Posted on 02/08/2009 12:26:55 PM PST by Ravnagora
From Iceland to Latvia, the growing financial crisis is triggering popular revolts. Several European governments are on the verge of being toppled. Yet, it is in the Balkans where the rising tide of discontent may have the most significant impact.
The bloody breakup of Yugoslavia left in its wake successor states - all of whom, with the exception of Slovenia, are mired in economic stagnation. The region's biggest disappointment, however, has been Croatia. It is now badly lagging behind its northern Slovene neighbor due to massive political corruption. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader vows to lead his country into the European Union by 2011. Instead, he has transformed Croatia into a mafia state. The government's incompetence threatens to push the country toward economic collapse. It's no wonder thousands of protesters took to the streets in December demanding early elections.
Since coming to power in 2003, Mr. Sanader and his ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) have presided over a creeping authoritarian kleptocracy. Bribery, kickbacks and cronyism are ubiquitous. Most senior politicians possess unexplained wealth. Mr. Sanader has amassed a personal fortune, including a Zagreb mansion worth about 10 million euros and a luxurious watch collection valued at 150,000 euros. This kind of wretched excess would cause even former disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to blush.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“... 500 Croatian Ustashi ... captured from 1946-1948 in Yugoslavia ... returned ___________
to start a rebellion against the communist regime”
Returned from what countries?
Domobran v. Ustasha BIG difference. Would you prefer to die of lung cancer or melanoma?
Dio said: “That’s precisely the point. Ravnagora for some reason decided to post a letter that once again brought up WW2.”
Dio, the “some reason” is the fact that the letter I posted by Rakic was sent to the Washington Times as a direct response to the Kuhner story “Balkan Basket Case”, the subject of this thread. I haven’t checked as of this time, but it will be interesting to see if the Washington Times prints Rakic’s letter.
By the way, World War Two is ALWAYS relevant when it comes to any discussion of Croatia, past or present.
Here is another letter, written by Mr. William Dorich, to The Washington Times, in response to Kuhner’s commentary “Balkan Basket Case”.
Dorich, “for some reason”, Dio, brings up World War Two Croatia as well.
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Letter to the Editor
The Washington Times
Dear Editor:
As a double victim of Genocide, I lost 17 members of my family who were burned to death in a Serbian church in the village of Vojnic, Croatia in 1941 at the hands of Catholic priests and their hateful followers. The late Franjo Tudjman, President of Croatia, had the ruins of that Serbian Orthodox church bulldozed in 1995. In August of that year, during Operation Storm when 200,000 Serbs were ‘ethnically cleansed’ from Croatia, the last 5 relatives of my name were too old and too sick to flee. I was notified a month later they were found with their throats slit.
Jeffery Kuhner is not so outspoken—his underhanded journalism exposes an eagerness to omit half of the story when it does not server his purpose. He never mentions a single word in his Washington Times articles about the successful Genocide of 1.2 million Serbs in Croatia from 1941-45, nor the nearly complete elimination of all Serbs from 1991-95. Such contempt for truth, equal rights and equal justice are further mocked by his style of omission journalism.
Kuhner’s remark: “Hundreds of thousands of Croatians were systematically butchered by Tito’s Partisans; priests, nuns and peasants were massacred; their lands were confiscated; and slave labor camps were established” would be laughable if it were not such an irresponsible lie. It is well documented that less than 60,000 Croats were killed, as the vast majority were Nazi collaborators.
What Kuhner has omitted here is that 740 Roman Catholic priests murdered Serbs and Jews with their own hands in the Holocaust then fled to Argentina to escape justice. Fr. Filipovich, a Catholic priest, ran the Jasenovac Concentration Camp where 700,000 Serbs, 40,000 Jews and 70,000 Roma were put to death. Tudjman had that camp and its adjoining museum bulldozed as well to destroy this evidence.
Mr. Kuhner reveals a selective memory, an outrageous double standard and a total lack of journalistic ethics. At least his family and relatives lived a full life, my were cut short in Croatian Genocide twice in my lifetime.
William Dorich
Los Angeles, CA
February 2009
The writer has written 5 books on Balkan history including “Serbian Genocide 1941-45,” co authored with the late David Martin and Michael Lees and his 1992 book, “Kosovo.”
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Dio said: “If you would like the actual sources, I am willing to provide all the documentation necessary on a new thread that will discuss Chetnik collaboration with the Nazis and Italians.”
Dio, I’ll be posting something in the coming few days that will be conducive to your idea here. I would absolutely be interested in seeing your documentation. I’ll “ping” you when the posting goes up.
