by Predrag LUCIC
Nino Djula also piped up in Jutarnji List. True, his name cannot be found on the list of the participants in the demographic soiree on the Pantovcak, but he nevertheless tries very enthusiastically to convince us that we should not trust our own eyes while reading the abovementioned transcript. Nino Djula himself found in the transcript published in Feral Tribune that "Tudman and company were discussing where military units should be stationed so that the territory be repopulated by Croats". Djula also found in the transcript "explicit statements indicating the existence of a plan for a change in ethnic composition of population with the assistance of the military in the towns liberated in the operation ‘Storm'". Djula observes that such statements unfortunately "weaken the assertion that the Serb side is solely responsible for the emigration of Serbs from Croatia". "In this conversation as well," the columnist of Jutarnji List concludes, "Tudman gave material to the Hague for proving several assertions and for putting together indictments against Croats; the transcript shows that the leadership seriously discussed ‘human transfer of population' and plans for exchange of territory and territorial claims of Croatia in Bosnia-Hercegovina". However, despite everything he read in the transcript and paraphrased in his article, Djula claims that "the transcript is in no way a historically important or spectacular document" and that "it in no way proves the existence of a Croat plan for ethnic cleansing".
Determined to squash all temptation to speculate about Djula's motivation for contradicting himself, Nino Djula laments the fact that "this transcript appears immediately after Croatia's chances to prove in the Hague its status of a victim in the war and its distinction from the aggressor have increased, and after improved chances that the indictment of General Gotovina, provided he surrenders, may be modified". Djula is disconsolate in his attempt to escape from what he had just read: "At the moment when the whole nation has somehow come together finding collective consolation in the fact that the honor of the Homeland War will be finally defended, and people already envisaged how tens of boxes with documents proving the testimony of Peter Galbraith that there was no ethnic cleansing in Croatia were being sent to the Hague, which would lead to the acquittal of General Gotovina, they publish another transcript attempting to push us back to a certain extent".
Therefore, Feral Tribune has grieved "the somehow gathered nation" and took apart "collective consolation" and destroyed mass hallucinations about tens of boxes with documents that will liberate the indicted fugitive from justice Ante Gotovina. Feral Tribune, Nino Djula accuses, pushes us somewhat back and spoils the joint endeavor that includes all the healthy forces, with Mesic and the helm and Galbraith at the tail of the column of tractors. Does that mean that Djula believes that the role of newspapers is to offer collective consolation, to encourage mass illusion and bring the nation together?
No, no and no!, Nino Djula protests and says that "apart from publishing exclusive documents and information newspapers have another function, to spread the truth," because "it is very important for the Croat public to establish the truth about the Homeland War". However, the columnist of Jutarnji List does not explain how that truth is to be established if original documents are to be avoided. This authentic document, Djula implies, presents the truth that is not "the truth about the Homeland War that is important to the Croat public", but some sort of Feral Tribune's truth indicating that "Croatia had a plan for ethnic cleansing", which can only be a shameful and "grave charge against Croatia that hasn't been proven so far, and will definitively not be proven on the basis of this transcript". Djula writes all of that after reading and writing in his column that "the transcript shows that the leadership seriously discussed ‘human transfer of population' and plans for exchange of territory and territorial claims of Croatia in Bosnia-Hercegovina"!
Djula further claims that the publication of this transcript was irrelevant for the Croatian public as "Croatia has already faced the negative aspects of Tudman's rule in a more concrete manner", while the publication was even harmful for Ante Gotovina (it appears that that is the worst possible crimen) "because it only slows down the impetus of his defense". Any winners? Nino Djula addresses that issue in the last paragraph. "Imra Agotic has just returned from the Hague where, as he says, Milosevic showed to him precisely this transcript and used it in his defense. We can assume who benefits the most from uncritical arguments about ethnic cleansing". Djula's conjecture is correct. The dumb refusal of the Croat public to face the truth written in Tudman's transcripts, drawn on military maps and realized on empty and scorched land mostly benefits precisely Slobodan Milosevic. And look, Nino Djula is offering himself to Milosevic as an expert witness who managed to read from the transcript just what was written in it; and who is hurt by the fact that he did not like what he read in the transcript and that the transcript cannot be used to further the collective illusion that the Hague will read the available documents the way Nino Djula did. Djula read them out loud and then bit his tongue.