by Predrag LUCIC and Ivica DIKIC
'90
The First General Congress of HDZ was held in the hall "Vatroslav Lisinski" in patriotic atmosphere and under Croatian flags brought over from America. Dr. Tudman, skipping formalities such as other candidates, was elected for the president of the party; the most memorable statement from that gathering is later oft quoted Tudman's proclamation that "NDH was an expression of historical yearnings of the Croatian people for its own state".
Excellent organization of local party organizations in the field, a strong election campaign generously financed by the Croatian emigrants, a blessing from the Catholic Church and electoral model allegedly fashioned by Smiljko Sokol for the needs of the League of Communists of Croatia/the Social-Democratic Party, result in a victory of HDZ in the first democratic elections. That victory is hailed by the leaders of SDP, as they later admit themselves. The aggressive Serb nationalism obtained its counterpart in Croatia, and Slobodan Milosevic found his partner in Croatia. The Croats found the Father of the Nation, as self-effacing Dr. Tudjman started referring to himself. In addition, Croats had their national pride returned, as they were informed by the new president of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Croatia in his first presidential speech at Ban Jelacic square.
An accelerated Croatization of Croatia is under way: words which until recently were used for spoofing enter official discourse; a purge of old cadres who refused to change their orientation is carried out in the media (and especially on TV), and the Croatiazation of the Police is announced as a crucial piece of reform. In addition, the new authorities announce their intention to rename the Police into Redarstvo. However, this was never implemented. Serbs from Krajina, encouraged and incited from Belgrade, refuse to accept the new-old insignia of the Croatian state within a state, and within this state within a state, not long after the publication of a discrediting transcript of a conversation between Tudman and Dr. Jovan Raskovic held in Banski Dvori, and armed with infantry weapons from the arsenal of the YPA, are making yet another state. They name it SAO Krajina and fence it off by logs.
The decisive attempt of Tudman's authorities to crash the Serb rebellion by sending as many as two helicopters and strong Police forces (about ten policemen) was prevented by the PPA even before the aircraft reached the treetops surrounding the airport Lucko.
Tudman's no less decisive demand for independent Croatia is also rejected. Perhaps because it was named "A proposal for the Yugoslav Confederation". This year of turnovers was successfully finished by the enactment of a new Constitution which brought to Croatia, instead of a dreamed western-type parliamentarian democracy, a semi-presidential system and prerogatives of an oriental despot for Tudman. On the same day Tudman exchanged on a business trip toasts with General Konrad Kolsek, the commander of the Fifth Army Region. That was on December 22, the day of the YPA.
'91
On May 25 Tudman travels to Belgrade, to attend the extraordinary expanded session of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The same night Belgrade broadcasts an amateurish documentary movie prepared by the counter intelligence service about illegal arming of Croatia whose main character is General Martin Spegelj. After his return, Tudman delivers a speech at the crowded Jelacic square in which he denounces Ivan Zvonimir Cicak and Silvije Degen as internal enemies and traitorous elements. Such demonization will soon become an unavoidable part of his every appearance. And while the counter-intelligence service arrests members of "The Virovitica group" and prepares for their trial in front of the military court, Tudman and other presidents of Yugoslav republics are searching for a new historical agreement of Yugoslav peoples, traveling from one republic to another, from one residence to another. The most important agreements will be made in Tito's hunting lodges in Tikves and Karadjordjevo, but only between Tudman and Milosevic. Cards were on the table, and Bosnia-Hercegovina was in the cards. A game in which hundreds of thousands of human lives and millions of human fates will be a stake could start. That spring SAO Krajina declares secession from Croatia, while Croatian citizens in a referendum vote for "the right of Croatia to enter an association of sovereign states with other republics". In Plitvice, a bloody Easter takes place: Croatian policeman Josip Jovic and several Serb rebels die. Immediately afterwards, the Croatian police captures Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, who is taken in front of a court and then punished by being immediately released.
The massacre of Croatian policemen in Borovo Selo, murder of Josip Reihl-Kir, shoulder fired missiles in the night, intensive arming (weapons are arriving even in "Air Uganda" airplanes), warmongering speeches of Seselj and Paroski in the village of Jagodnjak, the blockade of the village of Kijevo, Tudman's invitation to a demonstration in front of the Banovina building in Split and the death of a Macedonian conscript in a troop carrier, the parade of the Croatian People's Guard on the stadium in Kranciceva St., maneuvers of Yugoslav people's Army tank units, declaration of independence as some sort of autonomy within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by Croatia and Slovenia and their mutual recognition, seven-day intervention and offensive withdrawal of the YPA from Slovenia, vain negotiating efforts of international mediators... and in Croatia a never declared war began. In spite of feverish speed with which these dramatic events followed each other, Tudman finds enough time to, on June 19 and 20, start an initiative for the founding of "the Croatian Province in Bosnia-Hercegovina".
