Showing posts with label Croatia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Croatia. Show all posts
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Almost 50% of the employees in Croatia work overtime
Zagreb, May 14, 2018
On the eve of the International Day of Families, which took place on May 15th, the House of Europe in Zagreb presented a survey regarding work-life balance, overtime work and work during leisure time in Croatia, as well as the perception of Sunday as a non-working day dedicated to family and rest. The survey was conducted in cooperation with the Croatian member of the European Parliament Marijana Petir and MediaNet agency.
The survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample (N=614) of adult employees of the Republic of Croatia aged 18 to 65. The survey was conducted via telephone between 6 and 15 April this year, and its results were presented by Hrvoje Prpić, a MediaNet research coordinator.
Prpić’s main finding is that almost half of the respondents claim to be working overtime. The most common reason, according to their answers, is the large amount of work they have to do in a short amount of time. Still, the survey showed that a much smaller number of workers is obliged to work during their annual leave.
Furthermore, a majority of the sampled people manage to align their work commitments with their family responsibilities within their immediate family and largely succeed in harmonising work-life obligation with their leisure activities. At the same time, 76% of respondents think that people became more aware of the importance of Sunday as a non-working day dedicated to family and rest following the discussion on the subject, explains Prpić.
“A year ago, MediaNet conducted similar research with MEP Petir, which, among other things, showed that the vast majority of respondents (90%) supports introducing Sunday as a non-working day. In the context of this research we can conclude that there is a continued perception of Sunday as “a day when no one should work” according to the answers given by the respondents” - said Mr Prpic from MediaNet.
Croatian member of the European Parliament, Marijana Petir congratulated the International Day of Families to all Croatian citizens and commented on the results of the research. She stated that “the results clearly demonstrate the need to provide a day of rest within a working week, and in the perception of the citizens this day is Sunday, which is also a part of the tradition in Croatian and European culture. Sunday is the day when the family gathers at home together. Therefore, once again, I call on the Government of the Republic of Croatia to ensure a free Sunday for employees, especially for those working in stores and retail.”
Petir also commented on the fourth European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) launched by the Eurofund in 2003 and had since been conducted every four years, involving almost 37,000 citizens from all 28 Member States and five Candidate Countries. The results of this survey, published late last year have shown that Croatia ranks last when it comes to work-life balance scoring only 3,7 on the score level. At the same time, the Netherlands has the highest score that amounts to 6,6. In the other Member States, the ratings are quite high as well so, for example, Slovenia measures 6.3, Austria 6.2, Germany 5.9, Bulgaria 5.5 and Hungary 5.2. Croatia has seen a radical drop from 5,1 in 2007 to 3,7 in 2016 which represents the most significant decline in the entire EU. The policies should focus on contract workers and those employed in production, as well as on people working in the care system, especially younger and middle-aged women to be able to appropriately respond to the deteriorating situation in work-life balance among Croatian citizens.
President of the Trade Union Zlatica Štulić spoke about the disastrous data in the trade sector. She said that “according to the data available to the Trade Union in Croatia there are currently 176.173 people employed in trade (G) related sector (data from May 17, 2017). Out of that, 92.956 are employed in retail, excluding motor vehicle repair and motorcycle repair (G 47) ". She also stressed that "on average every salesman or a cashier must work at least half an hour longer than what is stated in their employment contracts, every single working day. These are the so-called preparatory and closure activities that are not logged as working hours but are demanded from the workers. Except for the days of the weekly rest and the days of the annual leave, each worker, in the remaining 282 days a year, on average works 141 hours more than stated in the employment contract."
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
NGO Demands Changes to Laws Regulating Work on Sundays
Vedran Pavlic
total-croatia-news.com |
Leaders of the conservative U Ime Obitelji association (On Behalf of Family) submitted on Monday to Parliament a proposal for amendments to the Law on Labour, which would allow workers employed in the retail sector to decide whether they want to work on Sundays, and would also determine that the minimum hourly wage for employees who do accept to work on Sundays or public holidays should be at least 50 percent higher than the standard hourly wage, reports 24sata.hr on March 27, 2017.
Association president Željka Markić told reporters in front of the Parliament building that the current Law on Labour had been written so poorly that it was possible for an employer to raise wages for just one kuna and fulfil their obligation to pay higher wages for working on Sundays or holidays.
She warned that in Croatia there were about 180,000 employees working in the trade sector, mostly women. Also, around 100,000 of them work in retail chains. “Eurostat data show that 35 percent of them work on Sundays, eight percent work every Sunday, and about 30 percent in cycles”, said Markić.
Krešimir Planinić explained that their proposal of changes to the Law on Labour promotes the principle of non-working Sundays and the day is regulated as the only day of rest. However, workers would be able to make a declaration to their employer that they want to work on Sundays, but would have to be paid at least 50 percent more than the standard hourly wage. “This model has been recognized in the European Union; it is a combination of the English and the Austrian model”, he said.
Paula Jurković, an employee in the trading sector who works on Sundays, advocates for the introduction of non-working Sundays in order to spend more quality time with her family and children. “It would be nice if the state were to enact legislation that would allow us to have the day for ourselves”, she said.
Asked whether employers could in some way force employees to declare that they want to work on Sundays, Planinić replied that determining the minimum hourly wage for working on Sundays has the goal of discouraging employers and, at the same time, motivating those workers who do want to work on Sundays. However, if employers were to use coercion, there are misdemeanour provisions and penalties should be draconian, he added.
Copyright © Total Croatia News
Wednesday, March 01, 2017
Catholic Church Wants to Ban Working On Sunday
Another initiative from the Croatian Bishops’ Conference.
The Croatian Bishops' Conference (HBK) has again launched an initiative to legally forbid working on Sunday. It called on Croatian citizens to support the initiative and contribute to the preservation of Sunday in its historical meaning, as a non-working day which is an opportunity for a family reunion, reports Večernji List on March 1, 2017.“It is understandable that there are parts of the society, such as healthcare, security, transport and some services that are of general and public interest, which have to work on Sundays and holidays. But, there are also jobs and tasks which do not have to be done on Sundays. We primarily mean those activities in which the workers, due to weaknesses of Croatian legal protections, are forced to work without a weekly rest. They therefore spend Sundays away from their circle of families and children, while other people spend it as a day of rest”, said HBK in a statement released on Wednesday, at the beginning of this year’s Lent. “It is no wonder that for them, due to this obvious discrimination, working Sundays bring certain emptiness and gloom”, added the Bishops’ Conference.
The Croatian Bishops’ Conference therefore urges all parts of Croatian society, “the lay faithful Christians, Catholic organizations and movements, and all societal institutions and organizations that are committed to people and their dignity, to contribute with their actions to the preservation of Sunday in its historical meaning, as a non-working day which provides opportunity for a family reunion.”
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Friday, December 20, 2013
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE
by Avro Manhattan
Chapter 11
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE
It is the duty of any State, independently of its religious or ideological nature, to defend itself when threatened by domestic or external enemies. The Central Government of Yugoslavia, aware of Archbishop Stepinac's activities, past and present, could not continue to watch them indefinitely and aloof. Sooner or later, it had to consider steps to end them.
If the Government had had to deal with a simple political or military leader, the solution would have been ready at hand. But here the issue was complicated by the fact that a political leader was also the head of the Catholic Hierarchy. His arrest would raise complex religious repercussions at Rome, and therefore practically throughout the Western world.
The Yugoslav Government decided to solve the problem tactfully, by removing Stepinac, without raising the religious hornet's nest issue. To that end, it approached Pius Xll, demanding the Archbishop's withdrawal from Zagreb. The Vatican, true to its reputation as a master of Sibylline moves, in October, 1945, charged an American in Yugoslavia, Bishop J.P. Hurley, of Florida, at that time acting as the Vatican Apostolic Nuncio there, to investigate the case and report on it direct to the Pope.
Bishop Hurley made extensive inquiries and wrote a comprehensive memorandum, which was speedily sent to Pius XII. Pius XII read it, mused upon it, and then decided to proceed as already planned with regard to Stepinac. Hurley's findings were promptly pigeonholed, and never heard of again.
The Yugoslav Government waited. As the head of the Government himself testified, "waited four months without receiving any reply."[1]
The Vatican was silent because Pius XII planned a war of his own, in which Stepinac was to play a very prominent role. It was the beginning of a psychological papal cold war. In this war religion would be used as the main instrument, directed at stirring up emotional hatred for political ends. Stepinac had to be sacrificed to the requirements of Catholic world diplomacy.[2] Having embarked on this course, the Vatican first contacted, not the waiting Yugoslav Government, but Archbishop Stepinac, whom it ordered to carry on.
When the War Crimes Commission, which, meanwhile, was collecting documentation on war criminals, produced its evidence concerning the head of the Catholic Hierarchy, and presented it to the Yugoslav Government, the latter, after further vain attempts with the Vatican, decided to act. On September 18, 1946, Archbishop Stepinac was arrested. The utmost care was taken that the trial should be fair, in view of the fact that it was certain to raise all kinds of religious and political complications within and outside Yugoslavia. Although only about one-third of the Yugoslav population is Catholic, the Government saw to it that all the officials at the trial were Croatian Catholics. The world Press was invited to attend, which it did. On October 11, 1946, after a ten days' hearing, the Court—composed, it should be remembered, of Catholics—sentenced Archbishop Stepinac to sixteen years imprisonment.
The Vatican uttered a cry of horror, instantly amplified a thousandfold by the Catholic Hierarchies, Catholic agencies, and Catholic Press the world over. Pope Pius Xll ordered the excommunication of all those who had taken part in the trial, from Tito himself down to the last official connected in any way with Stepinac's indictment. All received a solemn Catholic guarantee of eternal damnation in genuine Catholic brimstone and inextinguishable infernal fire. The thing was made even more fearsome by a papal afterthought, which promised the personal attention of Lucifer himself on all those so excommunicated. The Prince of Devils would torture all the unChristian persecutors of the Archbishop during eons without end. Papal authority had decreed so. Amen.
