Croatia: Ustasa Symbols Ban

IWPR ^ | November 28, 2002 | Drago Hedl

[kosta50]

Questions raised over government plans to crackdown on those who glory in the country's fascist past.

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By Drago Hedl in Osijek (BCR No 386, 28-Nov-02)

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Moves by Ivica Racan's centre-left government to outlaw iconography glorifying Croatia's Second World War fascists are seen in many quarters as a cynical attempt to smooth Croatia's passage into the European Union

Draft laws will soon be presented to the Croatian parliament forbidding the display of symbols of the Ustasa, the pro-Nazi movement that governed Croatia under Axis protection from 1941 to 1945.

The proposed legislation is being presented as an attempt to combat a growing trend towards the public display of symbols and iconography lauding the bloodthirsty Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, NDH, and its dictator, or Poglavnik, Ante Pavelic.

But if the bill becomes law, analysts believe that the authorities are unlikely to enforce it, as this would lead to an open conflict with the radical right. The government's fear of such a clash has been very evident over its reluctance to extradite indicted Croatian army general Janko Bobetko whom nationalists consider a war hero.

Recent years have seen monuments and statues put up to celebrate the lives of Ustasa military commanders and the publication of pictures of Pavelic taking the Nazi salute. Ustasa songs are once more heard in sports stadiums and at pop concerts while market stalls sell a plethora of Ustasa T-shirts, badges, cigarette lighters and other NDH "souvenirs".

Such behaviour is to be outlawed by the proposed legislation - nicknamed the "law on de-Ustasa-ization" - which bans all acts or sale of merchandise "celebrating former fascist states or organisations".

Offenders caught publicly displaying "flags, badges, clothes, slogans, ways of salutation and other insignia of former fascist states" will be liable to the payment of fines and in more serious cases to jail terms of up to three years.

But even before the discussion has begun in parliament, the proposal has ignited a public furore, drawing criticism from legal specialists and right-wing politicians.

The former say it will be hard to put it into practice: that it will be virtually impossible to punish the hundreds of youngsters who turn up at pop concerts in black T-shirts decorated with the Ustasa "U" sign, let alone the thousands of football fans who sing Ustasa songs in the stands; and that attempts to prosecute offenders could trigger public demonstrations in support of Ustasa ideology.

Hard line right-wingers, meanwhile, have predictably countered with a demand for similar penalties for the display of Partisan and Communist symbols, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer-and-sickle and the singing of anti-fascist songs.

"These complaints are ridiculous," a well-known Zagreb intellectual, who wished to remain anonymous, told IWPR. "No one today in Croatia publicly displays the five-pointed star or the hammer-and-sickle, whereas there is a real flood of Ustasa symbols."

The centre-left government of prime minister Ivica Racan says the proposed law is based on the preamble to the Croatian constitution, which condemns the former NDH, and also mirrors the German penal code, which outlaws pro-Nazi demonstrations.

It says it was a response to appeals from human rights groups, various intellectual forums and independent media groups critical of the "re-Ustasa-ization" of Croatia under the government of former president Franjo Tudjman.

Tudjman's own position was, in fact, ambivalent. Though he fought against the NDH as a young man, as president he sometimes defended its legitimacy, describing Pavelic's Croatia as "not just a quisling creation, but also an expression of the centuries-old desire of the Croatian people for their own state".

Mirjana Kasapovic, professor of political sciences at the University of Zagreb, said the Communists vainly attempted to "de-Ustasa-ise" Croatia after the Second World War, attributing their failure to the fact that they merely replaced one undemocratic regime with another.

Analysts say the proposed legislation is little more than a cynical attempt by ministers to bolster their bid for European Union membership, as there's little evidence that they're prepared to take on the country's resurgent right-wingers.

[kosta50]

Well, the article is a few days behind schedule, but the issue at hand is quite current. It reaffirms that Croatians are in love with their fascist past. Not only that, but in their bizzarre "logic" they see their fascist mentality as good because, get this -- it's anti-communist! This is like saying that Nazi Germany wasn't all that bad because, after all, it considered communists as enemies. Duh!

It is no wonder to hear similar "logic" in arguments against extraditing general Bobetko to the Hague for his alleged war crimes responsibility in the wars of Yugoslav secession 1991-1995. Under his command, his officers and men, allegedely, committed war crimes. Bobetko failed to punish his suboridnates for that and is now being accused of "command responsibility" for that war crime. It happened on his watch and he did nothing to either stop it or punish it. Plain and simple.

