ANATOMY OF DECEIT
Copyright©
1997 by Jerry Blaskovich. Electronic edition by Studia
Croatica, by permission of the author
Chapter 9: The
Infant Democracy's First Steps
During the
years of Yugoslav Communism the Serbs kept tight reins on the development of
non-Serbian politics and public relations. It’s not surprising that newly
independent Croatia made a number of cardinal mistakes in these sectors.
Croatia was unable to help its cause abroad because it didn't have an
image-projecting body to combat Serbia's sophisticated propaganda apparatus.
At the onset
of hostilities in Croatia, the few foreign journalists who had gone to Zagreb
found Croatian sources uncooperative. Zagreb had no viable press bureau to
liaison with the foreign press. Croatian government officials were neither
readily accessible, nor politically equipped to handle questions. The fact that
Western journalists were viewed with suspicion as a carry
over from the Bolshevist days didn't help matters. Croatia had and
continues to have little understanding of the direct relationship between media
reportage and political actions. The only bright spot in the media's coverage
in Croatia came after the establishment of the Foreign Press Bureau (FPB).
Before the
birth of the FPB most news coverage about Croatia originated from Belgrade or
TANJUG (the official Yugoslav news organization) press releases. Without
exception, the media reported whatever the Serbs wanted to project. HINA, the
official Croatian news organ, was looked upon by the world's reporters as
self-serving and lacking in credibility. For some strange reason, TANJUG
remained above reproach.
George Bush's
nominee for the post of Ambassador to Croatia, Mara Letica,
and a few other Croatian-Americans helped found the Croatian American
Association (CAA). The CAA became the only viable organization that represented
Croatian-American interests in Washington, D.C. Acutely aware of the problems
the media faced in Croatia, Letica
was instrumental in establishing the FPB to help get objective facts from
Croatia to the press. Letica hired J. P.
"Pat" Mackley, who had, among his other
diverse talents, a solid background in journalism; and sent him to Zagreb. His
expertise in military strategy (which he had learned in Vietnam and the Gulf
War) and his deftness in dealing with often belligerent Croatian government
officials uniquely qualified him to direct the FPB. While he ran the FPB, the
Croatian military used another of Mackley’s multi-talents;
as a master marksman he taught a cadre of Croats to become skilled snipers.
Their newly learned expertise played a major role defending Vukovar.
After
observing Mackley over the years, I believe that his
true forte was political analysis. In a Washington Post Op-Ed piece The Balkan
Quagmire Myth, on March 7, 1993, Mackley persuasively
refuted every one of the American military’s arguments against using strategic
air strikes and logically showed why unmanned aircraft, like missiles, were
better suited. He not only predicted what NATO would do in 1995, once it got
its act together, he also named the exact strategic targets. When NATO
destroyed those important targets with missiles, it led to the Dayton Accords.
The Post article was the only one of entire conflict that described the true
status of the Serb forces. Alone among other writers, Mackley
destroyed the myth of the Serbs’ fighting ability.
Mackley molded a cadre of more than 70 dedicated volunteers, mostly second and
third generation Croatian youths from the United States, Canada, and Australia,
but also a number of native Croats, into a force that earned respect from even
the most jaded members of the world's media.
The Bureau
opened in August, 1991, and set about presenting the situation in Croatia,
warts and all, to the international press. The elusive trait of credibility
became the hallmark of the FPB. Reporters turned more and more to the FPB to
gain access to Croatian governmental sources. Although doing so placed its
volunteers in great peril, the FPB proudly escorted reporters to the front
lines. Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Roy Gutman
praised the young men and women of the FPB for their indispensable help in
getting the true story out. He said, "They are the real heroes."
The FPB played
a decisive role in dispelling a number of media preconceptions. For example,
the media had been under the impression that the JNA was serving a peacekeeping
role in Croatia. This faulty notion disappeared when the FPB took reporters to
see the JNA carnage and destruction firsthand. Journalists soon came to depend
on the FPB for hard information.
The success of
the FPB made many officials in the Croatian government uncomfortable because
the FPB staff's Western habit of expressing free thinking and self-initiative
threatened the existing order. Although the Croatian government was
democratically elected, many officials still thought like Communists, or more
specifically, Bolshevists. Many couldn't relate to the new system and were
intolerant of any criticism no matter how well intentioned. Despite animosity
expressed by some in the Croatian government, Minister of Information Branko Salaj, head of Hrvatska Matica Iseljenika (Croatian Heritage Foundation) Ante Beljo, and Minister of Defense Gojko
Susak cooperated and backed any decisions regarding
the FPB. These three new leaders had lived in exile for over 75 years
collectively. Only after Croatia declared independence were they able return
home and assume positions in the government. In sharp contrast to many of their
colleagues, they were well aware of the value of truth in the media and
democracy.
As the FPB
increasingly discredited information coming from Belgrade, the Serbs began
targeting members of the press for acts of violence. During this relatively
short war, more reporters have been killed than had been during both the
Vietnam and Salvadoran wars. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists,
44 journalists were killed in the Balkans between the onset of hostilities in
1991 and September, 1994. Another 12 credible reports remain unconfirmed. The
Committee's executive director William A. Orme Jr.
asserted that many of the journalists were victims of deliberate targeting.
