FASCISM AND THE WAR IN CROATIA

RESEARCH PAPER: THE RESURGENCE OF FASCISM AND THE WAR IN CROATIA
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 1, 2004

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Introduction

In the early and mid-1990s the Government of Croatia fought a war against the Serbs who lived in the Krajina region of Croatia. Those Serbs rejected Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia, and refused to be governed by the Croatian regime.

The Hague Tribunal portrays this Serbian resistance as an attempt by Serbia to expand its borders and create a "greater Serbia."

In paragraph 6 of the Croatia Indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, The Hague Tribunal alleges that Milosevic, together with the Krajina Serb leadership, “participated in a joint criminal enterprise” in order to accomplish “the forcible removal of the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from the approximately one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia that [was] to become part of a new Serb-dominated state…”

The thesis put forward by The Hague Tribunal’s indictment is wrong. First of all, Slobodan Milosevic never proposed conquering any territory outside of Serbia’s borders. Secondly, a more plausible explanation for the war exists: namely that the Krajina Serbs resisted Croatian rule because Croatia was governed by a fascist regime.

This paper will show that Croatia had a history of brutality towards the Serbs during the Second World War when it was a Nazi puppet state, and that a second fascist regime, led by Franjo Tudjman, came to power in Croatia in 1990.

A Brief History of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945)

In 1930 a pro-fascist Croatian nationalist organization known as the Ustasha was founded in Croatia.

On April 6, 1941 Nazi troops invaded Yugoslavia. Four days later, the Axis powers established the so-called "Independent State of Croatia," or Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska ("NDH") in the Croatian language.

Power in the newly established fascist state was given to the Ustasha, and the Ustasha founder, Ante Pavelic, was named the Croatian fuehrer, or "poglavnik". The Nazi puppet state occupied the territory that makes up the present-day territories of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

During the Second World War, the Ustasha killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies, and forced hundreds of thousands more to either flee from the Independent State of Croatia, or convert to the Roman Catholic religion. [1]

In 1941 the Independent State of Croatia built the notorious Jasenovac extermination camp. According to the Wiesenthal Center, approximately 600,000, predominantly Serb, prisoners were killed there. [2] Historians call this camp the "Auschwitz of the Balkans."

With the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, Yugoslavia's Partisan Army, led by Josip Broz Tito, ousted the Ustasha regime, liberated Croatia, and re-integrated it into the Yugoslav state.

The 1990s Revival of the Independent State of Croatia

On June 25, 1991 the legislative assemblies in Yugoslavia's republics of Croatia and Slovenia lit the fuse on Yugoslavia's destruction by illegally declaring their secession from Yugoslavia. [3]

In Croatia, a far-right government led by the Croatian president Franjo Tudjman had been elected the year before. During his election campaign Tudjman expressed support for the World War II era Independent State of Croatia. [4] In 1990, as a presidential candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Tudjman declared that the Independent State of Croatia established by the Ustasa "was not simply a Quisling creation and a fascist crime, it was also an expression of the historical aspirations of the Croatian people." Tudjman constantly harped on nationalist themes, saying at one point, "Thank God, my wife is neither a Serb nor a Jew." [5]

According to the New York Times, Tudjman's HDZ party was heavily financed by members of the Croatian diaspora, especially by remnants of the Ustasa movement in the United States, Canada and Australia. [6]

Tudjman's fascist credentials are impressive. His villa in Zagreb had belonged to a Jewish family prior to World War II. [7]

In 1989 he wrote a book called "Wastelands of Historical Reality." In the book Tudjman denies the Holocaust. He puts the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust at one million instead of six million -- and enraged Serbs and Jews by diminishing their numbers killed in Croatia's main death camp, at Jasenovac, from more than 500,000 to 59,639. [8]

In his book, Tudjman suggests that the Jasenovac concentration camp was largely run by a coterie of its Jewish inmates who used their power to rob and murder their Serb and Gypsy fellow prisoners. [9]

