Croatia: Myth and Reality (13) - C. Michael McAdams - Myth: "The Croatians Asked to Join Yugoslavia"

MYTH: "THE CROATIANS ASKED TO JOIN YUGOSLAVIA"
C. Michael McAdams

Myth: The people of Croatia asked to join Serbia in forming Yugoslavia in 1918.

Reality: The people of Croatia did not ask to join Serbia in 1918. The elected representatives of the Croatian people voted for a "Neutral and Peasant Republic of Croatia" in 1918.

The Yugoslav Committee

The basis of the myth that Croatia willingly joined Serbia in 1918 is to be found in the complex history of the Yugoslav Committee. The Yugoslav Committee was formed by exiles living outside the Croatian homeland during World War I. The Committee was led by Franjo Supilo and Ante Trumbic and included the famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Each repudiated the Committee within a few years of the founding of Yugoslavia. "Yugoslavs" were Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian people who identified themselves with the movement toward a single Yugoslav or South Slavic state. Exiled Yugoslavs living in North America and Britain were the primary supporters of the Yugoslav Committee. Having established offices in London and Paris as early as 1915, the Yugoslav Committee became an active lobby for the cause of a united South Slav state during the First World War.

The concept of a unified South Slavic state had been discussed by Croatian and Slovenian intellectuals since the mid-nineteenth century. However, the "Yugoslav Idea" did not mature from the conceptual to practical state of planning. Few of those promoting such an entity had given any serious consideration to what form the new state should take. Nevertheless, the Yugoslav Committee issued a manifesto calling for the formation of such a South Slavic state on May 12, 1915. The document, like the rhetoric of those who produced it, was vague concerning the form and system of government. It received little official recognition.

At the same time Serbia, led by Nikola Pasic's pan-Serbian Radical Party, saw the "Yugoslav" concept as a useful tool in the long sought development of a "Greater Serbia." As the War dragged on, the Allies began to think of the concept of Yugoslavia as a blocking force in the Balkans to counter future German expansionism. Although no formal agreement was announced until July 1917, the Yugoslav Committee and the Serbian Government-in-Exile worked hand-in-hand from November 1916 onward. On July 20, 1917 the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee issued the text of an agreement known as the Declaration of Corfu which called for the formation of a multi-national state. The document was deliberately mute as to whether the government would take the form of Western-oriented Croatia or of the Eastern-oriented Serbia. The vast majority of the Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian people had no knowledge of the declaration made by a small group of exiled intellectuals and the Serbian Government-in-Exile. Nonetheless, the signers claimed to speak for all South Slavic peoples and the Declaration of Corfu became the justification claimed by Serbia for the forced unification of Croatians and Slovenes under the Serbian crown.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

As the War drew to a close, the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to disintegrate. The Croatian Sabor or Parliament met in Zagreb on October 29, 1918 to declare "the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia" to be a free and independent state. The Habsburg Crown recognized Croatia and transferred the Austro-Hungarian fleet to the Croatian government on October 31st. The Croatian government in Zagreb was fully formed before the fall of Austria on November 3, Germany on November 11, and Hungary on November 13. The Yugoslav National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was organized in Zagreb on October 15, 1918. This twenty-eight member Council was self-appointed, not elected. Although its president was a Slovene, the Council was dominated by Svetozar Pribicevic, a Serb. On November 24th this self-appointed group called for a common state with Serbia. This is the body so often cited as having "asked" to join Yugoslavia.

The mythology overlooks another Congress held just blocks away on the very next day. This was the Congress of Stjepan Radic's Croatian Peasant Party attended by almost three thousand elected delegates from every part of Croatia. The Peasant Party was the largest and most popular party in Croatia at that time and would remain so during the period between the Wars. It won absolute majorities in every subsequent election. This Congress assailed the National Council as arbitrary and unconstitutional and unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a "Neutral and Peasant Republic of Croatia." Following this Congress, there were huge demonstrations in the streets of Zagreb supporting independence.

Zagreb's brief jubilation quickly changed to the sober realization that Croatia would again be ruled from a foreign capital as Italian, French and French African forces invaded from the west and Serbian troops invaded from the east.

On December 1, 1918, Serbian Prince Alexander announced the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, with a Serbian King ruling from the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Despite the neutral sounding name, the country was called Yugoslavia by the diplomatic community almost from the beginning. Ironically, at the Paris Peace Conference the Yugoslav delegation openly insisted that it be known as the "Serbian Delegation."

