Croatia was liberated in 1995, not 1945

Of all the cardinal errors that can be found in the analysis of Croatian political history, there is one that stands out in particular. Since the creation of the artificial Yugoslav Kingdom of 1918, up until communist-Yugoslavia Two’s bloody collapse in 1990, historians, politicians and journalists have regularly ignored the fact that Croatia’s Serbian minority traditionally rejected Croatia’s right to independence, and was always diametrically opposed to the God-given rights and wishes of the Croatian people. Refusing to take this fact in account, countless columns, books and encyclopedia entries have been written, intentionally or not, with the purpose of discrediting Croatia’s legitimate political claim to independence. Croatia’s Serbs, whether in 1918, 1941, 1945, or 1991, were consistently opposed to Croatian statehood. Boljkovac, intentionally ignoring this fact, makes his pro-Serbian boasts at a critical point in Croatia’s history. The orchestrated revision of Croatia’s recent history, marked by the Homeland War; an ideological-free endeavor for national liberation and statehood led by the late President, Franjo Tudjman, reigns. In spite of all this, Croatia’s general, the ICTY indicted, General Ante Gotovina, in a last ditch effort to salvage Croatian history and dignity with his refusal to surrender, reminds Croatians that their land, nation and political history was liberated in 1995, not 1945.

Have it your way. “Anti-fascists,” bearded or shaved

Why are Boljkovac’s words so hurtful? Croatians have fresh in their memories that the descendants of Serbian communist-Partizans, holding true to the tradition of their ancestors, shelled, tortured and maimed Croatian citizens in the early 1990’s. Conducting their quest for a Greater-Serbia, whether under the bloody red-star of Tito’s Yugoslavia or Serbian King Alexander’s coat of arms, the result was the same. Murdered Croatians. In 1945, Croatia was liberated of the Nazis and the staunchly nationalist WW2 regime of the Ustashe. The short-lived Independent State of Croatia, erected in 1941, was no more. Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, etc; regardless of their openly fascist and quisling regimes, all preserved their national statehoods. Croatia, as history and Tito’s partisans would have it, was not so lucky. Although Croatia lost her sovereignty 800 years ago, her political legitimacy and continuity as a legal subject was never broken or interrupted. She preserved her statehood throughout the suzerainty of the Austro-Hungarian, Venetian and Ottoman empires. Mr. Boljkovac, like his anti-Croatian ilk, ignores these facts. It was Franjo Tudjman who led the Croatian nation in a fight for independence that meant having to forcefully deal with the hostile Serbian population that has for the last 150 years been the instrument for Belgrade’s expansionist and imperialist aims for a Greater Serbia. Mr. Boljkovac, like Josip Manolic, Stipe Mesic and Ivica Racan, shadowed by Tudjman’s legacy, hate Tudjman. They will stop at nothing in their quest to ravage his memory, even if it means destroying the most obvious success – Croatian statehood.

Across the Drina in Serbia, the monarcho-fascist WW2 cetnik movement has been fully rehabilitated in a nation-wide and state-sponsored celebration of what the British once described as a wandering circus-act of cold-blooded murderers with beards reaching to their bellies. During the Homeland War of 1991-1995, brave Croatian soldiers fought against, and triumphantly expelled the descendents of those very same barbarians, the self-proclaimed cetniks of the 1990s, led by Milosevic, Mladic, Karadzic, Arkan and Seselj. History, like they say, repeats itself. For the cetniks, having murdered 8,000 innocent Croatian civilians, occupying 1/3 of Croatian territory, were all the while openly backed by the Yugoslav National Army; the infamous JNA. At a time in which Croatians are once again defending their national rights and dignity, Boljkovac’s words, hurtful as they may be, prove to us that Tito’s bloody Yugoslavia was Serbian-dominated. In Serbia the cetniks wear beards. In the present-day de-Tudjmanized (de-Croatized) Croatia, Boljkovac and his “anti-fascists” provide them with razors and Tito’s red star.