If Its Good Enough for Serbias Goose, Why Not for Croatias Gander?

["D.R." <danica_razlag@usa.net>]

"If President Mesics pronouncement is good enough for Serbias goose,
then it is should be good enough for Croatias gander. Not only is it
fair, but it is necessary to know just what role Croatian President
Mesic, himself, played during the 1991-1995 conflict. Furthermore, if
President Mesic insists that President Kostunica apologize for Serbias
past, then is President Mesic also ready to apologize for those in
Croatias past who committed war crimes, such as former dictator Franjo
Tudjman? According to a report from The Hague, dated 8 November (AFP),
"Croatias late autocratic leader Franjo Tudjman would have been
indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague if he were still
alive, a senior prosecutor for the tribunal said Wednesday."


------- Forwarded message follows -------
DATE: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 00:47:02
From: "D. Dostanic" <dostanic@sympatico.ca>
To: KDN <decani@egroups.com>

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http://antiwar.com/orig/jatras5.html

If Its Good Enough for Serbias Goose, Why Not for Croatias Gander?

by Stella L. Jatras

INTRODUCTION

In an AP article dated 21 November, Croatias president, Stipe Mesic,
insisted that "ousting Slobodan Milosevic was not enough," and "urged
Yugoslavias new leaders on Tuesday to hand him over to the U.N. war
crimes tribunal and face up to their countrys role in the Balkan wars.
Croatian President Stipe Mesic praised Yugoslavias democratization,
which began with the election Sept. 24 of the new president, Vojislav
Kostunica. But he said Kostunica should apologize for Milosevics
policies, which engulfed Croatia in a 1991 war." Mesic is quoted as
saying, "But for us, it is of primary interest that Yugoslavia itself
prosecute all those who committed war crimes and make it clear ... it
would extradite those who carried out ethnic cleansing and genocide," he
said. "We are more interested in deeds than in words."

If President Mesics pronouncement is good enough for Serbias goose,
then it is should be good enough for Croatias gander. Not only is it
fair, but it is necessary to know just what role Croatian President
Mesic, himself, played during the 1991-1995 conflict. Furthermore, if
President Mesic insists that President Kostunica apologize for Serbias
past, then is President Mesic also ready to apologize for those in
Croatias past who committed war crimes, such as former dictator Franjo
Tudjman? According to a report from The Hague, dated 8 November (AFP),
"Croatias late autocratic leader Franjo Tudjman would have been
indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague if he were still
alive, a senior prosecutor for the tribunal said Wednesday."

For that matter, perhaps Mesic should clear the collective Croatian
conscience by apologizing for the crimes during World War II of Ante
Pavelic, head of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941. According to
Johnny Byrne, popular British film and television drama writer, and
author of "Heart of Croatian Darkness," (15 August 1996), " They
[Croatians] refuse to acknowledge that the only true genocide committed
on the territory of the former Yugoslavia was that committed against
mainly Serbs, but also Jews and Romanies. Some 700,000 Serbs were
butchered in manner so unspeakable that even their Nazi German masters
were appalled." Pavelic is quoted as saying, "A good Ustasha [Croatian
Nazi] is one who can use his knife to cut a Serb child from the womb of
his mother."

For those who may consider it unfair to lay the 60 year old crimes of
Ante Pavelic at the feet of President Mesic, we may limit ourselves to
modern history.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING

In 1991, Stipe Mesic was the Croatian representative to the collective
Yugoslav Presidency, and it was the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Ante
Markovic, also a Croatian who ordered the Yugoslav National Army (JNA),
to take action against Croatian succession. It should be noted that in
1991, the JNA was a multinational force made up of Croatians, Muslims,
Serbs, Albanians, Hungarians, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and Macedonians.
The JNA did not effectively become a Serbian army until after the
breakup of Yugoslavia.

Not only does President Mesic, along with then-Prime Minister Markovic,
bear some responsibility for beginning the 1991-1995 war, he should take
a hard look at the way Croatia conducted the war before pointing the
finger of blame at others. In late 1991, the Yugoslav Army captured the
city of Vukovar from Croatian forces who were systematically massacring
the ethnic Serb minority in the city. A Defense & Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy article in London in December 1992 said, "At least
1,000 Serbs, mostly women, old people and children, were shot, knifed,
axed or bludgeoned to death systematically, one-by-one, in two main
centres...One visiting Croat female journalist during the Vukovar
fighting, unfamiliar with firearms, asked one of the young gunmen to
cock a pistol for her so that she could feel what it was like to kill a
Serb. She shot, indiscriminately, an old Serb woman who was standing
under Croat guard." In November 1991, the Toronto Star said that "a
photographer reported seeing black plastic bags containing pieces of the
bodies of [Serb] children about 5, 6, or 7 years old."