The Paris Peace Conference

At the Peace Conference itself, the Croatians submitted a petition to President Wilson calling for an independent Croatia. With over 150,000 signatures and the notation that another 450,000 signatures had been seized by the Serbian Army, the document specifically asked:

That Mr. Wilson and the representatives of the great Powers should recognize the independence of the Croatian people;
That an international Commission should be sent to Croatia to inquire;

That a Constituent Assembly should be formed so that the Croatian people be free to decide their fate;

That the Serbian Army be withdrawn;

That the Sabor, should be respected as being alone authorized to the making of laws in Croatia; today, they are being dictated by Serbia and executed in the most brutal manner by the military.

Although submitted to the Paris Peace Conference on May 4th, 1919, the objections of the Croatian people were noted and then ignored by the United States and other so-called "Great Powers." President Wilson's famed Fourteen Points for which America had fought a World War were undergoing a metamorphosis at the Conference. Point X originally called for "...the freest opportunity of autonomous development" for the nations of Austria-Hungary and Point XI stipulated that "relations of the several Balkan states to one another be determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and for international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states."

The American delegation's commentary on the revision of Wilson's famous Fourteen Points noted that:

An internal problem arises out of the refusal of the Croats to accept the domination of the Serbs of the Serbian Kingdom.
In a classic example of diplomatic double-speak the delegation wrote:

The United States is clearly committed to the programme of national unity and independence. It must stipulate, however, for the protection of national minorities...it supports a programme aiming at a Confederation of Southeastern Europe.
Thus, in the eyes of the victorious Allies, in order to protect the Croatian nation, it was necessary to destroy it. There was no vote of the Croatian people about their future. By decree, Prince Alexander dissolved the Croatian National Council, convened a Parliament composed primarily of members of the Serbian Skupstina or Parliament and declared that all laws of the Serbian Constitution of 1903 were in effect throughout the land. Despite the fact that the purpose of the new Yugoslavia was supposed to be the unification of all South Slavs into one state, Serbia, making good on a secret pact with Italy made in 1915, handed over a large part of the land and population of Croatian Dalmatia to Italy, including the strategic cities of Rijeka and Zadar. For the first time in thirteen centuries the ancient Croatian institutions of Ban or Viceroy and Sabor or Parliament were abolished by the Serbian King. The long process of "Serbization" had begun.

Croatia: Myth and Reality (12) - C. Michael McAdams - Croatia's Future

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams

Croatia's Future

The Croatian people face many challenges, in Croatia, in Bosnia-Hercegovina and abroad. The weight of the war, hundreds of thousands of refugees, rebuilding destroyed cities, and a weakened economy took their toll. Many became cynical about politics and democracy during that trying time but there was ample cause for hope. Throughout the world, Croatia found friends to assist in the development of democracy - friends in the true sense. There were also those in the United States and other countries who wanted to dictate the terms of "democracy" to nations emerging from communism. Croatia must build a democratic republic reflecting its own rich heritage, its diverse regions and its unique social and cultural institutions. The United States and other democracies can perhaps serve as an example of what to do, and what not to do, but no nation can dictate the terms of "democracy." In 1791 the Croatian Ban John Count Erdodi at the Congress of Bratislava stood to inform the Hungarian council "Regnum regno non praescribit leges!" (One kingdom cannot make the laws for another!). Those words were no less true two hundred years later. Croatia can survive and build on its democratic foundations. And while those foundations are being laid, the bedrock of the Croatian Trinity, language, culture and history, will continue to serve. The Croatian spirit, which has lasted over a thousand years, must never again the sacrificed at the international altar.

Croatia: Myth and Reality (11) - C. Michael McAdams - Croatia's Continuity

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams

Croatia's Continuity

The Croatian Republic was born into hostility, war and suffering. It attempted to build new institutions of commerce and government while restructuring existing ones. Many in the Western press criticized the young Croatian state as being less than a perfect democracy, sometimes with good cause. Yet during its first five war-torn years, with thousands of refugees, cities ablaze and a dozen competing political parties, Croatia began the development of institutions that would serve well into the future. During the chaotic transition from communism to capitalism and from totalitarianism to democracy, the Croatian people relied on a great inner continuity, one much older and deeper than that of many nations.