Tragedies in Celije, Dalj, Aljmas follow, Osijek, Vinkovci, Vukovar are bombed. Angry Guard soldiers arrive from the front in front of the Parliament and discard Kalashnikov rifles with which they cannot counter the armor of the Federal troops. Pakrac, Sunja, Petrinja become general places of wartime topography. Instead of declaring state of war, Tudman gathers a Government of Democratic Unity. Soon, the war spreads to Lika and Dalmacija. Drnis falls with hardly a bullet fired, Montenegrin reservists pillage and burn down Konavle; Dubrovnik is under siege, Zadar and Sibenik under bombardment...
In September Croatia declares the cutting of all links with the SFRY and Franjo Tudman, with mediation of Gojko Susak, renews his for-ten-years-disrupted links with son Miroslav, who with his gang (Medimurec, Rebic, Zuzul) founds the IPD, the service for informative-psychological activities in the Ministry of Defense, at first used for propaganda and later for other schemes.
A desperate battle for the defense of Vukovar is being waged. The defenders are having an easier time with the YPA tanks than with the merciless leader from Zagreb who refuses to send assistance. And why should he, when the agony of Vukovar and siege of Dubrovnik are his main trump cards in the struggle for the international recognition of Croatia?! Tudman has no time for Vukovar since he, like a visionary looks to the future and, beating Milosevic, in November establishes his parastate in Bosnia-Hercegovina - Herceg-Bosna. While Mate Boban, Dario Kordic and those like them are toasting with Tudman in the Presidential Residence in Zagreb, Mile Dedakovic Jastreb and other defenders of Vukovar end up arrested, humiliated, beaten up and charged with embezzlement in the middle of Zagreb... While the ground on the mass graves around Vukovar is still fresh, and while captured Vukovarans are going through the hell of Serb camps, Tudman gathers around himself characters who will soon commit mass crimes and establish concentration camps. However, more time is needed for the realization of the agreement from Karadjordjevo, so that Tudman, Milosevic and Kadijevic sign in Geneva a cease-fire agreement.
'92
The Sarajevo cease-fire agreement which envisages the arrival of UN peacekeepers to Croatia has been signed. A third of Croatian territory is under control of Serbs and the YPA. On January 15, Iceland and another 15 countries recognize the independence of Croatia. However, that is not enough for Tudman. The same day Serb grenades start falling on Sarajevo, on April 5, Croatian troops carry out a suicidal occupation of Kupres. A coincidence? Of course, exactly like the cooperation of HVO and Karadzic's Chetniks during the siege of Sarajevo. Besides, did not Tudman himself warn in time last American ambassador in the SFRY Warren Zimmerman that Croatia and Serbia should divide Bosnia-Hercegovina, because there is no other solution?!