Had such authority been exercised only in hell, it would have worried fewer Christians than is generally believed. Infernal candidates must first emigrate to the next world, and no case has as yet been authenticated of anybody dying because of the scorching effect of the spiritual papal bolts. With millions of the living, however, this same papal authority is neither problematic nor fictitious. It is real, widespread, and dangerous. It can tap vast sources of power at will, whether to help its friends and allies or to dismay its enemies. Last but not least, it can engender the darkest currents of religious and political emotionalism, to control and use the deceived masses of Catholics and non-Catholics alike to further its own interests. The case of Stepinac once more strikingly demonstrated this.
The Pope set in motion the vast machinery of Catholic propaganda, which in no time flooded the world with such mountainous distortions and such plain dishonesty as to shame the most deceitful of all the devils in hell. Overnight Stepinac, the authoritarian leader, the political plotter, the politician, the promoter of the forcible conversions, the tolerator and indirect instigator of the Ustashi massacres, was made to appear as Stepinac the defender of true democracy, the most holy Archbishop, the courageous champion of religious freedom, the persecuted and the martyr. Millions accepted the Catholic version. The result was that soon large sections of the Western world, who until then had not even bothered with the whole thing, hailed Stepinac as the pitiful victim of anti-Christian barbarism.
The lay Press followed suit, exalting Stepinac as the champion of Christianity fighting the powers of darkness. Religious and political leaders joined in the chorus. Foreign Offices, heads of States, and, indeed, whole Governments of Catholic and non-Catholic lands sent official protests against "such unheard-of religious persecution." Questions were heatedly asked in the British House of Commons, in the French, Italian, and Belgian Chambers of Deputies, in the American House of Representatives and Senate. In the USA. President Truman was subjected to a tremendous pressure to force him to intervene on behalf of the "martyred Stepinac." A worldwide movement was set up to induce the United Nations to come to the rescue of a man who had defended all the religious and civil liberties for which the United Nations was said to stand.
The emotional mass distortion engineered by the master minds at the Vatican soon began to yield its poisonous harvest, not so much in the religious realm as where it was potentially a thousandfold more dangerous: that is, in the political field.
At this period, it must be remembered, the Cold War was still in its earliest stage. The blind emotionalism engendered by the trial and its aftermath was used to widen the growing gap between the Russian Dominated Communist and the American-led capitalist worlds.
Soviet Russia slowed down its demobilization and kept a large standing land army on a war footing. The USA pushed ahead its war preparations to such an extent that, after the Stepinac trial had taken place, it had already spent the colossal sum of almost one billion dollars on stock-piling.[3] By 1947 the military forces of the world numbered 19 million, and were maintained at an annual cost of 27,000 million dollars. This, less than two years after the fall of Hitler. From then onward military expenditure rocketed to astronomical figures. By the time that Yugoslavia—who, meanwhile, owing to ideological developments, had leaned towards the West—partially set Archbishop Stepinac free (winter 1951-2) and Stepinac, from Archbishop, became a Cardinal (1953), the world had been split asunder.[4]
The American factories were made to hum, while the American Air Force, Army, and Navy were posted throughout the world in main strategic places, ready to strike. Colossal expenditures for war were voted by the American Administration—e.g. 129,000 million dollars, voted by Congress within less than two years (1950-2) for military armaments and constructions.[5] By early 1953 in Europe alone the USA. had already built more than a hundred airfields, many specially equipped for atomic operations, as defensive-offensive bases against Russia.[6]
In Communist Russia preparations of the same magnitude as a defensive-offensive war policy were carried out, with impetus to match their Western counterparts. Within a few brief years from the end of the Second World War billions of roubles were appropriated for military purposes. In no time, while Soviet Russia became the arsenal of the East, the USA became the arsenal of the West, and its most powerful political military leader. The nations of the world, although not yet out of the second world massacre, made ready for the oncoming third. Politicians, generals, heads of governments, spoke of atomic wars. Armies reassembled, ready to march. A bloody rehearsal of another global slaughter, in imitation of the Spanish Civil War of 1939, where the USA ideologically hostile armies rehearsed a small conflict to be ready for a big one, was staged in Korea in the summer of 1950.
A gigantic armaments race undermined the economy of whole nations, thus rendering war between the two mighty Eastern and Western blocs not so much probable as inevitable.
While the increasingly powerful militaries asked for ever more colossal appropriations, from Vatican Hill came unctuous slogans for peace mingled with veiled threats, invocations to religion, and sanctimonious condemnations of the "atheistic enemies of Christianity." In cynical betrayal of the masses of honest, humble believers, the Vatican was plotting feverishly in the political-diplomatic fields to further its designs. Then one day, above all this, voices were heard—the official voices of the reorganized bands of Ustashi, calling to their members not to scatter, as the hour when they, the Catholic Ustashi of Croatia, would fight side by side with the democratic defenders of Western civilization was fast approaching. The glorious battalions of the Ustashi had to make ready. But while they were willing to fight for world liberty, they had to prepare to do so only in the name of Catholic Croatia, in Catholic units, and under the Croatian flag. No Ustashi, therefore, was permitted to join a foreign army. The appeal of the resuscitated terrorist bands—with the headquarters in the USA.—ran thus:
Headquarters of the V. assembly of Croatian Armed Forces, having jurisdiction over all subjects of the Croatian Armed Forces (Hr or Sn) living on the territory of the European States. It has been learned that some persons, unauthorized, are endeavouring to persuade individuals to enlist in foreign armies. By the order of the Supreme Command of all Croatian Armed Forces, all subjects living in any European State be notified that no individual person is authorized for such activity, nor is it permitted enlisting in foreign armies in any capacity, without a special authorized permit. The Supreme Command of all the Croatian Armed forces will call its forces to arm against Bolshevism when the time arrives to fight side by side with other anti-Communistic nations, under our own flag and within our Croatian army formations.
Headquarters V. Assembly,
General Drinyanin, August, 1950.[7]
These were noble words. The words of an idealist longing for liberty to prevail on earth. Many acclaimed the new defenders of freedom. In certain quarters, however, they knew better. For General Drinyanin was the alias of former Chief Commandant of all the terrible Catholic concentration camps of Croatia, the leader of the bloody "Ustashi Defense" formations responsible for the massacre of 200,000 prisoners in the camps of Jasenovac, the "protector" of all the jackbooted or soutaned monsters who, a few short years before, had been engaged in the forcible conversions to Catholicism, under the aegis of Stepinac, now Cardinal.
While the Ustashi, protected in the Western Hemisphere, were sounding a new trumpet-call from the north, their leader, Ante Pavelic, was busy in the south on the same type of activity on which he had been engaged prior to the Second World War. For Pavelic had in 1948, thanks again to Vatican help, managed to leave Europe. Supplied with false documents given in Rome on an international Red Cross passport, he went to another Catholic country harbouring Nazi leaders: [8] the Argentine.[9]
The false passport which had brought him to safety was furnished by another Catholic priest, a former Ustashi, Father Draganovic, residing in Rome. Priest Draganovic, to make sure that the former Chief should reach the Argentine safely, accompanied him personally as far as Buenos Aires. There he briefed certain high Argentine Hierarchs, after which he duly returned to Rome (end of 1949). Priest Draganovic had acted not only as a zealous Catholic, as a priest and as an Ustashi, but also as the representative of the Vatican, which was concerned with the future of a man, Ante Pavelic, and of an idea, ruthless Ustashi-ism, both of which, because they had succeeded in establishing a model Catholic State once, might succeed in reestablishing it in a future which was, perhaps, not far ahead.
Pavelic at once became active. Most of his meetings were held in Catholic parish halls in Buenos Aires. Catholic priests and friars participated in them—e.g. at the meeting held on February 5, 1951, five Catholic friars attended.[10] The majority of these meetings and similar activities were organized by priests, prominent among them the Ustashi Catholic Padre, the Rev. Mato Luketa. [11] Pavelic took to the Argentine three things:
(a) Papal blessing, as good an introduction to the Argentine Hierarchy, and hence to the Government, as any;
(b) loot from Croatia;[12]
(c) the Ustashi programme.
While some of his lieutenants kept Ustashi-ism alive in the USA and in Europe, Pavelic set about coordinating it in the Argentine. Meetings were held, papers were published, Ustashi abroad were organized. In 1949 Pavelic established the Hrvatska Drzavotvorna Stranka. In that same year he held six large meetings of the Ustashi, most of them in parish halls such as the Catholic Croat Parish Hall on Avenida Belgrano. Pavelic counseled that "all honest Croats in exile should belong" to his movement. Thereupon he instructed them all not to take Argentine nationality, so that they would be able to leave the country without any hindrance.
Pavelic talked of war and of blood. The titles of his articles told their tale: The Ideological War (La Guerra Ideologica),'[13] and The Call of Blood, the latter being an introduction to the proclamation of the resurrected Party. The basis of Pavelic's new policy was war. Like another pillar of political Catholicism before him—i.e. Cardinal Mindszenty—so also Pavelic hoped for the outbreak of the Third World War. "War will soon break out," he foretold on May 13, 1949, "and then the liberation of Croatia will come."
The next year, as we have already seen, the United States Secretary of the Navy, the secret Chamberlain of the Pope, shocked the world by openly asking the USA to start a "preventive atomic war" against Russia, in order to "liberate" the people of the earth.
The Republican platform adopted in Chicago (July, 1952), after demanding an end to "the negative futile and immoral policy of containment, which abandons countless human beings to a despotism and godless terrorism," [14] asked for a policy directed at the specific promotion of sabotage, raising of resistance movements, industrial disturbances, and, last but not least, the establishment of émigré governments.
The American people went to the polls (November 4, 1952) and sent to power the Republican Party. With few exceptions unbounded rejoicing greeted the Republican victory throughout the Catholic world. The Pope himself, on hearing that General Eisenhower had been elected President, hastened to send by cable his "divine blessing upon yourself and your administration,"15 Pavelic, in the Argentine, asked all the Ustashi to hail the Republican triumph. Ustashi priests gave special thanksgivings in South and North America, as well as in Europe. Te Deums were sung. Divine Providence was again coming to the rescue. It had sent into power an American Government which was determined to create "political task forces" to free "captive" countries. Indeed, to establish "émigré governments." Were not the reorganized Ustashi a "political task force?" Was not Catholic Croatia a "captive" country? Nobody could deny that Pavelic's new Ustashi Government was an "émigré government." For truly, Pavelic had set up a new Ustashi Government. The New Ustashi Government had in fact been officially established by him in 1951, in the Argentine. Its religious and political programme had not changed an iota from that of the old Ustashi dictatorship.With the Republican Administration in the White House, with a General determined on a strong foreign policy as President, with a Soviet Russia preparing ruthless counter-measures, the world continued to move faster and faster towards catastrophe. Fanatical groups prepared and waited for "the day." That is, for the outbreak of a third world war, when the establishment of "émigré governments" would take place, among them the New Government of Croatia, ruled by the Ustashi and the Church.
