BY INTIMIDATION AND BRIBERY TO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

AIM Zagreb, 14 December, 1997

A Serb has saved Tudjman! - this is the tart comment which could be heard at the assembly after the burlesque-like finish of adoption of constitutional amendments. In the struggle for two-thirds majority needed to introduce this first change in the seven-year old Constitution, the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) did its very best to reinforce its 75 votes with another ten necessary for a lawful revision. The opposition deputies and deputies of the minorities were offered, rumours go (and in such matters they function as a very good detector), posts in management boards of public enterprises, jobs paid from the budget, apartments...

And when it seemed that not even that was enough, they browsed through the draft constitutional amendments themselves, which suddenly were not the "holy script" any more in which nothing was to be touched. But even that was not sufficient for a peaceful adoption of Tudjman's proposal, but the finish, tense during the entire day, remained uncertain to the very end - until voting. In the end it was necessary to make a 15-minute recess which dragged for more than an hour, to wait for the Serb deputy Milorad Pupovac to be brought, who had allegedly gone on a trip that day - some think that he had actually taken refuge - in Vukovar. It turned out that Pupovac with his "yes" - which he uttered in a hardly audible voice, but accompanied by a thunderous approval of the assembly - raised support to Tudjman's proposal to 86 votes, which means that his vote was not decisive.

Nevertheless, the mentioned remark that a Serb had saved constitutional amendments remained the real motto of this picturesque dispute. The opposition acidly reproached Tudjman that it was easier for him to reach an agreement with the minorities, moreover the Serb minority, than with opposition parties, and some independent observers assessed that it was not good for to have votes of minority deputies decide about such important matters. But, they could reply that it is not good when the opposition decides about minorities either, because they had never been too keen when it was necessary to defend minority interests. In fact, relations between Croatian opposition deputies and non-Croat miniority deputies have been so cool and uncooperative during the past years that both directly played in the hands of the Ruler and his party. They were alternately ones or the others ready to cooperate with Tudjman, but never against him together.

Indeed, it is true that a curious thing happened on the occasion of voting on constitutional amendments. The state which defines itself as a distinctly national creation of the Croat people and which chose to call its assembly as it was called in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH-the Quisling state during the Second World War) - could not have done it if the three minority depuities (apart from Pupovac, Miroslav Kis and Sandor Jakabi) had not approved of these changes. This clearly shows how ridiculous high national ideals of internationalism of former communists are and how close their nationalistic rhetoric is to mocking itself and standing convicted out of their own mouth. Indeed, the whole history of these constitutional amendments resembled a bad preformance which happened simply because it was whim which had "occurred" to the state leader. Nobody knew exactly what the real intention was of the constitutional changes and why they were initiated just now.

For the first time, Tudjman stated in public the idea that the Constitution should partly be changed almost a year ago, as part of the regular report on the situation of the Croatian state and nation in 1996 in which he stated that he considered it to be "purposeful to add a new paragraph to Article 135 which would prescribe constitutional ban for initiating the procedure of uniting of the Republic of Croatia into state alliances of any south Slavic or Balkan creations". At the time he did not yet mention the most controversial change in the Constitution concerning the new name of the assembly, but just said that it was necessary to "consistently implement the authentic Croat state legal nomenclature". From the current angle, it seems probable that it was just a trick, calculated to stir up differences among the potential critics

• which actually immediately happened, claiming that the ban of return to Yugoslavia was a demagogic bluff intended to conceal the main point from them and keep it for the finish.

When the draft amendments appeared in the assembly, its new name was already in it, as well as other changes which immediately caused disputes. Croatia is defined as the national state of the Croats, ethnic minorities are not even listed which were mentioned before (only in the final bargaining, in order to win over support of minority representatives for the amendments, the Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians and Jews were returned into the text, and even Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians and Ruthenians were added to it, but the Muslims and Slovenes were deleted, or rather they are not mentioned any more). Along with them, the concept of "man" was introduced in the Constitution and in some parts of the text replaced the "citizen" (this was also criticized by the opposition, so that in the end a compromise was reached - "man-citizen").

How much attention these unannounced amendments caused and not only in Croatia, was clear on the day the amendments were voted on when representatives of the American Embassy in Zegreb were seen on the gallery of the Assembly hall. The main regime stronghold among the media, Vjesnik, did not try to conceal that the Americans were primarily interested in the new name of the Assembly, but with the unfailing comment that the idle gentlemen from the broad wide world were digging up "remainders of Ustashe" and seeking "white mice" around Croatia. But, it was also seen by many Croatian "cats" (part of the opposition and independent media) who revealed the historical fact that the name Croatian State Assembly was actually used as the official name of Pavelic's Assembly. All the other usages of that name (HDZ especially referred to Stjepan Radic) were in completely different circumstances when there was no Croatian state, that is colloquially.

This is a repetition almost to the last detail of everything that was happening when "kuna" - the new name of the national currency was introduced. At the time it was also claimed that it was nothing but a harmless change which had nothing to do with the NDH, but then it was insisted on the change of the name with so much brutality and importunity that it was actually the best confession that that was exactly the case. In the case of the Croatian State Assembly, the same importunity was applied in parliament, it was forced upon the deputies. It acquired such proportions that even Vjesnik had to admit that it was "sad" to watch the half-blind Eli Martincic from Pula brought to Zagreb just in order to ensure that the assembly would be complete. Would it have ever occurred to anyone to torment sick people like this (along with the diabetic Martincic, this also happened to Nedjeljko Mihanovic and Vera Stanic) and to shock the public if it were just a routine change of the Constitution? Especially a change inspired by a statement of Stjepan Radic who is not too highly esteemed by the HDZ.

By changing the name of the assembly, Tudjman has probably fulfilled some plan of his to introduce the "authentic Croat state legal nomenclature" as he said in the quoted report. But this selective "Ustashezation" seems to have spent even the little flexibility that the rigid political system had, based on constant outvoting the opposition and the minorities (even in the most trivial matters). This system has become so incorrigible that it permits no compromise, and it does not even attempt to win over its opponents by convincing them any more, but only by - intimidation and bribery.

MARINKO CULIC