In the meantime Croatia has been recognized by the USA and the loved tricolor is hoisted in front of the U.N. building on the East River. Croatia is admitted to the Council of Europe in a not at all prestigious status of a special guest, which it will keep for a long, long time, among other because of systematic suppression of the freedom of media. Less than a month after the admission to the Strasbourg corner, in Croatia state prosecutor Vladimir Seks initiates trials against independent journalists, among other under charges of inflicting injury to the honor and prestige of the president of the Republic. And the president, who is supposed to confirm his status in an election, a day before the enactment of the Law banning transactions with nationalized property, for measly DM 214,000 buys a nationalized villa and a land plot in 59 Nazorova St. failing to hurt in the process both his honor and prestige. According to his wife, the money was saved from the royalties received by Franjo Tudman for his books. However, this scandal fails to influence election results and Tudman becomes the first elected new-old president. A scientific promotion arrives together with eulogies, so that Dr. Tudman becomes an academician. According to the already established itinerary towards the end of the year Tudman travels to Geneva where together with his Herceg-Bosnian supporters and Serb geostrategic experts led by Slobodan Milosevic in a cordial atmosphere and with numerous pens he spends long entertaining hours above the map of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
'93
The lightning speed military action which liberated Maslenica narrows and parts of Zadar hinterland was justified by the need to relieve the traffic isolation of Dalmacija. The true significance of Dalmacija can, however, only be understood if one recalls that at the time Dalmacija was a logistic hinterland for Herceg-Bosna. After the independent daily from Split "Slobodna Dalmacija" was placed in a privatization-style robbery under government's control, the preparations for the Croat-Muslim war were completed. Namely, this newspaper was turned into a fort of Tudman's anti-Muslim propaganda, whose task was to convince Croats that their until recently closest ally was actually their greatest and most dangerous enemy. In that war for Tudman's plumper Croatia the country will loose more soldiers than in the defense of the Republic of Croatia, and the transformation from a victim into an aggressor will be brutal and include mass murders, crimes against civilians, concentration camps and unhindered ethnic cleansing. The fixation about Mostar as the capital of Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina will bring about the destruction of the city including the Old Bridge. Its savage destruction, followed with celebratory bursts of fire from machine guns will become a symbol of Croat culturocide. Messages referring to Tudman as the Croat Moses arrive form Herceg-Bosnia as a sign of thanks. That opinion is not shared by tens of thousands gathered at a soccer stadium in Split were Tudman is whistled down publicly for the first time. Shouts of the gathered inhabitants of Split "Franjo, faggot!" and "Franjo, thief!" soon also become the regular audio decorum at the soccer stadium in Zagreb, the only stadium that the beloved president dares to visit. Causes of increasingly vocal dissatisfaction of the Croat citizens with Tudman's rule should be sought not only in the almost unbearable fact that a third of the country remains under occupation but above all in luxury adopted by the Croatian leadership, while at the same time, as a consequence of privatization-style robbery of the country, many people have been left without jobs, without basic means for survival, but also without hope in improvement, resulting in the emigration of about 100,000, mostly young and educated, Croats. Ungrateful Croats are also complaining because of business success of Tudman's daughter Nevenka and grandson Dejan. In the meantime, Miroslav Tudman enters his father para-institutional Council for Defense and National Security (VONS), as the director of the Croatian Information Agency (HIS), which is on that occasion mentioned in the public for the first time.
Since the brain drain from Croatia has become a trend, Franjo Tudman also heads overseas: to Chile and Argentina where he mostly meets our emigrants. One of these brief encounters will receive its denouement several years later when Croatia will be forced to request from Argentina the extradition of a man with whom Tudman has a nice chat in Buenos Aires. That was Dinko Sakic, the commander of the Ustashe concentration camp Jasenovac. Tudman will also be forced to withdraw already signed credentials of his ambassador in Argentina. That was Ivo Rojnica, an Ustashe official and the signatory of racial laws in Dubrovnik.
At the end of the year, Tudman, without provocation, hails the founding of the International Tribunal for War Crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia in the Hague.
'94
The Washington Agreement ends the war between Croats and Muslims, but Tudman's appetite for Bosnia hasn't been sated. On the contrary, he interprets the agreement signed with Alija Izetbegovic in the presence of Bill Clinton as an open possibility for the establishment of a confederation of the Republic of Croatia and the Croat-Bosniak Federation in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
And while Tudman's Argentine amigo Sakic states that he would gladly repeat everything he did in WWII, Kuna is introduced as the new Croatian currency. Veteran members of HDZ, Josip Manolic and Stipe Mesic, publicly distance themselves from Tudman's Bosnian policy; since they are leading officials in the Parliament, this political schism turns into a parliamentary crisis. However, in the semi-presidential system such a crisis is resolved through an appointment of a new parliamentary leadership.
Pope John Paul II arrives on the first visit to his flock in Croatia, while Vladislav Jovanovic, otherwise the minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia arrives on his first diplomatic visit.
'95
Croatia withdraws hospitality from UNPROFOR, which is replaced by UNCRO; this is interpreted in Zagreb as a huge diplomatic success. Hrvoje Sarinic signs a peace agreement better known under the name Z-4 and the Croatian Army carries out the operation "Flash" in Western Slavonija. Tudman's office decisively counters all complaints of the international public because of successfully implemented ethnic cleansing. In victorious enthusiasm and on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Croatian state (which allegedly took place on May 30 1990) the authorities distribute medals of the Patriotic War 1990-92 (equally to the members of the Police, People's Guard and HVO) and numerous decorations. Tudman decorates himself with no less than nine decorations. Sinisa Rimac, the murderer of 12-year-old Aleksandra Zec, is among the decorated.
