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A MESSAGE FROM MICHAET
LEES
Deliaered at the Dedication of a Plaque to General Draza Mihailooic, Birmingham, England, October 22, 1991
I have just returned from the Serbian autonomous territory of Krajina, where I visited the front line positions near Knin. I would like to pass the following message to the Serbs of North America. I have prepared a speech to be read at a meeting in Birmingham, England where a plaque is being erected to the memory of that great Serb, Draza Mihailovic. \Atrhile certain historians and government bureaucrats have altered historical facts to suit their own ideology, my personal experience with this great leader was that of a concerned individual who was willing to make every sacrifice for democracy and freedom. I am grateful to be a participant in his recognition.
Allow me to applaud your action in erecting a monument to General Draza Mihailovic. Recognition of the heroism, patriotism, and total self-sacrifice of Cica Draza is long overdue. I am huppy to tell you the truth of what happened in 1943 - 45. The truth of the British betrayal of the Serbian Loyalists is now known in Belgrade and
will - I
am confident - soon become the generally recognized version of history
replacing the old false Titoist mythology which has dominated for 45 sad years. Tell a lie 100 times and it becomes the truth. Those Titoist lies, supported by Tito's dupes overseas, have become received wisdom and holy writ for two generations. But the Titoist confidence trick is collapsing totally at astonishing speed, thus proving that the grotesque edifice he erected was built on sand.
We must, however, not now dwe1l on the past. Whilst finalizing the restoration of a true perspective to history, we must learn the lessons it teaches us - and we must learn urgently, today, this very hour, because the Serbian nation is threatened
with another betrayal. Tito bamboozled Churchill through brilliant disinformation. The Ustasa backers of the new lndependent State of Croatia are trying to do the same to
the Western World. The Serb communities, the Serbian Lands claimed by Croatia, need our support. We need to put a stop to a second betrayal. Contact your members of Parliament, tell them that the 600,000 Serbs in the areas falsely claimed by Tudiman must not be abandoned to harassment, racial discrimination and expulsion from the lands where they have lived for 1,000 years. The Croats, with their racial purity policy, inspired by Hitler and Pavelic, have proved themselves unfit to rule any other people. Let them have their state Let them go and qJ .w e, !
*
take their nasty habits and hate with them. But, the Serbian lands must be controlled by Serbs. They will be controlled by Serbs because the Serbs, traumatized by the 7941-45 genocide and by the vicious recent attacks on them, will fight, if they have to, in the woods and the mountains as they fought for the allies in 1914-18 and again as our most loyal and brave ally n1941.- 45.
The European Community, the USA, and perhaps, the United Nations are assuming responsibilities with Serbian Orthodox Church in Banja Luka destroyed to its foundations.
inadequate understanding of the consequences and are being influenced by 1ies, as was Churchill rn7943. Speak up for the Serbs in their lands and tell the world it is playing with fire. it
is now not a question of economic links or governmental forms for successor states in Yugoslavia. The issue is simple. Keep it simple. The Serbs in their lands in Croatia must never again be left to the nonexistent mercies of another people - a people that regard Serbs as Hitler regarded the jews. Write to your members of Parliament now! Draza Mihailovic was a great Serb. He was a great Yugoslav too and, had we not betrayed him, I believe Yugoslavia could have become a harmonious state. I would love to see Yugoslavia come tegether again. SAVE OUR SERBS! But the immediate task is S.O.S.
-
ItllCHAtL [[[S was one of the British liaison officers dropped by the special forces into Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in1943. From his unique position inside the war-torn country, and a year spent with the resistance fighters of General Mihailovic, Michael Lees witnessed an inexplicable change in the character of Allied support: promises to Mihaliovic of vital arms and supplies were not kept; scheduled sabotage actions were abruptly canceled by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Cairo; eventually Mihailovic himself was completely abandoned. The full explanation for this betrayal of Mihailovic lay hidder; however, until the mid-1980's, when Lees was led to a cache of secret service files mistakenly declassified. These files, examined in light of his own wartime experiences, enabled him to complete his book The Rape of Serbia, a taTe of perfid1.. He nor'r- believes that lt'inston Churchill's decision to abandon Mihailovic and throw support to Tito was largely the result of disinformation spread by British Communists and sympathizers in the secret services and other agencies, which was endorsed by the reports and enthusiastic recommendation of British officers who had been duped by Tito himsel{. Michael Lees is the author of Special Operations Executed, an account of his experiences as a special forces officer in the Balkans and Northern Italy during World War IL He and his wife-who also served in SOE-in Dorset, England, now live and farm in County Cork, Ireland. In Oclober,1991 he spent time in Belgrade, Montenegro, Knin,
Krajina and in territory in Bosnia. In Knin he presented a one hour broadcast on Knin free radio interviewed by the minister of Informatiory Lazar Macura. He also spent considerable time at the front line with the commanding officers in the Krajina. The Serbian people o{ the world indeed owe a debt of gratitude to this non-Serb who has made a valuable contribution to the Serbian community. He has brought truth to oul despair, and he has validated our belief in the wrong done to us by the Nationalist Croatians and by outsiders who exerted control over the lives oI Serbian people and their government.
THE USTASHI MASSACRES by Daaid
Martin
I am grateful for this opportunity to join the Serbian people of the United States in commemorating the hundreds of thousands of Serbs who fell victim to the unspeakable horror of the Ustashi massacres. The exact number of Serbs who died in this holocaust may never be known. On this 50th anniversary of the genocide which took place in1941in the Independent State of Croatia and as the world is again witness to a civil war between Croats and Serbs in Yugoslavia, I extend to everyone in the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America, my heartfelt concerns {or the Serbian people. The following text is a condensed version of chapter seven in my book, The Web of Disinformation, supported
by documentation, inadvertently declassified from
the secret files of British intelligence, along with my personal research on the subject.
This information is very appropriate today. Josip Broz Tito postponed his bid for power until he could enlist the support of certain emigre politicians, the more impressionable sectors of the British and American press, and persuadable elements in the British Foreign office. In achieving these objectives, Tito and his helpers in British intelligence, from James Klugmann down, were aided in many ways by the Ustashi massacres. Knowing that they could never purchase the support of the Serbs, the Nazis exerted themselves to purchase that of the Croats. The first act of the Nazi occupiers was to set up the Independent State of Croatia, with its territories enlarged to include the mainly Serbian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the districts of Srem and Lika. Of the totai population of some 6 million in the Independent State of Croatia, almost a third were Serbs. The Ustashi massacres took place on the heels of the German occupation. The news reached the Allied world that there had been extensive massacres of the Serbian minority in the newly created Independent State. The perpetrators were the Ustashi militia of the quisling Croat fuehrer, Ante Pavelic. Initial reports claimed that 150,000 Serbs had been massacred; while arriving reports claimed 600,000 were killed. A11 reports were replete with details of such psychopathic fiendishness that on first reading they seemed almost absurd. The facts of the massacres would indeed be incredible if they had not been authenticated from so many different sources, including photographic evidence by the Ustashi themselves, as such evidence was one sure way of receiving Pavelic's approval and elevation to higher rank within the Ustashi militia. In quantity the Ustashi massacres rivaled the rvorst of the Nazi crimes, and for sheer cruelty they
surpassed anvthing that Himmler ever der-ised. This
militia bore the
same
relationship to the Croatian armv as the German SS Cuard bore to the Wehrmacht. Its personnel lvere recruited from the most viciouslv anti-Serb and most depraved and sadistic elements in Croatia. Inbued'rr-ith the Nazi approach to the problem of ethnic minorities and ethnic purit]-, the Ustashi cold-bloodedly adopted a program calling for the liquidation of the Serbian people in Pavelic's New Croatia State.
Numerous reports of entire Serbian communities being locked in their churches and burned alive and reports that the Ustashi were adorning themselves with necklaces made of Serbian eyes were so horrible that one simply cannot blame the civilized Western World for initially disbelieving them. It must be stressed that only a minority of the Croat people were actively involved in the massacres. But the news of the Ustashi massacres, following hard on the German invasion, created
bitterness in the most moderate of serb hearts, and from the less moderate hearts hatred poured over with volcanic fury. For many months
Croatians were inclined to deny that the massacres had taken place. some of them even -urt ,o ?u. as to suggest that the whole story was a Gestapo frame-up aimSf at dividing the yugosrav a"J, r,u.,i.,g committed themselves to this oosition, they weie .o-pJil"d i!rpr". bf a ,ril further. vwren letters substantiatiirg the were reieived frori a prominent Croat politician, the letters were suppressed. \A/hen a Croat businessman arrived in London bringing with him u.r account of what il-hilft;d, his account, too, "y"*itn"ss was suppressed.
p;i;
origiir"i;:il;
fl
I^/hen, at last, it was no longer possible to deny that the massacres had taken place, it became customary to accusi tG serbs
ruy simply that "brothers were killing biothers." "serbs were "f.;*;ti";;or,o killii"g Crou%)-u.a ,,Croats were killing serbs." After neirly two years delay, some of thJCroat poriticians got around to denourrcing the Ustashi *airu.rer. nut by this time hu;H;;, of thousands of serbs had perished, it was too late to make an impression on the embittered Serbs.
no one denies that the massacres did take place. It is of interest to note -fduy that in The Yugoslaa elorteg to Liae Tito states that ,,during three month s of 1941, with the aid of the ustashi,lig]tt ihe Nazis succeeded in extermin-ating million serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, il t;iliiu:;t'ua more than half a the Croatian members of the yugosrav government i"n exire i--uailt"r/ rJiaurir"a themserves with the serbs when the fict of the massacres was established, broadcasted this yugoslavia knowledge to condemning the Ustashi u"d .rr" to give every assistance to their serb 6rothers, and orgariil"a u of protest,
utt;;l"Jl"
C."rG;i;
even the most embittered serb nationalist would h"ave felt "u-puign display of brotherlv fellowship and sympathy. tnrtuuJ,-ti"y s;titrra" for such a i"-"i""d silent, and their silence was inierpreted as
acquie##;.
The serb cabinet ministers,urged that the government address
an immediate appeal to w.orrd opinion in order"to stop thJ whatever -"rru.r"r,-making reservations it considereg as to the details or tt on the -e*orandum massacres submitted by thery.:r.ru.y " Serbian-Orthodox Church. The Croat ministers took the stand that until confirmation was received, the memora.a"nua to be considered susPect' The Croatian,ministers in the Yugoslav govemm""ralso refused to permit publication or dishibution of these ilports. ""1"
Dr. Grga Andjelinovic was perhaps the most notabre Croat and did speak of the massacres over the'BBC, condemnilg the Ustashi rnrrau.".r-ur.rJ offering the serb people sympathy. But Juraj Kmjevic, Jiraj sutej, and
r"u" s,ruuri., the
recognized leaders in exile of the Croat Peasant Rarty, iemalned silent. whenever the subject was touched upon in London, they spoke nof of ,,massacres,, but of ,,fratricidal strife.,, The Roman Catholic Croatian hierarchy failed to live
up to the requirements offieir.calling. Archbishop stepinac of Zagreb'aiiil d"i""d;i, s"ay ttrat he was nor a Croatian extremist buta moderate who, i a youthful_y"g;ri;;id"alist, had fought as a volunteer with the Serbian army on the Salonika f.r"? i" w;d war I. on the
|osip Bmz
Tib
Dreza
lfiheilovic
Wiuton Churchill
fames Klugmann
other hand, there were many moderate serbs and even moderate Croats who believed that Stepinac had not gone far enough in opposing Ustashi excesses and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile such acts with the fact that he served as vicar-general of the Ustashi forces.
