used without permission, for "fair use" only

Hague Uber Alles!

by Zoran VUKMAN

Slobodna Dalmacija, Split, Croatia, September 18, 2000

Although both Mesic and Racan are these days swearing into state institutions and the rule of law, exactly the democratic mechanisms are the space of self-defense of their political opponents and those who disagree with them from every open repression by the authorities. If Racan had all the power in his hands, if he had the Communist party club from the eighties in his hands, without opposition, without some sort of a pluralistic system, we would have all most likely perished in a pogrom. Racan would have arrested all of us without exception. The Communist rage and abuse of Croats is today even more perverse because it is undertaken "in the name of national interests". One has to have both patience and dignity for all that, has to stoically bear all humiliations that this vassal regime will serve us with and prepare for a long and difficult political struggle.

Racan and his politbureau do not have nerve for a more subtle democratic battle, if only the dissatisfaction of Croats were again politically organized and inspired. Therefore, I claim that every street incident, either as a provoked reaction or a planned provocation, could cause a national catastrophe and open the space for a bloody showdown of the authorities with all those who disagree with Racan and Mesic. Communist crows in Racan's ranks have been itching to use their old police long-sticks for months, and have been demanding form Racan to take care of those who disagree with them, because they believe that to be in power is worthless if they cannot apply repressive measures used in the prison in Lepoglava or the Communist prison camp on the island of Goli Otok.

Connections With the IRA

Shameful arrests of Oreskovic and defenders from Gospic, attacks of masked special forces policemen and the oppressive atmosphere of a police state, are an even sadder expression of the new political reality in Croatia, because they are nothing but a part of a scenario obediently carried out by these authorities. One can recognize in those arrests the signature of the Hague strategy for a definite pacification of Croatia with the tendency of its conversion to a protectorate. The demoralization of Croats is full. A psychological war continues until the total destruction of national pride and dignity. Spectacular style of arrests conducted by special forces reminds one of brutal abductions of Croats conducted by SFOR special forces and, as of recently, by the phantom Federal special forces in central Bosnia and Mostar.

Such methodology of intimidation and demoralization clearly reminds one of British secret services that take creative credits for the Ahmici case. This resemblance is even more striking if one recalls that the action "Ahmici group - Gospic" was synchronized and that its methodology was very similar to the persecution and criminalization of Croats in central Bosnia. The pinnacle of all that is the story about connections between the IRA and weapons smugglers in Dobranja, let alone about alleged connections between the arrested General Andabak and the Irish Republican Army. Most likely someone had a special professional inspiration when he decided to connect the Croats and the IRA at the time when arrests of "war criminals" and "terrorists" have been planned for months.

Demonstration of Force

Everything is today much clearer. The series goes like this: the Stipetic scandal [alleged indictment of the Croatian Army Chief of Staff], Levar's murder and, finally, arrests. Who today even remembers Stipetic? The question of who killed Levar is even more important in this context because it is clear that it served as pretext for arrests, and not as a direct but more as a psychological pretext, because defenders from Gospic were not arrested because of that but because of alleged crimes against Serbs committed in 1991. These alleged crimes were committed against "unidentified Serbs" which gives the whole case a grotesque appearance from the legal and ethical point of view!? I charge that you killed someone, but we are yet to figure out whom! A true Stalinist legalistic miniature!

That means that a pretext for arrests and a staged process to Croat defenders had to be found! That pretext was also supposed to please the Hague Cyclops! Besides, how can they be arrested for Levar's murder if there is no evidence that they indeed did kill him? With equal confidence one can guess that Levar was killed by foreign intelligence services. If is obvious that the public had to be prepared for everything that is taking place and is yet to happen, because the ultimate goal of the persecutors are still Croat Generals form the Homeland War. Even the timing for the arrests was selected carefully. On the eve of the Olympic games, which always draw some of the attention from regular political events.

When all events on the relation The Hague-Zagreb-Gospic-Ahmici are put in the wider regional context, especially in the framework of the Stability Pact, then it is clear that Croatia's prospects, although adorned by pretty words about progress and integrations, are most definitely that of a Balkan servant. The theory that Croatia is not able to try war criminals is very poisonous and is actually a version of an ancient Greater Serbian theory that Croats are not able to have their own state.

In the context of the arrests of alleged perpetrators of crimes in Ahmici and a group of defenders from Gospic that discriminatory insult calls on the one hand for a demonstration of force by the Racan-Mesic regime in their diligent striving to prove that the authorities are after all capable of that, while on the other hand a sort of a protectorate over Croatia, which by definition comes out of the Hague suspension of Croatian judicial sovereignty, opens the path to the liberation from all other sovereignty. The denationalization that has been prepared for us by the American power can be worse than any we've experienced in our history! All that is an introduction in the colonization and devastation of Croatia.

The announcement that as many as 150 American multinational companies are preparing an invasion on this region sounds horrendous. This people will be transformed to a cheap workforce. Besides, who today cares about workers. While the workers were needed as a force for the overthrow of the previous authorities, everyone was sensitive to social problems. Now, when the Racan's government kicks out on the street 2,500 Diokom employees, then there is neither media nor political social sensitivity. Pragmatically viewed, they are not useful any more. Because - The Hague uber alles! Everything is simply ideology. Conquistadors want our souls. And you keep dreaming about the globalized world.

Translated on December 15, 2000