Ante Pavelic in South America, General Drinyanin in the USA, Father Draganovic in Rome, like hundreds of Catholic priests, friars, and laymen everywhere, had begun once more, as before the Second World War, to pray and work for World War III, so that they might be enabled again to bring "freedom"—namely, to unloose their reign of terror upon a newly devastated Croatia.To such depths can the ideal of Liberty be made to sink.
Footnotes
1. In the words of Marshal Tito:
When the Pope's representative to our Government, Bishop Hurley, paid me his first visit, I raised the question of Stepinac. "Have him transferred from Yugoslavia, I said, for otherwise we shall be obliged to place him under arrest. We waited four months without receiving any reply.
Tito, Zagreb, October 31,1946.[Back]
2. This was later confirmed by Stepinac himself, when, during an interview with C.L. Sulzberger, of the New York Times, having been told that Marshal Tito was willing to set him free or to transfer him to a monastery, Stepinac replied that "whether or not I shall resume my office, whether I go to a monastery or whether I remain here (in prison) depends only upon the Holy Father. Such things do not depend upon Marshal Tito. They depend only upon the Holy Father, the Pope, and upon no one else." See also Universe, November 17, 1950. This policy subsequently led to the breaking of Yugoslav/Vatican diplomatic relations (December 18, 1952) prior to and after Stepinac being made a Cardinal (January, 1953) and the projected visit of Marshal Tito to Britain in 1953. In an attempt to embarrass the British Government and the United Nations, the British Hierarchy attacked the Marshal as a persecutor of Catholics. At the same time an effort was made to whitewash Stepinac. Articles with these aims appeared in the Tablet and were reprinted in pamphlet form by the Sword of the Spirit. These efforts would have been comic, if the British public had not been ready to believe them.[Back]
3. The USA began war preparations less than one year after Hitler's death (1945). These consisted of stockpiling essential raw materials, a 100 percent war measure. On July 23, 1946, the USA passed Public Law 520 of the 79th Congress, approved by both Houses, for this purpose. The combined stock-piling in 1946 stood already at 4,536,000,000 dollars. From 1946 to 1950, before the Korean war began in June, the USA stockpile stood at 8,300,000,000 dollars. No figures were available from the USSR.[Back]
4. Owing to the split of Communist Yugoslavia from Soviet Russia, Yugoslavia became financially and militarily partially dependent upon the USA. American loans were asked for and granted. Tito himself publicly acknowledged that Yugoslavia had received over 1,000 million dollars' worth of aid from the West (Marshal Tito, Belgrade, March 16, 1952). The Vatican attempted to influence the negotiations, via Catholic pressure in the USA, putting as a condition the unconditional release of Archbishop Stepinac. [Back]
5. See The Times, London, November 10, 1952.[Back]
6. Officially disclosed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Paris, November 25, 1952. This did not include the many bases in Britain, North Africa, Greece, and Turkey.See The Times London, Manchester Guardian, November 26, 1952, New York Times, and other papers.[Back]
7. Published in the Ustashi paper, Danitza, Chicago, ILL., No. 13, IX, 1950.[Back]
8. Franco's Catholic Spain, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, gave asylum to numerous Nazi leaders and war criminals—e.g. Dr. Schacht, Hitler's Finance Minister; Otto Skorzeny, the SS Agent who rescued Mussolini in 1943; Von Papen, Vice Chancellor under Chancellor Hitler in 1933. It is noteworthy that Catholic Von Papen, like many Ustashi leaders, used a religious smoke to carry out renewed Nazi intrigues for the revival of European Fascism, e.g. when ostensibly a private participant in the Eucharistic Congress in Barcelona, he had lengthy private interviews with General Franco (May, 1952). See Nazi plot in West Germany, 1953, et sequitur, The Times, etc.[Back]
9. Pavelic reached Buenos Aires on November 6, 1948, on the Italian passenger ship, s.s. Sestiere, under the name of Dal Aranyos. His ticket was No. 16. The Argentine Legation in Rome knew his real identity very well. It had repeatedly been pressed by the Vatican authorities to grant Pavelic a visa. The Argentine Co-ordination Federal, the counter-espionage police, had also been informed in advance of his identity.[Back]
10. Intelligence reports, files of the Yugoslav Government. "Pavelic, Dr. Ante - Some Biographical Notes and Activities since 1945."[Back]
11. This priest served in the Catholic Church in Avenida Belgrano, No. 1151, Buenos Aires. See the Yugoslav Government's official indictment of Ante Pavelic.[Back]
12. Consisting of twelve chests of gold and one chest of jewelry. This according to the official statement of the Yugoslav Government in its indictment of Ante Pavelic. [Back]
13. Dinamica Social, Nos. 5 and 6, 1951.[Back]
14. See Manchester Guardian, July 22, 1952.[Back]
15. Wire sent by Pope Pius XII to General Eisenhower, to which the President-elect replied: "Profoundly grateful to Your Holiness for your blessing and expression of goodwill." See Universe, November 14, 1952.[Back]
Source
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Tuesday, August 13, 2013
20th Century Atrocities of the Roman Catholic Church
If you think the Catholic Inquisition was a thing of the far distant past, think again. Most people are shocked to learn of the gruesome history of the Roman Catholic church in the 20th century; a history that, for the most part, has been suppressed and or re-written. And as a result, most people in the 21st century know little or nothing of true Catholicism.
Reference works such as "The Vatican's Holocaust" by Avro Manhattan and "Convert or Die!" by Edmond Paris present the documented facts that the Catholic church liquidated over 700,000 orthodox Serbians in Croatia, Yugoslavia, during the years 1940-1945.
Writing of the papacy's desire to suppress information and ban the Bible, Roman Catholic Historian John Acton stated: The [Roman Catholic] Council instituted the index of prohibited books, which is the fourth article in the machinery of resistance.... A congregation was appointed to examine new publications, to issue decrees against them as required, and to make out catalogues from time to time of works so condemned. Besides this, censures were also pronounced by the Pope himself, the Inquisition, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and the Secretary of the Index, separately. In this way an attempt was made to control what people read, committing to oblivion the works of Protestant scholars, and of such men as Machiavelli, and correcting offensive texts, especially historians. Several such corrected editions were published at the time, and many things were reprinted with large omissions. (Lectures on Modern History, ed. John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, London: Macmillan, 1906).
In the year 2000, Pope John Paul made a mock apology for atrocities that occurred over the centuries, pretending that it was only certain members of the Catholic church who were responsible for committing the gruesome acts of torture and murder, when in fact it was the official policy of the papacy that was responsible. Furthermore, the "Pope" made no apology for, nor did he even mention, the nearly three quarters of a million innocent Bible believing Christian Serbians slaughtered by Catholics in Croatia, Yugoslavia, during World War II.
Catholic apologies of 1998 and 2000 are quite pathetic:
Apologies are made on behalf of some unidentified "sons and daughters" of the church, but not on behalf of the church itself.
The apologies are vaguely worded so that it is sometimes difficult to identify which past atrocity is being referred to -- whether it be genocide against the Cathars, burning "Witches" and other heretics at the stake, castrating boy singers so that they would preserve their soprano voice into adulthood, etc.
It does not include any mention of present behavior that is sinful or deficient.
It does not describe any plan to prevent the recurrence in the future of past crimes against humanity.
Read more: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0f3_1258288569#uUBBq8eMIgEGlxPR.99
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Monday, April 09, 2012
A croatian call for respect of workers and ban of Sunday work
CROATIA/ 29 February 2012
Download the Call in ENGLISH and CROATIAN
Call for Action from the Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops
The Commission urges believers and all citizens of good will in the Republic of Croatia to participate in the widespread campaign of the European Sunday Alliance.
The Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops urges believers and all citizens of good will in the Republic of Croatia to participate, starting on Sunday, March 4, 2012, in the widespread campaign of the European Sunday Alliance, which unites labor unions, political parties, civic associations and Churches in the demand for respecting Sunday as day of rest for all, a day for families to be together, a day for voluntary, cultural and social activities and as the Day of the Lord that Christians celebrate and glorify.
1. The Commission urges Croatian citizens, especially Christians, to refrain as of that day from shopping on Sundays and, thus, at least show that they want to respect all those workers who, due to the weaknesses of Croatian legal safeguards, are subjected to pressure and forced to work without Sunday as a day of rest, remaining outside the circle of their families, loved ones and children. These employees, especially female workers—the mothers, sisters and daughters of many—on this day of rest will not be with their families. Due to their absence, their homes will be empty, grey and gloomy. Therefore, shopping on Sundays is a form of hypocrisy and insensitivity toward the disenfranchised.
2. The human being, whom a democratic government has no right to scorn, and even businessmen in the "social market economy" of the European Union [have no right] to exploit, is not merely a producer and consumer of goods and services. A person affirms and supports himself through work but he is more than a worker and much more valuable than a consumer. A person is a spiritual being, turned toward transcendence but also to culture and art, sports, recreation and, generally, social and political engagement. However, people can only fulfill these needs by being and acting together with others, at the same time and on the same day. If this opportunity is taken away from some people, it deprives them of their basic rights as citizens, parents and, simply, integral persons, and in society there is a reduction in social cohesion and the will to live together. In all of this is the meaning and value of a day when one does not have to work. Until recent times, Sunday was respected in our country, even somewhat during the era of communist dictatorship, which, unfortunately, did much in order to distance people, especially the young, from celebrating the Day of the Lord.
3. With the coming of democracy, it is justifiable to expect that respect for Sundays would become the rule. However, we are witnesses to the onslaught of neoliberal greed that also destroys Sundays, even in our country where 91% of the citizens declare themselves to be Christians. Thus, even the Constitutional Court, under pressure from the chain stores, has deviated from European tradition and practice, allowing employers to set the working hours of stores and places of production, thereby jeopardizing the rights as well as the physical and mental health of Croatian citizens. Thus, the legislators—the Croatian Parliament and its censor, the Constitutional Court—already in 2006 allowed the private interests of the minority to prevail over public benefits—health, social, family and spiritual—of the majority of citizens. Those who have imposed their position throughout Croatia certainly do not want to understand that Croatian citizens are not going spend more than they already do on their needs if stores are open on Sundays. Citizens will spend the same amount of money from Monday to Saturday, since Saturday for the majority of employees is already a work-free day.