It is incontestable that the Partisans owed much of their early accretion of strength, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily to the Ustashi it was - for by from the tens of thousands of Serbian peasants driven into the mountains the Ustashi massacres and prepared to grasp at any leadership offered to them that the Partisans recruited a large part of their following. Fearing a Serb vengeance-and there were a number of instances of Serb vengeance-many thousands of Croats who themselves had no part in the massacres turned to Tito. This was especially true following the Italian capitulation in September 1943. As a fellow Croat, they reaioned, Tito would protect them from Mihailovic, whom Partisan propaganda cleverly and unscrupulously depicted as the bearer of Serb vengeance. The Partisans not only did their best to promote the fear of vengeance but, taking advantage of the situation, accepted into their ranks thousands of Ustashi, officers and soldiers, whose mere action in joining the Partisans miraculously transformed them from fascist butchers
into progressive humanitarians. There were repeated protests about this situation from British and American officers with Mihailovic. Many of the men who joined Tito had betrayed Yugoslavia at the time of the German invasion, had fought with the Nazis on the Russian front and had been decorated by both Hitler and Pavelic. All this was something that Mihailovic and his followers found repugnant and utterly incomprehensible. Mihailovic had never abandoned hope for a reborn Yugoslavia after the war-he referred to his army always as the "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland." He had also taken the stand that only the guilty would be punished for the Ustashi massacres. In line with these atLitudes, he did appeal to the Croatian domobranci, or home guard, to come over to his side. But he refused to appeal to the Ustashi as a matter of principle. In the eyes of
Mihailovic and his followers, there could be only one reward for the Ustashi murderers, especially for their officers-immediate execution. They took this stand because it was the Ustashi movement that had acted as Hitler's fifth column during the invasion of Yugoslavia; it was the Ustashi militia that was responsible for the terrible massacres of 7947; and it was from the ranks of the Ustashi that most of the volunteers for the Croat contingents on the Russian front came. For such men, said Mihailovic and his followers, there could be no forgiveness and no redemption. The Partisans made much of the fact that certain Serb formations claiming to be under the command of Mihailovic took vengeance for the Ustashi massacres by staging countermassacres of Croat and Moslem communities. It is true that such
countermassacres did take place. But, rather than condone or encourage them, Mihailovic did everything in his power to prevent them, and otherwise to curb the extremists. The task was not an easy one. Serb fathers whose children had been killed before their eyes by the ustashi were not inclined to listen to arguments distinguishing between Ustashi and Croats; the Croats had killed their children, they would kill Croats. Though Partisan propaganda did its best to convey the impression that Mihailovic's followers were fanatical pan-Serbians perennially thirsting for Croat blood, Mihailovic's stand always was that Yugoslavia must be re-constituted, and that only the guilty would be held to account for the massacres. Mihailovic, at his bitterest, spoke thus of the problem: "I am often asked, am I
for serbia or for Yugoslavia? If you ask my heart, it will answer: I am for a great and powerful Serbia; but if my reason, I would answer that the Serbs have made many sacrifices for Yugoslavia in two wars, but never have the Croats shown the least gratitude . . . Th"]- (the Serbs) rvould have the right to say: We no longer want Yugoslavia. But tlrere are higtrer inErests which compel us to remake this count{r . . ." For some time after the uusr;rcres Mihailovic's heart had the upper hand over
his head. Though he refused to listen to the urgings of the ultranationalists who demanded a complebe break with the Yugoslav ideal, whenever he was called upon to
speak,
it was serbia that
came first, and when he brought in yugoslavia, it was ugui*i hi, h"urr. on December rs, lg+5, Mihairovic was saint, saint Nicholas. The festivar was-attendedcelebrating the feast of his patron bt;"p;;3"r,iutirre, from all ovel Yugoslavia. In a speech derivereJ ui ti.," tu.,.n"".,'vru.Ji*i.'p."auuu., as a Croat participant, said the following: obvious that he was speaking
,,. . . As a Croat, I thank you, General M.ihailovic, for your three great achievements. Firstly, for haui.g prese*ed.the yugoslav,ia"rfru"_.rg the Serbs even after it h_ad been stained b"y'the blood of zoolooo s".o ."rro *"." slain by the ustashi terrorists. i, *"r -iriy., y." who had the boldness to hoist the Yugoslav colours at Ravna coru u,.,aur ihe most difficult circumstances, and at a time when many serbs thought thai reconciliation couri o. possible between them and the Croat"s. Seconaly,,fo. ^""*to preach the ha_ving refused principle of vengeance against the Croats, demanding instead the punishment only of those who wereluilty oi the c.i-e, taken' in the name or ai-t trre vujortur,r, commiited. Thirdly, for having an energetic attitude 'r.i, to defend against dictatorship of r.i"a, ,n" right or ilT:rTTr
"i{
,^"*"i ii.l,i"
while the representatives of the Croat people in London were turning against Mihairovic as "the national oi tr'" Croat peopte,,,a parallel development was taking-.plu"" il;;;l;;;-r;la "n*-y ; rh" ;.,.trh i'J."ig' office. rn a' good faith
the Foreign oJfice berieved that the accounts were grossry exaggerated' It was still early in the war, the facts of B"lr;"J"Auschwitz
,;;;;;;rrcres
had not yet been estabrished, and io tne e"!io-su*or., incredible that Croat fascists could have"massacred -"-n-t'u"t:rfifr""_"d artogether 600,000 serbs in cord blood.
one other factor entered into
attitude
of the British Foreign office. Having helped to bring together the south slav peoples after world war I, certain of the Foreign office experts were not disposed to ,i"" t'ru, ,ruiy jirirpr"a. It was on t1re soit of this anripathy-to Mihaito;i. tnri'ir,l,"ij, the_
propaganda to the British and Croatial.peopleg, ";;'rh";"ru, "il.,s in particular, took root. witr,rn British intelligence, some were pro-Tito, oir ia"oroji.al grounds,-;a;;l".u.rse they were caught up in the epidemicrnania of p.o-TrtoiJ-, ,tirio;h;;;"because rhey were victims of disinformation. The forcus'f.o* within found ii .u."rrury to weaken whatever influence Mihailovic strtt retaineJ by means .""..plrgn of carumny and minimization, in which the charge or .orJoiitioil;y;'o;Hi;T "r " rore. Concomitant with this, it was necessary to ionvince theBritish government that Tito had the Yugoslav peoples behind him. Finalry, ,i".u ttu g;;;;;.;d;rty oJBruish officials who were anti-Mihailovic were at the sime time aiti-Co-*rrr,'rri, it-*u, necessary to assure them that the partisan rrro.r"-"rrt was not a Communist but a national movement, that Tito had no intention of introducing" s.;*;;-", u.a that he was quite prepared to collaborate in u gorr".rr-"rrt with"certain ,r.roBl".tio.ruble members of other parties. Tito gave Churchil rur.uq"rrrt";;;;;:J';:=ihurchi, took him at his word, even though there was r-;l; evidence avairabil wittrout access to wartime inte'igence, thit Tito's -orr"-"'r,t fr.;ih; b;ffi* until the end was neither national nor democratic.
This is the story :?l: plaved bv the Ustashi massacres in Tito,s rise to "f llr" power. In commemorating the soth'annrtersarv of these gtorlirh it would be well to reca[-kpeciary t" th; riti;; -ussacres, I think il;.:r#t ug. rit.,ution_that the existing frontiers of the itate c.outiu *ere arbitarity by Tito, a totalitarian dictator. It wo,Id be bad-enoulh "i "riuBIirn"d rit}," ,.,rv pr"oi".i of the fact -L"t that President slobodan Milosevic s..uiu-i, still a io'mm"rriri.-""r,rted it would arso be well to recalr that the.possibility"roi p"*"r"r solution ,itil yugosrav problem has been rendered infiniiely " airri.'Ji uy tn" d".i;i; oi-c.ou6u. president Franjo Tudjman, a former Tito'''o.6 generar, to uaopt a- flag for r,i, ;ir",a"p"r,dent state of Croatia" modered verycrosei-y urt". *,"-ur'tusni r?ag w'ti"n fr"riaed over the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbians.
DAVID ttlARTlN has
had a distinguished
career as a journalist, political analyst, organizer of humanitarian and anti_
totalitarian causes, and as a staffer on the Senate fudiciary Committee. Mr. Martin was the organizer and executive director of the Committee for a Fair Trial for General Draza Mihailovic. Included on that committee were: Arthur Garfield Hays, head of the American Civil Liberties Union; The Honorable Charles poletti, former
governor of New York; Adolf A. Berle, Jr., former assistant secretary of state; and Theodore Kiendl, an eminent Wall Street llwyer. The committee gathered testimony of the American officers who had been attached to Mihailovic and of the more than 500 American airman who had been rescued by Mihailovic . Despite representations to the contrary by the U.S. State Department, this testimony had been specifically refused by the Belgrade court. InThe Web of Disinfotmation: Churchill,s Yugoslao Blunde4 David Martin details the greatest allied blunder of World War II which occurred not in any of the famous theaters of battle but at the bottom of Europe, in Yugoslavia. In December 1943 Winston Churchill made the fateful decision to abandon the pro-Democratic national resistance army in Axis-occupied yugoslavia and to support instead the Communiit guerrilla forces and their leader, fosip Broz Tito. The consequences of this choicl were profound and far-reaching. Tito took the weapons supplied by the Allies. Some were used against the Germans, but the greater part were used against his own countrymen, especially the pro-Western resistance forces led by GeneralDraza Mihailovic. When the war was over, Tito was in power and Yugoslavia firmly in place as a strategic part of the Communist bloc. David Martin, the world,s foremost scholar on the subiect, fully uncovered the tragic tale in secret British files that were only recently inadvertently declassified. He reveals that the Yugoslavs and their proWestern forces were betrayed and thit Churchill, and others, were quite simply deceived-by Communist moles and sympathizers who had infiltrated the military intelligence services. The prime mover behind the entire effort was a rnember of the famous Cambridge spy set that included Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and
Anthony Blunt. Martin names this,,fifth man" and reveals his conspiracy and its devastating success; that man was |ames
Klugmanrl by all accounts the most brilliant
and enterprising mole of them all. Mr. Martin is the author of two previous books about Draza Mihailovic Ally Eetuayeit and Patriot or Traitor: The Case ofbenetai Mihailovich- Mr. Martin and his wife
currently live in Arlingtory Virginia.
SETO DRAKUTIC FEBRUARY
7, Ig42
The Ustashi, under the leadership of Franciscan priest, Fr. Miroslav Majstorovic killed 2,300 adults and 550 children. Prior to killing the adults, unborn children were violently cut from their mothers' womb and slaughtered. Of the remaining children in the village, all under the age of 12, the Ustashi brutally removed arms, legs, noses, ears, and genitals. Young girls were raped and killed, while their families were forced to witness the violation and carnage. The most grotesque torture of all was the decapitation of children, their heads thrown into the laps of their mothers, who were themselves then killed.
THE CASE TOR IHE SERBS by Michael Mennard
Stephen Sestanovich's article "The Diplomatic Mistake That Made Yugoslavia" $uly Foreign Seruice lournal, pp. 11,-\2) offers a comprehensive picture of the messy Yugoslav situation, a thankless job, to say the least. Unfortunately, the article fails to explain why Yugoslavia's first incamation, established in 1918 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, was such a failure after only 23 years. Instead, the story revolves around the bullying Serbs on the one hand and the poor, suffering Croatians and other Yugoslav ethnic groups on the other. But the problem is not so simple. Ploin 0ld Notionolism The conflict between the Croats and the Serbs is often presented as a confrontation between the struggling, embattled, democratic forces of freedomloving and pro-Western Croatians against the Communist, totalitarian, imperialistic, and Byzantine Serbs. It is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is the plain, old struggle known in history as Balkan nationalism. Few people remember that the Serbs were faithful allies of the United States in two World Wars, while the "Western-oriented" Croatians were fighting on the side either of Austria-Hungary or Nazi Germany. The Nazi puppet, the Independent State of Croatia, even found it necessary to declare
war on the United States, a declaration that was never repealed. The Serbs and the Croats lived for centuries in Austria-Hungary, side by side and intermingled. As early as the middle of the 15th century, Serbian freedom fighters and their families were driven into the Military Region (Vojna Krajina), or Kiajina, as it is now known, before the onslaught of the superior Turkish forces following the fall of Bosnia. The Hapsburgs encouraged both Serbs and Croats to settle in the border region in an effort to establish a zone of defense against the Turks.
As they had done elsewhere, the Hapsburgs manipulated the Roman Catholic Croats against the Eastern Orthodox Serbs. The rivalry between the two grew rapidly and at times became bitter and hostile. In the 19th century, Croatian philosopher and politician Ante Starcevic, known for his radical views, denied the very existence of the Serbian people. In two of his many pamphlets, entitled "The Name Serb" and "The Slavo-Serbian Breed in Croafia," Starcevic described the Serbs as "Gypsies" and "Albanians" (then, as now/ considered insulting terms in Croatian), "an alien stock," "less than human," "a dirty, evil breed." He suggested that "one third of the Serbs should be killed, one-third converted to Roman Catholicism, and one-third forced to emigrate." Starcevic, whose influence in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century was pervasive, is still regarded as the father of the Croatian nation. He founded the Croatian Party of the Pure Right, which became an inspiration and an ideological home of the 2bth-century Croatian Ustashe movement. The Party of the Pure Right
still exists and remains active in Yugoslavia. Not surprisingly, Ustashe and a generation of Croatian intellectuals and politicians still use the same terminology their ideological father.
as
An interview with Croatia's current President Franjo Tudjman published in tradition. Speaking about the Serbo-Croat problem, Tudjman said: "Croats belong to a different culture-a different civilization-from the Serbs... Croats are a part of Western Europe, part of the Mediterranean tradition... The Serbs belong to the East. They use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is Eastern. They are an Eastern people, like the Turks and the Aibanians. They belong to the Byzantine culture... Despite similarities in language, we cannot be together." Tudjman has also been widely quoted by Croatian newspapers as saying he is elated whenever it occurs to him that his wife is neither a The Nezu Yorker on March 78,7991invoked this scurrilous
Serb nor a jew.
