Yugoslav Daily Survey, 97-04-16

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Yugoslav Daily Survey

CONTENTS

[01] PRIVATIZATION - DIALOGUE BETWEEN OPPOSITION AND AUTHORITIES

[02] FOUNDING FATHERS

[03] POLLING STATIONS CLOSE, RESULTS IN A FEW DAYS

[01] PRIVATIZATION - DIALOGUE BETWEEN OPPOSITION AND AUTHORITIES

This dialogue, useful for all and without much pomp, was established in its rightful place - at the Republican Government and the National Assembly, where a draft of the privatization law will soon be under debate, Bajec said.

Professor Bajec, who is one of the authors of the working version of this law, said the opposition had obliged itself to take an active role in the adoption of this document by the mere fact that it had joined in the public debate.

Those who proposed the working version of this law, which is of extreme importance for reforms in society, took into consideration certain objections voiced during a meeting with opposition parties, and some moot points have been cleared up in the meantime, Bajec said.

Representatives of some opposition parties have expressed apprehension that workers might secure for themselves a new package for control of ownership, through the proposed large discounts and benefits.

This, in turn, might in time in practice result in a new form of self- management with all its familiar faults, Bajec said.

The idea was also heard that so-called voucher privatization should be introduced - the distribution of social capital to all citizens in Serbia, he said.

The adoption of a law on privatization was welcomed, however, and confidence was expressed that this would very soon result in the transformation of social capital in its entirety, Bajec said.

Yugoslav Daily Survey, 1997-04-16 ; Tanjug, 1997-04-14

[02] FOUNDING FATHERS

"For Home!" shouted Anto Dapic, surrounded by bodyguards in black suits and crew cuts.

"Ready!" responded the crowd of 500 supporters, their arms rising in a stiff Nazi salute.

The call and response * the Croatian equivalent of "Sieg!" "Hell!" * was the wartime greeting used by supporters of the fascist Independent State of Croatia, which governed the country for most the Second World War and murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Croatian resistance fighters.

Today, in the final day of campaigning before local elections on Sunday, supporters of Croatia's Party of Rights used the chant as a rallying cry. But the shouts of the black*shirted young men * and the indifferent reactions of passersby * illustrated a broader aspect of this country's self*image.

President Franjo Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union party rose to popularity and power on the strength of its appeals to Croatians' national pride. Now, six years after the war that won Croatia its independence from Yugoslavia, Mr. Tudjman's party continues to cast the World War II fascist fighters as patriots and precursors of the modern Croatian state.

The Party of Rights took only 7 percent of the vote in the last election, but it is the closest ally of Mr. Tudjman, who is reported to be suffering from cancer and who has actively participated in the campaign.

Perhaps no other country has failed as openly as Croatia to come to terms with its fascist legacy. While the French celebrate a resistance movement that was often dwarfed by the widespread collaboration with the Vichy regime, and while the Austrians often act as if the war never happened, the Croats have rehabilitated the Croatian fascist collaborators, known as the Ustashe.

The Ustashe was led by Ante Pavelic, the wartime dictator whose picture was plastered on walls in Split in preparation for he rally.

"A majority of the Croats oppose this rehabilitation," said Viktor Ivancic, editor in chief of the opposition weekly, "The Feral Tribune". "But they are afraid. These neo*fascist groups, protected by the state, are ready to employ violence against their critics."

Ustashe veterans receive larger pensions than old Partisan fighters, who waged a savage fight against the German and Croatian fascist armies. Former Ustashe soldiers are invited to state celebrations, like the annual army day, while Partisan fighters are ignored. And state authorities have stood by as pro*Ustashe groups have dismantled or destroyed 2.964 of 4.073 monuments to those who died in the resistance struggle, according to veteran Partisan groups.

The identification with the quisling regime does not stop there. The Croatian currency is the kuna, the same instituted by the fascists. And the red and white checkerboard on the flag, taken from medieval Croatian emblems, previously adorned the Ustashe uniform. The President recently proposed bringing Mr. Pavelic's remains from Spain, where he died in exile in 1959, for burial in Croatia, a move rejected by Mr. Pavelic's family. And Vinko Nikolic, an 85*year*old former high*ranking Ustashe official who fled into exile after the war, was appointed by the President to the Croatian Parliament.