Tudjman delves into the Old Testament to prove his case that, for the Jews, "genocidal violence is a natural phenomenon, in keeping with the human-social and mythological-divine nature. It is not only allowed, but even recommended." [10] He mocks the Jews that the Nazis slaughtered in the concentration camps saying, "A Jew is still a Jew. Even in the camps they retained their bad characteristics: selfishness, perfidy, meanness, slyness and treachery." [11]

In 1992, he claimed that his comments had been "misinterpreted" and in 1994 he offered "an apology" to the B'nai B'rith, saying that he intended to delete "controversial portions" from later editions of his book. [12] However, when one considers the things that went on in Tudjman's Croatia, one has to wonder just how sincere his "apology" to the B'nai B'rith was.

Under the Croatian Constitution, Tudjman had the power to appoint five people to seats in the Parliament. In 1993 he decided to use his powers to appoint a die-hard fascist, Vinko Nikolic. Nikolic had served as an official in the World War II era Ustasha regime [13], and had remained an associate of Ante Pavelic even after the Ustasha leader's defeat, and subsequent escape to South America. [14]

In Croatian schools, textbooks were rewritten to gloss over crimes committed by the Nazis. In a history book for eighth graders, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is ridiculed by being depicted as a bulldog sitting on the British flag.

On the same page, there is a photograph of a yellow Star of David, and a caption saying, "The Jews had to wear a special mark, the Star of David. This is a six-pointed star. It consists of two triangles, which symbolize the sky and the earth." There is no mention of the discrimination suffered by those forced to wear the symbol.

The same history book shows a picture of Ante Pavelic. The accompanying caption describes him as "a jurist, politician and the founder of the Ustasha movement," but makes no mention of the war crimes committed under his rule. [15]

Not only were textbooks re-written to gloss over Croatia's fascist past, but schools and streets were named after leading members of Croatia's World War II era fascist regime.

In Zagreb, the Croatian capital, shortly after Tudjman took power in 1990, an elementary school was named after the notorious Mile Budak, the minister of justice under the fascist state who signed racial laws banning Jews from schools, factories and government positions. [16]

In 1992 a street in the center of the Croatian city of Split was also named after Budak [17]. The name of the street was eventually changed, but at the same time as the Croats were changing the name of the street, they were erecting a plaque in memory of Juraj Francetic, the commander of a notorious Ustasha “Black Legion,” in Slunj. [18]

During Tito’s rule, holocaust memorials were built in Zagreb, and in cities and towns throughout Croatia, and Yugoslavia. In Zagreb, the central town square had been dedicated to the memory of the victims of fascism.

Once Tudjman took power, holocaust memorials were torn down. The “Victims of Fascism Square” in Zagreb was re-named the “Square of Croatian Giants.” [19] Monuments on the site of the former concentration camp in Jadovno, and on other sites of mass Ustasha crimes were taken down. [20]

Fascism became "in vogue" in Tudjman’s Croatia. On Zagreb's streets, and in cities and towns throughout the republic, newsstands freely hawked Ustasha paraphernalia -- swastikas, the Fascist coat-of-arms, pictures of Ante Pavelic and other trinkets were sold openly. [21] [22]

Even after Tudjman's death, many Croats still engage in open displays of fascism. In 2002 a concert in the Croatian town of Split attracted some 40,000 young people to the soccer stadium, where many of them wore the Ustasha insignias and waved Nazi flags. [23]

The desire of Tudjman's regime to re-write and pervert the history of the Second World War reached epic proportions in 1996.