4. Why then are tens of thousands of people, especially women who are the least protected group in our country among the employed, still placed in a position of slavery every Sunday and holiday? Finally, we ask ourselves, have not traditional working hours, from Monday through Friday, always been coordinated with the time that students spend in school? After all, we know that Article 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union from the Lisbon Treaty of the EU enacts a worker's rights "to daily and weekly rest periods" and "to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity." Does not Article 33 of the same Charter impose the duty on everyone "to reconcile family and professional life"? Is not, therefore, Sunday the only day that no one should permitted to interfere with or endanger? Research conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other institutions has shown that work at unusual times, especially during weekends, is dangerous for safety, health, wellbeing and work-life balance, and is the cause of many accidents at work and illnesses.
5. We know, understand and accept that there are services of general and public interest that must be provided—healthcare, safety, traffic etc.—even on Sundays and holidays. We know that it is necessary to accept some flexibility in tourism areas, although there are countries with strong tourism activity that, nevertheless, succeed in observing Sundays. However, in our country we see the spread of aggressive and exploitive tendencies in private services that do not have to be offered on Sundays and holidays, directed toward thousands of women employed in stores who, otherwise, work overtime—very often unpaid—not only every day but also on Sundays and holidays, for a minimum wage of 2,500 HRK, often without a single free day or they have a day off when their children are in school and their families are at work or not home. Finally, we do not shy away from the fact that with this appeal we are also fighting for the rights of all Christians—not only Catholics—to celebrate the Day of the Lord by attending Sunday Mass because Sunday was made for man, not man for Sunday.
6. A year ago, the initiative European Sunday Alliance (ESA) was launched as a network of the civil society throughout Europe, with the goal of protecting Sundays and holidays as work-free days for all on the national levels and on the level of the European Union. In the EU, this initiative has not succeeded everywhere because the Union has hesitated over this issue. It is expected that the ESA will establish a European Commission to initiate the legal protection of work-free Sundays everywhere. The network of the European Sunday Alliance, which has already brought together 55 major participants and 23 supporting institutions, reminds people that Sunday in the EU has already been recognized as a weekly day of rest but only in the Directive on the Protection of Young People at Work. The initiative for work-free Sundays for all is strongly supported by the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community. The ESA again urges everyone to stand "Together for Decent Working Hours," for fair and equitable working conditions and to express their will in various ways in their countries.
7. The Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops recalls that on two occasions, June 2000 and November 2004, it has strongly expressed its support for the preservation of the culture of work-free Sundays and the legalization of work-free Sundays in Croatia. In this sense and spirit, the Commission urges Christians and all people of good will in Croatia to join this noble—civil, humane and Christian—European campaign of solidarity and as of March 4 to bring to life its initiatives by refraining from shopping and visiting stores on Sundays, and to report to the European Sunday Alliance and the Croatian media about this. Finally, the Commission urges, particularly Christian and Catholic alliances and associations, as well as unions and political parties, to join the European Sunday Alliance, www.europeansundayalliance.eu, and support the initiatives of this great movement for a free and more humane Sunday. We are confident that this will be a powerful witness to solidarity with the victims of the dictatorship of profits and at the same time for the faithful an effective and authentic sign of Lenten sacrifice. "And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you" (Mt, 6:18).
In Zagreb, February 29, 2012
Vlado Košić, Ph.D., President of the Commission
Bishop of Sisak
Source
.
Download the Call in ENGLISH and CROATIAN
Call for Action from the Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops
The Commission urges believers and all citizens of good will in the Republic of Croatia to participate in the widespread campaign of the European Sunday Alliance.
The Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops urges believers and all citizens of good will in the Republic of Croatia to participate, starting on Sunday, March 4, 2012, in the widespread campaign of the European Sunday Alliance, which unites labor unions, political parties, civic associations and Churches in the demand for respecting Sunday as day of rest for all, a day for families to be together, a day for voluntary, cultural and social activities and as the Day of the Lord that Christians celebrate and glorify.
1. The Commission urges Croatian citizens, especially Christians, to refrain as of that day from shopping on Sundays and, thus, at least show that they want to respect all those workers who, due to the weaknesses of Croatian legal safeguards, are subjected to pressure and forced to work without Sunday as a day of rest, remaining outside the circle of their families, loved ones and children. These employees, especially female workers—the mothers, sisters and daughters of many—on this day of rest will not be with their families. Due to their absence, their homes will be empty, grey and gloomy. Therefore, shopping on Sundays is a form of hypocrisy and insensitivity toward the disenfranchised.
2. The human being, whom a democratic government has no right to scorn, and even businessmen in the "social market economy" of the European Union [have no right] to exploit, is not merely a producer and consumer of goods and services. A person affirms and supports himself through work but he is more than a worker and much more valuable than a consumer. A person is a spiritual being, turned toward transcendence but also to culture and art, sports, recreation and, generally, social and political engagement. However, people can only fulfill these needs by being and acting together with others, at the same time and on the same day. If this opportunity is taken away from some people, it deprives them of their basic rights as citizens, parents and, simply, integral persons, and in society there is a reduction in social cohesion and the will to live together. In all of this is the meaning and value of a day when one does not have to work. Until recent times, Sunday was respected in our country, even somewhat during the era of communist dictatorship, which, unfortunately, did much in order to distance people, especially the young, from celebrating the Day of the Lord.
3. With the coming of democracy, it is justifiable to expect that respect for Sundays would become the rule. However, we are witnesses to the onslaught of neoliberal greed that also destroys Sundays, even in our country where 91% of the citizens declare themselves to be Christians. Thus, even the Constitutional Court, under pressure from the chain stores, has deviated from European tradition and practice, allowing employers to set the working hours of stores and places of production, thereby jeopardizing the rights as well as the physical and mental health of Croatian citizens. Thus, the legislators—the Croatian Parliament and its censor, the Constitutional Court—already in 2006 allowed the private interests of the minority to prevail over public benefits—health, social, family and spiritual—of the majority of citizens. Those who have imposed their position throughout Croatia certainly do not want to understand that Croatian citizens are not going spend more than they already do on their needs if stores are open on Sundays. Citizens will spend the same amount of money from Monday to Saturday, since Saturday for the majority of employees is already a work-free day.
4. Why then are tens of thousands of people, especially women who are the least protected group in our country among the employed, still placed in a position of slavery every Sunday and holiday? Finally, we ask ourselves, have not traditional working hours, from Monday through Friday, always been coordinated with the time that students spend in school? After all, we know that Article 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union from the Lisbon Treaty of the EU enacts a worker's rights "to daily and weekly rest periods" and "to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity." Does not Article 33 of the same Charter impose the duty on everyone "to reconcile family and professional life"? Is not, therefore, Sunday the only day that no one should permitted to interfere with or endanger? Research conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other institutions has shown that work at unusual times, especially during weekends, is dangerous for safety, health, wellbeing and work-life balance, and is the cause of many accidents at work and illnesses.
5. We know, understand and accept that there are services of general and public interest that must be provided—healthcare, safety, traffic etc.—even on Sundays and holidays. We know that it is necessary to accept some flexibility in tourism areas, although there are countries with strong tourism activity that, nevertheless, succeed in observing Sundays. However, in our country we see the spread of aggressive and exploitive tendencies in private services that do not have to be offered on Sundays and holidays, directed toward thousands of women employed in stores who, otherwise, work overtime—very often unpaid—not only every day but also on Sundays and holidays, for a minimum wage of 2,500 HRK, often without a single free day or they have a day off when their children are in school and their families are at work or not home. Finally, we do not shy away from the fact that with this appeal we are also fighting for the rights of all Christians—not only Catholics—to celebrate the Day of the Lord by attending Sunday Mass because Sunday was made for man, not man for Sunday.
6. A year ago, the initiative European Sunday Alliance (ESA) was launched as a network of the civil society throughout Europe, with the goal of protecting Sundays and holidays as work-free days for all on the national levels and on the level of the European Union. In the EU, this initiative has not succeeded everywhere because the Union has hesitated over this issue. It is expected that the ESA will establish a European Commission to initiate the legal protection of work-free Sundays everywhere. The network of the European Sunday Alliance, which has already brought together 55 major participants and 23 supporting institutions, reminds people that Sunday in the EU has already been recognized as a weekly day of rest but only in the Directive on the Protection of Young People at Work. The initiative for work-free Sundays for all is strongly supported by the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community. The ESA again urges everyone to stand "Together for Decent Working Hours," for fair and equitable working conditions and to express their will in various ways in their countries.
7. The Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops recalls that on two occasions, June 2000 and November 2004, it has strongly expressed its support for the preservation of the culture of work-free Sundays and the legalization of work-free Sundays in Croatia. In this sense and spirit, the Commission urges Christians and all people of good will in Croatia to join this noble—civil, humane and Christian—European campaign of solidarity and as of March 4 to bring to life its initiatives by refraining from shopping and visiting stores on Sundays, and to report to the European Sunday Alliance and the Croatian media about this. Finally, the Commission urges, particularly Christian and Catholic alliances and associations, as well as unions and political parties, to join the European Sunday Alliance, www.europeansundayalliance.eu, and support the initiatives of this great movement for a free and more humane Sunday. We are confident that this will be a powerful witness to solidarity with the victims of the dictatorship of profits and at the same time for the faithful an effective and authentic sign of Lenten sacrifice. "And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you" (Mt, 6:18).
In Zagreb, February 29, 2012
Vlado Košić, Ph.D., President of the Commission
Bishop of Sisak
Source
.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
The Invasion of Serbian Krajina
The Invasion of Serbian Krajina
by Greg Elich
[Mr. Elich is a freelance scholar who has written extensively about Yugoslavia.]
In early August 1995, the Croatian invasion of Serbian Krajina precipitated the worst refugee crisis of the Yugoslav civil war. Within days, more than two hundred thousand Serbs, virtually the entire population of Krajina, fled their homes, and 14,000 Serbian civilians lost them lives. According to a UN official "Almost the only people remaining were the dead and the dying." The Clinton administration's support for the invasion was an important factor in creating this nightmare.