In line with biased reporting that existed throughout the war, the
media, especially in the U.S., paid scant attention to Croatian
atrocities against Serbian women and children in Vukovar, choosing
instead to concentrate on reports that Serbs massacred 200 wounded
Croatian soldiers in a Vukovar hospital. Only a few European papers
carried the story that Croatian soldiers who had participated in the
massacre of civilians, fled to the hospital and jumped into bed along
with their weapons in a futile attempt to escape the outrage of the
Serbian troops who had discovered their grisly crimes.

If President Mesic is genuinely interested in bringing war criminals to
justice, he should demand the extradition and trial of General Agim Ceku
who commanded Croatias army during "Operation Storm," when ethnic Serbs
were driven out of the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995 (the same Gen.
Ceku who commands the Kosovo Liberation Army). Over 250,000 Krajina
Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homes, thousands
slaughtered, and those too old or infirm to flee remained only to have
their throats slit. Approximately 650,000 Serbs have been driven out of
Croatia since 1992 with little prospect of ever returning. It was
military aid and technology provided by the Clinton Administration, on
the advice of Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke, that made it
possible for Croatian forces to conduct "Operation Storm" in order to
achieve their goal of a pure Croatian state that Hitler could only
promise. Nor was there any outrage from Congress when Croatian jets
bombed and strafed Serbian refugee columns. No general media outrage to
what Charles Krauthammer described in Newsweek (April 5, 1999) as "the
largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkan wars. Investigators with
the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague have concluded that this campaign
was carried out with brutality, wanton murder and indiscriminate
shelling of civilians . . . No denunciation. No sanctions. No bombing.
No indignant speeches about ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of
innocents. In fact, in justifying the current bombing of Serbia, Clinton
made an indirect reference to this Croatian campaign when he credited
the courageous people in Bosnia and in Croatia who fought back
against the Serbs and helped to end the war. Indeed, they did.
Croatias savage ethnic cleansing so demoralized the Serbs that they
soon agreed to sign the Dayton peace accord of 1995."

The Washington Times reported on 5 September, 1995, that Croatian
soldiers were given heroin or cocaine twice daily in order to help them
face up to the horrors of war in reference to the expulsion of Croatian
Serbs from Krajina. A Croatian soldiers, identified only as Davor,
stated, "To attack villages, to cut throats and to kill in cold blood
you need a strong anesthetic-a shot of heroin or cocaine was ideal."
This report was also substantiated in The Guardian, on September 1,
1995.

"Operation Storm" was not the only incident of Croatian criminal
brutality for which President Mesic evidently see no reason to make
amends. In 1993, Canadas Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry unit
attempted to enter a town where they could hear the Serbian civilian
population being massacred. Croatian troops attacked the Canadians and
engaged them in some of Canadas worst battles since the Korean war. The
battle came to be known as the Battle of the Medak Pocket. The Ottawa
Citizen wrote: "Almost five years after it happened, a House of Commons
committee has heard details of Canadas finest hour during its
peacekeeping mission to the former Yugoslavia." From the Calgary Herald:
"Sgt. Rod Dearing couldnt see the Croatian soldiers who were trying to
kill him but he could hear the rattle of their AK-47s and see their
bullets kick up earth just centimeters away. The Croats wanted to delay
the Canadians to enable their ethnic cleansing units to finish their
killing and looting [of Serbs]. A Croatian general stood in the middle
of the road, glaring and yelling at the Patricians [Princess Patricia
Canadian Light Infantry]. The soldiers came on the remains of two
teenagers who had been held captive by the Croats. They had been shot
and set on fire. What was left of their bodies were still smoldering
when the Canadians found them."