Thanks to Starcevic and his disciples, Croatians have never felt comfortable
in post-World War I Yugoslavia. As soon as they realized that their AustroHungarian experience and cultural background were insufficient to take over the new state, the Croatians embarked upon a campaign of obstruction and noncooperation. As part of a long-range plan, the terrorist wing of the Croatian Ustashe assassinated Yugoslav King Alexander I in 1.934 and collaborated with Nazi Cermany in World War II, while butchering the unsuspecting Serbian minority and other undesirables. The Ustashe staged mass slaughters in some 30 concentration camps created across a geographically inflated Nazi dominion named the Independent State of Croatia. More than 700,000 persons were destroyed in those camps only because they were Serbs, Jews, or Gypsies. Although some in the Croatian Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy during World War II tried to stop the genocide (and paid for their courage with their lives), many either condoned and participated in the carnage or saw the panic-stricken Serbian Orthodox population as a promising target for conversion to Roman Catholicism. According to the highly respected historian Victor Novak and other credible sources, some 250,000 Serbs were converted by 1943.
Following World War II, Croatian leaders, Communist and nonCommunist alike, ignored the Ustashe's beastly crimes. The leadership, ecclesiastical or lay, made no apology of any kind; neither even conceded to recognize the crime publicly, even though the Ustashe's outrageous activities were declared genocide during the Nuremberg Trials. Instead, many minimized the
crimes. Croatia's "democratically elected" President Tudjman, for his part, repeatedly makes unwise and uncharitable statements while conducting a Croatization of the republic's governing apparatus by bringing in only those Croatians who can prove they have four generations of pure Croatian ancestry. Little wonder the Serbs feel unsafe under Croatia's current regime. Demorrotir Troditions The Croats professed their own feelings of insecurity during their tenuous
union with the Serbs. From the very beginning, the source of Croatia's alleged fears was the co-called Greater Serbia, an early 19th century concept designed to provide a more effective Christian challenge to the Turkish presence in the Balkans. Serbian history, however, should have reassured Croatians. Prior to World War I, Serbia was an independent kingdom with a well-developed political, social, and economic life. Its constitution of 1903 was the latest in the progression of Serbian constitutions that started in 1835, all considered very liberal even by European standards.(worthy of mention is the fact that Serbia signed a treaty with the United States nearly 110 years ago.) it provided for a constitutional monarchy, a bicameral legislature, and a multi-party system, with free elections. Freedom of the press lr-as guaranteed. It should be recalled that neither Croatia nor Slovenia was an independent state when the two joined the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Slovenia never had a state of its own; Croatia not since 1102.
The creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slor-enes on December 1, 1918 was by no means a hasty affair. It was the result of dedicaterl work of the Yugoslav Committee, established in London in 1915, and compr66d 61 the Serb, Croat, and Slovene leaders. A11 but one, a representatir-e trom the Kingdom of Serbia, were disgruntled citizens of Austria-Hungan'. For their part, Serbs tried to cooperate and coexist lrith Croatian;. i-n the new state. Slovenians played along. There r,r'ere Slor-enians in er-en- single Yugoslav government. Slovene Roman CathoLic priest and p-olitician Dr- -A,nton Korosec became the first prime minister after King -\lerander dismissed the parliament, renamed the country Yugoslar-ia, and introduced a higilv crrtralized system, mainly because of Croatia's non-cooperationThe Serbs also gave ample proof of their rt-illingrre-s to sharc- For example. ;rs comp€n$ltion for r-irtual destructiqr ot ils propertr and a
reparations due Serbia
50 percent loss of life among its male population^were equally divided with Croatians and Slovenes. This rias done even though Croatians and Slovenes fought as allies of the Central Powers and suffered virtually no loss of property and
minimal casualties. As far as Tito's Yugoslavia is concerned, Sestanovich's claim that Serbs had
political and military superibrity is unfounded. During the e1:t 3q years/ no.S"rbj3" iras held the position oiprime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The current prlme ministei, the foreign minister, and the minister of economic development-the key positions-are all Croatians. Most of the remaining cabine_t members are either iroatian or Slovenes. And, the current "collective president," who controls the military forces, is also a Croatian.
After all the obstructionism, hatred, and bad faith, the serbs would be foolish not to want to part ways with Croatians. But so far, nothing has been done to determine how the country's-huge foreign debt is going to be paid and by whom' Above all, there are some AOO,OOb Serbians still living in Croatia, and the Serbs are unlikely to leave them to extremists
as potential fodder for another
try at genocide'
Old Guord To survive, Yugoslavia must achieve some sort of accommodation. For that, however, the Yugoslavi must rid themselves of their presen! leadership- of recycled Communists. Most of these leaders have made cosmetic ideological changes,,but
ttrey still know little beyond what they learned under Tito' Serbian President a Slobodan Milosevic, for example, whose political flip-flops are well known, is now ,socialist,"although he has been quoted in an interview by Monde saying-he has ,Le ,,a Communist out of conviction since the age of 17." The rest are Tito leftovers: been president of Croatia Franjo Tudjman was a world war II Partisan and Yugoslav until ir*y g""".al until jailed for exiessive Croatian nationalism. Josip Manolic, of officer placeda highly was ."""rrtt! prime miniiter of the Croatian government Kucan Milan slovenia of President KGB. soviet the unge, th" Yugoslav version of was, for y"u.rih" principal ideologue of the Slovene CommunistParty, specifically many responsible for applying Party doctrine in education. And there are many/ others.
Throughout the years since Tito's death in 1980, the Serbian leadership committed an incomprehensible, mind-boggling error' The- Croats conducted a to convince the world that Tito's federalism was nothing foreign med.ia "u-puigtt more"than u ,ubteri.rgE for Greater Serbia and Serbian chauvinism, or both' Rather pat than combat the camplign, the Serbs remained quiet. \Atrhen pressed, they gave a justice are on and truth that knows right-minded A"y "Why botheil ur,r*"r, Person our side." Thlr -uy havi bJen innocenie or just plain Balkan superciliousness' n".""tfy, the Serbs have made an effort to present their case through the world's they media, tut it may be too little and too late t-o recapture some of the good will country' this in particularly enjoyed, traditionally The Crooked Stroight
Assuming that th-e United States still favors a federation or confederation of th.e Yugoslav states 6ver a broken up, hat-in-hand bunch of "sovereign" states,. if little, Precious do? ;.;; of them smaller than Indiaria, what can the United States out "ryhg straighten tolike it is Yugoslavia: u"itnittg. There is an old folk saying in the the Drina." The Drina ls a rapiaf meandering river flowing north through what of description fair a is That of Bosnla-Herzegovina-. republic centrally located the Uniied States would face if it interceded'
TheUnitedStatescanplayapositiverole,however,byseeingtoitthatthe
and the cracks now visible in the mediation efforts of the European Community The great. too become Conference on security and Cooperation in Europe do not the Croatia,.is including Yugoslavia, United States must rJalize, hovirever, that
as Balkans, regardless of what Croatia's curreni leaders say. There, nothing bloodshed' some without resolved be can confrontations nationalistic important aJ
For once, the United States should remain on the sidelines, using its great influence only to make sure that fairness prevails. U.S. allies in Europe are in a much better position both to observe and to act, if need be, to keep the Yugoslav crisis under control. For the United States, antagonizing both disputing sides by remaining strictly neutral may be just what is needed. The friendship will be easy to restore when the conflict is over and the country needs its shattered economv rebuilt. Meanwhile, the various Yugoslav emigrant organizations would do n-ell to remain equally aloof. Their ardent support of factions in the "old countrr-" is understandable but unwise, as it only raiiei unfillable expectations. Conspiracies brU.S. based groups to provide arms, several of which have recently come to light must be curtailed. The most recent case, in Florida, involved three Croatians n-ho tried to purchase and export illegally military hardware from the United States to Croatia in the amount of $12 million. The main problem for Yugoslavia will be that in the Balkans, anvthing other than a clear-cut victory is seen as defeat and humiliation. Compromise is an alien, virtually non-existent concept. Some kind of a face-saving device wiil har-e to be found, and that, in itself, will be a problem.
What the Yugoslavs need, other than new and truly democratic leadership, is some quiet unobstructive mediation, in a dignified atmosphere, conducted brpersons or institutions familiar with the area, the peoples and the centuries-long history of their conflicts. No television limelight, no day-to-day reports, color stories, interviews, in-depth analyses and no grandstanding. The less exposure to the media, the better. Only in that quiet, undistracting atmosphere can the feuding parties hope to reach some kind of lasting solution to problems. That solution must be their oun, accepted and recognized by all.
illl$AtL I{IENNARD is a retired Foreign Service information officer. He frequently writes about and visits Yugoslavia. He completed his doctoral dissertation at Georgetown University on "Bishop Strossmayer, the Serbs, and the Croats in the Second Half of the 19th Century." This article has been reproduced from the October1991 issae of Foreign Seruice lournal with the express permission of both the writer and editor.