The previous month, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel met with Croatian diplomat Miomir Zuzul in London. During this meeting, Christopher gave his approval for Croatian military action against Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina. Two days later, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, also approved Croatia's invasion plan. Stipe Mesic, a prominent Croatian politician, stated that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman "received the go-ahead from the United States. Tudjman can do only what the Americans allow him to do. Krajina is the reward for having accepted, under Washington's pressure, the federation between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia." Croatian assembly deputy Mate Mestrovic also claimed that the "United States gave us the green light to do whatever had to be done." (1)
As Croatian troops launched their assault on August 4, U.S. NATO aircraft destroyed Serbian radar and anti-aircraft defenses. American EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft patrolled the air in support of the invasion. Krajina foreign affairs advisor Slobodan Jarcevic stated that NATO "completely led and coordinated the entire Croat offensive by first destroying radar and anti-aircraft batteries. What NATO did most for the Croatian Army was to jam communications between [Serb] military commands...." (2)
Following the elimination of Serbian anti-aircraft defenses, Croatian planes carried out extensive attacks on Serbian towns and positions. The roads were clogged with refugees, and Croatian aircraft bombed and strafed refugee columns. Serbian refugees passing through the town of Sisak were met by a mob of Croatian extremists, who hurled rocks and concrete at them. A UN spokesman said, "The windows of almost every vehicle were smashed and almost every person was bleeding from being hit by some object." Serbian refugees were pulled from their vehicles and beaten. As fleeing Serbian civilians poured into Bosnia, a Red Cross representative in Banja Luka said, "I've never seen anything like it. People are arriving at a terrifying rate." Bosnian Muslim troops crossed the border and cut off Serbian escape routes. Trapped refugees were massacred as they were pounded by Croatian and Muslim artillery. Nearly 1,700 refugees simply vanished. While Croatian and Muslim troops burned Serbian villages, President Clinton expressed his understanding for the invasion, and Christopher said events "could work to our advantage." (3)
The Croatian rampage through the region left a trail of devastation. Croatian special police units, operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, systematically looted abandoned Serbian villages. Everything of value - cars, stereos, televisions, furniture, farm animals - was plundered, and homes set afire. (4) A confidential European Union report stated that 73 percent of Serbian homes were destroyed. (5) Troops of the Croatian army also took part, and pro-Nazi graffiti could be seen on the walls of several burnt-out Serb buildings.(6)
Massacres continued for several weeks after the fall of Krajina, and UN patrols discovered numerous fresh unmarked graves and bodies of murdered civilians. (7) The European Union report states, "Evidence of atrocities, an average of six corpses per day, continues to emerge. The corpses, some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated... Serb lands continue to be torched and looted." (8)
Following a visit in the region a member of the Zagreb Helsinki Committee reported, "Virtually all Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin, eleven bodies were found, some of them were massacred in such a way that it was not easy to see whether the body was male or female." (9)
UN spokesman Chris Gunness noted that UN personnel continued to discover bodies, many of whom had been decapitated. (10) British journalist Robert Fisk reported the murder of elderly Serbs, many of whom were burned alive in their homes. He adds, "At Golubic, UN officers have found the decomposing remains of five people... the head of one of the victims was found 150 feet from his body. Another UN team, meanwhile is investigating the killing of a man and a woman in the same area after villagers described how the man's ears and nose had been mutilated." (11)
After the fall of Krajina, Croatian chief of staff General Zvonimir Cervenko characterized Serbs as "medieval shepherds, troglodytes, destroyers of anything the culture of man has created." During a triumphalist train journey through Croatia and Krajina, Tudjman spoke at each railway station. To great applause, he announced, "There can be no return to the past, to the times when [Serbs] were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia, a cancer that was destroying the Croatian national being." He then went on to speak of the "ignominious disappearance" of the Serbs from Krajina "so it is as if they have never lived here... They didn't even have time to take with them their filthy money or their filthy underwear!" American ambassador Peter Galbraith dismissed claims that Croatia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing," since he defined this term as something Serbs do. (12)
U.S. representatives blocked Russian attempts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning the invasion. According to Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, American officials gave advice on the conduct of the operation, and European and military experts and humanitarian aid workers reported shipments of U.S weapons to Croatia over the two months preceding the invasion. A French mercenary also witnessed the arrival of American and German weapons at a Croatian port, adding, "The best of the Croats' armaments were German- and American-made." The U.S. "directly or indirectly," says French intelligence analyst Pierre Hassner, "rearmed the Croats." Analysts at Jane's Information Group say that Croatian troops were seen wearing American uniforms and carrying U S. communications equipment. (13)
The invasion of Krajina was preceded by a thorough CIA and DIA analysis of the region. (14) According to Balkan specialist Ivo Banac, this "tactical and intelligence support" was furnished to the Croatian Army at the beginning of its offensive. (15)
In November 1994, the United States and Croatia signed a military agreement. Immediately afterward, U.S. intelligence agents set up an operations center on the Adriatic island of Brac, from which reconnaissance aircraft were launched. Two months earlier, the Pentagon contracted Military Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to train the Croatian military.(16) According to a Croatian officer, MPRI advisors "lecture us on tactics and big war operations on the level of brigades, which is why we needed them for Operation Storm when we took the Krajina." Croatian sources claim that U.S. satellite intelligence was furnished to the Croatian military. (17) Following the invasion of Krajina, the U.S. rewarded Croatia with an agreement "broadening existing cooperation" between MPRI and the Croatian military. (18) U.S. advisors assisted in the reorganization of the Croatian Army. Referring to this reorganization in an interview with the newspaper Vecernji List, Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic said, "We are building the foundations of our organization on the traditions of the Croatian home guard" - pro-Nazi troops in World War II. (19)
It is worth examining the nature of what one UN official terms "America's newest ally." During World War II, Croatia was a Nazi puppet state in which the Croatian fascist Ustashe murdered as many as one million Serbs, Jews, and Roman (Gypsies). Disturbing signs emerged with the election of Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian presidency in 1990 Tudjman said, "I am glad my wife is neither Serb nor Jew," and wrote that accounts of the Holocaust were "exaggerated" and "one-sided." (20)
Much of Tudjman's financial backing was provided by Ustashe émigrés and several Ustashe war criminals were invited to attend the first convention of Tudjman's political party, the Croatian Democratic Union. (21)
Tudjman presented a medal to a former Ustashe commander living in Argentina, Ivo Rojnica. After Rojnica was quoted as saying, "Everything I did in 1941 I would do again," international pressure prevented Tudjman from appointing him to the post of ambassador to Argentina. When former Ustashe official Vinko Nikolic returned to Croatia, Tudjman appointed him to a seat in parliament. Upon former Ustashe officer Mate Sarlija's return to Croatia, he was personally welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and subsequently given the post of general in the Croatian Army. (22) On November 4, 1996, thirteen former Ustashe officers were presented with medals and ranks in the Croatian Army. (23)
Croatia adopted a new currency in 1994, the kuna, the same name as that used by the Ustashe state, and the new Croatian flag is a near-duplicate of the Ustashe flag. Streets and buildings have been renamed for Ustashe official Mile Budak, who signed the regime's anti-Semitic laws, and more than three thousand anti-fascist monuments have been demolished. In an open letter, the Croatian Jewish community protested the rehabilitation of the Ustashe state. In April 1994, the Croatian government demanded the removal of all "non-white" UN troops from its territory, claiming that "only first-world troops" understood Croatia's "problems." (24)
On Croatian television in April 1996, Tudjman called for the return of the remains of Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet state "After all, both reconciliation and recognition should be granted to those who deserve it," Tudjman said, adding, "We should recognize that Pavelic's ideas about the Croatian state were positive," but that Pavelic's only mistake was the murder of a few of his colleagues and nationalist allies. (25) Three months later, Tudjman said of the Serbs driven from Croatia "The fact that 90 percent of them left is their own problem... Naturally we are not going to allow them all to return." During the same speech, Tudjman referred to the pro-Nazi state as "a positive thing." (26)
During its violent secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Croatia expelled more than three hundred thousand Serbs, and Serbs were eliminated from ten towns and 183 villages. (27) In 1993, Helsinki Watch reported: "Since 1991 the Croatian authorities have blown up or razed ten thousand houses mostly of Serbs, but also houses of Croats. In some cases, they dynamited homes with the families inside." Thousands of Serbs have been evicted from their homes. Croatian human-rights activist Ivan Zvonimir Cicak says beatings, plundering, and arrests were the usual eviction methods. (28)
Tomislav Mercep, until recently the advisor to the Interior minister and a member of Parliament, is a death-squad leader. Mercep's death squad murdered 2,500 Serbs in western Slavonia in 1991 and 1992, actions Mercep defends as "heroic deeds." (29) Death squad officer Miro Bajramovic's spectacular confession revealed details: "Nights were worst for [our prisoners]... burning prisoners with a flame, pouring vinegar over their wounds mostly on genitalia and on the eyes. Then there is that little induction field phone, you plug a Serb onto that... The most painful is to stick little pins under the nails and to connect to the three phase current; nothing remains of a man but ashes... After all, we knew they would all be killed, so it did not matter if we hurt him more today or tomorrow."
"Mercep knew everything," Bajramovic claimed. "He told us several times: 'Tonight you have to clean all these shits.' By this he meant all the prisoners should be executed." (30)
Sadly, the Clinton administration's embrace of Croatia follows a history of support for fascists when it suits American geopolitical interests: Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Indonesia's Suharto, Paraguay's Aifredo Stroessner, and a host of others. The consequences of this policy for the people affected have been devastating.
***
Footnotes for this article are lower down...
Further reading...
* Were the U.S. and German governments behind the breakup of Yugoslavia in general and the secession of Croatia in particular? See E. H. Carr's "German and U.S. Involvement in the Balkans,' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/carr/carr.html
(Note that even Mr. Carr, who has done a great service by researching and writing this study, pays homage to the US/German alliance he is attacking by affirming, without his otherwise strong evidence, their line that Mr. Milosevic is similar to Mr. Izetbegovic, the Islamic fundamentalist leader in Bosnia, and the late Mr. Tudjman, the fascist leader of Croatia. But, ignoring the section on Milosevic, the text has much merit. - J.I.)