The Croatians see it the other way: Croat troops were "fulfilling their constiuttional obligation," they argue, meaning they were tasked to assure integrity of the country's borders and territories. Yes, but in doing so, they allegedly executed 25 POWs, killed few dozen civilians, about 100 victims in all, and burned most of the houses in the Medak area.

In a recent article by the NY Times, the outrage the Croatians feel is that winning sides don't get accused of war crimes, and that "the Hague Tribunal was intended for Serbs." Brilliant! I am not surprized?

In fact, the right-wing nationalist element in Croatia is so strong that extraditing Bobetko would most probably bring down Croatian government.

Croatia's naziphilia has been ignored because Croatia was needed to fight those pesky Serbs. In doing so, Croatians got the idea that being on the "right side" also means a stamp of approval of their fascist mentality.

Why is it that every time we play these cards we end up delaing with the monsters we create -- Gen. Noriega, the Taliban, the Croatians, the Bosnian Islamicfundamentalists, the Kosovo Albanian sex-slave trader, and so on. They makes us look really bad even if what we are doing is good.

[kosta50]

...and all ye apologists

BUMP!

[ClearCase_guy]

"These complaints are ridiculous," a well-known Zagreb intellectual said

Oh, sure. These complaints are so ridiculous that the intellectual elite won't even think about banning the communist symbols! No need, my good man! But those anti-communist symbols ... why, they've just got to go!

And again we've got nazi collaborators = right-wing. Pet peeve of mine.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

So Croatia should just shove its first stint at independence down the Memory Hole? They are trying to do this to Slovakia too, with its 1939-1945 run at being its own country.

How do you think such a policy would go over in other countries? Like say France?

I'm still waiting for someone to call for the condemnation of France's fascistic regime under Napoleon and the bloodthirsty 1789 Revolutionaries as a price of admitting France is actually a civilized nation, and an end to things like the singing of the national anthem La Marseilles (sp?), which calls for preserving the purity of French blood from foreigners, and the glorification of the revolutionary cut-throats and the authoritarian warmonger dictator Napoleon.

Ain't going to happen! They have the example of Germany before them, the only country ever to renounce part of its past, and the Germans are constantly bombarded and bonked over the head with this same Nazi past that they have worked for 57 years putting behind them at every turn.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Aux armes citoyens!/Formez vos bataillons,/Marchons, marchons!/Qu'un sang impur/Abreuve nos sillons.

To arms, citizens!/Form up your battalions/Let us march, Let us march!/That their impure blood/Should water our fields

-La Marseillaise - National Anthem of France

[kosta50]

But those anti-communist symbols

Anti-communist symbols? They are not anti-communist, they are fascist symbols.

Oh, let me guess...you don't see the difference? Why am I not surprized?

[kosta50]

So Croatia should just shove its first stint at independence down the Memory Hole?

I suppose you think it should celebrate its racist, fascist character? really something to be proud of.

Let's see, it follows that nostalgic reasoning: "Well, they may be fascists, but they are our fascists!"

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Why not? France does, and the world applauds. Why the double standard?

[kosta50]

There is a difference between words and deeds, and timing such as between 18th century and 20th century.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

So its okay to celebrate mass killings from the 18th century and revel in a horid bloodthirsty revolution, but not to celebrate a nation's first attempt at independence because unsavory characters were involved who did bad things?

Some how, I'm missing the difference you are trying to make.

Its not like the Croatians are celebrating or making excuses for murdering Serbs and Jews or something. Unlike the partisans of Revolutionary France, or of "Republican" Spain who try to deny or justify their excesses.

I suppose you support banning the Confederate Flag too.

[kosta50]

Since you mentioning Croatian independence over and over, let me just say -- it was overdue. Yugoslavia was neither a happy nor a just solution. It should have never hapepened to begin with.

But there is a difference between soprting "U" leters on black t-shirts and celebrating Croatian indepenendence. Fascism and Croatian independence are not mutual; they should be mutually exclusive.

If Germans today tried to display swastika and erect monuments to Hitler, do you think anyone would believe it was a celebration of the Third Reich and not of its Nazi "unsavory characters," as you say, of Nazism itself?

Croatia is one thing. Ustasas and their symbols are coincidental but not synonimous. If you display Croatian national symbols (the flag, coat of arms, etc.) you are celebrating Croatia. If you display "U" on black t-shirts, you are celebrating the symbols of a fascist Croatian party, not of Croatia.

No one should object to Croatian symbols, but celebrtaing a fascist organization by displaying its leader, party's coat of arms, etc. is celebrating fascism, not Croatian independence.

The article pointed out that Croatians don't seem to differentiate between the two. A long as you don't, Croatians will be percieved as a people in love with its fasicst past.