]anko Crevar 40 Janko Crevar 56 Josip Crevar 30 Jovan Crevar 58 Mile Crevar 21 io Devic 32 Ilija Devic 40 Ilija Devic 40 Luka Devic 45 Matija Devic 23 Milan De rvic 36 Simo19 Devic Teso Devic 20 Dragan Dragojevic 32 Dragan Dragojevic 21 niakZ7 Mihajlo Drobnjak 54 Milan Drobnjak 38 Mile Eremija 59 Nikola Eremija 2( L Stanko Ivkovic 50 Ilija Jovanovic 27 Jovan Jovanovic 69 Marko Jovanovic 27 c 50 Adam Kajganic 22 Janko Kajganic 42 lovan Kajganic 40 Jor'-Joco Kajganic 25 irko Kajganic2l Nikola Kajganic 46 Pavao Kajganic 22 PavaoKajganic22 PetarKe Va39 Simo Klipa 60 Pavao Komljenovic 56 Petar Komljenovic 36 Dusan Korcc22 ;dan Korac 42 Milos Korac 30 Nenad Korac 23 Nikola Korac 23 Slavko Korac 22 I iko KosovacS,T Jovan Kosovac 47 Pavao Kosovac 56 Pavao Kosovac 32 Simo Koso rko Kraguljac 36 Jovan Kraguljac 52 Ljuban Kraguljac 27 Ljuban Kraguljac 60 I ac32 Nikola Kraguljac 40 Pavao Kraguljac 40 Pero Kraguljac 51 Petar Kraguljac 21 aguliac 18 Aleksa Krosnjar 50 Dmitar Krosnjar 47 Mlle Krosnjar 24 Nikola Krosr t 27 Milan Loncar 18 Nikola Loncar 52 Pero Loncar 20 Pero Loncar 26 Petar Lon Maistorovic 27 Stajan Maistorovic 30 Nikola Maistorovic 43 Stevo Maistorovic 18 liletic 33 Milun Milicevic 16 Stanko Milicevic 46 Dragan Milojevic 19 Dusan Miloje :vic 42 Josip Miiojevic 63 Jovan Milojevic 19 Milan Milojevic 35 Milan Milojevic 46 I Pavao Mrksic 57 Dragan Mrksic 17 Marko Novakovic 49 Milan Novakovic 19 t tar Obradovic 50 Dusan Obradovic 46 Djuro Obradovic 36 Janko Obradovic 39 rdovic 21 Nikola Obradovic 37 Pavao Obradovic 27 Petar Obradovic 18 Petar Obra rlikola Ozegovic 30 Pavao Ozegovic 44 Dusan Polimac 41 Djuro Polimac 41 Ilija Pc ac 15 Jovan Popovic 27 Petar Popovic 51 Stojan Popovic 24 Adarn Pova 19 Nikola 47 Srmo Radosevic 19 Simo Radosevic 37 Jovan Rakas 29 Milan Rakas 26 Mile Ral t Milan Ratkovic 77 Pavao Ratkovic 32 Petar Ratkovic 21 Dusan Relic 28 Djuro Rt L Rkman 27 lgnjatlje Rkman 41 Ilija Rkman 27 Illja Rkman 49 Janko Rkman 43 Ir i Pavao Stanojevic 41 Stanko Stanojevic 41 Jovan Sucevic 28 Milos Sucevic 56 I r Vranjesevic 38 Ljuban Vranjesevic 27 Mllan Vranjesevic 40 Mile Vranjesevic 39 | 4ile Vrcic 22 Bozo Vujanovic 19 Dusan Vujanovic 30 Ilija Vujanovic 38 janko Vujano Vuianovic 36 Djurad Barak 31 Milan Barak 29 Janko Bekic 33 I4zo Bojanjac 22 Mane Car 30 Mile Car 43 Stanko Car 40 Vaso Car 27 Mlle Cica 41r Milos Cica 21 nkovic 44 Milan Dankovic 18 Mile Dankovic 36 Petar Dankovic 44 Petar Gubic 44 I etar Gvozdic 41 Petar Gvozdic 36 Rade Gvozdic 40 Marko Ivkovic 48 Milan Ivko Iilutin Janjanin 31 Mojsije Janjanin 42 Nikola Janjanin 46 Pane Janjanin 62 Pavaolar lnrc 27 Milutin Kajganic 36 Pavao Kajganic 19 Tanasije Kajganic 37 Stanko Kragul tile Kukulj 30 Milos Kukulj 61 Milos Kukutj 54 Milos Kukulj 51 Milos Kukulj 45 ( 37 Stanko Kukulj4l Stojan Kukulj33 Vujo Kukulj 41 Dragan Lackovic 38 Djuro L ikola Milic 28 Rade Milic 52 Djuro Nisevic 25 Gojko Nisevic 48 Jovan Nisevic 33 29 lllja Orescanin 33 Janko rin 39 I Today, early in September, 1991, the jn 52 Nikola Orescanin 39 home and the bed previously occupied by Orescar 'Orescanin 50 Mile Polojac 4 IJUBAI{ JEDNAK was riddled with bullets by an24 f the current Croatian Nationalists, seekers 4 Rade Sapic 23 Ljuban Tr T of "freedom" and "democracy" in Croatia. os Tiku An obvious second attempt to kill rn Lada Rade Trkuija 43 Stojan Tik t, this valuable witness to Croatian genocide r Bodlovic 40 Ljuban Bodlo lc committed on the Serbian people in 1941 r Bodlo and one of the few survivors to testify in irko Borota 45 Nikola Bo ta36 S 1986 at the trial of Andrija Artukovic, ic 18 Jovan Cavic 59 Jovan minister of Interior, Independent State of lavic 60 ic 41 Tanasije Cavic 42 Stojan Dancic 41 Dt Croatia. Ljuban fednak is the recipient of The leso De' uzdevic 15 Nikola Duzdevic 29 Petar Duzde Fiist Order of St, Saaa, Highest Award in rtar Duz the Serbian Orthodox Church given to a kovic 33 Mile lvkovic 55 Adam Jaksic 38 Du lay person. He survives once again, this ,uka Jak sic 23 Simo Jaksic 39 Stevo Jaksic 20 Matija I time as a refugee in an unnarrred country. vlanojlo ro Nosic 35 Nikola Nosic 58 Petar Nosic 37 Lvrlaula \-/Draoovrc ry rvrue ursrojic 41 I 6 Petar Ratkovic 36 Ostoja Stojkovic 34 llija Sucevic 18 Damjan Sapic 27 Stojan Sal tat 55 Dusan Crevar 35 Djuro Crevar 49 Djuro Crevar 43 Djuro Crevar 31 Jandra C Milos Crevar 72 Nikola Crevar 72 Petar Crevar 26 Rade Crevar 37 Savo Crevar 27
"
ANDRIJA ARTUKOVIC Artukovich entered the United States in 1949 under a 30 day tourist visa obtained in Ireland under the false name of Alois Anic. Thanks to his protectors in Roman Catholic circles, he escaped every attempt of extradition.
All the favorable articles written about him by
the Croatian and American ecclesiastics are wellremembered, and there is absolute proof that Roman Catholic circles of Los Angeles organized various benefits in order to raise funds to defend him from extladition. He remained in the United States until his successful extradition and his
trial in 1986. The Justice Department, after many unsuccessful attempts to deport Artukovic, was finally successful in 1981 when director Allan Ryan of Special Investigations (OSI) of the Justice Department introduced evidence signed by Artukovic directing punitive measures against Serbs and fews. The authenticity o{ these documents has never been questioned. Even his son Radoslav Artukovic, of Seal Beach, California, acknowledges that they are genuine and incriminating. Yugoslavia filed an extradition request with the U.S. government seeking the return of Artukovic to stand trial, not on charges of having implemented a widespread program of persecution as minister of Interior, but rather on specific charges of murder. To support those charges, Yugoslavia provided affidavits of many people, including Bajro Avdic, the putative motorcycle driver. The Justice Department put the deportation proceedings on hold and presented Yugoslavia's evidence to a federal court, which ruled that the evidence was sufficient to state a prima facie case o{ murder, for which Artukovic was returned to Yugoslavia to stand trial. As minister o{ the Interior in the "Independent State of Croatia" and one of Pavelic's most trusted confidants, Artukovic was responsible for the Croatian secret police, known as the Ustashi. Artukovic's position in the Croatian government equaled that of Himmler's in Germany. The first and, to date, the fullest account of Artukovic's actions in Croatia and the legal proceedings in the United States {rom 1951 to 1984 can be read in detail in a current book Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America by Allan A. Ryan, Jr.
ry ,.*'
locot .JASEioITAC'
Iitl r
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-
NEVER AGAIN ! Dr. Milan Bulajic
USIASHI GII{O(IDE IN THE INDIPE]IDENT
0F (R0AT|A (]{DH} FRoflt t 94 t 945 STATE
-t
Within the framework of the Convention of the United Nations on Preventing and Punishing the Crime of Genocide, the confirmation and presentation of
the truth about the Ustashi crime of genocide perpetrated against the Serbs, ]ews, and Gypsies in the quisling Independent State of Croatia during World War II is our debt to more than one million victims-a debt that can not be forgotten, and a crime that must never again be repeated.
The Ustashi are members of
a
separatist, chauvinist, terrorist organization called the "Ustashi-Croat Liberation Movement," which was formed after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on January 6,7929 that replaced the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In order to dismember the then existing Yugoslavia, the Ustashi leader Dr. Ante Pavelic organized the assassination of King Alexander I Karadjordjevic on October 9,7934 in Marseilles at the outset of the king's state visit to France. On that occasion Louis Bartou, the French minister of Foreign Affairs, was also killed. The Ustashi terrorists were supported by the Fascist powers in their preparations for the Second World War. The assassins fled to Hungarian territory (janka Puszta) and were secretly transported from there in a military aircraft to Fascist Italy (the Lipari camp), from which Pavelic expected the most effective assistance.
After the putsch of March 27,
1,941,
in which Yugoslavia opposed the Nazi
Fascist Tripartite Pact, the strategy of the Third Reich was disrupted by postponing
the "Barbarossa" plan for attack on the Soviet Union, and Adolf Hitler ordered the destruction of the Yugoslav state and punishment of the Serbian nation. A group of well-trained Ustashi terrorists, headed by Ante Pavelic, was brought to Yugoslavia with the Italian Fascist occupational forces. Counter to the principles of international law, an "Independent State of Croatia" was formed on the occupied territory of Yugoslavia on April 10, 1941. The state of Croatia adhered to the Axis Tripartite Pact and declared war on the Allies. Immediately after the formation of the Ustashi Independent State of Croatia (ISC-NDH), the Ustashi began carrying out unheard of crimes against the Serbian Orthodox population. The genocide was blueprinted in the Lipari Islands under the aegis of Mussolini's Fascist regime and approved by Hitler. Official documents and lists of execution pits, compiled on official orders, have been preserved. These documents contain, in addition to the names of sites in which the pits were located, //space for 200 the estimated spatial dimensions, such as "space for 100 persons," persons," even "space for 800 persons," etc. The attempt to create an ethnically pure Croat Catholic area called for a demonic project of genocide of unbelievable scope in view of the then national structure: 3,069,000 Croats or 50.78 per cent, L,874,000 Orthodox Serbs or 30'56 per cent,717,000 Muslims or 11.86 per cent. The strategy of implementing this crime against humanity was described by the Ustashi official Dr. Mile Budak in the following way: one third is to be killed, one third expelled, one third converted to Catholicism!
This huge program of genocide could not be realized by only a group of several hundred Ustashi terrorists. Included were the paramilitary formations of the Croat Peasant Party ("Guardians") of Dr. Vlatko Macek. A broader mobilization of the Croats was made possible with the cooperation of the Roman Catholic clergy for the
purpose of setting up a Roman Catholic state (Civitas Dei) in the strategically significant Balkans. The purpose was also to destroy the Orthodox Christian Churchthe "schismatics," who could prevent the strengthening and expansion of the "Antemurale christianitatis." The Orthodox Church was banned and outlawed. After being brutally tortured, about 220 Orthodox clergymen were murdered, as well as Metropolitan Dr. Petar Zimonjic, Bishop Sava Trlajic, and Bishop Platon jovanovic, while the rest were deported. The Orthodox churches were burned to the ground and, in many instances, burned while filled with Orthodox Serbs. Some churches were plundered and transformed into Roman Catholic churches. The Ustashi also committed the crime of genocide of the jews. More than 30,000 ]ews were "e1iminated." The Ustashi minister Dr. Andrija Artukovic, who collaborated on this project with the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, boasted at a Ustashi rally on February 23,7942 that the "Ustashi Croatia radically resolved the Jewish question." The Ustashi genocide of the Gypsies in Croatia was horrifying indeed. V\4role
villages were destroyed. As these victims were annihilated without any lists drawnup, their exact number is not known - but it is reckoned to be between 40,000 and 100,000. The Ustashi criminals slaughtered and brutally killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children only because they belonged to a specific nation or religion. "Those arrested had their ears and noses severed, their eyes gouged, were killed with knives and clubs, their skin sliced into strips, and their bodies placed on nails. They used female genital organs as ashtrays, cut off the breasts of women, threw live victims into furnaces and killed with poisonous injections"- (text from the Indictment of the District Public Prosecutor of Zagreb at a trial of Dr. Andrija Artukovic). The most brutal form of Ustashi crime was the mass murder of children. Throughout the whole occupied territory of Europe it was only in the Ustashi NDH that concentration camps for children were organized. The Ustashi Dionisije ]uricev in his clergymen's robes openly preached: "No one except a Catholic can live in this country and who refuses to be converted will be dealt with-sent to jasenovacl It is no sin today to kill even a small child who hinders the Ustashi movement!"
t i
The jasenovac Ustashi camp system was a veritable death camp from 1941'-45. Pavelic's headquarters issued a command through minister of the Interior Andrija Artukovic to aII the institutions in the state saying that the "collection and labor camp Jasenovac can take in an unlimited number of prisoners." The Jasenovac camp, which covered an area of 210 square kilometers, was the biggest collection center, torture and execution area that ever existed in the Balkans. By its brutality and torture it decidedly held first place in Europe and in the world. The inmates were slaughtered with knives and other sharp blades, killed with saws, axes, and burned alive. The corpses were thrown into mass graves, while others were thrown into the Sava River. We do not know the exact number of victims who met their death in Jasenovac. The Commission for Crimes of the Occupational Forces and their helpers in 1945 arrived at the conclusion that the exact number of victims will never be ascertained. But after investigation and interrogations of countless witnesses this figure can be estimated at 700,000. In a village called Donja Gradina there is a commemorative plaque in SerboCroat, Russian and English that reads: "It is proven that 366,000 inmates were killed
here."
A special form of Ustashi genocide was the forcible Catholicization of the Orthodox Serbs. The program for this encompassed specific categories of the Serbian Orthodox population, especially those who were economically and politically weak
and who, in view of the number of Serbs in the NDH, could not physically be destroyed within a brief period of time. With close cooperation of the Bishops' Conference of the NDH, which organized with the Vatican's knowledge and blessing a separate Commission of Bishops, conversion to Catholicism was to include one
third of the Orthodox Serbian population. Using threats and extortion, the NDH converted about 255,000 Serbs. Many of them, after having been promised safety upon conversion to Catholicism, became the victims of Ustashi genocide because the priests of the Roman Church told them that they were saving their souls but could not guarantee saving their bodies. This enforced Catholicization of the Orthodox Serbs has never been annulled by the Holy See. The converted Serbs were proclaimed to be "Croats."