Croatian continuity can be illustrated by the troplet, the triple braid that has been found in Croatian art, architecture, and design for centuries. Often the triple braid is unbroken forming a circle of continuity. There are many explanations for the design, which was probably borrowed from the ancient Celts. One explanation is linked to the Christian Trinity representing the body of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Croatia's continuity can be compared to that Trinity. The body of Croatia is its culture. Its lifeblood is its language. History is its spirit. Without the preservation of Croatian tradition, language, and history, Croatians would not exist today. Unless Croatian culture, language, and history are preserved, Croatia will not survive, regardless of political will. Croatia was robbed of political continuity by the actions of outside powers but found stability in its rich culture and history while building a stable political foundation.

That foundation gives every man and woman in a democracy the right to criticize the government, form political parties and exercise the franchise at election. After 1989 Croatia experienced tumultuous change from a singleparty captive nation within Yugoslavia, to a multi-party Republic. The wars of aggression against Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina made that transformation even more difficult. Numerous political parties emerged with many leaders and voices in Croatia, Bosnia and abroad. Some parties consolidated, others split, still others disappeared entirely. In war-torn Bosnia governance was sporadic and difficult. In the Croatian Republic, there was chaos and finger-pointing in Parliament and the government. A few voices even called for a return to communism or to some form of Yugoslavia.

Despite these tumultuous beginnings, Croatia can build democratic institutions for the future through its presidency and parliament. In order to achieve the continuity to preserve future democracy, the institutions must be held as separate and above the men and women who ocupy them. These are the institutions that will provide political continuity for the future. Although Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic will be recorded in history as the first democratically elected presidents of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, it is more important that they not be the last democratically elected presidents of their nations. They must be followed in future generations by men and women of many political persuasions. And with each new election, each peaceful change of government, the political continuity will grow.

Democratic institutions are not born overnight. They are grown and nurtured with, as Winston Churchill said, blood, sweat and tears. After hundreds of years, the United States, Canada and Australia are still defining themselves, just as Croatia is doing. The first U.S. President, George Washington, insisted on a one-party state and owned slaves. Australia was born as a prison colony. Canada was formed as a patchwork of very different provinces held together by the thinnest of threads. Yet each evolved into less-than-perfect democracies, but democracies none the less.

Croatia: Myth and Reality (10) - C. Michael McAdams - The New Mythology: Equal Guilt or Serbian Innocence

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams

At Dayton another less noticed agreement was reached that established a one to two year transition of the remaining Serb-occupied lands in Croatia back to Croatian civil control. Since the transition was to be overseen by the only remaining UN force in Croatia, and not NATO as in Bosnia, the threat of renewed war remained high. The Serbian population that drove out or slaughtered thousands of Croatians and reduced the city of Vukovar to rubble, did not look forward to their neighbors return. Given previous UN incompetence and open support of the Serbs, the two-year "transition" could fail. Croatia let the Serb population know that it is willing to work with an open hand. But unlike 1991, Croatia's open hand in 1996 was backed by a powerful fist in the form of the combat-proven Croatian Army.

The New Mythology: Equal Guilt or Serbian Innocence

For the first time since World War II, an International Tribunal was established at The Hague in the Netherlands to investigate and prosecute rape, murder, slavery, and crimes against humanity. Among the first to be charged with crimes in November of 1995 were "Bosnian Serb" leaders Karadzic, Mladic and over forty others. In February 1996, two other high ranking Serb officers were captured in Bosnia and extradited. Whether the true architect of the war and the crimes, Slobodan Milosevic will be charged remains to be seen at this writing. The magnitude of the crimes may never be known as concerted efforts were made to hide evidence, destroy documents and bury bodies. As many as 8,500 Muslim men may have been executed at a single site after Serb forces over ran the UN "safe haven" of Srebrenica in July, 1995. The total number of deaths was over one quarter million. Rapes were estimated at twenty to forty thousand, and well into 1996 thousands were still be held in Serbian concentration camps or in forced labor for the Serbian Yet even as the entire world took notice and as one first-hand report after another appeared, the Serbian disinformation campaign to hide the crimes began. The New York Times labeled it "a war against memory." As early as 1993 Texas journalist Peter Brock, writing in the journal Foreign Policy, lamented the unfair treatment that Serbs received in the press. He wrote of "minimally damaged Dubrovnik," Muslim provocation of the Serbian army and even hinted that Muslims had shelled themselves to gain Western sympathy. In the same article, the reporter for the El Paso Herald-Post dismissed the Pulitzer Prize winning works of Roy Gutman of Newsday and John Burns of the New York Times on Serbian atrocities.