The Agence France Presse wire service carried a disturbing report from the Croatian town of Omis. On October 27, 1996, the Croatian parliamentary commission for victims of World War II actually dug-up a Partisan cemetery and re-buried the remains of Ustasha fascists there together with the remains of the anti-fascist Partisan soldiers who died in the war against the Ustasha. [24]

The ceremony was led by the deputy bishop of Split, Marin Barisic. Croatian soldiers and sailors carried the remains of 110 fascists to their new graves. [25]

Vice Vukojevic, who was the head of the parliamentary commission in charge of the re-burial, said in a speech that the ceremony was "a symbol of the reconciliation of the Croat people."

"Croatia is no longer divided between victors and vanquished," he said.

Vukojevic, a member of Tudjman's HDZ party, said that the aim of his commission was to establish the "truth" about what happened during the war, when the pro-Nazi regime ruled the country.

"The number of victims of fascism has been systematically overstated, creating a feeling of guilt among the Croat people," he said. [26]

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman first proposed the idea of "posthumous reconciliation of the Croat nation" when he said fascists and their victims should be buried together on the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp. [27]

The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent an open letter to the Croatian regime saying, "This ceremony is not an act of reconciliation, but a perverse lesson to younger generations on the continuity of Ustasha militias and the Croatian army today." [28]

Unfortunately, Tudjman had already made the continuity of the Ustasha in Croatia's army clear before 1996.

In 1990 the names and symbols of the World War II era Independent State of Croatia were re-introduced into the Croatian militia. [29]

In 1991, in the Croatian town of Osijek, at an official military funeral held for four Croatian guardsmen, the Ustasha salute was reputedly used. A Croatian policeman shouted "Za Dom!" and hundreds of mourners shouted back "Spremni!" The "Za Dom - Spremni" salute is the Croatian equivalent of "Sieg Heil!" [30]

As if the use of the “Za Dom – Spremni” salute wasn’t enough, a group of Croatian guardsmen came to the funeral with the Ustasha "U" symbol stenciled on their helmets [31], a symbol which is the Croatian equivalent of the "dual lightening bolt" used by the Nazi SS.

Soon after Tudjman's regime took power, the Croatian flag was changed to resemble the one flown by the Ustasha during World War II. [32]

In 1994 Croatia revived the fascist-era currency that it had used during the Second World War. Fittingly, Croatia had its new “Kuna” bank notes printed in Germany. [33]

Fascists from around the world flocked to Croatia when Tudjman took power. In 1995 Ante Pavelic's son-in-law, a former Ustasha officer named Srecko Psenicnik, returned to Croatia from Canada. [34]

Psenicnik founded a fascist political party (HOP), and began printing an outspoken fascist newspaper called "The Independent State of Croatia.” Psenicnik said that his paper rallied like-minded Croats and was on the line of the policy pursued by its first editor-in-chief Ante Pavelic. [35]

It is logical that Psenicnik would feel welcome in Croatia. In 1998 two requiem services were held for Ante Pavelic. One mass was held in Croatia's capital city of Zagreb and the other was held in the town of Split. [36]

The services were not only attended by Pavelic's followers and relatives, but several Croatian parliamentary party leaders also attended. [37]

Tudjman himself proposed bringing Pavelic's bones back to Croatia for re-burial. Tudjman said: "I support the idea that the bones of every Croatian man who lived for Croatia should be returned to Croatian soil. Why leave Pavelic out of it?" [38]

Conclusion

The Krajina Serb population was resisting the rule of a Croatian regime that was clearly fascist.

The Hague Tribunal’s indictment is wrong. The war in Croatia was not the result of some “joint criminal enterprise,” or conspiracy, to create “greater Serbia.” The war in Croatia occurred because the Serbian population refused to be dictated to by a fascist regime in Zagreb.

It is a disgrace to the civilized world that fascism was allowed to emerge in Europe for a second time. It is a further disgrace that the Croatian fascists were permitted, and even encouraged (notably by Richard Holbrooke [39]), to destroy the Krajina Serbs.

The attempts by some in the media, and by the Hague Tribunal to label the Serbs as aggressors are attempts to pervert history.

