Club of Permanent Agents

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, November 23 1998

by Marinko Culic

Alas, such an idea could only be a product of the political biped, which puts on one shoe at the HDZ headquarters and the other one at the lunatic asylum in Vrapce! These days, overburdened HDZ-craftsmen in charge of intelligence and propaganda work have released into the public a filigree rumor that a coup has taken place (actually is taking place as we speak) in Croatia. The coup has allegedly been (check this out!) executed by the small but varied society of already known obscure individuals who initiated their anti-state and anti-Croat activities in 1994. Now, strengthened with new recruits they have entered the stage of a classic conspiracy.

After hearing this incredibly stupid assessment of the current political situation in Croatia, one cannot but wonder who is behind this rumor. Let us respond immediately: the source of the rumor is the Presidency of HDZ, namely the conclusions from the last Saturday's meeting of the Presidency! True, when these conclusions were published, including the already infamous claim that the six opposition parties are deliberately spreading "disorder, chaos, and political instability" (following the example of similar forces abroad) in order to force early elections, one could have given only general impressions. The most acceptable interpretation was that this was a new attack on the opposition. Its probable goal was to, rather than avoid early general elections, apply in them the same spectrum of obstruction and thievery used to rob the opposition of its victory in the local elections in Zagreb.

Important Interview

However, only a few days later, it became clear that the initial assessment was too optimistic as apparently something much more important had taken place at the mentioned meeting. The HDZ leadership put political "covers" on already finished and carefully developed plan for the destruction and extermination of the opposition, independent media, HDZ dissidents, banks not controlled by HDZ's acting capitalists... Tudman's closest collaborator, Ivic Pasalic spoke about that in his interview to Novi List. In the interview, he demonstrated a burning desire to prove wrong the supporters of the theory about the quiet state coup by the HDZ leadership (the theory has also been publicized on Feral's pages). Then, almost as if by chance, he mentioned that "there is evidence" of a conspiracy, but not in the state leadership. "Just the opposite".

According to Pasalic, there is a "plan" to discredit all the vital state institutions - the president of the Republic, army, police, Church, in order to force early elections, with the support from certain international factors,. Therefore, Pasalic has "all the evidence" that, if there is a conspiracy, the conspiracy is inspired by the opposition and has a backing from abroad and within the country. Thus, the opposition has grown from a tiny beast with small teeth into a huge monster with dangerous canines. However, these words are given their full meaning only in the context of the information obtained by Feral a day before in the conversation with the former Tudman's advisor for secret services, professor Ante Barisic. He confirmed the existence of a plan, prepared in the highest ranks of the state leadership, for the prevention of the alleged coup. The plan should be implemented in the near future, "by Christmas" at the latest.

Moreover, Barisic announced that according to that plan, the next issue of Imperijal [state-funded weekly tabloid] will contain documents which discredit Nacional. These documents will reveal that this weekly is nothing but a media outpost of "the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army". The following morning, when Feral's journalists opened the new issue of Imperijal they were convinced that the announcement by the professor, who obviously is not only well informed but also "produces events", was absolutely correct. Furthermore, once one carefully, with fingertips, flips through the pages of this disgusting "weekly", which until yesterday was literally a bulletin of secret military-police services, and now has been promoted into a samizdat of the highest ranking state officials, the plan for the whole action is revealed.

Forceful Action

The best name for the action would be "the preventive coup against a coup" and, synthesized from the material published in Imperijal and the information given to Feral by Barisic, the result is the following. In the nearest future, if it has not already, in Croatia a quiet and unconstitutional change of authorities, i.e. a "state coup", will take place. That action started in 1994 with the attempt by Mesic and Manolic to split HDZ, and continued even stronger with Sarinic's and Greguric's resignations from the party. This time the action has much wider scope and is better organized. Besides the six opposition parties, the conspiratorial cabal also includes independent media (specifically Nacional, but Pasalic also mentions Globus, Jutarnji List, Novi List and Feral Tribune), and leading officials at the electronic media outlets (specifically Ivica Vrkic [head of the state-controlled Croatian TV, HTV], but only as an instrument of Radomir Cacic [an opposition politician]?!).

The conspiracy is financed by a strong oil-tobacco-banking lobby, led by Sarinic and Greguric. Its tentacles cover the whole country (Neven Barac, Franjo Lukovic, Bozo Prka, Ivan Cermak, Ante Vlahovic, Kresimir Beno, Marko Marcinko...) and spread abroad (Boris Vukobrat, Goran Strok, Aleksandar Miso Broz, Vojko Santric, Vanja Spiljak...). The goal of the conspirators is to undermine the main institutions of the system, the Parliament and secret services [there are seven competing secret services in Croatia]. Then, an attack on the banking system (case Lepej) should undermine the economic stability of the country, and finally, through dirty international deals (Bouygues, Airbus...) destroy its reputation abroad.

To protect Croatia from all this evil the creators of the "preventive coup" demand forceful action, as indicated and announced by the HDZ presidency. The significance of the so-called crisis headquarters for banks is especially emphasized, as well as Tudman's words that "all those involved in suspicious dealings and abuse of office" should be punished. Briefly, some sort of a "clean hands" party-police action with the goal of bringing HDZ to its "fundamental values" from the First and Second Congresses (1990-1993) has been announced. If that is true, Manolics' frequent visits to the President's villa in Nazor street certainly play a role in all that. This partially redeemed [HDZ] dissident can offer service in many fields besides general political strategy.

Facing Abyss

He is recommended by his huge experience in media exploitation of journalistic clones such as Imperijal and in his activities aimed at the destruction of opposition parties. But there is a significant difference with the respect to the time when Manolic was an unofficial internal affairs minister for HDZ, and later when that role was taken by Ivic Pasalic and Hrvoje Sarinic. During Manolic's tenure there existed some sort of division of work between the state institutions and secret services, such that whole cohorts of spies ran all the time after those who corresponded to the description of enemies in Tudmans' hysterical lectures and speeches.

Now, however, even that simplest division of work has been abandoned, so that the state leadership is engaged in intelligence work. The leadership has become some sort of a spy monster which directly charges at the opposition puppets, made from red, yellow, green, and other rags. Sanguine charge by Drago Krpina on the father of "narco-democracy" Ivica Racan is definitely the silliest expression of that crusade with drawn spy clubs. However, Krpina's later demand that Racan be banned from running for political office, indicates that spies-amateurs from the state leadership must be taken seriously.

They will not bother with following and spying as their colleagues professional spies, who thereby only shamed and discredited themselves in the public. Instead, they will use ordinary slander and lies, because now the goal is not to find week spots of the opponents and keep them ill at ease, but to completely disable them in the fateful electoral race and post-electoral division of the winner's loot. In that context, the comical claim about the state coup by the opposition is the highest phase of the spying hysteria which has overcome the leadership of this state. The final result can be a brief "counter coup" by HDZ. However, in long term, this hysteria must end in a precipitous fall of a mad ruler who has finally gotten too close to the crumbling edge of an abyss.

Translated on 2/5/99