This charming anonymous letter greeted world famous tapestry artist Jagoda Buic-Wuttke at the beginning of August 1996 at her house in Dubrovnik, on the picturesque stones of Kolorina. The letter was followed by new threats, verbal attacks and provocations; the artist finally approached the authorities and they provided police protection. Despite police protection, anonymous "welcome committee" decided that Ms Buic had had enough verbal threats. On Sunday, September 1, early in the evening, a group of young man surrounded Ms Buic's house and tried to brake in through the front door. Squeezed between two doors, Ms Buic managed to get hold of a telephone and, after two unsuccessful attempts to call the police, she managed to reach her friend, an officer in the Croatian Army; he arrived to the house soon after that and managed to pull her out of there. Since then, Jagoda Buic hasn't been back to Kolorina: at the moment she lives "in exile" at Dubrovnik hotel "Excelsior".
It has never been conclusively determined who deserves credit for discovery of these perfidious activities of "the witch from Kolorina". The story began in the Fall of 1991: at the start of September, when the first bombs fell on Dubrovnik, at the time when Gruz [Dubrovnik harbor], Belvedere and Imperial [hotels], and boats in the old harbor were burning, the rumors started that Jagoda Buic-Wuttke demanded at the yearly session of UNESCO that Dubrovnik be demilitarized and declared an "open city"! Allegedly the news was released from the Ministry for Culture: high official from the Ministry claimed that the report from the session in Paris, which deals with Jagoda Buic's "appearance", mysteriously disappeared from his desk.
A few days later, on Sunday, December 1, 1991, an editor of Croatian Radio, Mani Gotovac, produced the first reliable and all encompassing information about the "case Buic" in her weekly show "I need an answer". After comparing the idea of Dubrovnik as an "open city" with the status of Hong Kong as an "open city" under the British protectorate, she concluded that Jagoda Buic had demanded that Dubrovnik become a protectorate of Greater Serbia.
"If it weren't for the Croatian Radio show, 'I need an answer' the public probably wouldn't have found out about the wartime activities of well respected artist Jagoda Buic," Jagoda Martincevic wrote two days later in Vjesnik outraged with the news. After informing the readers about the fact that "pro-Yugoslav attitude of Jagoda Buic is well known from earlier times," Jagoda Martincevic added that the highly respected artist "has never protested against the mindless destruction," but has instead "already started political games to ensure her future return to an 'open' Serb city."
A day later, prodded, probably, by the "wishes of her listeners" who missed her first show about "case Buic", Mani Gotovac sent to Vjesnik her open letter to Jagoda Buic. "How should I address you? As a Lady who used to weave her tapestries in glory? Or as a Lady from the high society?" Mani Gotovac began her inspired letter from which the readers could find out that during the days "when Dubrovnik entered its first circle of hell," Mani Gotovac personally phoned Jagoda Buic in France and pleaded:"Jagoda, for God's sake, do something! Madam," continued Mani, "you told me then that you would do something! I trusted you."
Only a few days latter, then powerful Bozic's ST [tabloid newspaper] joined the "witch hunt". "The news had an impact of a bombshell," wrote Tomislav Wruss. "Jagoda Buic, renowned Croatian and world artist, married to a famous banker Dr. Hans Wuttke, calls from Paris for the surrender of Dubrovnik!" Wruss uncovered a detail which both Mani Gotovac and Jagoda Martincevic had missed: Jagoda Buic is a Serbian agent! ST journalist claimed that Serb agents had forced the famous artist to collaborate with the French branch of the Movement for Yugoslavia, APDDY, which wasn't hard since "her husband advises Chinese government on economic matters, so it isn't difficult to guess, having in mind the recent Chinese-Serb relations, what kind of instructions he could have received from his employer." Wruss backed up his claims by names and "well informed sources" and concluded that "Jagoda Buic has joined the gallery of women who spread Milosevic's ideas around the world." Finally he sent a message to Jagoda Buic and Dubrovcani: "If Ms. Buic ever comes back to Dubrovnik, her house will again become what it used to be in the past: a quarantine. Refuge for those who are rejected by their compatriots."
Indeed, Salih Zvizdic soon wondered at the pages of Slobodna Dalmacija: "Will Jagoda Buic dare to look in the eyes of the gentlemen from the ancient city?" Naturally, he doubted that the inhabitants of Dubrovnik would " if she ever dared come back to Dubrovnik, calmly and like gentlemen say: let her go." Because, "instead of helping her brothers to save the City from the barbarians she in the company of Greater Serbian propagandists pays visits to the French officials demanding that Dubrovnik be declared an 'open city'," that is " exactly the same demand as that of the Chetnik semi-intellectual and ideologist of slaughter, Vojislav Seselj, and the mob of colonels on the Srd mount, who are getting drunk on cheap brandy talking about what they will take back to their homes in Sumadija and Niksic when they 'tomorrow' capture Dubrovnik." Because, after all, the "open city" means the same thing to Jagoda Buic and the colonels: "To enter a city without fighting, to arrest and murder its defenders, decimate the population, settle their own people and change the blood of the city."