It is the duty of every civilized person on Earth to combat fascism. The lies and conspiracy theories concocted by the Hague Tribunal are lies that only serve to protect fascists.

Footnotes

[1] The Simon Wiesenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance website,
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t081/t08100.html

[2] The Simon Wiesenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance website,
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg46/pg9/pg46999.html

[3] Agence France Presse, June 26, 1991, "Federal Government Rejects Independence Declarations"

The Yugoslav federal government on Wednesday declared the independence moves by Croatia and Slovenia illegal and said it was adopting measures to assure the normal functioning of the state, the Tanjug news agency reported.

[4] The Washington Times, March 5, 1990, Monday, Final Edition, Pg. A2, "Angry Serbs protest Croatian nationalism"

The Serbs, Yugoslavia's biggest ethnic group, flocked from all corners of the country to Petrova Gora to voice their anger at calls by Croatian opposition groups for their republic's secession from Yugoslavia, ”We will kill [Franjo] Tudjman," the crowd bayed, referring to the leader of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union who expressed support last week for the World War II independent state of Croatia.

[5] The New York Times / Associated Press, December 11, 1999, "Franjo Tudjman, Ex-Communist General Who Led Croatia's Secession, Is Dead at 77"

In 1990, as a presidential candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union, Tudjman declared that the "Independent State of Croatia" established by the Ustase "was not simply a Quisling creation and a fascist crime, it was also an expression of the historical aspirations of the Croatian people." He again harped on nationalist themes, saying at one point, "Thank God, my wife is neither a Serb nor a Jew."

[6] Ibid.

The Croatian Democratic Union, founded as a nationalist party with a program of separatism, was heavily financed by members of the Croatian diaspora, especially by remnants of the Ustase movement in the United States, Canada and Australia.

[7] Ibid.

In his capital Tudjman lived luxuriously, indulging a taste for Champagne and caviar. For his official residence, he used Tito's former villa, a grand house atop a hill overlooking Zagreb that belonged to a Croatian Jewish family before World War II.

[8] Iibd.

Despite prohibitions, he [Tudjman] continued to publish nationalist tracts, the most controversial being a 505-page treatise in 1989, "Impasses of Historical Reality." In the work, he questioned the generally accepted numbers of victims of World War II genocide by the Germans and the Ustase. He put the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust at one million instead of six million -- and enraged Serbs and Jews by diminishing their numbers killed in Croatia's main death camp, at Jasenovac, from more than 500,000 to 59,639.

[9] The Guardian (London), October 18, 1991, "An apologist for Hitler: Richard West on how Jews are responding to the Croatian president's anti-Semitism"

President Tudjman ignores the evidence of the trial [of commandant at Jasenovac, the Franciscan Father Filipovic-Majstrovic, otherwise know as 'Brother Devil'] to suggest that Jasenovac was largely run by a coterie of its Jewish inmates who used their power to rob and murder their Serb and Gypsy fellow prisoners.

[10] Ibid.

President Tudjman delves into the Old Testament to prove his case that, for the Jews, 'genocidal violence is a natural phenomenon, in keeping with the human-social and mythological-divine nature. It is not only allowed, but even recommended,' he writes of Judaeo-Nazi genocide of Palestinians. Tudjman, writing in 1989, is generous to the Austrian government, which later became his main political backer and arms supplier: 'In the mid-80s, world Jewry still has the need to recall its 'holocaust', even by trying to prevent the election of the former UN secretary general, Kurt Waldheim, as president of Austria.'

President Tudjman tactfully does not mention that during the second world war, Waldheim served in occupied Yugoslavia, helping the puppet independent state of Croatia, whose declared policy to the almost two million Orthodox Serbs within its borders was to 'convert a third, expel a third and kill a third'.