* How did Western institutions come to target Serbia as the anti-humanitarian bad boy of the 90's? See 'Yugoslavia: Through a Dark Glass,' by Diana Johnstone at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1Yugo.htm
(This may be the best general introduction to what happened to Yugoslavia in the 1990s.)
* Indications of the resurgence of Nazi thinking in Croatia under the rule of Pres. Tudjman are discussed in 'Nazi Nostalgia in Croatia,' by Diana Johnstone. Go to http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/nostalgi.html
* Alice Mahon, British MP, reports on harsh discrimination today in Croatia in 'Report on Serbs who have Returned to Croatia,' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/mahon/croatia.htm
* Sean Gervasi discusses the strategy behind what he argues has been a NATO campaign to shatter Yugoslavia in 'Why Is NATO in Yugoslavia?' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/gervasi/why.htm
* Jared Israel deals with NATO strategy in "NATO Buildup in the Balkans: Part of a Deadly Game," http://emperors-clothes.com/news/farish.htm
[This article was written in September 2001, much later than the others mentioned above.]
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Footnotes
1) "Weekly: U.S. Gave Zagreb 'Green Light,' " Tanjug (Belgrade), 26 July 1995. "In Croatia, U.S. Took Calculated Risk," Stephen Engelberg, New York Times News Service, 12 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, Living Marxism (London), September 1995. "Who Has Given the Go-Ahead?," interview with Stipe Mesic, Panorama (Milan), 8 August 1995. "The United States Gave Us the Green Light," interview with Mate Mestrovic, by Chantal de Rudder, Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 10 August 1995.
(2) "International Inaction in Croatia Will Complicate Bosnian War," George Jahn, Associated Press, 7 August 1995. "NATO Destroyed Krajina Missile Systems," Bosnian Serb News Agency (SRNA) (Belgrade), 6 August 1995. "Abandoned People Must Flee," interview with Slobodan Jarcevic by Cvijeta Arsenic, Oslobodjenje (Sarajevo—Bosnian Serb), 23 August 1995."Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit.
(3) "Huge Refugee Exodus Runs Into Shelling, Shooting, Air Attacks," George Jahn, Associated Press, 8 August 1995. "Croat Planes Shell Refugees," Tanjug, 8 August 1995. "SRNA Review of Daily News," SRNA, 8 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit. "Refugees Trapped by Croat Shelling," Robert Fox and Tim Judah, Electronic Telegraph (London) (Online), 8 August 1995. "Croat Mob Attacks Nuns in Fleeing Convoy," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 11 August 1995. "Over 1,000 Serbs Missing in Krajina," Tanjug, 28 January 1997. "Croat Grip Is Tightened as 100,000 Flee," Tim Butcher, Electronic Telegraph, 7 August 1995.
(4) "UN Says Croatians Loot, Use Peacekeepers as Shields," Associated Press, 6 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Reports on Krajina Operations," Hartmut Fiedler, Oesterreich Eins Radio Network, 21 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," Tanjug, 27 October 1995. "UN: Croatians Systematically Burned Serb Homes," Tanjug, 14 August 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, The Independent (London), 10 September 1995. "Croats Plunder Their Way through Krajina," Mon Vanderostyne, De Standard (Groot Bijgaarden, The Netherlands), 9 August 1995. "UN Says Croats Loot Serb Villages in Krajina," Agence France-Presse, 17 August 1995. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, The Guardian (Manchester), 30 September 1995. "Krajina 'Torched State,' " SRNA, 21 August 1995. "What Was Once Home to 300 Families Is Now a Graveyard," Sarah Helm, The Independent, 24 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," Tanjug, 28 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.
(5) "Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, Boston Globe, 8 October 1995. "UN Official Confirms Croatian Crimes in Krajina," Tanjug, 13 October 1995.
(6)"Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, op.cit
(7) "Croats Burn and Kill with a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, The
Independent, 4 September 1995. "Croats Leave Bloody Trail of Serbian Dead," Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, 9n October 1995. "Reports Say Croatia Uses Killing, Arson," John Pomfret,
Washington Post, 30 September 1995. "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," Reuters, 18 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," op. cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," Reuters, 2 October 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, op.cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," Agence
France-Presse, 18 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," op cit. "Evidence Emerging of Crimes Against Krajina Serbs," Tanjug, 30 August 1995. "Croats Accused of Atrocities," Associated Press, 29 September 1995.
(8) "Croats Burn and Kill With a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, op.cit."EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs, " Julian Borger, op. cit. report broadcast, RTBF-1 Television Network (Brussels), 20 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.
(9) "Krajina Operation: Helsinki Committee Member Describes Atrocities in Krajina," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 August 1995.
10) "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," op.cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," op. cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," op. cit.
(11) "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit.(12) "Croats Ready for a Fresh Offense Against Serbs," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 16 August 1995. addresses by Franjo Tudjman, Radio Croatia Network, 26 August 1995. "U.S. Says Croatia is Not Guilty of Ethnic Cleansing," Patrick Moore, Open Media Research Institute, 10 August 1995.
(13) "Croatian Minister Says U.S. Gave Advice on Offensive," Jasmina Kuzmanovic, Associated Press, 5 August 1995. "Croatia Takes Effective Control of What's Left of Bosnia," San Francisco Chronicle, 11 August 1995.
(14) "NATO in Dubrovnik," Vladimir Jovanovic, Monitor (Podgorica, Yugoslavia), 23 June 1995.
(15) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, 13 November 1995.
(16) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, op cit." U.S. Troops Operate in Croatia," Associated Press, 3 February
1995.
(17) "Invisible U.S. Army Defeats Serbs," Charlotte Eagar, The
Observer (London), 5November 1995.
(18) "Military Cooperation Agreement Signed with U.S." HTV Television (Zagreb) 13 October 1995.
(19) "We Can Prevent Any Serbian Maneuver," interview with Tihomir Blaskic, by Jozo Pavkovic, Vecernji List (Zagreb), 11 March 1995.
20) "Croatian Leader's Invitation to Holocaust Museum Sparks Anger and Shock," Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times News Service, 21 April 1993.
(21) "Croatia, at a Key Strategic Crossroad, Builds Militarily and Geographically," Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (London), 31 January 1993. "Who is Franjo Tudjman?" Narodna Armija (Belgrade), 1 March 1990.
(22) "Criticism of Tudjman Award to Ustashe," Foreign Broadcast Information Service Media Note (Media Summary), 27 January 1995. "Nationalism Turns Sour in Croatia," New York Times News Service, 13 November 1993. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 18 October 1993. "Trpimir for an Executioner and a Victim," Mirko Mirkovic, Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 20 February 1995. "Croatian General Former Ustashe," Tanjug, 26 February 1995.
(23) "Croatia Grants Awards to Nazi-Era War Veterans," Reuters, 7 November 1996.
(24) "New Croatian Money Anathema to Serbs," John Pomfret, Washington Post, 31 May 1994. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, op.cit. "Pro-Nazi Legacy Lingers for Croatia," Stephen Kinzer, New York Times News Service, 30 October 1993. "Monument to Anti-Fascism Desecrated in Croatia," Tanjug, February 1995. "Another Anti-Fascist Monument Blown Up in Croatia," Tanjug, 11 April 1995. "Croatia, Symbols of Crimes," Miodrag Dundjerovic, Tanjug, 1 June 1994. "Croatia Adopts New Currency Recalling Fascist Era," Reuters, 9 May 1994. "Hiding Genocide," Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 31 December 1992. "Croatia is Rehabilitating Ustashism and the Independent State of Croatia," Politika (Belgrade), 12 February 1993. "Tudjman Calls for All-White Peace Force in Croatia," Eve Ann Prentice, The Times (London), 11 April 1995. "Croatia to Seek Expulsion of Non-White U.N. Troops," Tanjug, 10 April 1995.
(25) Interview with Franjo Tudjman, HTV Television (Zagreb), 22 April 1996.
(26) Address by Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian World Congress in Brioni, Radio Croatia Network (Zagreb), 6 July 1996.
(27) "Croatian Towns, Villages Cleansed of Serbs," Tanjug, 26 January 1993. "Savovic: Croatia Expelled 300,000 Serb," Tanjug, 5 November1993 "Serb Party Official: 350,000 Serbs Driven Out." Tanjug, 26 August 1994.
(28) "Croatian Police Tactics Cited," Associated Press, 3 October 1994. "Helsinki Committee Chair: Collective Vendetta Against Croatia's Serbs," Tanjug, 7 may 1994. "Protests Prevent Latest Wave of Croatian Apartment Evictions," Radio Free Europe, 12 July 1994. "Croatian Human Rights Activist: Zagreb Backs Human Rights Violations," Tanjug, 28 September 1994. "Rights Groups Report Abuses by Croatia," David Binder, New York Times News Service, 7 December 1993.
29) "Interior Minister Aide Accused of War Crimes," ZDF Television Network (Mainz), 17 May 1994. "Slovene Daily Says Croatian Leaders Keep Quiet About Massacre of Serbs," Tanjug, 14 January 1994. "Croatian Paper Calls Mass Killings of Serbs a National Disgrace," Tanjug, 12 July 1994. "Zagreb Knows About Mass Killings of Serbs," Tanjug, 23 July 1994. "Dossier: Pakracka Poljana," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Death Camps and Mass Graves in Western Slavonia: Marino Selo and Pakracka Poljana," dossier prepared by Serbian Council, Belgrade, 1993.
(30) "Miro Bajramovic's Confession," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Croatian's Confession Describes Torture and Killing on Vast Scale," Chris Hedges, New York Times, 5 September 1997.
http://www.tenc.net/
by Greg Elich
[Mr. Elich is a freelance scholar who has written extensively about Yugoslavia.]
In early August 1995, the Croatian invasion of Serbian Krajina precipitated the worst refugee crisis of the Yugoslav civil war. Within days, more than two hundred thousand Serbs, virtually the entire population of Krajina, fled their homes, and 14,000 Serbian civilians lost them lives. According to a UN official "Almost the only people remaining were the dead and the dying." The Clinton administration's support for the invasion was an important factor in creating this nightmare.