Ravnagora
OH, is my face ever red!!! Theologian (and Emperor) Dio has made it all clear. “Independent” Croatia’s volunteers at Stalingrad were not card-carrying U-party members. The heroes of CRO’s Fightin’ 369th were Domobrani !!!... Wheew! Now the souls of the Russians murdered in their own homeland can at last rest in peace, knowing they were not killed by Ustashas.
Meanwhile, Dio, write to Branimir Glavas to tell to stop misusing the sacred U-word:
http://www.yidio.com/branimir-glavas-—hdz-ustasa/id/2976230262
The following was posted on “The Washington Times” website in response to the Kuhner article “Balkan Basket Case”. The writer, is appears, is a Croat from Croatia, “Glorija26”
“I just finished translating this for some people back home. Hopefully those who really need to be exposed to another side of reality will get a chance to read it. I would prefer to see more facts and less personal details, but nevertheless, this is something that deserves future attention by Croatian people and criminal justice system (assuming there is such thing in Croatia-I am not quite sure).
I can only speak for myself and I will. I decided to leave Croatia when I was 25 years old. I am 29 now and I do not regret my decision in any way, just the opposite-I am happy that I got out of there in time. Living in Croatia became terribly frustrating for me as my work in the private sector assumed that I needed government’s approval for certain things.
Once I realized that it was impossible to run a legitimate business without notorious blue envelopes (bribery), I realized that living in that system leads to nowhere. Subsequently, I moved to the US where I am enjoying the system that is significantly more transparent and less corrupt that Croatian.
This may not seem like a big deal, but I think that Croatians have gotten used to the status quo. I am still frustrated about the fact that young people have no perspective in the country that is run by corrupt, uneducated people. I have deep love for my homeland, but, at the same time, a lot of frustration due to thieves who are running the country into the ground.
My entire family is in Croatia, including my young brother and cousins who have no perspective. Their education might be free, but the education they get is inadequate and insufficient in comparison with any other western educational system. Teachers, classrooms, and books are outdated, but most of all, there are no jobs for college graduates. And those graduates lack many skills their counterparts in other parts of the world posses after graduating from college.
This is problematic and this is a reflection of the political and social culture in Croatia. Depression and suicide are widely present among young people, cafes are constantly full like somebody pointed out earlier. Busy people have no time to sit in a bar for hours every day. Unfortunately, Croatians have enough time because there is no work and there is no policy in place that is going to help out future generations.
Because of this, I welcome this article and I truly think that the time has come for Croatians to wake up to reality as opposed to living in a fantasy place where Croatia is a perfect utopia where nothing bad ever happens.”
February 10, 2009 at 6:54 p.m.
_http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/08/balkan-basket-case/
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Where are you getting this idea from?
How many is many, Dio?
In short, you're embellishing.
Abe Lincoln:
“if you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?
Opposing lawyer; “Five.”
Abe: “No, Four. Even if you call a dog’s tail a leg, it’s still a tail.”
Tell us where each fled, when & whither. Then tell us about Monsignor Krunoslav Draganovic’s Vatican Ratlines and the Ustasha, Ustashoid and German Nazis (Klaus Barbie, no?) that Padre Draganovic supplied with passports and money. How many of them? Where did the money come from?
Where did “Old Bloody” live in Rome? In the Croatian Seminary (Institute of St Jerome), no?
Tell us also about Monsignor Draganovic’s mission to the Dominican Republic for the Pentagon, to recruit Ustasha mercenaries in Argentina for dictator Trujillos’ Praetorian Guard. The mission was eventually aborted by some wiser head in DC, and Draganovic went back to Tito Yugoslavia. He lived happily ever after in communist Sarajevo, in a monastery, no?
Tailgunner Joe said: “Serbia has over 4 times as many muslim citizens as Croatia.”
This one really struck me. Considering the “genocide” that the Serbs allegedly perpetrated against the muslims of former Yugoslavia (i.e. read “Bosnia and Kosovo”) in the recent decades, you would think that the very LAST place any muslims would be hanging out in would be Serbia.
Speaks volumes.
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Maybe you Serbs should clean up your own back yard before you falsely accuse others of being islamified.
“like a snake you refuse to answer direct questions.”
Is Diocletian emulating Demosthenes here? Demosthenes practiced his speechifying with stones in his mouth. What is it that Dio has and where? — None of the snakes I’ve met talked. Eve reportedly conversed with one.
—hiss hiss.
Even the SS sometimes intervened to stop the CRO heroes from their sadistic, ritualistic slaughters. ... Dio, do tell Free Republicans the details of “Independent” CRO’s torture and butchery of Pavle Djurisic...
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