TUDJMAN'S RECONCILIATION OF THE CROATS

AIM Zagreb, April 28, 1996

"I will tell you frankly, 35 years ago I did not agree with Krleza when he claimed that Tito was the most successful Croat politician of our time. But the more I got convinced, later in life and to this very day, that the world such as it is and in which we are bound to live does not wish to see an independent Croatia, the more I became aware that there is a great deal of truth in that judgment". This tribute paid to Tito, which is on the very verge of open glorification is not a quotation from an autograph book in the house where Tito was born, which is by the way still regularly signed by nostalgic admirers and silent worshippers of Marshal's personality and deeds.

This is a sentence from a recent interview of the Croat President to several Croat media - all of them loyal and apologetic to the authorities - given by Franjo Tudjman without any visible marked reason, but nevertheless, very carefully prepared. The interview was first recorded, afterwards carefully examined, and then, as rumour goes, supplemented with a new recording, and only after that broadcast in two central evening programs of Croat Television. That this was an important, attentively prepared project done for the media by the Presidential Palace was perhaps most sincerely and most simple-mindedly described by the Editor-in-Chief of Vecernji list which always has a significant promotive rolw in similar projects. A few days afterwards, in the usual column, he wrote that "it seemed immediately that, according to political effects, the interview would be equal to (Tudjman's) speech at the First General Convention of the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) in the beginning of 1990". One should be reminded that at that party assembly, Tudjman uttered a sentence, renowned by now, due to which the HDZ was later qualified as "the party of dangerous intentions" - that the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was not just a state of collaboration and crime, but also an expression of historical aspirations of the Croat nation.

If the editor of Vecernji list actually stated, which is probable, the unuttered but the central motive of the interview, then it is evident that Franjo Tudjman decided to introduce significant alterations into his famous plaftform of "reconciliation" between the Ustashe and Partisan Croatia. He wishes to reinforce the latter pole of these two he wishes to reconcile, probably because - as some people in the opposition judge (Drazen Budisa) - he assesses that his party has glided too far to the right, and that in public life there are too many proofs of Ustashe nostalgic orientation of influential political groups linked to the authorities or within them.

That is why Tudjman's interview was gracious not only to Tito who has actually always been spared of excessive defamation, but practically the entire communist movement in Croatia as well, which was always severely accused of having imprisoned Croatia in Yugoslavia and delivered it into the hands of Serb hegemonists. Now, that accusation was not just alleviated, but withdrawn altogether, so that the Croat head of the state says for them that they "fought for the right of the Croat people to self-determination, for breaking down the Yugoslav dungeon of nations by revolutionary means". However, for Franjo Tudjman, this unexpected pardon of his former party comrades has a strictly aimed intention, and that is to warn the most zalous anti-communists among his present party members that their presentations in the Assembly and elsewhere are "something that prevents effectuation of the idea of reconciliation". That is why the interview stresses some known, but now brightly spotlit details which underline that Croat communists had a strong national awareness (good relations with Ustashe convicts in prisons of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, arrest of Punisa Racic by the Government of Janjic Capa...), and all this leads to the central thesis of the interview without which everything already said would have been difficult to understand, and this is: "that remains of every Croat man who lived for the Croat hope should be laid in the Croat land" (Tito, Macek, Pavelic and Busic were explicitly named in this context), and that Jasenovac should be converted into a "memorial area of all victims of war".

That the interview had been made only for the sake of these two initiatives which had previously been just hinted at just as an idea, and are now close to the official stance, became obvious when all state-controlled media readily welcomed their appearance. The very next day, comprehensive contributions were publicized with data where these persons were buried, what possible reactions of respective countries would be, what their closest relatives thought about transportation of their remains. Concerning reconstruction of Jasenovac, editors did not express such zeal, probably because this idea had already met with great disapproval of the world, so that even from the very top of American administration word was sent that this was unacceptable (Warren Christopher), and Jewish world organizations appealed to the citizens of Croatia to prevent remodelling of history with a "spade" before it was "too late" (Reich). Although he must have been aware of these sharp and sarcatic rebukes, Tudjman did not abandon his idea, moreover, he presented and explained it in his interview to such detail that now it sounds as its final elaboration. "Jasenovac, such as it is today", he said, "for majority of the Croat nation is not a place which the Croat nation could accept, because the others have suffered equally, not to a lesser extent. If we want reconciliation", he added,"if we have attained Croat freedom and democracy with it, then we must have it in Jasenovac, not in order to mix remains of victims of fascism and communism, but in order to determine how many people were killed as victims of the NDH, fascism, race laws, and how many as victims of communism, and in order to transport remains from the pits which we have to that place".

As one can see, Franjo Tudjman is announcing a mass and spectacular migration of the dead, in comparison to which certain previous excursions of remains (of Tsar Lazar, exhumation and transportation of the deceased to the Serb "entity" in B&H) resemble necrophilic games of immature amateurs. That is why Jewish intellectual from Zagreb Slavko Goldstein already declared that, should this be done, he would raise charges against Franjo Tudjman for necrophilia. But this had also been said before the interview was published, which means that neither threats nor sharp criticism wavered the Croat "sovereign", moreover, he defended his idea with arguments which were equally backward and defficient as the idea itself. He even explained that reconstruction of Jasenovac would not be his invention, because generalissimo Franco had already dome it with the monument in Toledo, that the Americans did it with the joint monument to the Southerners and the Northerners at Gettysburg. How ever probable it may have been that the comparison with Franco would cause new irritation, it was welcome, because even with no effort of astounded critics, it clearly showed that Tudjman drew inspiration for his deeds from the most obscure personalities, and his views from dubious or completely distorted historical facts (reconciliation of Spanish phalangists and republicans was not the work of Franco, moreover it was made possible only after his death and victory of democracy in that country).

What is pushing Tudjman back into the past and whether, apart from the already known "messianic" motives he is obsessed by, there are any other, daily political reasons for it? We have already mentioned Budisa's opinion that he wishes to reestablish the lost balance within his own HDZ, and one might as well say to the country in general. Namely, in the past six months, a complete break up occurred between HDZ and the opposition, mostly because of Tudjman's stubborn refusal to admit the victory of the opposition in local elections in Zagreb. For that reason, the opposition crowded together into a band of heterogeneous but comparatively united individuals, which caused nervousness in the Presidential Palace. Elections are coming (local, regional, and in the end presidential), and the HDZ is quite aware that it has no chance to succeed without at least one coalition partner. Psychological pressure that "everybody is against us" causes even more nervousness. That is why the HDZ is trying to denounce the opposition as the "unprincipled coalition" which gathers everybody, "from communists to fascists". This reveals fear that the opposition might have already created a parallel model of "reconciliation" around which citizens could gather more gladly than around the pompous but counter-productive and used up "reconciliation" which the HDZ has been insisting upon for years.

At first sight this fear appears unnecessary, because with the exception of a few opposition heads (Tomac), noone is insisting on "reconciliation", noone ever mentions it. And maybe that is exactly the reason why Tudjman is afraid.

MARINKO CULIC