PARDOM FOR USTASHE, INDICTMENT FOR PARTISANS

AIM Zagreb, 15 May, 1997

Croatia is better known for its fascists than for its democrats - established recently Ivan Simonovic, Croatian ambassador in the UN, trying to deny allegations of Amrican media about "crawling fascistization of Croatia". The impression is correct, but it has not been created by uninformed or malevolent journalists, as the ambassador claimed. This May, Croatia has done its best to have the voices of its fascists heard better and farther than those of its democrats.

For the seventh time in a row, on the Day of the Victory and the Day of Europe, a protest gathering was organized on the former Square of Victims of Fascism, the name of which has been changed by Tudjman's regime. The participants demanded again that the square be given back its old name, in memory of almost 16 thousand Jews, Serbs, Romaniies, Croats, who the Ustashe authorities sent to death during the Second World War. But, for the first time this year, a group of declared followers of Ustashe headed by priest Vjekoslav Lasic, tried to prevent the gathering. The priest had become famous even outside the borders of Croatia for having not long ago turned the mass for Ante Pavelic into a political rally in which he chanted panegyrics to the Ustashe leader, claiming that he must be standing in front of God along with innocent children. Agent provocateurs sang Ustashe songs and shouted abuses of the participants of the anti-fascist gathering. This was the first time in Croatia that a direct conflict almost broke out between supporters of the two conflicting parties in the Second World War.

May is a very tense month for the Croats. This is the month when most significant dates for those who consider themselves to be followers of anti-fascism clash with those who were on the other side. In Kumrovac, on 4 May, supporters of Josip Broz Tito gathered to mark his death, and there were more of them than ever. The state was for the first time this year involved in observing other antifascist anniversaries. But sloppily and pitifully. Somebody rightfully noted that a trick or a bluff was always incorporated into observations of "antifascist" celebrations or gestures of the authorities. For example, Tudjman's wreath on the Day of the Victory was laid on the Altar of Homeland, an instant-monument which has nothing to do with antifascism, and at the same time the police calmly watched declared Ustashe insulting and disturbing the anti-fascist gathering.

Similar intentions to bluff were manifested on the occasion of observing the anniversary of the break-out of inmates from Ustashe concentration camp in Jasenovac. Last year the antifascist organization and the Jewish community started spontaneously observing this date, and this year they were joined by the representatives of the authorities. It is believed that they were induced to do it by American media - appearance in Jasenovac was conceived as a specific denial of accusations about Tudjman's flirtation with supporters of fascism.

But, statements of representatives of authorities in Jasenovac were extremely ambiguous. It could be heard that it is "difficult and historically impossible to look upon Jasenovac isolated, apart from Bleiberg, Goli otok, Manjaca and Ovcara". Stressing that they are paying homage to "all the victims", regularly listing a whole series of places of execution, including those which will remain the symbol of the just ended war, Tudjman's envoys in fact minimized the significance of Jasenovac. They obscured what had happened over there to such an extent that it could not be recognized. By paying homage to "all the victims", from Bleiburg to Ovcara they in fact deprived of homage the victims of Ustashe crimes. Probably because in this way, they did not have to condemn those who had committed them.

But, the real proportions of the bluff can be seen only when these "antifascist" celebrations are compared with the others. At the commemoration to victims of Bleiburg last week - there was no homage to "all the victims", nor were victims of Jasenovac even mentioned. In the Bleiburg field in Austria, in the end of the Second World War, a mass reprisal was taken against the remains of the Ustashe forces, along with which a lot of civilians were withdrawing. This tragedy - nowadays claimed to be the greatest Croatian tragedy in this century - was strictly passed over in silence until '90, so that it is possible only to guess about its real proportions. Since establishment of Tudjman's admionistration, memories of these victims were raised to the level of a myth, Bleiburg has become for the Croats what the battle of Kosovo is for the Serbs.

This year, representatives of state authorities attended the commemoration and the mass on Bleiburg field, and the event was carried live by Croatian Television. It was said on the occasion that Bleiburg victims had given their lives for the "greatest human ideals - homeland, nation and creed", that they were Croatian sorrow and pride, and that the example of their patriotism should be an inspiration. It was said that their destiny was conditioned by their idealism and Croatdom: "The Bleiburg victims were mostly innocent people, they were guilty only of being Croats and opposed to communism". Speaking in the name of the chairman of the Assembly, deputy and member of the Academy, Dubravko Jelcic, distorted the facts to the maximum. He also presented a thesis which really is quite original, that the Ustashe had in fact been antifascists, and Tito's partisans were - fascists. Jelcic also established that during the Second World War in Croatia, there was actually no fasism (it was advocated only by some individuals); that there had been sincere antifascists among the Bleiburg victims, greater than among the partisans; that indeed, declared antifascists frequently acted like fascists.

Commemorations in Jasenovac and Bleiburg are actually part of something else - attitude of the official Croatia to the time of the Second World War. Only when put side by side do they point out to the true nature of a great manipulation. Even when homage is paid to the victims at the site of a terrible Ustashe camp - not a single word is uttered which would point out who their executioners were. Everything is left vague and undefined. The victims are abstract, their torturers unidentified. On the contrary, the fact that reprisal had been taken in Bleiburg, unnecessary and without a trial, that among the defeated allies of Hitler were numerous civilians, is used to draw a conclusion about their complete righteousness, while the partisans are proclaimed executioners, sadists and criminlas. Definite evaluations are drawn from what happened on the Bleiburg field - pardon for Ustashe, indictment for Tito's combatants.

The notorious Tudjman's policy of national reconciliation has always strived to establish a new balance, on the one hand by reducing merits of the partisans, and on the other, by reducing the guilt of the Ustashe. Antifascism has been suppressed and minimized for seven years already, and the Ustashe movement has been favoured and in fact rehabilitated. An impression is persistently created that the partisans were in fact coroners of Croatia, and Ustashe "fighters for Croatia". The war of fifty odd years ago has not ended in Croatia yet.

JELENA LOVRIC