The previous month, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel met with Croatian diplomat Miomir Zuzul in London. During this meeting, Christopher gave his approval for Croatian military action against Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina. Two days later, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, also approved Croatia's invasion plan. Stipe Mesic, a prominent Croatian politician, stated that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman "received the go-ahead from the United States. Tudjman can do only what the Americans allow him to do. Krajina is the reward for having accepted, under Washington's pressure, the federation between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia." Croatian assembly deputy Mate Mestrovic also claimed that the "United States gave us the green light to do whatever had to be done." (1)
As Croatian troops launched their assault on August 4, U.S. NATO aircraft destroyed Serbian radar and anti-aircraft defenses. American EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft patrolled the air in support of the invasion. Krajina foreign affairs advisor Slobodan Jarcevic stated that NATO "completely led and coordinated the entire Croat offensive by first destroying radar and anti-aircraft batteries. What NATO did most for the Croatian Army was to jam communications between [Serb] military commands...." (2)
Following the elimination of Serbian anti-aircraft defenses, Croatian planes carried out extensive attacks on Serbian towns and positions. The roads were clogged with refugees, and Croatian aircraft bombed and strafed refugee columns. Serbian refugees passing through the town of Sisak were met by a mob of Croatian extremists, who hurled rocks and concrete at them. A UN spokesman said, "The windows of almost every vehicle were smashed and almost every person was bleeding from being hit by some object." Serbian refugees were pulled from their vehicles and beaten. As fleeing Serbian civilians poured into Bosnia, a Red Cross representative in Banja Luka said, "I've never seen anything like it. People are arriving at a terrifying rate." Bosnian Muslim troops crossed the border and cut off Serbian escape routes. Trapped refugees were massacred as they were pounded by Croatian and Muslim artillery. Nearly 1,700 refugees simply vanished. While Croatian and Muslim troops burned Serbian villages, President Clinton expressed his understanding for the invasion, and Christopher said events "could work to our advantage." (3)
The Croatian rampage through the region left a trail of devastation. Croatian special police units, operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, systematically looted abandoned Serbian villages. Everything of value - cars, stereos, televisions, furniture, farm animals - was plundered, and homes set afire. (4) A confidential European Union report stated that 73 percent of Serbian homes were destroyed. (5) Troops of the Croatian army also took part, and pro-Nazi graffiti could be seen on the walls of several burnt-out Serb buildings.(6)
Massacres continued for several weeks after the fall of Krajina, and UN patrols discovered numerous fresh unmarked graves and bodies of murdered civilians. (7) The European Union report states, "Evidence of atrocities, an average of six corpses per day, continues to emerge. The corpses, some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated... Serb lands continue to be torched and looted." (8)
Following a visit in the region a member of the Zagreb Helsinki Committee reported, "Virtually all Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin, eleven bodies were found, some of them were massacred in such a way that it was not easy to see whether the body was male or female." (9)
UN spokesman Chris Gunness noted that UN personnel continued to discover bodies, many of whom had been decapitated. (10) British journalist Robert Fisk reported the murder of elderly Serbs, many of whom were burned alive in their homes. He adds, "At Golubic, UN officers have found the decomposing remains of five people... the head of one of the victims was found 150 feet from his body. Another UN team, meanwhile is investigating the killing of a man and a woman in the same area after villagers described how the man's ears and nose had been mutilated." (11)
After the fall of Krajina, Croatian chief of staff General Zvonimir Cervenko characterized Serbs as "medieval shepherds, troglodytes, destroyers of anything the culture of man has created." During a triumphalist train journey through Croatia and Krajina, Tudjman spoke at each railway station. To great applause, he announced, "There can be no return to the past, to the times when [Serbs] were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia, a cancer that was destroying the Croatian national being." He then went on to speak of the "ignominious disappearance" of the Serbs from Krajina "so it is as if they have never lived here... They didn't even have time to take with them their filthy money or their filthy underwear!" American ambassador Peter Galbraith dismissed claims that Croatia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing," since he defined this term as something Serbs do. (12)
U.S. representatives blocked Russian attempts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning the invasion. According to Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, American officials gave advice on the conduct of the operation, and European and military experts and humanitarian aid workers reported shipments of U.S weapons to Croatia over the two months preceding the invasion. A French mercenary also witnessed the arrival of American and German weapons at a Croatian port, adding, "The best of the Croats' armaments were German- and American-made." The U.S. "directly or indirectly," says French intelligence analyst Pierre Hassner, "rearmed the Croats." Analysts at Jane's Information Group say that Croatian troops were seen wearing American uniforms and carrying U S. communications equipment. (13)
The invasion of Krajina was preceded by a thorough CIA and DIA analysis of the region. (14) According to Balkan specialist Ivo Banac, this "tactical and intelligence support" was furnished to the Croatian Army at the beginning of its offensive. (15)
In November 1994, the United States and Croatia signed a military agreement. Immediately afterward, U.S. intelligence agents set up an operations center on the Adriatic island of Brac, from which reconnaissance aircraft were launched. Two months earlier, the Pentagon contracted Military Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to train the Croatian military.(16) According to a Croatian officer, MPRI advisors "lecture us on tactics and big war operations on the level of brigades, which is why we needed them for Operation Storm when we took the Krajina." Croatian sources claim that U.S. satellite intelligence was furnished to the Croatian military. (17) Following the invasion of Krajina, the U.S. rewarded Croatia with an agreement "broadening existing cooperation" between MPRI and the Croatian military. (18) U.S. advisors assisted in the reorganization of the Croatian Army. Referring to this reorganization in an interview with the newspaper Vecernji List, Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic said, "We are building the foundations of our organization on the traditions of the Croatian home guard" - pro-Nazi troops in World War II. (19)
It is worth examining the nature of what one UN official terms "America's newest ally." During World War II, Croatia was a Nazi puppet state in which the Croatian fascist Ustashe murdered as many as one million Serbs, Jews, and Roman (Gypsies). Disturbing signs emerged with the election of Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian presidency in 1990 Tudjman said, "I am glad my wife is neither Serb nor Jew," and wrote that accounts of the Holocaust were "exaggerated" and "one-sided." (20)
Much of Tudjman's financial backing was provided by Ustashe émigrés and several Ustashe war criminals were invited to attend the first convention of Tudjman's political party, the Croatian Democratic Union. (21)
Tudjman presented a medal to a former Ustashe commander living in Argentina, Ivo Rojnica. After Rojnica was quoted as saying, "Everything I did in 1941 I would do again," international pressure prevented Tudjman from appointing him to the post of ambassador to Argentina. When former Ustashe official Vinko Nikolic returned to Croatia, Tudjman appointed him to a seat in parliament. Upon former Ustashe officer Mate Sarlija's return to Croatia, he was personally welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and subsequently given the post of general in the Croatian Army. (22) On November 4, 1996, thirteen former Ustashe officers were presented with medals and ranks in the Croatian Army. (23)
Croatia adopted a new currency in 1994, the kuna, the same name as that used by the Ustashe state, and the new Croatian flag is a near-duplicate of the Ustashe flag. Streets and buildings have been renamed for Ustashe official Mile Budak, who signed the regime's anti-Semitic laws, and more than three thousand anti-fascist monuments have been demolished. In an open letter, the Croatian Jewish community protested the rehabilitation of the Ustashe state. In April 1994, the Croatian government demanded the removal of all "non-white" UN troops from its territory, claiming that "only first-world troops" understood Croatia's "problems." (24)
On Croatian television in April 1996, Tudjman called for the return of the remains of Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet state "After all, both reconciliation and recognition should be granted to those who deserve it," Tudjman said, adding, "We should recognize that Pavelic's ideas about the Croatian state were positive," but that Pavelic's only mistake was the murder of a few of his colleagues and nationalist allies. (25) Three months later, Tudjman said of the Serbs driven from Croatia "The fact that 90 percent of them left is their own problem... Naturally we are not going to allow them all to return." During the same speech, Tudjman referred to the pro-Nazi state as "a positive thing." (26)
During its violent secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Croatia expelled more than three hundred thousand Serbs, and Serbs were eliminated from ten towns and 183 villages. (27) In 1993, Helsinki Watch reported: "Since 1991 the Croatian authorities have blown up or razed ten thousand houses mostly of Serbs, but also houses of Croats. In some cases, they dynamited homes with the families inside." Thousands of Serbs have been evicted from their homes. Croatian human-rights activist Ivan Zvonimir Cicak says beatings, plundering, and arrests were the usual eviction methods. (28)
Tomislav Mercep, until recently the advisor to the Interior minister and a member of Parliament, is a death-squad leader. Mercep's death squad murdered 2,500 Serbs in western Slavonia in 1991 and 1992, actions Mercep defends as "heroic deeds." (29) Death squad officer Miro Bajramovic's spectacular confession revealed details: "Nights were worst for [our prisoners]... burning prisoners with a flame, pouring vinegar over their wounds mostly on genitalia and on the eyes. Then there is that little induction field phone, you plug a Serb onto that... The most painful is to stick little pins under the nails and to connect to the three phase current; nothing remains of a man but ashes... After all, we knew they would all be killed, so it did not matter if we hurt him more today or tomorrow."
"Mercep knew everything," Bajramovic claimed. "He told us several times: 'Tonight you have to clean all these shits.' By this he meant all the prisoners should be executed." (30)
Sadly, the Clinton administration's embrace of Croatia follows a history of support for fascists when it suits American geopolitical interests: Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Indonesia's Suharto, Paraguay's Aifredo Stroessner, and a host of others. The consequences of this policy for the people affected have been devastating.
***
Footnotes for this article are lower down...
Further reading...
* Were the U.S. and German governments behind the breakup of Yugoslavia in general and the secession of Croatia in particular? See E. H. Carr's "German and U.S. Involvement in the Balkans,' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/carr/carr.html
(Note that even Mr. Carr, who has done a great service by researching and writing this study, pays homage to the US/German alliance he is attacking by affirming, without his otherwise strong evidence, their line that Mr. Milosevic is similar to Mr. Izetbegovic, the Islamic fundamentalist leader in Bosnia, and the late Mr. Tudjman, the fascist leader of Croatia. But, ignoring the section on Milosevic, the text has much merit. - J.I.)
* How did Western institutions come to target Serbia as the anti-humanitarian bad boy of the 90's? See 'Yugoslavia: Through a Dark Glass,' by Diana Johnstone at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1Yugo.htm
(This may be the best general introduction to what happened to Yugoslavia in the 1990s.)