In the final solution of the "Serbian question," according to the Ustashi genocide plan, one third of the Serbs who were not physically destroyed or forcibly converted, was to be deported from Croatia and economically ruined. This group of Serbs was ruthlessly destroyed. Serbian families were brutally expelled from their secular hearths without the possibility of taking any personal belongings with them. An agreement was reached that the Serbs should be deported to the German-held territory in Serbia on condition that Croatia should receive the Slovenes who were
deported from the territories annexed by the Germans. The most eminent
representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the NDH, Dr. Krunoslav Draganovic, Dr. Stjepan Lackovic and others, took part in drawing up this program. After the liberation of Yugoslavia the NDH was not proclaimed a war crimes organization on the basis of the Nuremberg War Criminals Trial. De-Nazification was also not carried out. The Ustashi leader Ante Pavelic, aided by an organization under the auspices of the Vatican, fled with a large number of Ustashi criminals and was not tried in absentia. The Ustashi minister of Interior, who in 1986 was extradited from the USA, was not tried in Zagreb for the crime of genocide of the Serbs, jews and Gypsies, but only as a
war criminal. At the Zagreb trial in 1986, which was to have been the Yugoslav Nuremberg, the Ustashi minister Artukovic was tried for crimes that never even happened and not for the crime of genocide, for which he was personally responsible. The representatives of the Vatican and the high clergy of the Roman Church in Croatia did not condemn the Ustashi genocide-they did not hold responsible the Roman Catholic priests who, as sworn Ustashi, were personally responsible. There was no expression of remorse of the part of the Roman Catholic Church for the responsibility for the terrible crime of genocide in the Ustashi NDH, not even such repentance as was expressed by the Roman Catholic Church in Germany with regard to the Nazi crime of genocide of the Jews.
In liberated Yugoslavia the pits into which the bodies of Serbian victims were
thrown were deliberately covered with concrete in an attempt to destroy the evidence contained on those sites. Also covered with concrete was the truth by using the slogan of "brotherhood and unity." Even the number of genocide victims was never confirmed. There was proper burial.
a
ban on the "counting" of the victims, their digging up and their
The new Croat nationalistic "Croat Democratic Community-HDZ" leadership, after a prescribed period of forgetfulness, developed a theory on the creation of the "jasenovac myth." This 'myth' was defined by Dr. Franjo Tudjman in his work, The Wasteland of Historical Reality, as one intended to prove that the whole Croat nation was to blame for genocide. In this way the fear of responsibility of the whole nation for the mass crime of genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies is being dissipated by openly revising the events that took place during World War II. Again, there has ensued cooperation between the clergy and the nationalists motivated by the same objectives, that is the rejection of responsibility of the Roman Catholic clergy.
In such a sifuation and given the absence of collected proofs, the number of genocide victims is blatantly minimized. On the occasion of this 50th anniversary of the Ustashi Independent State of Croatia-NDH, Dr. Franjo Tudjman describes this state as the expression of the historical aspirations of the Croat people and states that in the Ustashi camp of Jasenovac there was a total of about 30,000 victims. Since we know that about 20,000 ]ews alone were killed there and about 11,000 children, a large number of Gypsies, a certain number of Yugoslav-oriented Croats and anti-Fascists, by his count it tums out that there were no Serbian adult victims at all!
In 1945 many war criminals fled from justice. Under such conditions the world public was not made aware of the real truth of genocide perpetrated during the war on the territory of occupied Yugoslavia. Without a knowledge of this truth, it is not possible to understand the present tragic events in Yugoslavia which are a danger to world peace. There is no documentation whatever in the United Nations headquarters in New York about the Ustashi ]asenovac death camp. In the International Red Cross Committee in Geneva there are only about two dozen photographs from Ustashi propaganda sources on which the primitive Ustashi death camp is shown as a sanatorium with cooks in white attire, the inmates working at machines, and the women forking hay in the fieldsl Contained in this photo-essay, the reader can see real picfures of the execution
ground which has been called "the biggest Serbian clty under the ground." The visual perception of the truth of the horrible crime of genocide between 1941-45 is important so that the tragic events in Yugoslar.ia in 1991 can be understood. In the new Independent State of Croatia people are being dismissed from their jobs, their homes bumed, and the first victims are paying with their lives, as n 1947, only because they belong to the Serbian nation. The basic purpose of the svstematicaily imposed and imported crisis in Yugoslavia again, as in 1941, is the dismemberment of the Yugoslav state, which is not in the interest of any nation because all the nations living in this area are suffering as a result. The instruments used in breaking up Yugoslavia in 1941' were the paramilitary formations of Macek's peasant "Guardians" against the Yugoslav Royal Army coupled with the illegal military support of Fascist
Italy. This is the same purpose of the paramilitary formations of the ruling party in present-day Croatia and the territorial units of Slovenia against the Yugoslav People's Army, together with the full financial and armed assistance from abroad.
On May 78, 1947 Pope Pius XII received the head of the Ustashi Independent State of Croatia at the time of the genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.
1,991. Pope John Paul II received the Croatian Democratic Community leader Dr. Franjo Tudjman at a time of the existing sovereign Yugoslav state. President Tudjman was also received by the acting state secretary of His Holiness the Pope, Monsignor Angelo Sodone, even though he receives only those persons that the pope receives as part of a state visit, all with the purpose of supporting the Croat secessionist forces and the creation of a Catholic state in the strategically important Balkans. The
On May 26,
First World War began on the territory of the Yugoslav lands. Due to events in Yugoslavia, the Second World War took a different turn. In order to prevent a new threat to the peace in Europe and in the world, the tragic events from the past must not be forgotten, as this is a precondition for their avoidance in the future. At the time when human rights are gaining more and more significance for mankind's future, one must not forget the need to implement the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The strengthening of democratic forces in the world is constantly followed by the danger of the revival of the forces of Fascism, Nazism and other forms of totalitarianism and domination over the free human spirit. This is the real meaning of the contents of this presentation. DR. Mll.AN BUIAJI( is a member of the Academy of Arts & Sciences, Belgrade, the World Organization for Peace, United Nations, historian and eminent authoritv on international law, member of ILA (International Law Association), and L{IPPI (World Peace by Way of Law and Justicel. He is also author of The Pinciples o.f
International Lazo and De'celopn ETtt. Dr. Bulajic documented and authorcd four-volume dissertation on the U-
a
Cimes of Genocide.His ifformation rr-as compiled from Serbian. Croatial" \-atican" British alrd the -{merican n-ar arthir-es. -{t the ertradition of .A.ndrija -{rtu}oric, Dr. Bulajic represented \ugoslaria. At his trial Dr. Bulajic r+-as considered erpert testimonv on genocide.
THE MARTYRDoM 0F THE SERBS
(t94t-451
Veselin Kesich, Professor at St. Vladimir's Seminary, Crestwood, N.y.
On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia by bombing the "open city of Belgrade. The powers surrounding Yugoslavia, except for Greece, were allied *iil
Hitler. Each occupied sections of the country. Italy seized part o{ Slovenia an< Dalmatia and the whole of Montenegro. Mussolini granted Kossovo to a Greate Albania. Rumania and Hungary divided vojvodina. Bulgaria assumed control o Macedonia. Germany occupied the rest of the country. All used the invasion as ar excuse to carve out new political entities and to eliminate Yugoslavia from the map.
cermany's primary concern was to serve German military needs. over thr protest of his generals, Hitler insisted on handing over Croatia and the adjoininl provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina to the Croatian fascist Ante Pavelic, Mussolini'r client,who became the poglavnik or fuhrer of the new Independent Croatian Statr (NDH). Pavelic and his Ustashi ("rebels") had lived and trained in terrorist tactic under the protection of Mussolini in Italy. Their aim was to achieve an independen Croatia by destabilizing Yugoslavia and assassinating its leaders. They organized an< participated in the killing of King Alexander I in Marseilles in 1934.
NDH was proclaimed on April 10 in the German-occupied city of Zagreb and Yugoslavia fell to the combined occupiers on April 17. The new state under tht rule of the Ustashi held 6,300,000 people, a third of whom were Serbian Orthodo; and 750,000 were Muslim. Pavelic had his own agenda for this mixed population.
The Serbian people had not long to wait before discovering what their neu rulers intended for them. Their first goal was the destruction of the Serbian Orthodor Church within their territory and the elimination of the Serbian population. On Apri
25,by special proclamation, Pavelic forbade printing in the Cyrillic alphabet Orthodox elementary schools were closed by june 3. On |uly 18 the "serbiar Orthodox Church" and its faith could no longer be mentioned; it was renamed tht "Greco-Eastern Confession." Serbs living in Zagreb were obliged to wear blu< armbands with the letter P ("pravoslavac," Orthodox).
In public speeches, Pavelic's cohorts began to spell out their programs. Milr Budak, his chief spokesman, drew up the measures to be taken: "One part of th< Serbian population we shall kill, another part we shall expell, and the rest we shal convert to the Roman Catholic Church and thus transform them into Croats." i--;;i:i:it:i ., i:Ii.
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Yugoslavia before
April. 1941. ..-.
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was a different poliry toward the Muslims:
'lllfle ae a natisr of two faiths, Roman Catholic and Muslim... Communists
they could 'ft| Sclbs attack our faith above all, for they know ifthey want." ffioiirg flr faith they would be able to do whatever
succeed
in
The Muslims, in contrast, were called "the Purest Croats, Precious stones
uhkh rf,-e must put in the structure of our Independent Croatian State." Budak rf*npd that fte Serbs mixed atheism and anti-clericalism with a nationalistic view of
di7iilt
and used churches and monasteries to expand the bounds of their rule into
Cxoatian lands- He concluded: -We who have studied history know that the Almighty God made the river
Drirn the boundary line between the East and the West. By God's providmce we becane the guardians of our frontier... for this reason we received the recogrrition and title "antemurale Christianitis". The Ustashi movement was based on our great faith in our just cause, in the Almighty who has never abandoned the righteous, in our loyalty to the Church and the Catholic faith."
As the Minister of ]ustice, Mirko Puk, put it, the Serbs were newcomers who had to go back where they came from. The administrator of Banja Luka, Victor Gutich, poaically prophesied that "the roads will wish to see Serbs, but there will be no Serbs
busethem." The Serbs were shocked and bewildered, disoriented and unable to react to tlrese new developments. They could not believe what they were hearing and reading in the new local newspapers, which were springing up like mush.rooms. All means of
communication were sending out a stream of hate propaganda and preaching genocide.
As a high school senior in Banja Luka, who had finished gymnasium in those days, I well remember the mood and the incredulity. School had been hurriedly closed for the year before final examinations. I was walking with a school friend, talking over the fast-developing events, when we Banja Luka. An enormous banner over forbidden to Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and citizens had been deprived of their civil
approached the entrance to the main park in the entrance proclaimed "Enkance to this park dogs." Like dogs, the majority of Banja Luka's rights as citizens, their legal persona.
The immediate plans of the Ustashi, defined in the public speeches of their leaders, were followed by massacres of the Serbs. Almost immediately, they set about killing priests, bishops, teachers and merchants. Among the first victims was Bishop Platon of Banja Luka.On May 5 they broke into hls residence, took him outside the city,
tortured him and threw his body into the river Vrbanja. His body was found twenty days later. t"gs*
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The tortures and killings of individuals were soon followed by the extermination of larger groups, including whole villages. In the village of Glina, in the old military frontier, the Austrian line of defense against the Turks, all male Serbs were taken from their homes and packed into the locai Serbian Church. When it was filled with frightened villagers, the doors were bolted and the building was set on fire. Armed Ustashi took up positions around the flaming church to prevent the escape of the doomed Serbs, whose desperate cries were audible to them. This was a holocaust in its purest form. Serbian women and children were not exempted. On one of the early days of the reign of terror, a train of six crowded box cars took women and children from the city of Mostar in Hercegovina to a mountainous region. The train stopped at a cliff top, from which the passengers were hurled over the ravine to certain death.
Archbishop Misic of Mostar protested to Archbishop Stepinac about this
with the authorities in Zagreb to prevent such atrocities. But his appeal brought no result; the crimes continued massacre, and appealed to him to use his influence
undiminished. The Ustashi massacres disturbed the Cermans as well. A German security officer in February 7942 reported: "The Ustashe units har.e carried out their atrocities not only against Orthodox males of military age but in particular in the most bestial
fashion against unarmed old men, women and children." He saw an obvious connection between the attempt to exterminate the population and the growth of the guerrilla movements. Frequently, Serbs had to choose between remaining in their homes and living a life of constant fear that one day they would be murdered or joining the guerrillas in the surrounding mountains. Many of them did so.