Throughout all of this no one tried to find out (the whole affair was undeniable!) what had Jagoda Buic actually said at the UNESCO session in Paris. The truth wouldn't have fitted in the carefully assembled portrait of "the witch from Kolorina": Jagoda Buic did not demand at the session that Dubrovnik be declared an "open city". Actually, she has never been to any gathering organized by UNESCO!
After finding out about the unprecedented campaign against her in the Croatian media, Jagoda Buic sent a denial from Paris, together with the confirmation from UNESCO that she has never spoken at a meeting organized by that organization. Soon after that, professor Radovan Ivancevic, who had started the whole campaign, retracted his words. Finally, even the Croatian television apologized to Jagoda Buic with a few shy words broadcasted late at night.
What now?
Ms. Jagoda Martincevic also raised her voice and jumped in as a crown witness for the prosecution: in the aforementioned letter to George Bush, Jagoda Buic " found it impossible to put the adjective CROATIAN next to Dubrovnik and Vukovar"!
The witch hunt ended. But only after "the witch" has been forced out in the open and left to the hunters. The question of guilt or innocence is never of any importance in a "witch hunt".
Denials and cynical "apologies" didn't change anything. On the contrary - exactly during this period Jagoda Buic was finally branded as a proven traitor of Dubrovnik and Croatia. It just remained to be seen whether she would dare come back to Dubrovnik and walk straight into a carefully set up trap.
When, during the summer of 1993, Jagoda Buic finally "dared" and for a first time since the beginning of the war returned to Kolorina, she found that her house had been broken into, demolished, looted and defiled by graffiti: "Go to Serbia!". Jagoda Buic received the same kind of messages during the following summers and again this August. "The last warning". And then the hunters came out of bushes: well known "irresponsible individuals", on which the initiators of "witch hunts" count in their defamation campaigns. "Individuals" who fired shots from real guns at the house.
This whole story wouldn't be so absurd and grotesque if any of the accusations were even remotely true. What did Ms. Buic actually do during those days when Dubrovnik was going "through the first circle of hell"?
On the morning of October 23 1991, she faxed an appeal for help to the city written by Zeljko Sikic, mayor of Dubrovnik, to the dignitaries all over the world. The message from her old friend and officer in the Croatian Army, Misa Mihocevic was: the appeal must reach French president Francois Mitterand before the ultimatum of Yugoslav generals, after which they were supposed to start bombarding the city, expired! It was almost impossible to reach Mitterand at the time. Jagoda Buic hurried to Palais Chaillot to catch Mitterand's close adviser Laurence Sudet during a play intermission; Ms. Sudet promised (and fulfilled her promise) that the appeal would be at the president's desk by the following morning. Jagoda Buic hurried back to her Paris apartment to a birthday party thrown for her husband to which the president of the international organization for oil, Helga Steg had been invited: two days before, Dr. Hrvoje Kacic had asked Jagoda Buic to try to obtain an embargo for oil deliveries to the Yugoslav Peoples Army from Ms. Steg.
Difficult diplomatic birthday party was interrupted at about 11 p.m. by Mani Gotovac. She was asking for an interview for the Croatian radio on the topic: what are you doing these days for Croatia and Dubrovnik? Jagoda Buic politely replied that she considered such an interview to be inappropriate at the time, that she would rather not speak publicly about her activities.
Mani Gotovac didn't get her interview; instead, a month later, she read on the radio her "open letter to Jagoda Buic". The flood gates were opened and the lies burst out.
Still, the strength and force of words, of lies, is miraculous and terrifying. After all that, Jagoda Buic-Wuttke is still a traitor. While I'm writing this article, she is still "in exile" in Dubrovnik hotel "Excelsior".
It is worth reminding ourselves - all this happened because of one publicly said lie. Because of an "open city" (a lie) and the "civil war" (which, according to the international law, the war in Croatia was at the time). Presidents Tudman and Milosevic confirmed that much with their signatures on the agreement about the normalization of relations [between Croatia and Serbia]; they agreed that there was never an aggression on Croatia and Dubrovnik.
Unfortunately, words are stronger than deeds. "Witch hunters", however, sleep peacefully today on already wilted remains of their war glory earned with liquidation of quislings and traitors. With astonishing ease, the same ease with which she started the pyre five years ago, Mani Gotovac has recently stated that she had nothing to do with Jagoda Buic's "case". True, cheap plaster of pathetic "patriotism" with which she and other "hunters" adorned the wall in front of the execution squad has cracked and fallen off a long time ago, but the leaden, heavy, poisonous, and mendacious word has remained behind.
They say that hundred times repeated lie becomes a truth. Goebbels knew about that; Croatian society of witch hunters knows that as well. And that kind of "truth" doesn't hurt. It kills.