What is certainly worrysome is not only their inability to deal with the chaos inherited from HDZ, but also their unwillingness to radically clear up the piles of crimes and make sharp cuts in terms of important governmental positions, which is the only chance for Croatia to become a country different from the previous one. Especially because the world and the people want radical changes, and not superficial cosmetic changes on the rotten tissue of this country. But, why does it seem that everything changed only to stay the same? The staff reshuffles unbelievably remind of something already seen. Too many compromises, too many important functions given to the "meritorious" ones in terms of party afiliation, rather than professional qualifications. Only two months after the elections we have an interesting situation; precisely those instances of power that are the essence of the promised democratic changes have undergone very little change. Except the judiciary, which is headed by the uncompromising Minister Ivanisevic who immediately requested resignations from the people that destroyed the credibility of the profession, can we speak about real changes at all?
Why, for example, does this Government find it appropriate to keep the people whose only job was to make files about the independent journalists using illegal surveillance, wiretapping, informative talks with their families and neighbors, on the same functions?
Some time ago, Feral Tribune filed a complaint against the Minister of police Ivan Penic for illegal wiretapping and monitoring of Feral's editors (we saw with our own eyes our files from the "private collection" of a former HDZ official). The State Attorney dismissed the suit, and Penic first stated that our files didn't exist and we were not being followed, but later he said that Feral's journalists were under surveillance on suspicion of terrorism. What has the new Minister done? Did he demand an investigation against Penic and the employees of his secret services? No, but he did promise he would make files available to the journalists. He said that and ate his own words! When we asked him to see our files we were answered that he could not give us the documents, adducing the Law on protection of the secrecy of information. This would be ridiculous if it weren't tragic.
Lucin's invocation of this law actually implies that he is protecting a fortune that belongs only to the state, and consequently that the state didn't do anything wrong when ordering surveillance and intrusion on the privacy of the editors and journalists. At the moment, this seems much worse than what we went through during Tudjman's regime. This shows a horrible truth that the new Minister wants, what he eventually achieved, to legitimate the present condition, and leave the same people that during the reign of HDZ tried to subdue the independent journalists, sometimes even endangering their physical integrity, on the same or similar jobs.
However, we would like to say to Minister Lucin that the thought of the same people digging inside our innards, but this time for another, allegedly "our", democratic power, is not a consolation to us. We are interested only in seeing his new colleagues answering for their past "work", so that no other journalist, no matter if they write for Feral, Nacional or Slobodna Dalmacija, would ever again be wiretapped. After all, the new Minister's duty was to reactivate our law suit against his predecessor, and carry out the "illegal" act of giving us our own files as he promised, so that we could show them to the public. It seems that Mr Lucin needs to be reminded that precisely the independent journalists (we in Feral since 1993) persistently unveiled all Croatian scandals, while the police eavesdropped on our phone calls, followed and treated us as criminals, allegedly protecting "the security of the state".
Why does he think that the abuse of the secret services is less important for the preservation of democracy than, for example, the abuse of Tisak? Why don't the same rules apply to Ivic Pasalic, Smiljan Reljic, Ivan Jarnjak, Ivan Penic or Miroslav Tudjman as to Miroslav Kutle or Ivan Herak? Is it because this Government, just as the previous one, will rely on the people who were involved up to their ears in the abuse of the so-called secret services in order to keep the journalists-critics under control? Is Croatia haunted by the spirit of Vladimir Seks, who uses every chance to scream about the revanchism of the new Government? And how come that the directors of INA (oil industry) and HEP (Croatian Power Utility) were so easily removed from their offices, but no one can remove the notorious chief of the Zadar police, under whose jurisdiction one of the most horrible crimes took place?
A man of Serb nationality was beaten to death on the island of Vir, and the culprits were young men aged between 21 and 24. The youth of these "heroes" proves that they were children during the war and didn't take part in it, and they lived on the island on which the "Chetniks" never landed. Therefore, they didn't have any war traumas that could be used to justify the murder, which is usually the case. But, they did have a good teacher, the chief of police Svemir Vrsaljko, who told them three months ago, just before the elections, that it wasn't true that HDZ had done nothing, since they "got rid off the Serbs, which is significant". Nedjeljko Stulic, who returned to his home, paid for these words with his life. Will Vrsaljko, instead of a punishment for spreading of ethnic hatred, remain at his position, or only move his ass, as a "good professional", to some other place of the same police puzzle?
Everything else could be called "revanchism" and, considering our luck, maybe even danger to the "national interest". After all, isn't the fact that the Croatian Television, as well as the new Government, passed over this cruel crime in complete silence, a good enough proof that our new condition is actually very much like the old one?