croat state. This is a reliable sign that new darts towards rigid forms of administration should be expected in the following period, and that Tudjman might even revise and soften some ideological premises his power was founded on so far, but also that the level of state opression will rise as well as its resoluteness to concentrate even more power in its hands. Several days ago this was quite clearly stated in the conclusions from the session of the Government chaired by the Croat President, which says that not a single member of Valentic's cabinet may state "any of his own separate stance concerning any issue".

This even for domestic circumstances unusual measure was not introduced accidentally, because just a few days before, a similar statement was issued after the session of the Presidency of the HDZ. It read that the ruling party was concerned about each and every of its members, but who refused to abide by its program and the statute "may very well leave the party". Since the affair about the split caused by Mesic and Manolic is generally finished - the leaders of the HDZ and Tudjman himself brag that they were in no way weakened by it, but on the contrary - strengthened, it is obvious that this threat refers to new personalities the public has not been informed about yet, but the main sense is that it can be publicized any time. Something more is known only about Branimir Glavas who has suddenly started swimming in football waters, where traditionally key political interests often clash in this space. By defying Tudjman, Glavas has probably started one of his numerous private wars, but even if that is the case, it is clear that after clearing up with the "left" faction of Mesic and Manolic, Tudjman is left only with the disobedient members from the faction of radical rightists ("techno-managers" from the Government are still not revealing their dissatisfaction, and noone is able to say what they actually think).

Those nostalgic for the time of the Ustashe are quite influental in this radical faction. They have accomplished a lot in the past five years - the myth about the Independent State of Croatia has been legalized, the kuna has been introduced, a large number of the Serbs has been displaced, the Muslims have been partially instrumentalized...). And yet, at this anniversary, some of the splendour that accompanied the initiation of HDZ in winter 1990 seems to have disappeared, and the influence of the party was reduced in accordance with the objective - there is no need to win power any more, but just to maintain it - in the hands of the one and only boss of the state - Franjo Tudjman.

MARINKO CULIC