In April, 1941, there had been eight Orthodox dioceses on the territory incorporated into NDH, each with its own bishop. \Atrhen the Ustashi seized power, they killed three and expelled three; one was detained in an Italian prison camp, and another survived in the region occupied by the Hungarians.They killed 217 priests in the first wave of terror. Many were subjected to incomprehensible tortures before being killed. The churches were destroyed and burned, and church property was plundered. It is estimated that there were over two million Serbs in NDH, and 750.000, about a third, were killed during this period. These atrocities have been described as the "great catastrophe," genocide, holocaust or Magnum Crimen. The crimes of the Ustashe also shocked some Croatians who were not living in a mixed population. Some Croatian peasants around Zagreb started to ask questions and to criticize the policy toward the Serbs. Pavelic's first deputy, Budak, was sent to explain the policy. He drew a parallel with the Crusades: "We must remember that the Catholic Church, which is not a terrorist organizafion, led six crusades for the liberation of Christ's tomb...er.en the children participated in these expeditions. If the church appror-ed these crusades, \\.e are confident that it understands aLrc the purpose of our Ustashi struggle."
joseph Lonchar, a Roman CathoLic priest, continued to attack the policy, and was punished bv imprisonment.
As far as n e knou', no public condemnation of the Ustashi genocide came from the Croatian Roman Catholic hierarchv, nor did they publiclv oppose the expulsion of Serbs from Bosnia and Hercegovina to Serbia.
The massacres drove huge waves of people from their homes into the unknown life of refugees. Some, as we have seery took to the woods and joined the guerrilla movements. Others flooded out over the border, the lion' s share into conquered Serbia, Iying prostrate under a brutal German occupation, starving in the blockaded city of Belgrade. By 7943, up to 400,000 homeless people had settled in Serbia, among them Yugoslav-oriented Croats and Slovenes. 334 priests had been driven there from their parishes. The German occupiers added to their distress by announcing that for every German soldier killed they would execute a hundred Serbs;
i-p., r:i eie:l l\'otr-ie than this. Apart from the economic crisis, lack of food and rre'::::€ =:li concern for 250,000 Serbs in German prison camps, they faced rr:sr:::::inte ertermination as a people. They were well-justified in their despair. l: rr e-: at this point that Serbian community leaders of economic, political and a:"ie::-:: -ile in Belgrade turned to Milan Nedich, minister of Defense in pre-war ': -i--s;r'ra. one of the very few generals who organized and resisted the advancing Jer:.,a:r-c during the short war of 1941. They appealed to him to assume responsibility
-: :re LL-L-upied
country to save what could be saved. Nedich was understandably :c:::tari; anr- dealings with the German conqueror was repulsive. Alexander Belic, ::$ident of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, begged him in tears to remember that : -.:e time has come to accept a task, indeed a dilficult and thankless duty under .xcupation. The question today is the biological salvation of the Serbian people, whom l-ou must not abandon." Nedich agreed to form his own administration under the C,erman occupation with the goal of protecting the rights of the conquered people guaranteed by intemational law. The disorganized and deprived citizens set about doing what they could for the refugees from NDH, fleeing for their lives. They were all cared for, especially orphan children, the old and the sick. Even the members of the Communist youth organizations were saved from sure destruction by the occupiers. Throughout Nedic's regime, no laws against ]ews were issued under his administration, and no contingents trom Serbia served alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front. Serbia was virtually alone in holding out against Nazi pressure in these matters. Many owed their lives to the selfless work of Milan Nedich and his co-workers.
I can speak about this from my own personal experience. That summer a Croatian friend informed my father that he had seen my name on a list of Serbs who ,rvere to be taken to the Ustashi concentration camp. With this knowledge, and supplied n"ith the identification card of a younger friend who was not obliged to leave the town, I left home the same day, and under the name of Rade Miladinovich reached Serbia. Although he did not leave his native Banja Luka, Rade survived the war, and he is still alive and well. I reached Belgrade, joining members of my family, and encountered some of my school friends, who had left before me, each with his own story. In the special ministry for refugees I met my orthopedic surgeon, who had been expelled from Zagreb, also a refugee. He ordered a pair of orthopedic shoes, which I badly needed. Within three weeks I received a well-made, well-fitted pair of shoes. The story of Nedic has a bitter end. He escaped to Austria after the war, but was handed back to Tito as a collaborator. He was to be tried for war crimes, but the Communists apparently feared his prestige among the people. He was shoved out of a window to his death before the trial. For the past fortv-five vears, Nedic has been reviled as a "collaborator." Onlv recentlv have official historians dared to question the
prevailing dogmas. There is now hope that Nedic's contribution to his people's survival during the tragic wartime years will be fr.rlly told. Bibliographical Notes: While writing this article, I found Victor Novak's Magnum Crimen mosl valuable. It contained a large collection of materials md documents in SerbeCroatian about the Ustashe-and their atrocities. It was pubiished in Zagreb in 1948, but soon disappeared from circulation in Yugoslavia. A second edition appeared in Belgrade in 1986. The bmk was republished in this time of rising national antagonisms in the hope of opening a dialogue between Serbs and Croats and averting a repetition of the catastrophic events of 1941-45. The monumental work of Djoko Slipjepcevic,History of the Serbinn Church (in Serbo-Croatian, Munich, 7962-88,3 vols.), is probably the best available history that exists on the Serbian Church throughout the centuries, including the origins and growth of this church in Bosnia, Hercegovina and other parts of Yugoslavia that were mcorporated into NDH. Veliko Q. f\ttric, The Ustashi and Orthodory (The Croatian Orthodox Church), Belgrade, 1989, in SerboCroatian, furnished a comiderable amount of new material from archives about the Serbian Orthodox Church under
ihe Ustashi
tenor.
'.
Irr Pedro Ramet, ed., Eastem Christianity and Politics (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1988), Ranet's article "The Serbian Orthodox Church" is particularly good in recording the life of the Church in the
Commistsystem. Thomas Kazich, "Bishop Vamava Nastich: Witress for Christ 1914-64," (mpublished master's essay, St. 1975) is an iropiring portrait based' on Bishop Vamava's letters to his relatives
\ladimir's Seninary, Crestwood, NY, md triqds in Garv, Indiana.
USTASHI GEI{OCIDT OF CHITDREN
IN THT INDTPENDENT STATE 945 0F cRoATtA, | 94 t
-l
Dragoje Lukic
The Ustashi did not commit atrocities only on adult men and women of the Serbian, Jewish and Gypsy nationalities but also on children who were still infants
feeding on their mother's milk. It is difficult to find adequate words to express this kind of Ustashi bestiality. Infants were shot in their cribs, babies were hoisted on bayonets, slaughtered with knives, razors, burned in their homes, and boiled in soap-melting cauldrons.
The Nazi Fascist horde and occupation of Yugoslavia in 7941 made it possible for the violent death of tens of thousands of children in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) to become the greatest national tragedy of the Serbian people.
From April 7947 to April 1945, 44,000 children from infants to 14-year olds were killed. There is definite knowledge of about 22,000 youngsters - what their names were, who their parents were, where and when they were born, where and when they perished, and whose hands held the daggers that extinguished their young lives. The following paragraphs are only fragments from the voluminous documentary material relating to the mass killing of children.
Viktor Gutic, the most notorious representative of the Ustashi NDH, in Bosanska Krajina during May and ]une 1941 held a series of speeches in Banja Luka
Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kotor Varos, Prnjavor Bosanska Gradiska, Kozatac and in other places. On May 30,7941. he said in Prijedor: "These Serbian rabble whom the Turksbrought to Bosnia our Croat state will immediately expedite into Serbia, some by rail and others down the Sava River, without a boat. The undesirable elements will be uprooted so that no trace is left of them and all that can remain is a bad memory of their presence. The deportation of Serbs must be ruthlessly accomplished. No pity should be shown to the aged, women or children. The first mortal shots were fired by the Ustashi on April 28, 794'1. when 234 members of the Serbian nationality from the villages of Gudovac and Brezovica near Bjelovar were killed. This was the signal which was later used to turn many Serbian villages and towns in Slavonia, Srem, Banija, Kordun, Lika, Northern Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina _into execution grounds for the death of children who rvere still in their mothers' wombs. From 6-9 Mav, 1941 the kiliing lasted with 520 men, women and children
murdered in the most cruel rvav. In mid-June 1941 the Ustashi launched the extermination of the Serbian population in rillages surrounding Lirno. From Donji and Gornji Rujani, Odzak and I istina alone 218 p€rsons rt'ere killed and thrown into the Rzani Dolac pit. In July 1941 Serbian families n'ere rounded up in Livno and Vrlika with the promise that the Croat authorities would resettle them in Serbia' More than 300 men, women and children believed this promise but were killed in Koprivnica forest near Bugojno. The Ustashi committed unprecedented acts of bruiality before they finatly killed their victims. Victims' hands and legs were ct]t ang their eyes gouged. Ustashi severed the heads of small children and threw these heads into their mothers' laps.
In this way the Ustashi killed 1,243 Serbs, includ ing3T}children in the Livno area in the course of 1947. The summer months of 7947 in Herzegovina were marked by mass Ustashi slaughters of the Serbs in the environs of Nevesinje, !a9k9, Bilece, Tiebinje and Capljina,at which time2,297 adults and567 children were killed. On the
t{'rp {, lgfl the Ustashi murdered 140 people h t!"- village of Korito near $reh- ttr€m into pits 30 meters deep. In the period from22 to 28 |une 1941 ma Crcno fu'grm Caf'lifua and its environs 526 men, women and children were .laughtered.
ryh
{rf
mwttn&es
har"e told incredible stories about the slaughter of the population of the
riWrgg ot Hilovci near Capljina. The Ustashi massacre lasted from 4 to'1.1. luly, Ig'fl- Tlte rrc;t horrible scenes took place in a school in Prebilovci when the Ustashi lgl'rcd in{ants from their cradles and crushed their heads against the school walls in tront of their mothers. In Prebilovci on August 6,'1.941 the Ustashi threw 470 of the Fusorrs into the pit and 237 children under 14. On the 8th of August,7947 one of about the slaughter In this place Stanj. place in Mehin took crimes monstrous rrrcet {3n in}Ebitants from Slunj, Vojnic and Kladusa took place. Deep anti-tank trenches, nlrkh had been dug earlier along the boundary line between Bosnia and Kordun, 700 rffis long, were filled with Ustashi victims. More than 300 women and children nere killedin the churchyard of the Orthodox church in Kladusa. Mutilated victims rrere transported in trucks to these mass trench graves.
Ai the end of luly 1947 the Ustashi killed more than 300 women, children persons from villages near Glina. on August 21., '1.947, they slaughtered aged and 1,029 Serbs in the Orthodox church in Glina, whom they had tricked into believing they would be converted to Catholicism. These Serbs had been brought from the area of Vrginmost. During july and early August 1941 mass crimes were committed in Bosanska Kraiina. According to a report filed by the commander of the Sanska County, General Dragutin Rumler, on August 77,7941, more than 10,000 Serbs were killed during an action against the 'rebels.' Mass killing of the Serbs began in Sanskimost and surroundings on August 2,'1941, at which time the Ustashi massacred 4,000 men, rromen and children.
During the same period, the Ustashi comrnitted massacres in Bosanska In the Risova Greda forest more than 800 Serbs were hurled into the abysses. Krupa. The women and children were subjected to unheard of brutalities. The women had their hands tied through severed breasts, and babies were removed from their mothers' wombs and slaughtered.
In the Cazin area the Ustashi killed 1,142 adults and264 children in 1941. In the course of july and August the same year, the Ustashi klled770 Persons and 155 children in Glamoc. In the area of Jajce, mosfly from the viJlages of |anje and Sipovo, about 600 men and women and 120 children were killed. In the villages in the vicinity of Bosanski Petrovac also in July and August 1941 the Ustashi killed 7&1 persons. In the village of Bravsko alone 134 women and 126 children were slaughtered. Within a period of 20 days in August 1941 ihe Ustashi klled,2257 men and women and 465 children in the environs of Prijedor and Bosanski Novi.
At that time whole villages were burned down, the popuiation torbured and thrown into pits, the children were stuck on bayonets. The murders took place everywhere, in courtyards and at thresholds of homes, in gardens and in the market places, and on the bridges and banks of the Sava River. Dusanka Radisic, a little girl from Rudica near Bosanski Novi, was a survivor and eyewitness of the massacre of her family and relatives: "ln the front yard of the home of Djoka Oljaca they slaughtered us like sheep, clubbed and axed us to death. The house, farm buildings and large courtyard were all covered with corpses. When the mothers cried out for the children to be spared, the Ustashi did just the opposite. First they slaughtered the children and then the parents." In the village of Citluk a child, Mikan jandric, who vvas standing in his baby-walker, had both his hands cut off by the Ustashi. The children Blagoje of 3 years and Mara of 6 months were stucli on a bayonet and thus caried through the village. The year of '1942 was the bloodiest year in tlre history of the Serbian people childrcn. Near |asenovac, in the village of Draksenic, on fanuary 13 and 74,7942 for dE Ustashi massacred 208 inhabitants including 85 children in the village church.