* Indications of the resurgence of Nazi thinking in Croatia under the rule of Pres. Tudjman are discussed in 'Nazi Nostalgia in Croatia,' by Diana Johnstone. Go to http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/nostalgi.html
* Alice Mahon, British MP, reports on harsh discrimination today in Croatia in 'Report on Serbs who have Returned to Croatia,' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/mahon/croatia.htm
* Sean Gervasi discusses the strategy behind what he argues has been a NATO campaign to shatter Yugoslavia in 'Why Is NATO in Yugoslavia?' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/gervasi/why.htm
* Jared Israel deals with NATO strategy in "NATO Buildup in the Balkans: Part of a Deadly Game," http://emperors-clothes.com/news/farish.htm
[This article was written in September 2001, much later than the others mentioned above.]
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Footnotes
1) "Weekly: U.S. Gave Zagreb 'Green Light,' " Tanjug (Belgrade), 26 July 1995. "In Croatia, U.S. Took Calculated Risk," Stephen Engelberg, New York Times News Service, 12 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, Living Marxism (London), September 1995. "Who Has Given the Go-Ahead?," interview with Stipe Mesic, Panorama (Milan), 8 August 1995. "The United States Gave Us the Green Light," interview with Mate Mestrovic, by Chantal de Rudder, Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 10 August 1995.
(2) "International Inaction in Croatia Will Complicate Bosnian War," George Jahn, Associated Press, 7 August 1995. "NATO Destroyed Krajina Missile Systems," Bosnian Serb News Agency (SRNA) (Belgrade), 6 August 1995. "Abandoned People Must Flee," interview with Slobodan Jarcevic by Cvijeta Arsenic, Oslobodjenje (Sarajevo—Bosnian Serb), 23 August 1995."Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit.
(3) "Huge Refugee Exodus Runs Into Shelling, Shooting, Air Attacks," George Jahn, Associated Press, 8 August 1995. "Croat Planes Shell Refugees," Tanjug, 8 August 1995. "SRNA Review of Daily News," SRNA, 8 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit. "Refugees Trapped by Croat Shelling," Robert Fox and Tim Judah, Electronic Telegraph (London) (Online), 8 August 1995. "Croat Mob Attacks Nuns in Fleeing Convoy," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 11 August 1995. "Over 1,000 Serbs Missing in Krajina," Tanjug, 28 January 1997. "Croat Grip Is Tightened as 100,000 Flee," Tim Butcher, Electronic Telegraph, 7 August 1995.
(4) "UN Says Croatians Loot, Use Peacekeepers as Shields," Associated Press, 6 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Reports on Krajina Operations," Hartmut Fiedler, Oesterreich Eins Radio Network, 21 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," Tanjug, 27 October 1995. "UN: Croatians Systematically Burned Serb Homes," Tanjug, 14 August 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, The Independent (London), 10 September 1995. "Croats Plunder Their Way through Krajina," Mon Vanderostyne, De Standard (Groot Bijgaarden, The Netherlands), 9 August 1995. "UN Says Croats Loot Serb Villages in Krajina," Agence France-Presse, 17 August 1995. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, The Guardian (Manchester), 30 September 1995. "Krajina 'Torched State,' " SRNA, 21 August 1995. "What Was Once Home to 300 Families Is Now a Graveyard," Sarah Helm, The Independent, 24 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," Tanjug, 28 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.
(5) "Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, Boston Globe, 8 October 1995. "UN Official Confirms Croatian Crimes in Krajina," Tanjug, 13 October 1995.
(6)"Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, op.cit
(7) "Croats Burn and Kill with a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, The
Independent, 4 September 1995. "Croats Leave Bloody Trail of Serbian Dead," Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, 9n October 1995. "Reports Say Croatia Uses Killing, Arson," John Pomfret,
Washington Post, 30 September 1995. "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," Reuters, 18 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," op. cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," Reuters, 2 October 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, op.cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," Agence
France-Presse, 18 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," op cit. "Evidence Emerging of Crimes Against Krajina Serbs," Tanjug, 30 August 1995. "Croats Accused of Atrocities," Associated Press, 29 September 1995.
(8) "Croats Burn and Kill With a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, op.cit."EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs, " Julian Borger, op. cit. report broadcast, RTBF-1 Television Network (Brussels), 20 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.
(9) "Krajina Operation: Helsinki Committee Member Describes Atrocities in Krajina," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 August 1995.
10) "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," op.cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," op. cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," op. cit.
(11) "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit.(12) "Croats Ready for a Fresh Offense Against Serbs," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 16 August 1995. addresses by Franjo Tudjman, Radio Croatia Network, 26 August 1995. "U.S. Says Croatia is Not Guilty of Ethnic Cleansing," Patrick Moore, Open Media Research Institute, 10 August 1995.
(13) "Croatian Minister Says U.S. Gave Advice on Offensive," Jasmina Kuzmanovic, Associated Press, 5 August 1995. "Croatia Takes Effective Control of What's Left of Bosnia," San Francisco Chronicle, 11 August 1995.
(14) "NATO in Dubrovnik," Vladimir Jovanovic, Monitor (Podgorica, Yugoslavia), 23 June 1995.
(15) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, 13 November 1995.
(16) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, op cit." U.S. Troops Operate in Croatia," Associated Press, 3 February
1995.
(17) "Invisible U.S. Army Defeats Serbs," Charlotte Eagar, The
Observer (London), 5November 1995.
(18) "Military Cooperation Agreement Signed with U.S." HTV Television (Zagreb) 13 October 1995.
(19) "We Can Prevent Any Serbian Maneuver," interview with Tihomir Blaskic, by Jozo Pavkovic, Vecernji List (Zagreb), 11 March 1995.
20) "Croatian Leader's Invitation to Holocaust Museum Sparks Anger and Shock," Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times News Service, 21 April 1993.
(21) "Croatia, at a Key Strategic Crossroad, Builds Militarily and Geographically," Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (London), 31 January 1993. "Who is Franjo Tudjman?" Narodna Armija (Belgrade), 1 March 1990.
(22) "Criticism of Tudjman Award to Ustashe," Foreign Broadcast Information Service Media Note (Media Summary), 27 January 1995. "Nationalism Turns Sour in Croatia," New York Times News Service, 13 November 1993. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 18 October 1993. "Trpimir for an Executioner and a Victim," Mirko Mirkovic, Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 20 February 1995. "Croatian General Former Ustashe," Tanjug, 26 February 1995.
(23) "Croatia Grants Awards to Nazi-Era War Veterans," Reuters, 7 November 1996.
(24) "New Croatian Money Anathema to Serbs," John Pomfret, Washington Post, 31 May 1994. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, op.cit. "Pro-Nazi Legacy Lingers for Croatia," Stephen Kinzer, New York Times News Service, 30 October 1993. "Monument to Anti-Fascism Desecrated in Croatia," Tanjug, February 1995. "Another Anti-Fascist Monument Blown Up in Croatia," Tanjug, 11 April 1995. "Croatia, Symbols of Crimes," Miodrag Dundjerovic, Tanjug, 1 June 1994. "Croatia Adopts New Currency Recalling Fascist Era," Reuters, 9 May 1994. "Hiding Genocide," Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 31 December 1992. "Croatia is Rehabilitating Ustashism and the Independent State of Croatia," Politika (Belgrade), 12 February 1993. "Tudjman Calls for All-White Peace Force in Croatia," Eve Ann Prentice, The Times (London), 11 April 1995. "Croatia to Seek Expulsion of Non-White U.N. Troops," Tanjug, 10 April 1995.
(25) Interview with Franjo Tudjman, HTV Television (Zagreb), 22 April 1996.
(26) Address by Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian World Congress in Brioni, Radio Croatia Network (Zagreb), 6 July 1996.
(27) "Croatian Towns, Villages Cleansed of Serbs," Tanjug, 26 January 1993. "Savovic: Croatia Expelled 300,000 Serb," Tanjug, 5 November1993 "Serb Party Official: 350,000 Serbs Driven Out." Tanjug, 26 August 1994.
(28) "Croatian Police Tactics Cited," Associated Press, 3 October 1994. "Helsinki Committee Chair: Collective Vendetta Against Croatia's Serbs," Tanjug, 7 may 1994. "Protests Prevent Latest Wave of Croatian Apartment Evictions," Radio Free Europe, 12 July 1994. "Croatian Human Rights Activist: Zagreb Backs Human Rights Violations," Tanjug, 28 September 1994. "Rights Groups Report Abuses by Croatia," David Binder, New York Times News Service, 7 December 1993.
29) "Interior Minister Aide Accused of War Crimes," ZDF Television Network (Mainz), 17 May 1994. "Slovene Daily Says Croatian Leaders Keep Quiet About Massacre of Serbs," Tanjug, 14 January 1994. "Croatian Paper Calls Mass Killings of Serbs a National Disgrace," Tanjug, 12 July 1994. "Zagreb Knows About Mass Killings of Serbs," Tanjug, 23 July 1994. "Dossier: Pakracka Poljana," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Death Camps and Mass Graves in Western Slavonia: Marino Selo and Pakracka Poljana," dossier prepared by Serbian Council, Belgrade, 1993.
(30) "Miro Bajramovic's Confession," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Croatian's Confession Describes Torture and Killing on Vast Scale," Chris Hedges, New York Times, 5 September 1997.
http://www.tenc.net/
Friday, July 25, 2008
Sunday Shopping banned in Croatia
Sunday shopping banned in Croatia
Published: July 15, 2008
ZAGREB, Croatia: The Croatian parliament has passed a law forcing shops to close on Sundays in a concession to the Roman Catholic church.
The church has campaigned for years for Sundays to be devoted to family or Mass in Croatia, which is almost 90 percent Roman Catholic. But Croatians have begun spending weekends in shopping malls that have flourished across the country in the past few years and remain open seven days a week.
The law adopted Tuesday and goes into effect Jan. 1. It allows Sunday shopping over the summer and Christmas holidays.
The law also allows stores in gas, bus and train stations to open on Sundays year-round, along with those in hospitals. Bakeries, newsstands and flower shops are also exempt from the ban.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/15/news/Croatia-Sunday-Shopping.php
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