In early 1996 the blatantly propagandistic film Vukovar made its debut in the United States. The movie was to have been shown at the United Nations in late 1995 but was rejected for its revisionist character and because it was made in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The movie was made in Serbian occupied Croatia and violated a number of UN sanctions. Despite that, it made the rounds of North American theaters with its less than subtle message that the Croatians had started the war and they were responsible for the destruction of Vukovar.

At the same time, a Croatian film Vukovar - The Way Home, describing the plight of the true victims of Vukovar living in train box cars, drew little notice. While critics from a number of leading papers panned the Serbian film as obvious propaganda, a United States Senator called it "prophetic and lyrical" and urged a White House screening and the Los Angeles Times wrote in March 1996, that despite the film's "...clear attempt at objectivity the Croatian government blocked the screening of this courageous and power anti-war film at the United Nations."

Despite such mythology, and unlike the crimes of the past, Serbia will not be able to make these crimes disappear. Far too much was seen by far too many. The facts recognized by the entire world were that Kosova, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina were the victims of Serbian aggression. A quarter of a million died, tens of thousands of women and men were raped, two million were made homeless, hundreds of towns, villages and cities were laid to waste. But not one shot was fired in Serbia; no blade of grass was bent; no window was broken. Serbia emerged untouched with half of Bosnia as its prize for rape and pillage. No amount of ancient fiction or new mythology will ever make Serbia the victim or erase these crimes. From this war, myth will not triumph over reality.

Croatia: Myth and Reality (09) - C. Michael McAdams - The Changing Balance

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams

The Changing Balance

By late 1995 Croatia had become a military power in the region in its own right, sending the seemingly invincible Serbs into full retreat from Croatia. In Bosnia, the outnumbered and out-gunned Army of the Republic of Bosnia- Hercegovina somehow held the city of Sarajevo and little more than one quarter of the country for three years. The siege of Sarajevo became the longest in modern European history. In much of Hercegovina it was the Croatian Military Organization (HVO) that held the Serbs at bay. While nominally independent and made-up of Bosnian Croatians, the HVO was in reality an extension of the Croatian Army.

Even though the Muslim-led Bosnian Army and the HVO were fighting the same enemy, clashes started as early as 1992 between the two forces, especially in and around the city of Mostar. In March of 1994 US President Bill Clinton presided over a forced marriage of Croatia and Bosnia into a federation. For both it was a marriage of convenience resented by many in the populations of both sides.

The Federation was promised US economic assistance and covert military support in the form of supplies, (technically banned under the universal embargo), training, and most importantly, intelligence. Slowly, the Federation gained greater advantage in western Bosnia while the United Nations abandoned one "safe area" after another in eastern Bosnia allowing the Serbs to swallow up Bosnian towns and, in the case of Srebrenica, Zepa and others, murder thousands of Bosnian Muslims in UN "protected" areas.

Late in 1995 the powerful Croatian Army, under the authority of the Federation, moved to relieve Bosnian forces in northwest Bosnia. Together the forces drove the Serbs back on almost everv front. The United Nations had turned its back on the people it was supposed to protect and it seemed possible that Croatia and Bosnia united might push Serbian forces back into Serbia. Suddenly, settling for half of Bosnia seemed more attractive to dictator Milosevic and his puppets than before.

Dayton

In April and May of 1995 the first NATO air strikes against Serbs were launched, and in August NATO began a two-week bombing campaign to break the siege of Sarajevo just as Croatian forces were liberating the Krajina. With thousands of refugees fleeing into Serbia, world-wide condemnation of Serbia resulting in real bombs, not words, and a combined Croatian-Bosnian army pressing on every front, Milosevic decided it was time to talk.

In September 1995 a US agreement was accepted by the Croatian and Bosnian sides. That agreement would sacrifice one-half of Bosnia to the Serbian aggressor. However, distasteful, the US made it clear that the offer was final and only the details could be negotiated. With a sixty-day cease fire in effect, the presidents of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia were summoned by President Bill Clinton to a US Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio. From November 1, 1995, for twenty days and nights the details of what would come to be called the "Dayton Agreement" were hammered out and signed on November 21, 1995.