One of the most significant foreign trips of president Tudman in this year is his visit to Croatian emigrants in Australia and New Zealand.
In the middle of the summer: a "Storm". It is difficult to figure out who is moving faster: the Army of Krajina which has left its weapons behind and is rushing towards Belgrade, or Croatian fighters who are encountering a well-organized lack of resistance. The consequences of this action are a huge number of Serb civilian refugees, burning and looting of houses in Krajina, crimes against remaining Serb civilians and - a national euphoria. And who would not be euphoric when the Bosnian extension of the "Storm" liberated even Croatian royal cities of Drvar and Glamoc?! "The Freedom Train", which after a four-year-long interruption reestablishes traffic on the railroad Zagreb-Split throughout its journey, passes mostly to deserted and burnt landscapes. However, these landscapes are also ethnically clean. The Erdut Agreement about Eastern Slavonija, West Srijem and Baranja is signed, followed by a several-weeks-long forced confinement in the air-force base in Dayton, Ohio, where Tudman generously cedes to Milosevic some parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina which he had in his liberating zeal occupied by mistake.
A real slap in the year of electoral victories comes from Zagreb where ungrateful citizens arrange an electoral defeat of HDZ.
'96
Passing through on his way from Tuzla to the USA Bill Clinton, dressed in a leather jacket and muddy boots, steps on the red carpet at the Zagreb airport Pleso. An exhibition of the Croatian artistic treasures has been staged on the premises of the airport in honor of the American president.
Tudman refuses to confirm the election of as many as four mayors of Zagreb and to make sure that is not an end to his arrogance, he refers to the opposition and their supporters as "cattle with small teeth". Luburic's idea about reconciliation of sons of Ustashe and Partisans in Tudman's interpretation obtains a necrofiliac tinge. Namely, the president announces the transformation of the commemorative park Jasenovac into a huge common grave for Ustashe and their victims. After his idea is greeted with an appropriate commentary in Feral Tribune, Tudman authorizes the state prosecutor's office to start a suit against Feral's editors Viktor Ivancic and Marinko Culic.
Tudman's health is getting worse and is incompetently mystified. Because of an ordinary stomach ulcer Tudman travels to the prestigious American hospital "Walter Reed", he is given a chemotherapy treatment and during his absence from the country mass demonstrations in support of Radio 101 break out in Zagreb. At the same time, a translation of "Wastelands of Historical Reality" is published in the USA, purged of tens of pages with anti-Semitic content. After his return from "Walter Reed" exhausted Tudman delivers a rabid speech about an anti-Croat conspiracy of red, black, yellow, and green devils.
Miroslav Tudman becomes the director of SIS and carries out a reconfiguration of the intelligence services.
Croatia has been admitted to the Council of Europe and the admission has been marked by fliers protesting the stifling of freedom of press instead of confetti.
'97
Franjo Tudman celebrates his 75th birthday in the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb, where in a play is staged in his honor. The play portrays the birthday boy as the key personality in the Croatian history. Together with his coterie Tudman soon gets on the "Train to Vukovar" where at the thoroughly demolished train station he enjoys the songs of Kico Slabinac and other artistic fighters for Croatia.
In the second presidential elections Franjo Tudman was elected for the life president of Croatia. A documentary, "Tudman-Croatian George Washington", is made in his honor, while at the same time his early works, quasi-scientific historical eulogies of socialist Yugoslavia, are systematically removed from the libraries.
However, capitalist Croatia is having a hard time in prying open the door of the West. In its resolution, the European Parliament lists 21 conditions related to the democratization and respect for human rights. Tudman's authorities haven't fulfilled these conditions until today.
'98
In a good mood, Tudman views newly raging conflict in Kosovo as an internal matter of sovereign FR Yugoslavia. On the other hand, he resolves his internal problems using the same means as his colleague from Belgrade. As many as 13,500 policemen are employed in preventing embittered workers from all over Croatia to hold a peaceful protest on Jelacic square and to warn Tudman's authorities about their difficult social situation. However, the president is also not having it easy. During these expensive times, he starts the expansion and remodeling of his villa.
Croatia is shaken by a soccer fever and a SIS affair. In that affair Miroslav Tudman will be replaced as the head of SIS, while president's surroundings will be made devoid of his close and loyal collaborators Greguric, Sarinic and Hebrang, who will be successfully replaced by Ivic and Pasalic. The opposition leaves the Parliament, and Tudman treats them with epithets of animal provenance: sheep and geese.
