Posted on 06/08/2005 10:45:34 AM PDT by dj_animal_2000
Dio, it's stories like that one -- and the villages I loved where the Croats and Serbs (and/or Hungarians) remained kind neighbours to each other -- that break my heart. It didn't have to turn out the way it did. There didn't have to be all that war and death and cruelty and dispossesion. It's like the crazy people won out somehow, at least for that time.
The "peace at any price" wackos are beginning to crawl out from under the rocks and make bleating noises here in the USA--they think that our Iraq and Afghanistan operations should never have happened.
I'm "nationalist" enough to give GWBush the benefit of the doubt.
(sigh) I think you are confusing nationalism with patriotism. I have a great deal of trouble with the former, none whatsoever with the latter.
An Irish Catholic Priest gets up in his pulpit in Chicago and preaches that the Polish are all scum and less than human in God's eyes, instead of preaching that these law-abiding Polish Americans should be treated with decency, as they are God's children, too, as well as loyal American citizens.
The Bishop (of Irish heritage) goes on Chicago television saying that maybe we can forgive the Lithuanian-Americans, but never the Polish Americans. Pronouncing collective guilt upon a group of one's own citizens because of their ethnicity, not their individual actions.
All this going on in the same city. That's how it was there. That is nationalism, not patriotism. (You can switch the Irish and the Polish around if you wish, it doesn't matter. Or it could Eskimos. The principle is the same.) That is what I am against.
I'm hardly one of those "peace at any price" morons. I do think the timing on Iraq was way off, though. Should have done it in '93.
Don't feign ignorance on this policy or what happened Diocletian you are too involved in the area not to know about this. This wasn't ethnic cleansing by the Serbs but purposeful cleansing - to shore up other areas by the Croats and started even before the war in Croatia 1990!
(Bolding mine):
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0503&L=justwatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=33610Is this cardinal amnesia that cardinal Puljic suffers from - a contagious thing? Has it been forgotten that this exodus of the Bosnian Croats began even before the war did in Bosnia-Herzegovina? All those 'apartment & houses swapping', silent ethnic rearrangement operations with the blessing of Tudjman and the Catholic Church? When cardinal Puljic is crunching his exodus numbers today, is he including all those Bosnian Croats who left Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990 and 1991, especially from what is today known as Republika Srpska, lured by the mighty 'One Nation - One Country' call from across the border? Anybody using 'ancestral homes' expressions back then was, in fact, considered anti-Croat, and 'constituent nation' expression was used almost exclusively to justify the creation of Herceg-Bosna and its aspirations to join greater Croatia. So when cardinal Puljic is using these expressions today to cry over the plight of the Bosnian Croats, without taking out the splinter from his eye first, it is in the most hypocritical manner. Today's plight of the Bosnian Croats does indeed have a lot to do with the policies of the Croatian government next door, past and present, as it is very easy to compare some other numbers, the numbers of zeros in sums of money Croatian government invests in Croatian communities, those in Herzegovina and those outside it. Mr. Barisic, please, take a look at those numbers, and see if you can find any related to a Croatian program of return or reconstruction in Republika Srpska:
http://www.vlada.hr/Download/2003/07/30/057-10_b.pdf. These official documents of the Croatian government can be found at this address, under a link that clearly reads 'financial support for Croatian minorities':
http://www.vlada.hr/Default.asp?ru=265&sid=&jezik=1. This year, Croatian programs and institutions in Mostar alone will receive Croatian government's support of close to a hundred million kunas,
http://www.fena.ba/rubrika.html?fena_id=FMO74253&rubrika=BH, a huge part of it going to the Mostar (Croatian) University, whereas I don't see any numbers dedicated to, for example, grants and stipends to Croatian students in Banja Luka or Sarajevo, something that would encourage them to study or plan a future closer to their ancestral homes.With respect,
Maja Lovrenovic, Bosnian Croat now living in Amsterdam
You do realize that Lovrenovic is part of the opposition to HDZ and therefore biased? I might as well used Natasha Kandic as an authority on Serbs.
Are you denying that Tudjman had a policy encouraging RS Croats to come to Croatia?
This Maja Lovrenovic has other posts which demonize Serbs, so she is not pro all Croatia's rivals. Natasa Kandic never demonizes Albanians, Croats nor Bosniaks.
The point is that the international community has not at all pressured the RS for return of Croats unlike Croatia has been pressured for return of Serbs. Puljic and Komarica often publicize this fact.
Do you recall the bombing of the newly built church in Derventa a few years back by Croats who attempted to return?
And for all the "pressure" Croatia is said to have, it doesn't really do much for the Serbs - most houses are still in complete ruins or occupied by Croats (some from Australia even), and Croatia have never been sanctioned or bombed by the US/NATO (unless you count the Serbs in Croatia). It has been treated VERY, VERY well in comparison to Serbia, and has always been given most-favored nation status, like all or about all the Balkans nations EXCEPT Serbia.
Thank you for agreeing with me on the issue of Croat returnees to RS.
Croatia doesn't seem all that interested in Croats returning to the RS where they'd be a small minority. It would mean thousands of Croats leaving Croatia or Hercegovian.
The population of the Municipality of Drvar in 1991, was 90% Serbian. Correct?
Dio: I've found all kinds of stuff on how the Croats rioted and burned houses and killed elderly Serb returnees in Drvar in '97 and '98, how the town fell to the Croats during the '95 offensive and how they took over the town and acted nasty ever since. (Yes, and how the Serbs DPs from Drvar in Derventa also acted nasty.)
But I distinctly remember the Croat refugees and I'm sure they were from Drvar. This was in mid to late August of 1995. They had to cross the river in boats to get away, and some were shot in progress by Serbs. There were official reports (UNHCR, etc.) about them and all, so I'm sure it was the truth and not some story the refugees made up (for anyone out there who will say so).
They were brought in Croat busses to Sector North, where they were dumped out in burning villages to more or less fend for themselves. It was terribly sad. They were pounding on the bus windows crying and begging to be taken away from there, taken anywhere but there, but I had no authority to do so. The town of Vrginmost was half in flames and the smoke was black and thick when the busses stopped there to dump them out.
I found some of them (about a dozen) sleeping on the floor of a kindergarten or elementary school (I'm not sure which it was anymore) in the village of Perna. All old grannies with no blankets and no food. (Yes, I gave them food and blankets.) And that village was burning, too.
Is it possible there are two (or more?) Drvars? And the refugees I remember were from another Drvar? Or? I always wondered whatever became of them all.
Oh, by the way, the thing I meant to post to you and forgot to say. Did you know Croatia is contribuing troops to UNMIS (UN Mission in the Sudan)? Now they get their turn at being "stupid unprofors". Poor guys. It's not easy being Blue.
Yeah, de Gaulle said it best: "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first".
97%
But I distinctly remember the Croat refugees and I'm sure they were from Drvar. This was in mid to late August of 1995. They had to cross the river in boats to get away, and some were shot in progress by Serbs. There were official reports (UNHCR, etc.) about them and all, so I'm sure it was the truth and not some story the refugees made up (for anyone out there who will say so).I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to here.
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