[11] The New York Times / Associated Press, December 11, 1999, "Franjo Tudjman, Ex-Communist General Who Led Croatia's Secession, Is Dead at 77"

In ‘Impasses,’ [a.k.a. Wastelands] he also wrote: ‘A Jew is still a Jew. Even in the camps they retained their bad characteristics: selfishness, perfidy, meanness, slyness and treachery.’

[12] Ibid.

In 1992, he [Tudjman] said his comments had been "misinterpreted" and in 1994 he offered "an apology" in a letter to B'nai B'rith, saying that he intended to delete "controversial portions" from later editions.

[13] New York Times, October 31, 1993, "Pro-Nazi Legacy Lingers for Croatia", Both pride and embarrassment in Ustashe” by Stephen Kinzer

Under the Croatian Constitution, Mr. Tudjman has the right to appoint five people to seats in Parliament, and one of his appointees was Vinko Nikolic, who was official in the Ustashe education ministry.

[14] Declassified CIA field report, December 2, 1948 (Paragraph #5)

http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/pavelic/text/ap0031.txt

Shortly after his arrival in Buenos Aires, PAVELIC held two long conferences with [illegible] [illegible], in which the latter, speaking in the name of the Argentine government, extended full help and cooperation. Later, subject received VRANCIC, [illegible], [illegible] [illegible - Tutzia?], Father Vlado [illegible - Bilobnik?], [illegible] SUSIC and the two editors of the bi- weekly newspaper "Croatia", Ivan SEVISTIC and Vinko NIKOLIC.

[15] Jewish Telegraph Agency, December 18, 2002, "New study questions values taught in Croatia’s textbooks"

• In a history book for eighth graders, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is ridiculed by being depicted as a bulldog sitting on the British flag.

• On the same page, there is a photograph of a yellow Star of David, and a caption saying, “The Jews had to wear a special mark, the Star of David. This is a six-pointed star. It consists of two triangles, which symbolize the sky and the earth.” There is no mention of the discrimination suffered by those forced to wear the symbol.

• The same history book shows the picture of Croatian wartime leader Ante Pavelic. The accompanying caption describes him as “a jurist, politician and the founder of the Ustashe movement,” but makes no mention of the war crimes committed under his rule.

[16] The Washington Post, March 26, 1994, Saturday, Final Edition, “Croatia Views A Familiar Story; ‘Schindler' Evokes Horror, Nostalgia”, by John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service

In some places around the country, names of schools and streets have been renamed after officials in the Ustashe state, most notably a grade school outside Zagreb. In 1990 it took the name of Mile Budak, the minister of justice under the Fascist state who signed racial laws banning Jews from schools, factories and government positions.

[17] Agence France Presse – English, June 12, 2000, Monday, "Name of street called after Croatia's pro-Nazi minister abolished"

In 1992 a street in the center of Split, 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Zagreb, was named after Mile Budak, a writer and a minister in the cabinet of the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

[18] Ibid.

The decision to abolish Budak's street came a few days after the unveiling of a plaque in memory of a Nazi-allied general, a move strongly condemned by Social-Democrats (SDP), of the ruling coalition, as another attempt to rehabilitate the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime.

The plaque in memory of Juraj Francetic, the commander of a notorious Ustasha unit, called the Black legion, was unveiled Thursday in the central Croatian town of Slunj.

[19] The Washington Post, March 26, 1994, Saturday, Final Edition, “Croatia Views A Familiar Story; ‘Schindler' Evokes Horror, Nostalgia”, by John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service

In 1990 the government moved to rename a central square in Zagreb from the Square for the Victims of Fascism to the Square for Croatian Giants, in commemoration of nationalist heroes.

[20] BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, July 9, 1994, Saturday, “Croatian Jews issue open letter complaining about attitudes to Jews” / Croatian TV satellite service, Zagreb, in Croatian 1730 gmt 7 Jul 94

The Coordination Committee of the Jewish communities of the Republic of Croatia states with regret that there has been no response to its letter sent to the most senior state officials [Tudjman and others on 29th November 93].

