CRAZY RECONCILIATION

AIM Split, 27 October, 1996

The first practical step in effectuation of the idea on Croatian reconciliation by common burial of soldiers who in the Second World War belonged to opposed armies and ideologies was made on Sunday in Omis when, mortal remains of 104 Home Guardsmen, four Ustashe and two partisans killed in the Second World War were transported and buried at the cemetery Vrisovci.

Corpses of 112 soldiers covered by Croatian flags were carried by soldiers of the Croatian Army and Croatian Navy, and holy mess was served by assistant Split-Makarska Bishop, Msgr. Dr Marin Barisic. Along with assembly, military and district officials, President of the Assembly Committee for determination of war and post-war victims, Vice Vukojevic was also present at the funeral, who said in his address to the gathering, among other, that victims of fascism in the past 50 years were exaggerated in order to create guilt of the Croatian people, and that victims of communism had not been mentioned at all. Vukojevic said that this act was a symbol of reconciliation of the Croatian people, because without it there could be no stability of the Croatian state.

Mortal remains of 95 Home Gguardsmen who died in Italian hospital in 1943 of spotted typhoid, were exhumed from the Garme near Omis, while the others - killed in battle against each other - were buried during the war in the old Omis cemetery.

Exhumation and transfer of mortal remains were organized and financed by the Assembly Committee for determination of war and postwar victims, and construction of the common grave was financed by Omis city authorities. Mayor of Omis, Prof. Ivan Skaricic, said on the occasion: "Our idea is clear - reconciliation of the people and majority of the Croatian nation finds this appropriate".

This is how Omis was the first to effectuate the idea of President Tudjman on national reconciliation by common burial of the Croats who were on opposed sides in the Second World War.

Tudjman is insisting that largest common grave of this kind be made in the memorial region of Jasenovac where tens thousand Serbs, Jews, Romanies and Croat anti-fascists were liquidated.

In a part of the Croatian public, he is getting support for this idea. Convention of the Union of Croatian Veterans of Omis, which gathers former Home Guardsmen, sent a message to President Dr Franjo Tudjman and the Assembly, on the occasion of the Omis common burial expressing full support for effectuation of the idea of all-Croatian reconciliation.

On the same occasion, the League of Anti-Fascist Veterans of Split and Dalmatia (SAB), at a ceremony organized on 26 October to observe the 52nd anniversary of liberation of Split, expressed its "bitter opposition to the intention to bury in a common grave, by unilateral decision of the leadership in Omis, mortal remains of Home Guardsmen, Ustashe and partisans killed in the region during the second World War". They stress that it happened also in Omis that in broad daylight, a year ago, a memorial tablet with the names of partisans from Omis was taken down without anyone ever having to bear responsibility for it.

Systematic vandalistic destruction of the entire partisan memorial heritage, along with the simultaneous redigging of partisan cemeteries and unpermissible disturbing of the dead is a sign of pathological arrogance and omnipotence of the new single-mindedness which is justified by alleged reconciliation of the Croats - it is said in the statement of the SAB which is opposed to national reconciliation by disturbing the dead.

Veterans of Split and Dalmatia declare that the Second World War has ended for them half a century ago and that nowadays they have no intention to add or subtract anything from those times, and that they consider it crazy to reconcile fascism and antifascism, and their supporters, and in fact to try to improve and beautify history.

After an explosion in Knin, former seat of the so-called Republic of Serb Krajina, on 17 September, which destroyed the monument to partisans, liberators of this town from 1944, the local commissar of the Croatian Government over there, Zvonimir Puljic, who is also a deputy of the ruling HDZ in the Assembly, declared that the remains of the partisans, the Croats and the Serbs, who were buried under the monument, would be moved to the town cemetery. Anti-fascist veterans are also opposed to that act, and at the ceremony in Split declared that together with relatives of the deceased they would demand protection not only from the judiciary, but also from the Vatican, the International Federation of Second World War Veterans, organizations for protection of human rights, and UNESCO - since the International Convention on protection of military cemeteries was signed under its auspices.

"This is not a contribution to reconciliation but a perverse lecture to young generations on continuity between the Ustashe police and present-day military forces in the Republic of Croatia", wrote last week on the occasion of the burial in Omis director for international relations of the Simon Wisenthal Centre in Paris, Shimon Samuels, in his letter to the Croatian Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa, in which he demanded from him and the Croatian Assembly to withdraw its approval for such a manifestation and do its best "to prevent this manifestation of historic revisionism".

Since the first free elections in 1990, about three thousand monuments and memorials of partisan struggle in the Second World War have been destroyed or damaged in Croatia, and "moving of remains" started in summer 1990, when under a monument in Seget Donji near Split, a grave of a partisan hero Joze Lozovina-Mosor was destroyed and he was buried at the town cemetery.

Perpetrators of this act, just as in the remaining three thousand similar cases, have never been found and punished, not even when they were destroying valuable works of art of prominent Croatian artists, such as Antun Augustincic or Joko Knezevic. That is why the anti-fascists declare: "If you must demolish everything above the ground, at least leave their mortal remains at peace. Do not square accounts with them. Do not disturb their peace...".

Forcible "reconciliation" of the dead in Croatia does not contribute to reconciliation of the living: last Saturday, at the Second General Convention of the Croatian Pure Party of Right, a photo of Ante Pavelic was on the stage, while a photo of Josip Broz Tito was in the hall in Split where anti-fascist veterans were observing the date of liberation of this city and where former Assembly deputy Vladimir Bebic, who is also President of the Social Democratic Union, won a prolonged applause when he ended his speech with: "Long Live Tito".

While the adults are firm in their opposed positions, how does the young generation look upon the current Croatian leader and the former ones whom he would like to reconcile even by accepting the idea to transport mortal remains of Tito from Belgrade and Pavelic from Madrid to Croatia? According to a last year's poll of the Zagreb weekly Globus conducted on a sample of 160 Zagreb university students, 31.3 per cent believe that Franjo Tudjman is the greatest Croatian statesman in this century, while 24.7 per cent think the same about Tito, and 12.7 per cent believe that Ante Pavelic was the greatest. But, 16.7 per cent think that Croatia has not had its greatest statesman in this century.

GORAN VEZIC