WITH GENETICS AGAINST OPPONENTS

AIM Zagreb, 3 November, 1997

As if there had not been enough scandals and outrages which are erupting practically every day concerning hushed up war crimes, robberies, corruption and similar - Franjo Tudjman produces them himself in almost regular time intervals. This time, a turmoil was started by his appearance at the celebration of the seventh anniversary of the HDZ Youth, when, among other, he spoke about opponents to the "glorious resurrection of Croatian freedom and independence" who were recruited from "the mire of the negative historic heritage, but also its surroundings abroad".

Although for the less informed even this would have been enough, the controversial statement followed: "Those who have learnt nothing from history, or those who are genetically programmed to be against free and independent Croatia, who know not what they want or who are paid to obey foreign centres". Tudjman's introduction of genetics into his discourse about his opponents grated the ears of the public, of course, which despite harsh abuses which he regularly treats them to, he has never done before (not so openly, and at least for the time being, with no intention to mitigate or withdraw his words, as done in the case of certain statements and books which had made the Jews very angry).

Reactions to this statement did not immediately follow, but came after three or four days, and were quite clear, some of them even explicitly accusing. The Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) even initiated action in which deputies in the assembly would start proceedure for determinatuion of responsibility of the President of the Republic, which theoretically can end by recalling him from the post, because according to HHO this was "the only way to remove the racist blemish from the entire community". For HHO there is no doubt that Tudjman's sentence "expresses a clearly racist point of view, because political stands are directly derived from inheritance of the conditioned genetic code", and since in that case "political and other persuasion is not sufficient, the only thing that can be done is to undertake something concerning the very biological foundation of their survival".

    Reactions continued the next few days, and among them

director of the association for investigation of transition to democracy Bogdan Denic also established that Tudjman's speech was "typically racist". President of the Social Liberal Party, Vlado Gotovac, believes that by introduction of genetics into politics Tudjman is throwing Croatia back into the thirties of this century when certain political options, he obviously means the fascist, were also guided by such ideas. For Gotovac, the most shameful thing was that Tudjman gave his speech to the offsping of his party who are obviously "intended to be transformed into a group of deluded young people". It is also intimidating that the gathering of the youth was held in the same atmosphere and at the same place (Lisinski concert hall) where the first HDZ convention was held in 1990, when their "descent on Croatia started".

Tudjman's public appearances have provoked numerous critical reviews before, often from the same addresses as this time, but most frequently there has been no response to them, or it was done only by state media. However, this time the topic of the controversy is so delicate, and bad experience Tudjman has had with the Jews is still so vivid that it was impossible to pass over it in silence. The first to react was president of HDZ youth Mario Kapulica, who called criticism of Tudjman's speech "empty politicizing and moralizing". There is no racism of any kind in that speech, claims Kapulica, but the intention was only to say that there are opponents of Croatia in general, no matter what it is like, like in the case of Greater Serbian encroachment from the time of Ilija Garasanin to this day.

It must have appeared to someone that Kapulica was awkward in his defence of Tudjman, because in one (Serb) case he permitted his words to be understood as they were understood, so a day later, an article appeared in Vjesnik signed by the editor-in-chief Nenad Ivankovic. Ivankovic even permits that "it is possible to discuss whether the president has used the most appropriate and most agreeable expression", but rejects that his speech can be considered to be racist towards any nation. Because he was actually speaking about members of his own, Croatian nation, Ivankovic says. This unexpected, slightly entertaining revelation is explained by the fact that Tudjman did not speak about "enemies" (that is, about other nations or races). He spoke about "opponents", claims Vjesnik, that is, about the Croats who are "such that (genetically programmed) they cannot accept free and independent Croatia".

    It is evident that Vjesnik has done its best to get

the president out of the trouble, but it turned out that this was a completely unrewarding task, as well as clumsily performed, because it implied that Tudjman had in fact doubted racial maturity and strength of his own people (which pushed him back into racism because it always includes a component of one's own ethnic "self-purification"). Besides, lack of conviction of this article was additionally stressed by the fact that Vjesnik reminded its readers that director of HHO and member of Gotovac's party, Bozo Kovacevic, in a recent polemic with Drazen Budisa, uttered a phrase which could also be qualified as racist ("Dinaroid liberal Ustashe"). And neither Gotovac, nor HHO cared to comment on it, Vjesnik says strictly.

But this was just another futile attempt to help the president who had stuck out his neck, because it turned out that the problem of Tudjman's racism was solved by the very fact that the others also made rasist statements. Besides, Bozo Kovacevic differs from Tudjman by the fact that his political role in Croatia can not even be said to be influential, least of all ruling and after all by the fact that he apologized for his words. Tudjman most probably has no intention to do anything of the kind, at least not to HHO or Gotovac, certainly believing that what Kapulica and Vjesnik have said and written was sufficient. Like so many times before, he probably calculates that such half-denials are quite satisfactory for the media needs at home, and he will deal with this seriously only if it turns out that his speech was observed abroad (and interpreted over there with the same indignation as "gossiping" the Jews in "Bespuca" - his joyful declaration that fortunately, his wife was neither a Jew nor a Serb, etc.).

In view of the fact that certain Jewish organizations in the world are just initiating a campaign to prevent Tudjman from paying the already announced visit to Israel - where he should personally utter the apology to Jewish victims which was the condition for recent establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries - it is highly probable that the latest Tudjman's speech will play a signiticant role in it. This is just a reason more to believe that Tudjman's speech in Lisinski concert hall, which Vjesnik is trying to present as a mere slip of the tongue, was not that at all. It is much more likely that it was a deliberate flirtation with racism, just as it is likely that it is not at all a pure coincidence that Djapic's "rightists" (satellite party of the HDZ) have again started to decorate themselves with Ustashe iconography (and that this was registered by the Croatian Radio-Television very conspicuously in two central news programs).

Tudjman has several times disassociated himself from the radical, nationalistic faction of his party, some of which are obviously believed to be irreparable, a "substantial" loss of this faction (by now already mass extradition to the Hague Tribunal and launching of several investigations in Croatia itself, removal of a certain number of extremist officials, abolition of three just passed laws of expressly rightist orientation...). Although at first sight it seemed that it was easy for Tudjman to meake these corrections ordered from abroad, now it is possible to observe that the action has been slowed down and even completely interrupted (evident in the case od Branimir Glavas and Mijo Brajkovic). This leads to the conclusion that a period of a specific "counter-reform" in HDZ will follow (nomination of Gojko Susak to a high position again testify about it), and this implies return to its nationalistic program.

MARINKO CULIC