Once its
initial funding dried up, the undercapitalized FPB became a shadow of its
former self.
Although
expatriate Croatian organizations in the United States had allotted funds for
the FPB, the organizations found a variety of excuses to avoid dispensing the
promised money. For example, the Los Angeles-based Croatian National Foundation
withheld funds that were budgeted for the FPB because of personality clashes
some of its board members had with certain members of the Croatian American
Association. Los Angeles-based Croatian-American activist Mike Volaric explained the situation with convoluted logic:
"Our organization rescinded its decision to give money to help the Foreign
Press Bureau because they were appalled that the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, had squandered other donated funds on an
airplane for his personal use."
But the
seminal reason why Croatian-American organizations pulled the rug out from
under the FPB was because certain Croatian officials in the United States were
sabotaging the FPB. The Croatian diplomats felt threatened by the FPB on two
scores. They believed that the success of the FPB stole their thunder and, more
importantly, that the FPB and they were competing for the same donor pool.
Without financing, the FPB collapsed.
The failure of
the FPB may sound like an isolated example of squabbling among immigrant
Croatian groups. But unfortunately, within Croatian communities this type of
conflict is typical. Unlike Serbian immigrants in the U.S. and Canada, Croatian
immigrants are deeply divided. A large number of Croatian immigrants who had
embraced the Yugoslav concept have clashed with those Croats who rejected it.
Among the Serbs, Yugoslavism was never seriously
considered. They have considered themselves Serbs first and foremost and therefore
remained united.
Los Angeles is
home to a sizable number Yugoslav immigrants. Until
recently they remained aloof to the internecine squabbles that pervaded their
homeland. But as battle lines were drawn between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in
former Yugoslavia, the immigrant communities of Los Angeles developed similar
divisions, shattering a long-lived symbiosis. So far Balkan inter-ethnic
violence hasn't spread to North America, even though almost every American with
Croatian or Bosnian roots has been touched by personal tragedy.
Yet Yugoslav
politics have caused a number of criminal acts in the Los Angeles area Croatian
community. Most of the acts predated the present conflict by decades. Such
incidents have included a car bombing that killed two men and the concurrent
bombing of several businesses, including a renowned restaurant. Police disarmed
six sticks of dynamite found by a Los Angeles city official, the target,
seconds before the dynamite would have detonated. In other cases through the years,
arsonists torched social clubs; the most recent was an arson attempt on the
Croatian Hall soon after Croatia became independent. Despite substantial
rewards offered, none of the perpetrators of any of these crimes were ever
caught.
The victims of
these assaults were ethnic Croats. But the city official and restaurant owner
proudly proclaimed themselves to be Yugoslavs instead of Croats.
These
intra-ethnic conflicts occurred in the Los Angeles port of San Pedro, an
enclave that is home to the highest per capita percentage of Croats outside of
Croatia. The split among the Croats hasn't been limited to my San Pedro, but
has been typical in most Croatian immigrant communities. I've talked with
Croatian-American leaders from Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, and New
York City. They all suggested that whether a person considers himself a Croat
or a Yugoslav tends to depend on whether he immigrated to the United States
before or after World War II. Suspicion, mistrust, and hatred defined by this
divide have even permeated some Croatian-American families.
UDBA (Yugoslav
secret police), which infiltrated all émigré groups, played a major role in
sowing intra-ethnic dissension. Once Croatia became independent archives, long
held secret by UDBA, were opened. In San Pedro’s Croatian community rumors
circulated that between 32 and 51 individuals had operated as UDBA agents
locally. I asked Franjo Golem, Croatia’s
Plenipotentiary representative to the United States: “Now that the archives are
open, which can identify the agents that had worked in San Pedro, when will the
names be made public?” His tongue in cheek answer: “In order to prevent
retribution or not to create chaos in the immigrant community, the Croatian
government will not make public the names at this time,” was followed with a
wink.
Since there
haven’t been any major discernible changes in the community, I suspect that the
Croatian government is now using some of them as their own resources.
In an incident
that required police intervention, the Croatian-American father of Los Angeles
City Councilman Rudy Svorinich was attacked verbally
by a member of the Croatian community who accused him of being a Communist. The
assailant was a member of the Croatian Club who couldn't comprehend that in the
United States political affiliation is a matter of choice. A March, 1994, LA
Weekly article reported that after the attack Councilman Svorinich
allegedly characterized the Croatian Club members as radical, nationalistic,
Nazis in disguise--on whose arms, if you rolled up their sleeves, you'd find
swastikas. Svorinich didn't deny the allegation that
his father was a Communist, and the Croatian-American Club members didn't
demand an apology for the councilman's insults.
The pre-World War II Croatian immigrants came
to Los Angeles in three waves: from a Croatia under Austrian domination, from a
Serbian-ruled kingdom, and from a Yugoslavia that imposed draconian measures on
non-Serbs. They were, at best, semi-literate, patriarchal, politically naive,
and provincial. These hardworking, honest to a fault, immigrants settled mostly
in San Pedro. They remembered the old country as an idyllic fantasy. Tied to
the once flourishing fishing industry, the community prospered, adjusted to
American mores, and, for the most part, lost its ethnic identity.