In the letter demands were made for the return of monuments on the site of the former concentration camp in Jadovno and on other sites of mass Ustasha crimes against members of the Jewish and other nations. The Committee also protested against increasingly frequent instances of the distortion of historical facts through the rehabilitation of the criminal NDH [pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia] and warned of unfavourable reactions to and consequences of the name kuna given to the new Croatian currency [used in the NDH].

[21] The Washington Post, March 26, 1994, Saturday, Final Edition, “Croatia Views A Familiar Story; ‘Schindler' Evokes Horror, Nostalgia”, by John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service

In Croatia proper, there is nostalgia for "the Independent State of Croatia," the Ustashe regime of 1941-45 that was backed by the Nazis. The Ustashes are held responsible for killing tens of thousands of Croatia's Jews during their five-year reign. Today fewer than 2,000 Jews remain among Croatia's 4 million people. On Zagreb's streets, and in cities and towns throughout the republic, newsstands hawk Ustashe paraphernalia -- swastikas, the Fascist coat-of-arms and other trinkets.

[22] United Press International, May 26, 1994, Thursday, BC cycle, "Croatia reviving fascist-era currency"

Meanwhile, to the chagrin of Jews and Serbs, Ustasha memorabilia has again become popular in Zagreb, where Nazi swastika flags, ''U'' (Ustasha) symbols and Pavelic's pictures are sold freely on the street.

[23] Jewish Telegraph Agency, December 18, 2002, "New study questions values taught in Croatia’s textbooks"

A recent concert in the Croatian coastal town of Split, for example, attracted some 40,000 young people to the soccer stadium. Many of them wore the Ustashe insignia and waved Nazi flags.

[24] Agence France Presse -- English, October 27, 1996, "Croatia to bury WW2 communists and fascists together"

OMIS, Croatia, In a controversial "reconciliation" ceremony in this Adriatic town, Croatian authorities Sunday reburied the bodies of World War II fascist soldiers alongside the remains of communist partisans they had fought.

[25] Ibid.

The ceremony, led by the deputy bishop of Split, Marin Barisic, took place at a cemetery in Omis with Croatian soldiers and sailors carrying the remains of 112 soldiers from the conflict more than 50 years ago.

Of these, 104 were of soldiers from Croatia's wartime pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia regime, six were former Ustashi troops -- the equivalent of the Nazi SS -- and two were the bodies of partisans.

[26] Ibid.

Ivan Skaricic, mayor of Omis, told AFP this week that the ceremony was being held under the auspices of the Croatian parliamentary commission for victims of World War II.

Vice Vukojevic, head of the Croatian parliamentary commission for victims of World War II, said in a speech that the ceremony was "a symbol of the reconciliation of the Croat people."

"Croatia is no longer divided between victors and vanquished," he said.

Vukojevic, who is a member of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman's rightwing ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), said that the aim of his commission was to establish the "truth" about what happened during the war, when the pro-Nazi puppet regime ruled the country.

"The number of victims of fascism has been systematically overstated, creating a feeling of guilt among the Croat people," he said.

[27] Ibid.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman first proposed the idea of "posthumous reconciliation of the Croat nation" earlier this year when he said fascists and their victims should be buried together at the Jasenovac concentration camp, 250 kilometres (150 miles) east of Zagreb.

Most historians accept that several hundred thousands of Jews, Serbs, Gypsy and Croat oppositionists were killed in the camp near the border with neighbouring Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Tudjman, a former historian, has been accused previously of World War II revisionism for a work in which he said that the number of people killed in Jasenovac by the Croatian fascist regime -- a puppet regime dependent on Nazi Germany -- was greatly exaggerated.

[28] Ibid.

Jewish communities in Croatia and abroad have protested against the ceremony.

From Paris, the centre set up by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal sent an open letter to Croatian Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa criticising the move as "perverse".

