Dr. Radoslav Maric Responds to Julia Gorin

Dr. Maric's Responses are in Bold

When will world confront the undead of Croatia?

Croatia also faces the possibility of being excluded from the 2008 European soccer championship because when an Italian team's fans taunted the Croatian team's fans at a match in August by waving Yugoslavia's old communist flag, the other side took great offense and showed the competition what it was really made of: They formed a giant human swastika and gave Nazi salutes.

Croatian people have learned that only attention they can get from the Serbs and Serb-lovers in the "Western Democracies" is to remind them of the WW2. The International Community is so much set against Croatian Independence, that  even the soccer fans instantaneously were able to respond to Serbian provocation through the Italian Irredenta. They definitely could not expect a provocation by exposing hated Yugoslav flag in their faces. International Community  and the Serbs should have learned something from it.  

Old habits are hard to break. "In World War II, Hitler had no executioners more willing, no ally more passionate, than the fascists of Croatia," A. M. Rosenthal wrote in The New York Times in 1998. Mr. Rosenthal is a known Serb-lover, and will say or write anything to disgrace Croatian people. It is not even worth to try to teach him certain facts of Serbian or Croatian history. He is a Croat monger. I do not write to him for long time! waste of time and effort.  "They are returning, 50 years later, from what should have been their eternal grave, the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Western Allies who dug that grave with the bodies of their servicemen have the power to stop them, but do not." Western Allies had opportunity to open second front from the Croatian Adriatic with the help of the Croatian people in 1994, and enter Berlin probably before the Battle of Bulge had developed. It was the policies of Winston Churchill to preserve Yugoslav state, monarchy or communist, doesn't matter. Just imagine what would have happened if the Allies invaded Croatian Istria, instead of Marseille. How much easier Third Rich would have colapsed?

In 1995, The London Evening Standard's Edward Pearce wrote that "you can understand Croatia best by saying flatly that if there is one place in the world where a statue of Adolf Hitler would be revered, it would be Zagreb," Croatia's capital. That opinion is a pure schizophrenia, not a reality.

And The Washington Times reported: "A German tank rolls through a small village, and the peasants rush out, lining the road with their right arms raised in a Nazi salute as they chant, 'Heil Hitler.' Mobs chase minorities from their homes, kicking them and pelting them with eggs as they flee into the woods. Europe in the 1940s? No. Croatia in the 1990s." Come on, get serious. Where were German tanks in 1990's? By the time Yugoslavia fell apart in 1990's, the Germany was united, but the constitution had forbade her to send her army out of her borders. In order to fulfil her obligation to the Allies and UN to help peace in Bosna and Hercegovina, Germany had to amend the constitution. So, you tell me: how could "German tanks roll through a small village" in Croatia in 1990? Leave other nonsense esaid. 

"Serb-lover" is not good enough a term to describe your attitude towards the atrocities the Serbs have committed in 20th century. Such is a life! You must be the worse kind of Serb that consumes the oxygen. 

Last month Croatian TV broadcast video of a speech made 10 years ago by Stjepan Mesic, now Croatia's president. Mr. Mesic is seen saying, "This thing they're asking Croats to do: go kneel in [Croatian concentration camp] Jasenovac ... we have no reason to kneel anywhere. We Croats have won twice in World War II, while all the others did it only once. We won on April 10, when the Axis powers recognized Croatia's independence, and we won after the war since we once again found ourselves with the victors."

How can you be sure that Mr. Mesic did not repeat exactly what his "Western Allies" or his Russian instructors thought him to say. Many men in high positions in Croatian Government were opposed to Croatian Independence. The best tools to damage that effort was to celebrate NDH and her leader. Mr. Mesic had proved that million times over. You can take him out of Croatia and put him as a feather in your hat. That way he could have helped the delay in USA recognition of Croatia.

Such were the "allies" to whom retired American generals were dispatched in the 1990s to train against the Serbs and help restore Croatia to its Hitler-defined borders. On April 10, 1941 Hitler was against formation of Independent State of Croatia. He wanted to defeat Yugoslavia in its entirety. It was easier for him and his mighty army. But, by will of Croatian people he was faced with finished act of creation of NDH. You should know that NDH was proclaimed on April 6 in northwestern city of Cakovec, and second time on April 8, 1941 in city of Bjelovar (east of Zagreb). Only the third time (4/10) it took the hold, because colonel Dido Kvaternik got hold of microphones of Radio Zagreb, read his Proclamation of Independence. The whole world heard him! Mr. Mesic, actual President of the Republic, did not accept that fact, which he always points out in his speeches. If Stalin and Churchill did not have Tito to recreate Yugoslavia, Mr. Mesic would never be more than little peasant boy. He can be thankful to the TWO BIGGIES that he has privileges to serve as the Second President of the Republic of Croatia. It would have been nice if he really believed in it!  

(We later did the same for Kosovo, whose independence we continue to push for.) One has to wonder at the ubiquitous "Nazi" analogies hurled at the Serbs - the designated villains of the Balkans - considering that this analogy was started by a former Nazi state that in 1995 ethnically cleansed 350,000 Serbs and by its Muslim former apprentices who helped kill hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and other undesirables in 40 of Croatia's World War II concentration camps.