The surviving eyewitnesses, Anka Lukac and Mara Blagojevic described this crime in the following words: "The church was fuIl of corpses and blood was ankle-deep' A woman named Nikola Dracina was placed on the altar piece, leaning against it as if asleep. In front of the church, leaning on the wooden fence was Marta Vrnjic with her two children. Both her breasts were slashed and the hands of her children drawn thorough her breasts. The children's hands were tied with wire." A monstrous Ustashi crime was committed on February 7,7942 when 2,300 inhabitants of Drakulic, Motika and Sargovac, villages near Banja Luka, were killed. The peak of Ustashi barbarism occurred with the slaughter of 551 children. The Pavelic bodyguard unit in this crime
was led by Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, Franciscan chaplain of the Petricevac Monastery. He was also known by the name-Friar Satan. He was given this name in jasenovac as one of itd guards. When he slaughtered 7 year old Djura Glamocanin Friar Satan urged his'hesitant men with a bloody knife in his hands: "ln the name of God I am converting these infidels, and let all these sins be upon my soul."
(hildren in Ustoshi (ollettion ond (ontentrotion
Comps
What children experienced in Ustashi camPs is a unique example of human suffering. Tens of thousands of children were killed in these camps. Mara VejnovicSmiljanic, a detainee in the Stara Gradiska Camp, in ]une 7942 has said the following: "Horrible cries of human pairy sorrow, helplessness and desperation could be heard in the camp when the Ustashi took small children away from their mothers. Usually a group of Ustashi with bayonets on their rifles forced the mothers with children into a iircle. First, they asked the mothers and children to volunteer to be separated-and then, when this was not possible, they separated them - by force. The children and their mothers clung to each other and cried out. Some others leaped on to the bayonets and fell dead. The children were then placed in a big camp building. In some of the rooms they squeezed up to one hundred children, where in such a small place they could only stand upright." jelka Cihaber from Zemun, an inmate in the womenls camp in Stara Gradiska, has noted down: "Most of the children from Mount Kozara were seParated from their parents and placed in special premises of the camp storehouse. In these bad conditions the children quickly weakened and became victims of all kinds of infectious diseases. In addition to this, the Ustashi liquidated these children by putting into their food quantities of caustic soda." Marijana Amulic, another inmate of the same camp has testified the following: "On that day Maks Luburic, Ljubo Milos, Ivica Matkovic with a group of Ustashi arrived in the Camp. Their purpose was to take the children away from their parents. A horrifying scream went up from the mothers and from children. The situation was horrible. The situation was catastrophic. The older children started running away in an attempt to conceal themselves. This was followed by bestial beatings. The women were crazed. They fought with the Ustashi for their children. All to no ivail. The children lay about helplessly without any strength even to cry. They died softly and gradually.
Later on, near the camP, grave diggers opened 11 big pits and buried several hundred asphyxiated children. Ma-j" Cizmak was also an eyewitness of murder of children in the Stara Gradiska Camp: "The killers Karamarko and Oreskovic arrived at night. Karamarko went round the children with a long blade and slaughtered them so that the tip of his blade was stuck deep into the throats of the children. The smaller children were strangled by Oreskovic with his hands or else lifted by their feet and struck several times against the ceiling. These men then walked across both the living and the dead. One could hear the children's bones cracking. The worst of all was that all this was happening to the children before the very eyes of those who were waiting for their turn to come."
An identical fate was experienced by the children in the other jasenovac collection centers. At the end of ]une and early July1942 the children were distributed in these camps as follows: Novska 700, Ustica 4,000, Mlaka and ]ablanac 5,680, Cerovljani 5,000 and Prijedor 2,450. A number of witnesses have left very pathetic accounts of the unprecedented sufferings of 17,830 youngsters. Mihajlo Komunicki from the Ministry of the Interior toured some of these camps on ]uly 25,"1.942, accompanied by Dr Oskar Turina, the minister plenipotentiaryin the NDH and member of Shtal's command on Mount Kozata. This is how he
described this inspection tour. "The first camp we visited was in Novska near |asenovac. On this abandoned space of an old brickyard it was difficult to recognize the men, women and children from the clay on which they were lying. \Vomen with children in a desperate state sought pity with their eyes. In this brickyard 2,800 persons were languishing and condemned to die. More than 700 rt ere children. Exposed to the weather, tortured through hunger and dirt, the small children died here in groups." The second camp we visited, Ustica near Jasenovac, displayed an even rvorst situation. About 8,000 women and children were expecting their bitter fate, here in the vicinity of Gradina. We also visited the camp in Prijedor, which at that time belonged to the ]asenovac compound. Here also on bare bricks there Iay about
4,000 persons, among whom more than 2^500 children. They were in a pitiful state. Their eyes were drawn and dry. They had no more strength even to cry. We did not
even get to jablanac and Mlaka, though we knew that there were many more detainees in even worse conditions. Our inspection tour had no purPose at all. These r.ictims were not helped by anyone. Dr Oskar Turina only took photographs and laughed cynically."
Many authentic testimonies about the horrors in the camPs have been preserved. We here cite only one such account: Dr. Velimir Dezelic, an official of the Croat Red Cross, on September 3,7945 described the sufferings of the children in the
Sisak Camp. "The most ill-famed camp was the children's camp in Sisak. Antun Najzer, a doctor and a one time camp commander, liquidated the Orthodox children en masse with poisoned injections. We knew that the killing of the children was
catastrophic, but all our interventions were in vain. From July 12 to the end of October 7942, 3,336 children were brought to the jastrebarsko camP from Jablanac, Mlaka and Gornja Rijeka. The children arrived in Jastrebarsko in a desperate state Kamilo Brestler recalls. They looked like skeletons, especially those from Stara Gradiska Camp. Many were bloated from hunger. Their faces were emaciated, their color was that of cement, and only their huge sunken eyes cortld be seen. Many were toothless, and most of them were sick from infectious diseeises. There were children n'ho fell dead at the least effort. According to a jastrebarsko Camp file, 458 children died there. However, according to the evidence collected by Franja llovar, the guard of the Jastrebarsko cemetery, who buried the children and kept a'diary of burials.' 168 bovs and girls died in this camp.
Learning of the pitiable fate of thousands of youngsters in camps, Zagreb patriots, people who could not reconcile themselves to the Ustashi movement and other persons from among prominent citizens, organized in the summer of 7942, a
deeply humane action. Thanks to the self-sacrificing efforts of hundreds of participants of this movement, of medical personnel, Red Cross volunteers and several hundred families from Zagreb and surroundings, everything was done to halt the killings of the children. These noble people succeeded in saving from Stara Gradiska, jablanac, Mlaka, Ustica and Prijedor 1'2,623 children. From Jasenovac, however, they were not able to save one single child. The ]asenovac execution ground extending from Krapje to Stara Gradiska over 210 square kilqmeters, devoured more than 70,340 boys and girls whose names have been ascelrtained. The initiators and the most prominent organizers of these humane actions were Dijana Budisavljevic, Kamilo Bresler, Jana Koh, Dragica Habazin-mother, and others. They have left their remembrances, diaries and notes. Here are some of them: Dragica Habazin-mother, described her first arrival in Stara Gradiska on |uly 9,'l.942. "When with Dijana Budisavljevic, fana o Koh and 15 nurses of the Red Cross I arrived in the Camp, the Ustashi were giving a banquet in honor of German general Shtal. Until the evening nobody contacted us. The following morning we began taking over the children from Mount Kozara. A number of German officers from the Camp command were making a tour to select the women in the camp who would be sent to labor camps in Cermany. They gave us the children they had separated from their mothers.
'Then the camp doctor, Dr. Buki Konforti, took us to the so-called children's hospitals. On the way he told us softly: 'I will show you everything, everything. The hospital, the attic and the cellar as well as the Tower, and you should transmit all this to the public. Every human being should know about this. When one of us opened a door of the 'Tower', the children began falling out and sliding down the staircase. These were the skeletons of dead children. Seeing at the same time living children in an indescribably horrible state, it became clear to us that we could not help them - but we nevertheless placed them in our transPort so that people should see what was being done to children. At that time, we brought to Zagreb about 1,000 seriously ill children. Five days later we again went to Giadish. Dr. Konforti was no longer there. The Ustashi killed him. On that occasion we saved about 700 ailing children." "On two visitations we transported from jablanac and Mlaka more than Mount Kozara. When Luburic banned all further collection of children from this area, in Stara Gradiska alone more than 10,000 children remained. |ana Koh described the same events in the following words: 'There was a room of the size of 25 square meters and inside it pressed close against each other and on top of each other were the chirdren's bodies! Small, unmoving skeletons in which only big eyes were alive. These children were dying on.boards ankle-deep in excrement. Thousands of flies were crawling over their bodies sucking even the last &op of life out of their bodies."'
3,000 children from
Half a cenfury after this uurssacre of the Kozara children, after the crirrre comrnitted by PaveliCs Ustashi, a final count of 1,7,794 youngsters was ascertained as having died in these camps. During four years of the war, a whole generation of human beings was annihilated from the Kozara area. The Ustashi criminals brutally killed 6,302 boys and 4,874 girls. The names of 18 of these could not be ascertained, nor their sex, as they died before they were baptized. The average age of these 11,194 boys and girls was 6.5 years old.
FOURTY POUNDS OF HUMAN TYTS The f amous Italian writer Curzio Malaparte in his book Kaputt reports on his visit to Ante Pavelic,
head of the Independent State of Croatia rn7942. ". . .The Croatian PeoPle," said Ante Pavelic, "wish to be ruled with goodness and justice. And I am here to provide them."
While he spoke, I gazed at a wicker basket on the Poglavnik's desk. The lid was slightly raised and the basket seemed to be fil1ed with mussels, or shelled oysters.
Ante looked at me and winked,
"Would you like a nice oYster stew?"
"Are they Dalmatian oYsters?" I
asked.
Ante Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and revealed the mussels, that slimy and jellY-like mass, and he said smiling,"It is a present from my loyal Ustashi. ' . Forlv pounds of human eYes."
rQuoted from page 266 of Kaputt, E. P. Dutton & Co-. Inc., New York, 1946)
This peasant woman's eyes were gouged out for the eyeball collectioa of Ante
Pavelic
HELEN DELICH BENTLEY 2O
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DISIFlfi, I{ARY!AND
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON AGING SUBCOMMINE€ ON HEALTH AND TONG TEBM CAflE TASK FORCE ON WOM€N AND SOCIAL SECURITY
October 29,1991 Rt. Rev. Bishop Chrysostom Serbian Orthodox Diocese of
Western America
Alhambra, California Your Grace: In remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the genocide of the Serbs, we must take notice of the recent rise of the Ustashe in Croatia. The war in Yugoslavia has claimed thousands of lives; countless truces have been broken. There is little, if anything, encouraging in the bleak scenario facing Yugoslavia. The picture is increasingly grim, both on the battlefield and in the United States government, where various members of Congress, responding to the powerful Croatian lobby, insist on blaming Serbia for all of Yugoslavia's present ills, and persist in introducing legislation which favors Croatia and damages Serbia. Serbs, both in Yugoslavia and outside of Yugoslavia, are outraged by the poor image they have elicited from the media. Serbs in Yugoslavia have smarted under the criticisms from the European community and the United States for their military responses to Croatia's move for independence. However, they are determined not to let another genocide take place against the Serbs and have decided to defend themselves.
Most Serbs in the United States tend to think there is nothing they can do to combat the hugely successful Croatian program of propaganda. But, it is this attitude of silence which is most harmful to Serbia. It is imperative that Serbs unite and contact their federal government officials. Members of Congress need to hear from the Serbian population here from the Serbian population here in the United States; otherwise, they will make the mistake of writing legislation without knowing the whole story. Sincerely,
Helen Delich Bentley Member of Congress
IOlI
JIM MOODY
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COMMITTEE ON
WAYS AND MEANS
135 WEsr WELrs Sr. Roor 618
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2, L99I
Right Reverand Bishop Chrysostom Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America Alhambra, California Your Grace: Please accept my sincerest greetings as you gather in solemn of this fiftieth year since the beginning of the Ustashi genocide against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. commemoration
The hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs and Jews and Gypsies wtro were slaughtered by the ustashi genocide in Yugoslavia Uetween l-941 and 1945---the innocent men and women, and above all, the children, whose only "crime" was that they were of a different faith or nationality---can achieve some measure of peace and rest because you have chosen not to forget them. This commemoratlon ls a].so important for the living as wel1. of the Americans and the world community at large know little Ustashi genocide, of the brutality, of the murderousness that was beyond anything even committed by their most hardened German Nazi and Italian Fascist Partners.