The Pope again visits Croatia to beatify Cardinal Stepinec, which is interpreted by Tudman as what else but another blessing for his wise and prudent policy of preservation of ramparts of Christianity.
And while the leadership of the Hague Tribunal announces that even the heads of states are not untouchable, Tudman puts his chips on history which, as he confides to Carlos Westendorp, will place him right next to [Spanish dictator] Francisco Franco, as one of the saviors of the Western civilization.
Bank clerk Ankica Lepej becomes a popular hero after publicizing her discovery that Ankica Tudman has on her accounts DM 210,000. Mrs. Tudman tries to shut up the jealous populace with somehow familiar story about royalties from her husband's books, and her more popular namesake and the journalist of Jutarnji List who published the state bank secret, with a threat of a suit.
'99
[Serb] patriarch Pavle arrives on a pastoral visit to Croatia and a new Croatian shrine sprouts up: the renovated birth place of the president of the Republic looks exactly the way it would have if at the ripe age of 5 Tudman was carrying out the duties of king Aleksandar [of Yugoslavia].
All along raging against pushing of Croatia into some Balkan integrations, Tudman places his signature on the Southeastern Europe Stability Pact. He returns his son Miroslav to head HIS, since intelligence services are never sufficiently efficient in following of and spying on internal enemies. The paranoid atmosphere on which his regime is based is stoked by a speech in front of the leading policemen of Croatia. On that occasion he accuses former UDBA spies for machinations in the media and announces further persecution of journalists. That will be his legacy before his last journey. A visit to Rome and the Vatican is suddenly interrupted. The visibly ailing president snaps at journalists after being asked upon his return at the Pleso airport about his health. He howls at the journalists that it is hopefully permitted to have a cold and be tired. He places a wreath on the Altar of the Homeland and departs to be treated in Dubrava hospital. The nation is more-or-less impassively watching the last battle of the man who wanted to be its father. While statements about the serious condition of the patient from the seventh floor arrive from the hospital for weeks, his closest collaborators are waging a very earthly battle for their positions in the post-Tudman period. The Son of the Father of the Nation presides over the first meeting of VONS without Tudman. Dr. Ivic Pasalic tries to convince Dr. Vlatko Pavletic to disband the Parliament, while Vladimir Seks on the occasion of the adoption of the Constitutional Law About the Temporary Incompetence of the President of the Republic accuses the opposition for an attempt of political euthanasia against Dr. Franjo Tudman. Dr. Vlatko Pavletic temporarily carries out the duties of the president of the Republic and calls the elections for January 3 2000. The ruling party [HDZ] on the other hand announces that their trump card in the forthcoming elections will be Dr. Franjo Tudman. They remove his name from the top of all electoral lists on the day of his death, December 10 1999.
(The Book "Wastelands of Historical Reality", 1989)
(The speech at the opening of the bridge between Orasje and Zupanja, December 1998)
(The speech at the Croatian Army Hall in Zagreb, December 1993)
(The election campaign speech in Konavle Pridvorje, October 1998)
(A conversation with editors of Croatian media, April 1996)
(An interview to Le Figaro, September 1995)
(The speech at the arrival of the Freedom Train in Karlovac, August 1995)
(The speech at the opening of the War College "Ban Josip Jelacic" in Zagreb, December 1998)
(The speech at the celebration of the seventh anniversary of HDZ youth, October 1997)
(The speech in the Parliament of Hungary, April 1997)
(The statement made on the eve of a trip to Strasbourg, October 1997)
(The speech to leaders of local authorities in Jastrebarsko, September 1998)
(The speech at the opening of the memorial home of Ante Starcevic in Veliki Zitnik, May 1998)
(The speech to leaders of local authorities in Jastrebarsko, September 1998)
I said that on our own - own! - soil we have between 15 and 20 percent of those who would like it if we weren't here! They wish that sovereign Croatia did not exist!
(The speech at the first meeting of the Chief Board of HDZ, February 1996)
(At the first meeting of the Chief Board of HDZ, February 1996)
(The speech at the celebration of the seventh anniversary of HDZ youth, October 1997)
(The speech at the airport Pleso after the return from a treatment in the USA, November 1996)
(The speech at an election campaign rally in Split, April 1997)
(The speech at the Fourth General Congress of HDZ, February 1998)
(An interview to the Croatian Television, June 1999)
(The speech at the reception for a delegation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs [Police] October, 1999)
(The press conference at the airport Pleso after the return from the Vatican, November 1999)
(a press conference, March 1994)