HAS CROATIA CHANGED? HARDLY

In a Reuters report published in the Washington Times on 28 January
1998, "Three Croatian ex-soldiers tell media of atrocities" committed in
1991 against the ethnic Serb minority and Croatians in Gospic who did
not agree with hard-line nationalist policies. One of the Croatian
ex-soldiers spoke of seeing "truckloads of bloated, stinking bodies,
mothers and children blown up by bombs and someone wearing a necklace
made of ears." How similar this is to reports by Holocaust survivors who
described what happened in 1941: "To give a little variety, noses and
ears were cut off, and eyes scratched out. The Italians photographed an
Ustashi [Croatian Nazi] wearing two chains of human tongues and ears
around his neck." (Testimonies from Holocaust survivors, Jean-Marc
Sabatier in Paris-Match, May 25, 1957 and Edmon Paris, "Genocide in
Satellite Croatia, 1961, Chicago, American Institute for Balkan
Affairs). Be it 1941 or 1991, it appears that history repeats itself in
Croatia.

Columnist A.M. Rosenthal: "In World War II Hitler had no executioners
more willing, no ally more passionate, than the fascists of Croatia.
They are returning, 50 years later, from what should have been their
eternal grave, the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Western Allies who dug
that grave with the bodies of their servicemen have the power to stop
them, but do not."

The Washington Times of 29 December 1995: "Croats will kill people for
the color of their skin." [US Colonel Fontenot, Commander of NATO
forces in northeastern Bosnia].

The Washington Times on 15 June, 1997: "A German tank rolls through a
small village, and the peasants rush out, lining the road with their
right arms raised in a Nazi salute as they chant Heil Hitler! Mobs
chase minorities from their homes, kicking them and pelting them with
eggs as they flee into the woods. Europe in the 1940s? No, Croatia in
the 1990s."

The International Herald Tribune, 4 September 1995, headlines, "Croatia
Eradicates Traces of Its Serbs," and from Edward Pearce of the London
Evening Standard, 7 August 1995, "But you can understand Croatia best by
saying flatly that if there is one place in the world where a statue of
Adolph Hitler would be revered, it would be in Zagreb," but an excellent
quote comes from John Ranz, Chairman of Survivors of Buchenwald
Concentration Camp, USA, who said, "The gigantic campaign to brainwash
America by our media against the Serbian people is just incredible, with
its daily dose of one-sided information and outright lies...What is
todays reality? The murderers of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies are back (in
Croatia) from the US, Canada, Argentina where they fled after World War
II. The Serbs fought the Nazis, and paid a terrible price for standing
at the side of the allies against Hitler. Humanity owes them a debt of
gratitude." And how have the Serbs been repaid? What was their reward
for their loyalty? Seventy-eight days of unmerciful US-led NATO bombing
and continued vilification by the US media.

From the Daily Telegraph of 15 November, 2000, Julius Strauss writes,
"Five years may have passed since the end of the Bosnian war but in
Ljubuski, one of dozens of Croat villages scattered through the
mountains of southwestern Bosnia, hardliners are still in control. By
way of greeting the Croat party official said: "I hope youre not a Jew
or an American. My father fought at Stalingrad. He wore the German
insignia with pride. At the end it was only us Croats who stayed
faithful to the SS."

Today, Croatia arrogantly and blatantly flies its fascist checkerboard
flag without fear of condemnation from the world. It has renamed its
streets after its Nazi war heroes, and proudly displays its "Sieg Heil"
salute at Croatian weddings, funerals, and other functions.

CONCLUSION

There is enough blame to go around in the Balkan Tragedy. Before
Croatian President Mesic makes any demands from the new president of
Serbia, perhaps he should look inward and cooperate to bring to trial
war criminals such as Agim Ceku who is still walking free, apparently
with the presidents blessings. It would also be nice of this Croatian
president showed some remorse for Croatias part in atrocities, past and
present, committed against the Serbian people before he makes demands
from others.

As a career military officer's wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely
and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about
other cultures but became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and
world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years where her
husband, George, was the Senior Air Attachi, and while there, worked in
the Political Section of the US Embassy. Stella has also lived in
Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia. Her travels took her to over twenty
countries. She is the author of the "Open Letter to General Michael
Short," which antiwar.com carried on 11/3/99, "From Camp Swampy to Camp
Bondsteel!" on 4/6/00, and "Srebrenica"  Code Word to Silence Critics
of US Policy in the Balkans" on 7/31/00.
------- End of forwarded message -------


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