The religious institutions and neighboring countries who abetted the forced converslons of the orthodox Serbs and aided in the avoidance of justice by the murderers bear a heavy burden of guilt that remains to this very moment. In Yugoslavia today' as the political descendants of the Ustashi wrap themselves in false ctoaks of democracy and deniat, we must not condemn all for the brutality and inhumanity of some. But we must also not turn away from the truth of history. The torrent of tears shed by the descendants of the victims these past fifty years must not sinply collect idly in sad and forgotten poo1s. These tears of remembrance must help wash altay the conspiracy of silence and denial that has covered over this darkest corner of history and reftect the determination of the serbian peopre to never a1low a forgotten past to become a repeated reatity in Yugoslavia today. Pl-ease extend my personal regards to the entire SerbianAmerican community on this most important and solemn occasion,
Jim
Moody
Member
of
Congress
THIS STATIONERY PRINTED ON PAPEN MADE OF BECYC@
FIAffi
MESSAGE FROM IEWISH WAR VETERANS, FORMER CONCENTRATION CAMP INMATES AND PRISONFRS OF WA& BELGRADE
Yugoslav Jews participants in the armed struggle for freedom during World War II, surviving inmates- of the Ustasha death camp |asenovac in Croatia and Nazi camps, and former prisoners of war who now live in Belgrade, at their meeting adopted ' the
following message:
Living today in a country torn by fighting, destruction and loss of life, we condemn this war, a war we could never have imagined would happen in Europe at the threshold of the 21st century. But, with equal bittemess, we recognize the reappearance of extremist and totalitarian nationalism at home, and German expansionism, and our conscience does not allow us to remain silent.
.
Our experiences through the centuries have taught us thatnationalism and chauvinism lead to persecution and, as a rule, tum against our people in the form of antiSemitism. The tragedy of our people during World War II when they were the victims of genocide, was for us an indelible lesson. For this reason, we observe with concem and anxiefy the signs of the restoration of the past in some parts of our country. The most drastic example are the current developments in Croatia, where forces of the past have infiltrated the fiber of contemporary life.
One of the first steps taken by the new authorities in Croatia, installed in the spring of 1990, as to rename the Victims of Fascism Square in the capitoi city of Zagreb. This presaged the return to the scene of those who do not want to be reminded in any way of the human sufferings caused by this Croatian neo-Fascist Ustashe in the quisling "Independent State of Croatia". This state was set up by Germany and Italy in the spring of 1941, after their invasion of Yugoslavia. The deletion of the name of Victims of Fascism Square was accompanied by the return to Croatia from abroad of a number of leading Ustashe, their penetration into political life, and their appearance in the mass media, frequently with anti-Semitic statements. Members of the ruling party in Croatia have been arnred, an afaming
reminderoftheNazimedrodsinC,ennany- Asystemof swearingloyalty,inwriting,to the regime was irnposed in regions inlrabihd by ottrer nationalities. Proof of the pure Croatian origin of both parents is a prerequisiE for errployurerrt in some govemment departments and security services. Persons who rrade rrc effort to conceal their antiSemitism during the election campaign have corre to high positions. In his book "Wastelands of Historical Realig/' published in L989, the cument president of the Republic of Croatia, Franjo Tudiman, wrote that "soon afterwards (the second world war) the jewish people became so brutal and pursued so genocidal a poliry towards the Palestinian that they can rightly be defined as Judeo-Nazis". Bombs exploded recently in the entrance to the Jewish Community building and at the Jewish Cemetery inZagreb. The Memorial Center at the Iasenovac death camp, which claimed the lives of thousands upon thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies, has been desecrated. The Memorial Museum has been stripped of the evidence of the genocide committed there.
The present regime in Croatia has not clearly distanced itself from the quisling "Independent State of Croatia", which declared war on the United States of America and sent its troops to the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. President Tudjman went so far as to point up a degree of historical continuity between modern Croatia, which is carrying out a secession, and the former "Independent State of Croatra", which did everything in its power to annihilate its Jews and against which we took up arms and fought on the side of the Allies. The revival of the forces of the past in Croatia today primarily jeopardizes the position and rights of the Serbs, the most numerous non-Croat people who predominate in certdin areas of the republic or are mixed with the Croats. Following the genocide committed against them in the "Independent State of Croatia", Serbs en masse joined the National Liberation Struggle and, under the command of Marshal Tito, fought against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Ustasha Croatia. The present authorities in Croatia have, with the new constitution, downgraded the Serbs, a constituent people, to a national minority and turned them into second-class citizens. This antagonized the Serbs and they refuse to live in the new state of Croatia. We Jewish war veterans carmot forget that we fought together in Croatia with the Serbs and anti-Ustasha Croats in the ranks of the partisans and units of the People's
Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. We surviving concentration camp inmates remember that, after very rare successful attempts to escape from the death camps, we found refuge and succor in territories liberated from the Germans and Ustasha; we former Jewish prisoners of war remember the solidarity of antifascist and patriotic Serb officers who backed us in our protest against the German camp authorities who ordered us to wear the yellow Star of David.
APPEAL BY THE RABBI OF YUGOSLAVIA ADDRESSED TO POPE JOHN PAUL
The chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia Cadik Danon today addressed an appeal to the Head of the Roman Catholic Church asking him to call on all the Roman Catholics of the world to say a prayer for the souls of "all the victims of the crime of genocide committed on the soil of Croatia during the second World War." The Yugoslav Rabbi expressed the conviction that this would be a significiant contribution to calming the spirits in Yugoslavia, which is being torn by civil war.
After the inva'gion of Yugoslavia, Germany and Italy created the Quisling "Independent State of Croatia" which declared war on the Allies and deported Jews, Cypsies, anti-Fascist Croats and a very large number of the Serbian people in Croatia and dispatched them to the Jasenovac death camp. One of the main causes of the present civil war is the refusal of the Serbs to live in a new Croat state which has been proclaimed as such by an act of secession at the end of Jr-rne this year. The statement made by Rabbi Danon reads as follows:
"Half a century separates us from the atrocious crime in the history of Yugoslavia, that is, from Ustashi genocide in Jasenovac, on the soil of the 'Independent state of Croatia'. During four years the Ustashi in Jasenovac exterminated in the most brutal way hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and others were the victims of the Ustashi who have placed on themseives and on their protectors the heavy burden of responsibiiity for the crimes that cannot be forgotten. "We are again reliving dark davs because of intolerance and hatred. The most ominous forebodings har.e become realitr.. lVhat is happening these past few months confronts us with the dark side of history that is being repeated. Churches are being desecrated as well as monasteries, temples, slrnagogues and cemetaries; religious dignitaries are being humiliated and shamed. Jasenovac, the symbol of sufferings, should be a permanent shrine for pilgrims of all religions who would come to pay their respects to the victims. This is also a place for all those who should re-examine their conscience, to say a prayer before the innocent victims, to repent and ask for forgiveness. God is merciful and he forgives even the most hardened sinners if they truly repent. "The civil war now raging in Yugoslavia is taking its toll in blood. The culprits of the fratricidal war, blinded by their fanatic nationalism, are not stopping at anything and, even not at turning religious edifices into bunkers and machine-gun nests. "We who stand at the head of religious communities feel the full weight of responsibility and the obligation to use our influence so that the voice of reason and love might prevail over the rumble of guns.
"It is in this sense that we must welcome the repeated appeals of the head of the Roman Catholic Church His Holiness Pope john Paul to ali Roman Catholics in the world to pray for peace in Croatia. I am convinced that an e\.en greater conlribution to calming the situation would be a call from the same place to the Roman Catholics to pray for peace of the souls of all the victims of the Ustashi genocide in Croatia during the Second World War. "If all of us together raise our r.oices and condemn the crimes committed then, we will help arouse the consciences of men and open the path to lessons to be learned from the past."
Dear Fellow Serbians,
There is recognized an_indisputable imbarance in the approach of
American media and the United States Congress to the ..r.."i-rt'yugoslav crisis. This imbalance is the direct result oiinsufficient informatioln and superficial analysis of the current situation, rather than a comprehensive
evaluation of all of Yugoslavia's historicar, legal, moral anh political
elements.
S A
V A
ii"r" i, critical need for Yugoslavia,
Serbia and serbian-Americans to adopt a more aggressive approach in dealing with the serious lack of understanding concerning the diveiie issues i"';; tG.;iu-,riu"i'r'g".r"ral and Serbia in particular. This problem of ignorance and passive noi-.urio.rr", once irerely nettlesome and
frustrating, has now become dangerous.
. 4t aggressive campaign !o tnject balance and perspective must be undertaken immediatelv in order to stem the tide of public and govemmentil op'inion against vrlgosluuia u.,j ig;* F;l the past several months, those membeis of Congress *no nurrE alied th%mselves with Croatian or Albanian factions have.become vocal opporients of the-.Serbian Republic. Within in" plri eight months alone, they have introdu."d io-u twenty-five bills anh resolutions critical of
Serbia, such as:
' 5.7793/Oct 2, to restrict U.S. assistance for Serbia, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato said: "The massacre being undertaken by Communist dictator Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian guerrillas against the innocent citizens of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia is unconscionable." Senator Pell and Glenn also went on to criticize Serbians,
"atrocities." o s.Res. 776/sept 11, by Bob Dole introduced a resolution to condemn the "policies of violent aggression perpetrated by serbian[s],, with regard to croatians, Slovenians and Albanians in Kosovo. That same resolution was liter called up and passed by the Senate that same evening. o On October B, Rep. Tom Lantos, David Bonior, Bill Bloomfield, James Sensenbrenner, et. al. introduced H.R.3518 to impose economic sanctions on the Republic of Serbia. The text of the bill suggests that the root cause of the crisis in Yugosiavia is Serbia's "effort to hold on to power and privilege.,,
While all of this is qoing-9n, I have seen almost nothing on human rights abuses against ethnic Serbs within the Republic of Croatia; the atrocities oY Trdy-un and the role which he deputies played in the extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies during 3:.l.Jlb..gli"cipal WW[; Iittle on the slaughter of ethnic Serbs by a resurgent Usiasa -oveme-.,t in Croatia"; nothing o1 jhe fl-ight of more than 100,000 Serbi from Ciatian persecution; nothing on the history of the Albanian overrunning of Kosovo; nothing of Seibian cooperation iritn tn" United States and its democratic allies throughout,moder"n history; and nothing on the true European role or motivation in the Yugoslavia-n conflict. The Serbian-American community in the United States, one couid observe, has failed to organize itself as an effective participant bloc in the American politicai system. The result is simple - truth and fairness have beeneffectively silenced. Croatia, on the other hand, hired Norman Bailey, former Reagan NSC employee, and the public relations firm of Ruder Finn, Inc. As a result of this onJ-sided.urn1iuigt,'C.""ti"" forces are verge of accomplishing-the impossible; namely, getting tt. Silt"'o"p".t*""i 9n fh9 and the Administration actively involved in the Yugoslavian ciisiX - wlin a co.rg.essfor,ul u11J public opinion mandate to do so with an anti-Serbiair bias. . U'S. foreign policy is built upon a foundation of American public opinion and the activities of the legislative branch - both of which are significantly influenced by the media. Ii Yugoslavia, Serbia, and the Serbian-American commun"ity can concede those iealities, as has
Croatia, then they must also recognize the threat of"failing to influence those factors themselves.
'SAVA has succeeded in gaining a great deal of exposure, domesticallr-and internationallY, us u result of its successful "g1ass roots lobby"'effort in challenging ,".""t
legislation offensive to the Serbian-American cdmmunity. 'SAVA will continue to provide the effort and expertise necessarv to pursue fufure legislation in political perspective, to inform our elected representatives oi' o,rr'co.rcems, and to educate and instruct the Serbian-American commurlltv as to horl to respond to and influence the political process.
'SAVA will continue to strive for improvement, to include a rsell-orchestrated
information network designed to keep o.,. constitrents informed. .SAVA's recent success is the resuit of a ,,dedicated ieu-'.; ho11-g1,.r. rr-e rr-ill continue to solicit support throughout the Serbian-American crrmmunitv ir.rm tho:e rrhtr recognize the o importance oi representation in our \ation_< Capittrl.
SAVAISYOLR "GTass Roos Lobhr-" - SL?PORT
IT:
n
,
/bZU, David Vuich, president