Ms. Julia, what kind of grass do you smoke? What 40 concentration camps? Can you list them and send it to me by e-mail, since I cannot get daily your news paper? Please!  Do you count to that Sajmis(h)te in Belgrad, where Serbs killed all their Jews by October 1941, and bragged about  it in an anti-mason's EXPO, as being the first one in Europe to finish with the Final Solution. Read the book Philip J. Cohen: "Serbia's Secret War", Texas A & M Un. Press, 1996, and then write about Croatia's undead on Serbia.

One has to wonder also because Croatia (along with Bosnia and Kosovo) hired American PR firms to make the analogy stick. Sure enough, our policymakers and our media - on the same page when it comes to the Balkans - bought it and recycled the propaganda to us, and continue to do so today. This despite the fact that our ally, President Franjo Tudjman - the "Father of Croatia" Franjo Tudjman did not start the war, did not send his police, military or paramilitary to Serbia to kill, burn, destroy, rape or do any of the atrocities your "nice guys, the Serbs" did. If Father of Croatia did not get mortally ill, and was able to serve his term, the situation in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and everywhere else on South East Europe would have been much more peaceful, and would not spread into a new disaster, as it seems to be going to happen again! Thanks to people like you, I must add! 

- was about to be hit with a war crimes indictment that was finally, slowly and quietly being prepared by the United Nations, allowing him to die a free man. (As was the case with wartime Bosnian-Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, a fundamentalist who asked to be buried "next to the martyrs.") What is this suppose to mean? Different kind of grass?

To placate the European powers, Croatia has finally apprehended two of its most notorious criminals from the Balkan wars, Ante Gotovina and Branimir Glavas - despite the move being very unpopular because, as with Bosnian and Albanian Serb-killers, Croatian Serb killers are national heroes. Do you really know if these two men are war criminals? How do you know that? Where are Serbian general Ratko Mladic, and his "civilian commander" Radovan Karadzic? What would you say if the situation was vice-versa? What would you say about the President of Croatia then? Whom do you work for, (nice) lady?

While to the world, "Serb" is synonymous with "war criminal," Croatians, Albanians and Bosnians accused of war crimes get acquitted, or get convicted and released to a hero's welcome, or go unpunished and pursue political careers, as is the case with indicted war criminal and Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku (and Ramush Haradinaj before him). All the while, we refuse to admit our 1990s alliance in Croatia with Nazi sympathizers, and in Bosnia and Kosovo with forces supplied and trained by al-Qaida, Iran and others. Whom do you mean by "our alliance". Do you mean the Government of USA? Are you saying that the USA government under Democrat President Bill Clinton was sympathizing with Nazi sympanthizers? Doesn't that make them Nazi like? How does that affect Senator Hillary Clinton's chances to win the nomination and election to the Presidency? Or do you believe that you can write what ever lie you could come out with, nobody is going to reed it anyway? As long as you can help the Serbs to do what ever they did in 20th century.  Biljana Plavsic, the second in command of all atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia is enjoying her "prison" in a hotel-like institution. Which Croatians "war criminals" got acquitted, or got released to a hero's welcome? About a month ago I was to Vitez, central Bosna, and met some of those people who were arrested, tried and found not guilty. That is not the same as we find here in America that some accused in a civil court and get vindicated. You should go to see those men, and their families. I wonder what your heart would be like after you learn the truth? Does the truth matter to you? 

A recent breakthrough occurred in October, when Zarko Puhovski, the Croatian president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, said on a radio program that war crimes in the Croatian town of Osijek are still unsolved because 1990s Croatia was a place where killing Serbs was normal. "In the first few years it was normal to kill Serbs, then it was normal to forget they had been killed, and now we finally talk about it," he said. Your beloved Zarko P. (obviously a Croatian name) was deep down commy before the fall of Berlin Wall or "velvet revolution". He should know that city of Osijek was under the siege in 1990's  for over 4 years, and shelled daily. It did not end as a victim as did city of Vokovar thanks to  general Glavas and people like him. How come you did not even mentioned Vukovar in your article? Those people were not killed  as Serbs, but rather as attackers, collaborators, informants of attackers, etc. If there was no war, those people would have had their jobs, collected their pay and lived better than us Croats who had to leave the country, so the Serbs could have their Greater Serbia.

The Serbs weren't angels, oh, You would agree, but they are the only Balkans players to have admitted as much and actively done something about it. Done what? Lost four wars, or five, if we count the Montenegreens who left the Serbs without a fight, since the Serbs have learned they would loose that one , too. The media, our policymakers and our filmmakers still refuse to take the messier but more accurate view of the Balkans. For it is the more daunting task, one that could force the realization that the Serbs weren't just fighting their enemies; they were fighting ours. Who are those "ours"? Nazism is not "part of the ugly past." It was not a bout of madness that has been straightened out. The undead are among us. ??? Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Christopher (defense secretary), will let you to continue. If you really wanted to know the truth about fascism in Croatia, you would have learned that even during NDH,  the fascist party was outlawed under order of Ante Pavelic. Only one Croatian student named Vladimir Lenac of Rijeka had joined the Serbian fascist party of Ljotic (who I think died in USA). Unless you want to call Croatian Communist (who kept the power even after the "Democratic changes", the fascists. In that case, I would not bother to argue. But you must be specific! Is Mr. Mesic fascist? If you think he is, you should tell him! Do not accuse the Croatian people of fascism.

Julia Gorin writes about the Balkans and serves on the advisory board of the newly formed American Council for Kosovo. Her e-mail is jegorin@erols.com.