To reinforce the fact that Milosevic was in charge of all "Bosnian Serb" forces, Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic (who was neither Bosnian or Serb), and his chief henchman General Ratko Mladic were not invited and threatened with arrest for war crimes if they attempted to join the talks. A final signing was held in Paris the following month as the first of tens of thousands of NATO, with a symbolic detachment of Russians, moved into Bosnia to begin the difficult task of physically dividing Bosnia into the "Bosnian Federation" and the "Serbian Republic."

Croatia: Myth and Reality (08) - C. Michael McAdams - Strike Two: Operation Storm (cont.)

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
C. Michael McAdams

When the first units of the Croatian Army arrived, they found a deserted city, virtually untouched by shelling but thoroughly looted. The President of Croatia immediately arrived and called upon the refugees to return home and asked those who had not left to stay and help rebuild a multi-ethnic society. Some chose to do so; most did not. Some who fled were guilty of murder, rape, "ethnic cleansing" (genocide) and the continued daily shelling of a dozen cities from Karlovac to Dubrovnik during the previous four years. Many of the fleeing Serbs were still wearing the uniform of the dreaded Cetnik death squads. Croatia could have arrested the criminals and deported them to the Netherlands for trial. Instead, it kept the escape corridor open and allowed the UN and the press to observe the retreat of Serbian army and their civilian cover back to Serbia. The Croatian government reiterated that any Krajina Serb not guilty of war crimes was welcome to return and live in peace. The Western media immediately labeled the exodus as "ethnic cleansing" by the Croatians. When the Krajina authorities later admitted in the Belgrade press that they had ordered and organized the mass evacuation, little notice was taken.

For four years of over one million non-Serbs were herded out of their homes with little more than the shirts on their backs. Women were taken to rape camps. Tens of thousands were slaughtered and buried in mass graves (such as those that are still being unearthed in Bosnia). Yet the world press was almost gleeful in blaming Croatia for the plight of more refugees fleeing from the so-called Krajina.

Although the media referred to Knin as being "devastated" by the brutal standards of the war, the city was barely touched. To illustrate the devastation, some media unwittingly showed the totally destroyed Roman Catholic church, which was blown up by the Serbs in 1991. The Serhian Orthodox church was untouched and protected by Croatian police. It would later be learned that only 2,000 shells were used in the liberation of Knin. In comparison the Serbs lobbed an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 shells on Sarajevo in a single day.

After the army withdrew from the liberated areas, thousands of Croatians who had been living in refugee camps for the previous four years returned to find their homes, churches and businesses destroyed. Enraged, some took retribution upon the Serbs - looting, burning, and committing as many as twenty-six killings that may not have been war related. While these crimes paled in comparison to the tens of thousands murdered by the Serbs and the entire cities, such as Vukovar, that had been wiped from the earth, they were no less reprehensible. While Serbian leaders had been photographed repeatedly forcing civilians from their homes and the highest ranking Bosnian Serb leaders were named by the International War Crimes Tribunal as war criminals, the Croatian leadership moved quickly to clean its own house. By late September almost four hundred people had been arrested, and in early October Croatian President Franjo Tudjman announced that legal proceedings had been launched in cases of looting, destruction, and the twenty-six murders. He announced, "We expect the courts in Croatia, which are indeed completely independent, to perform their duty in all of these cases." By January 1996, most of the crimes had been prosecuted. When Croatia was attacked in 1991, many Serbs fled not to Belgrade but to the Croatian capital of Zagreb and to other non-occupied areas. More Serbs chose to live at peace in free Croatia than chose to live under Serbian occupation. As late as March 31, 1995, some 218,000 ethnic Serbs lived in free Croatia as opposed to 184,000 in occupied Croatia. Peaceful urban Serbs were not mistreated in free Croatia where some were members of Parliament and one was its Vice President.

Zlatko Sudac: Good and evil are challenge, because life is everything but static

Zlatko Sudac: Good and evil are challenge, because life is everything but static

We see and feel more good than evil in our lives said Zlatko Sudac, a Croatian priest. We offer to your attention his four sermons with translation from Croatian into English. You can not be indifferent to either good or evil. We all know this, saints and crooks. Rev. Sudac was born in the small medieval town of Vrbnik on Krk, the largest Croatian island. The accompanying music is by Tedi Spalato.