"This ceremony is not an act of reconciliation, but a perverse lesson to younger generations on the continuity of Ustashi militias and the Croatian army today," the letter said.

[29] BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, July 14, 1990, Saturday, “Croatian Serbs protest against proposed legal changes in republic"

Last night's gathering was prompted by the arrival in Knin of Josip Boljkovac, Croatia's Internal Affairs Minister, to attend a meeting with representatives of Knin municipality to discuss a letter by local militiamen to Petar Gracanin, the Federal Secretary for Internal Affairs, in which they drew his attention to the imminent reorganisation of the militia in Croatia announced by the republic's government. In the view of the official from Knin public security the reorganisation will entail the introduction of names and symbols of the NDH [the wartime Independent State of Croatia].

[30] The Associated Press, August 7, 1991, Wednesday, AM cycle, “Fascist Salute Heard at Croatian Guardsmen's Funeral” By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer

As the flag-draped coffins of four Croat guardsmen were lowered into their graves Wednesday, hundreds of mourners chanted fascist salutes unheard in Yugoslavia since Croatia's Nazi puppet regime collapsed at the end of World War II.

A bull-necked policeman shouted "Za Dom!"- "For the Home!" The crowd, gingerly at first but more forcefully with each try, gave the response of the ultranationalist Ustasha government: "Spremni" - "We are ready!"

The resurrection of the salute, banned for decades under Communist rule, served as another indication of the depth of hatred developing between Croats and the ethnic Serb minority in the breakaway republic, which declared independence from Yugoslavia June 25.

The four guardsmen, ages 21 to 30, were among more than 200 victims of clashes between the two ethnic groups, locked in a bloody battle to control large slices of Croatian territory.

The salute, the equivalent of the Nazi "Sieg Heil," was officially used by the so-called "Independent State of Croatia."

The republic was set up under Nazi German auspices by the Ustasha movement of Ante Pavelic, whose ultranationalist armed units were modeled on the SS and struck terror in the hearts of Serbs and other minorities living on Croatian territory.

[31] Ibid.

The guardsmen buried at Osijek's central cemetery Wednesday were among 25 confirmed killed on Aug. 1 in a clash with Serbs in the village of Dalj, 15 miles to the east on the Danube River, which forms the border with Serbia.

Black-clad weeping women hugged the caskets as they left the chapel, flanked by guardsmen carrying wreaths of flowers arranged to form the republic's red-and-white checkerboard coat of arms, an ancient Croatian symbol also used by the Ustashas.

A platoon of helmeted soldiers, some with a small 'U' - the fascist regime's symbol - carefully penciled around the official Croatian symbol, fired three volleys over the coffins as many of the 1,000 mourners openly wept.

[32] The Toronto Star, September 20, 1990, Thursday, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A17, "Fear, loathing in Yugoslavia Why one town thought civil war had already started"

Under that [Ustasha] regime, tens of thousands of Serbs - many of them from the Knin area - were murdered. The new Croatian government has begun to fly a flag similar to that flown by the Ustashi.

“A new government has come to power, and they have established the same symbols under which our people were killed," said Lazar Mazura, a Knin schoolteacher and a leader of the Serbian movement here. We don't agree with this attempt to separate from Yugoslavia."

[33] United Press International, May 26, 1994, Thursday, BC cycle, "Croatia reviving fascist-era currency"

Croatia's plan to revive a currency used by the Nazi regime of World War Two has enraged Jews and Serbs, who claim the reappearance of the kuna desecrates the memory of victims of fascism.

On May 30 -- Croatian Statehood Day, the kuna will replace the dinar, inherited from when Croatia was one of the six republics of federal Yugoslavia.

[…]

Slavko Goldstein, the former chairman of Zagreb's tiny Jewish community. He said the kuna raises a new obstacle to thorny process of reconciliation with rebel Serbs, who seized a quarter of Croatia in a rebellion against its 1991 secesion.

