DEMOCRATIC AGAINST AUTHORITARIAN CROATIA

Feral's Petition

AIM Zagreb, 1 October, 1997

As it could have been expected, the petition signed at the initiative of Split weekly Feral Tribune by twelve respectable political and public workers of Croatia caused a considerable confusion in state media. The petition was symbolically sent to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on the occasion of the initiative of the United States to suspend Croatia from this European association because of the failure to implement the Dayton accords, preventing return of Serb refugees, uncooperativeness with the Hague Tribunal, continuation of exerting pressure on the freedom of the media, etc.

Concerning the American initiative, the signatories of the petition - Vlado Gotovac, Ivan Jakovcic, Stipe Mesic, Vladimir Primorac, Marin Jurjevic, Stjepo Martinovic, Nikola Viskovic, Ivan Lovrenovic, Izet Hajdarhodzic, Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Boris Maruna, and Slobodan Snajder - say that suspension of Croatia cannot make anybody happy because its membership in the Council of Europe stirred up hope, although fragile, that it would incite democratic processes in the country. But, they add that Croatian citizens have suffered results of catastrophic acts of the official policy and even if they have been forced to share its destiny until now, they no more wish to do so concerning this latest development. That is why they demand from the Council of Europe to limit the suspension of Croatia only to its official authorities, and to continue incorporation, even slow such as it is, of independent institutions, political parties, non-governmental organizations, media, etc.

They explain this by saying that after they made the first step into Europe, that is where they intend to remain, and those who need a make-up exam, let them take it. "Because we have not", the signatories stress, "created the political system of 'democratic dictatorship', we have not divided B&H, nor created concentration camps in it, we have not accepted ethnic cleansing, and we have also no intention of calling Croats who have committed crimes 'our men', nor oppose their extradition to the Hague". That very evening Croatian television devoted a longish contribution to Feral's petition, and the next day Vjesnik, the daily lose to the authorities, published two articles about it. Croatian Radio-Television underlines that the petition was not signed by everyone who were asked to do it, but lays special stress on the fact that the leader of Social Democrats, Ivica Racan failed to do it and in this way reconfirmed that he was more mature and constructive that the other opposition leaders (especially Gotovac).

    The text of Feral's petition is said to be a typical

produce of the school of journalism cherished by this journal, because in it, the principle of "fundamental political writing skill" was "wittily" forgotten that the Council of Europe does not accept nor excommunicate citizens and non-governmental organizations, but states. However, one of the signatories of the petition, Stjepo Martinovic, declared in the same program that the purpose of the signed text was something completely different - to point out that along with the official Croatia, authoritarian and undemocratic, due to which membership in the Council of Europe had been questioned, there is another, democratic one which refuses to shoulder responsibility for the actions of the former. On the contrary, it wishes to send word to the international and the domestic public that it disassociates itself from these acts and is ashamed of them.

    Vjesnik also offered a possibility to some of the

signatories to explain the motives of the petition, and so Gotovac declared that it was an attempt of a different approach, both in order to avoid measures of the international community which affect everybody, including those who craved for modern democracy. Jakovcic, on the other hand, believes that the petition encourages a selective approach to integration into international associations and reminds that it has partly happened once when Istria was accepted in the Assembly of European Regions although Croatia had not become a member of the Council of Europe. Vjesnik, however, adds to this a commentary of its own and writes that it is sad that a newspaper published in Croatia openly laments because American initiative for Croatian suspension in the Council of Europe has not been accepted. It also reminds in the article that something similar happened in 1993 when several intellectuals also signed a petition to Tudjman to withdraw from office.

This comparison is comforting for Vjesnik because it is said, neither that nor this, Feral's petition met with understanding of the Croatian political public which has estimated them as "unreasonable". In order to prove this, the author even claims that 80 per cent of the deputies in the Assembly refused to sign the petition, which could lead to the conclusion that it was offered to be signed to all the deputies, which is far from being true, because out of the six who were asked to sign, four have actually signed it. In its illustrious speculation Vjesnik is forgetting that even according to its own calculation, 20 per cent of the deputies have signed the petition after all. And this is approximately double than the total number of signatories (12) who have backed the petition.

The haste with which the state media reacted to the petition is not surprising, nor is it surprising that they welcomed it at daggers drawn. It attracts attention though that, maybe even sincerely, they have not at all understood the contents of the petition, which was clear from their contacts with the editorial team from Feral from whom it demanded statements. These talks showed that the media do not even take into account the possibility that a group of citizens, even if they were independent intellectuals, could present in public its views, or even objectives of the Croatian state policy, apart from those already proclaimed by the official top authorities. This means that in a few years of Tudjman's administration awareness has completely disappeared, if it had even existed, that the authorities and the state, but especially the authorities and the society, were not one and the same thing. It is evident that all the categories have been stuffed and mixed in a single place which reminds of a huge national storeroom the key to which is kept only by Tudjman's leadership which is the only eligible to decide what will be part in it and what not.

It is also indicative that even the few leaders of the opposition have succumbed to this archaic notion of patriotism. Refusing to sign the petition, they also resorted to dismemberment and dissection of the petition, repeating the fact that states and not individuals and non-governmental organizations can become members of the Council of Europe (although the text of the petition, in order to avoid literal interpretations, membership in the Council of Europe was used just as the immediate cause, and in fact, it was the matter of "joining Europe"). It is self-understood that the Croatian Radio-Television also clutched at this interpretation like at a straw, because such a stand in the opposition was exactly what they had badly needed.

This is not the matter of simply relying on differences in the opposition which the regime resorts to in order to show that in the opposition not everybody thinks the same and thus prevent its gathering against the current authorities. The reason is much more important, because obviously this is an attempt to share responsibility for the possible excommunication of Croatia from the Council of Europe. This European association allegedly accepts states into its membership, so they are as a whole and not just their authorities responsible if this membership is interrupted. This is, however, just part of a much broader generalization, because according to the same matrix, all are responsible for division of B&H (as recently publicly suggested by the leaders of Herzeg-Bosnia), as well as for war crimes committed by the Croatian party, ethnic cleansing, and so on.

It is quite clear why this generalization is needed by Tudjman's authorities and its media at this very moment. After it had used and discarded all its foreign allies (with or without quotation marks), turning at first away from Europe towards the USA, and in the past few months from the USA to Europe, the only thing left for it to do is to reinforce its strongholds in its own back yard to the utmost. And this is easiest and according to the former experience most efficient, if the largest possible number of citizens is made responsible for the official policy, and the "alleged individualization " of responsibility (Seks) - is rejected and despised.

MARINKO CULIC