The transformation is all the more noticeable because of widespread participation by many Croats in the partisan guerrilla movement led by Josip Broz Tito, himself a Croat.

"A huge number of Croats fought the Nazis and the Ustashe," said 77*year*Partisan veteran Milivoj Borosa, who defected in his bomber in 1942 from the Ustashe air force and dropped his payload on a German unit during his escape to the Soviet Union. "But today, those who should hold their heads in shame, are national heroes."

The Partisans, who included among their ranks the young Franjo Tudjman, committed what today is viewed as an unforgivable sin. They built a united, Communist Yugoslavia. And while the Ustashe state may have been a Nazi puppet, it had as its stated aim the establishment of an independent Croatia, although it was forced by the Axis to turn over large parts of Croatia, including much of the Dalmatian coast, to the Italians.

In the current campaign, President Tudjman sought to reconcile the country's wartime divisions by arguing that the fascist and anti*fascist Croatians performed equally valuable service for their country. A general who became a historian after leaving the Yugoslav Army, Mr. Tudjman is among the leaders of a revisionist school of history that has sought to counterbalance the Communists' relentlessly dark view of the fascist years.

But many Croats, especially those who had relatives killed by the fascist, smolder with indignation over the glorification of a regime that massacred opponents with a ferocity that often shocked its Italian and German allies.

"You cannot reconcile victims and butchers," said Ognjen Kraus, the head of Zagreb's small Jewish community. "No one has the right to carry out a reconciliation in the name of those who vanished."

The climate has become so charged that those who oppose he rehabilitation of the Ustashe do not dare raise their voices. And there have been several attacks carried out against members of the Social Democratic Party, the old Communist party, currently fielding candidates for the municipal elections. Many of the black*uniformed body*guards at the rally here fought against the Serbs as members of the Croatian Liberation Forces, a brutal right*wing paramilitary unit formed by the party.

The Ustashe supporters also have a powerful ally in the Catholic Church in Croatia. The church, led during the war by Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, was a prominent backer of the Ustashe regime. It forcibly converted tens of thousands of Orthodox Serbs and did not denounce the government's roundup and massacre of Jews and Serbs.

During the war, Jews and Orthodox Serbs were subject to racial laws. The Serbs had to wear blue arm bands with the letter "P" for "Pravoslav" * Orthodox * before being deported to death camps like Jasenovac.

After the war, many priests, rather than condemn the brutality of the fascist regime, want on to set up an underground network know as "the rat line" to smuggle former Ustashe leaders, including Mr. Pavelic, to countries like Argentina.

The church, persecuted by the Communists, has now re*emerged as one of the most powerful institutions in the country, in large part because religion is the only tangible difference separating Serbs, Muslims and Croats. Several priests have enthusiastically joined the rehabilitation campaign, portraying Mr. Pavelic as a pious leader who championed Christian values.

"Ante Pavelic was a good Catholic," said Father Luka Prcela, who has held a memorial Mass for the former dictator in Split for the last four years. "He went to mass daily in his own chapel. Many of the crimes alleged to have been committed by his Government never happened. These stories were lies spread by the communists. He fought for a free, Catholic Croatia. We have this state today because of him."

Yugoslav Daily Survey, 1997-04-16 ; New York Times, 1997-04-12

[03] POLLING STATIONS CLOSE, RESULTS IN A FEW DAYS

UNTAES Spokesman Philip Arnold told the press that the UN Administrator Jacques Klein had assured him that the elections could be described as fair and regular.

Preliminary results will start arriving Monday night or Tuesday morning and final results should be available in three or four days, he said.

A few days are needed to count the votes, to bring in the ballots from stations where croatian refugees had cast their votes and to hear any complaints that may come up, Arnold said.

Klein should be able to declare the elections regular in four or five days, Arnold said.

The deadline for declaring the regularity of elections is 30 days.

Yugoslav Daily Survey, 1997-04-16 ; Tanjug, 1997-04-14

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