''One can easily envisage there will be no integration of Serb- occupied land back under Zagreb's rule. Serbs will never deal with kuna. Never.''

Goldstein also suspects the switch to the kuna will tarnish Croatia's international image by sending mixed messages about its democracy.

''It's hard to tell if at all and how many countries will be ready to do business and provide loans to a country with fascist currency,'' Goldstein said.

[…]

The new banknotes were printed in Germany in denominations ranging from five to 1,000 kunas.

[34] BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, December 1, 1995, Friday “MEDIA; Croatian "Ustasha" paper reportedly to move from Toronto to Zagreb” / Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in English 1249 gmt 30 Nov 95

The Independent State of Croatia', a paper published by Croatian Nazi-fascists (Ustashas), will in the near future move from Toronto in Canada to Zagreb.

The first edition published in the Croatian capital is expected in mid-December.

The paper's editor-in-chief Srecko Psenicnik is a former Ustasha officer and son-in-law of Ante Pavelic, the leader of the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in World War II when Croatia was an ally to Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

[35] Ibid.

Psenicnik was also president of the so-called Croatian Liberation Movement (HOP), an organization working in exile.

In an interview published by the latest edition of the Zagreb weekly Globus', Psenicnik said that his paper's moving to Zagreb was aimed at strengthening HOP's activities.

HOP has been legally registered in Croatia after that former Yugoslav republic unilaterally and forcibly seceded from the Yugoslav federation in mid-1991.

Psenicnik said that his paper rallied like-minded Croats and was on the line of the policy pursued by its first editor-in-chief Pavelic.

[36] Agence France Presse – English, December 29, 1998, "Remembrance services held for Nazi-allied Croatian leader"

Two requiem services for Croatia's notorious World War Two leader, Ante Pavelic, whose regime was allied with that of Germany's Nazis, were held Monday, press reports said Tuesday.

To mark the death of Pavelic, head of the Ustasha regime which executed thousands of non-Croats in Croatia and Bosnia, masses were held in Zagreb and Split, the independent daily Jutarnji List reported.

[37] Ibid.

It said the masses were attended by numerous Pavelic followers and several parliamentary party leaders whose policies are based upon the Ustasha legacy.

The pro-government daily Vecernji list said Pavelic's daughter Marijana and her two children attended the mass in Zagreb.

[38] The Independent (London), April 24, 1996, Wednesday, Page 10, "Tudjman plan to rebury Croatian Fascist leader could spark outrage", By: Tony Barber

President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia said yesterday that the remains of Ante Pavelic, Croatia's Fascist leader during the Second World War, should be returned to his homeland.

In remarks likely to provoke severe criticism at home and abroad, Mr Tudjman said: "I support the idea that the bones of every Croatian man who lived for Croatia should be returned to Croatian soil. Why leave Pavelic out of it?"

[39] www.slobodan-milosevic.org, August 28, 2004, "The Z-4 Plan and the Run-up to Operation Storm"

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg-anl082804.htm

On August 18, 1995, just two weeks after Operation Storm, Galbraith and Richard Holbrooke went to Zagreb and met with Tudjman and his cabinet. The stenographic notes from that meeting were obtained by Milosevic and entered into evidence at the tribunal. In the stenographic notes Holbrooke tells the Croats:

"You had just justification for a military operation in Western Slavonia, and I kept defending it in Washington. You will recall that the two of us met in London immediately afterwards, and then we went to the US embassy to meet Gore. It was a very dramatic exchange of views. Some people wanted Gore to tell you -- tell us that you would be withdrawing from Western Slavonia and we said absolutely not. You have to stay there.”

“You've closed the back door, that is to say, your country, and then we discussed your activities in Livanjsko Polje, and then we stated the following: Continue, carry on."

"We publicly said that we were concerned. However, privately, you knew what we wanted."

[SEE: Milosevic trial transcript - January 22, 2004 - page 31373, beginning on line 8]

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