Aside from
teaching the faith, the Catholic Church in Croatia has perpetuated cultural
values. Because the Croatian immigrants in San Pedro were unable to receive the
Church's teachings in their first language, they maintained neither faith nor
culture. In addition, because many of the males were commercial fishermen who
were out at sea for months at a time, the community became matriarchal within a
single generation.
Official
Yugoslav sources supplied most of the news from the homeland to the San Pedro
community.
With rare
exceptions, the pre-World War II Croats of San Pedro were ignorant of the fact
that the Serbs ruled all political and economic infrastructures of Yugoslavia.
Similar ignorance existed wherever Croats had settled. A majority of the
Yugoslav diplomatic corps was made up of Serbs who eagerly provided official,
Serbian-slanted news to the local immigrant communities.
Consequently,
the mostly uneducated Croatian émigrés learned "their" history from
the Serbian viewpoint. The Serbian propagandists effectively brainwashed the
non-Serbs émigrés to look upon the noun Croatian with abhorrence and to call
themselves Slavs; a term no Serbian nor anyone used in
Yugoslavia.
Nonetheless,
many émigrés proudly embraced the new term. With the emergent post-war
Yugoslavia, under communism, most of the Slavs readily identified with the new
regime, heart and soul, since many pre-war émigrés had communist leanings
anyway. They embraced Yugoslavia's agenda to an extent that San Pedro’s
Yugoslav Club was labeled a subversive organization up to the early 1960s, and
which had preceded Macarthyism.
Unlike the
Croatian Club members, the pre-war Slavs had to assimilate into American
society. Prior to World War II America percolated with fears of "the red
menace" and economic chaos. Anyone with funny sounding names was looked
upon disparagingly. The "greenhorns" had to adjust to survive; so
they became as "American" as possible, and thrived. The Slavic
community emerged from the 1930s' depression without any member having resorted
to welfare. Many became lawyers, teachers, judges, or captains of industry.
Their sons had fought with valor for America.
Martin Bogdanovich's
small fish packing plant became the biggest employer in San Pedro and
ultimately the largest cannery in the world--Star Kist. But an obituary upon
his daughter's death in early 1994 epitomized the prevailing attitude of Slavs.
The article proudly proclaimed that she, a Croat, had been the confidante of
Tito, the Communist dictator, and that her father was a supporter of the
Serbian king, both of whom were great enemies of the Croatian people.
The end of
World War II ushered in an era when ethnicity was non-stigmatizing. As a
result, newly arrived Croats weren't pressured to adjust to American mores and
therefore made no effort to identify with American society. The Croatian Club
and most of its members avoided involvement in American civic affairs and
institutions. In contrast, the Yugoslav Club members actively supported service
clubs and charities such as the Boys Club, Lions, or Kiwanis.
The way
Yugoslav and Croatian Clubs reflected political party lines of former
Yugoslavia and newly independent Croatia are remarkably similar. Any Yugoslav
Club member that acknowledged himself a Croatian (despite 95% of its members
were de facto Croatian) or criticized communist Yugoslavia was ostracized. On
the other hand, before independence, anyone proclaiming himself a Croatian was
welcome at any Croatian Club.
During
Croatia’s self-determination effort there was a proliferation of new political
parties. Astutely, the only Croatian political party which actively courted
émigrés world wide was the Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ). Consequently, most of the émigrés, committed themselves to the HDZ
party. In attempting to consolidate the party’s position, the leaders made
certain that any émigré who was not for the HDZ felt uncomfortable in the
Croatian Club.
To the
detriment of the Croatian community, both locally and in Croatia, the émigré
hierarchy, rather than devoting themselves to helping Croatia in a generic
sense, spent their energies consolidating personal power and ingratiating
themselves with the Zagreb government. To this end they resorted to backbiting
and character assassination against non-HDZ members or those that stepped out
of guidelines they instituted.
Besides being
counterproductive, it caused a great deal of dissension.
Because most
post World War II immigrant Croats made little effort to assimilate into
American society they never became part of the American mainstream. Although
the isolation was self imposed, many developed a lower self-esteem. But the
independence of Croatia gave those émigrés a cause. For example, a physician with
marginal healing skills and who has never formulated an original thought,
suddenly found direction when he was appointed a position in the HDZ
organization in the United States.
Pedigrees,
genetic and political, have become the prevailing criteria for legitimacy in
all the republics of former Yugoslavia. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia,
the Yugoslav Club largely ignored the issue of pedigree, but the Croatian Club
followed the party line and took it one step further. Their most important
criterion for bona fide acceptance was predicated upon whether one became a
believer in the Croatian nation before or after independence. Anybody who
wanted to join or came to the club for the first time after 1991 was viewed
skeptically. The zealots had a favorite refrain: "Where were you
before?" Yet the backgrounds of some Croatian Club officers have been
questionable. A son of a gendarme (the dreaded enforcers of the Serbian King in
Croatia) and a half-Romanian somehow slipped through the cracks to become
officers.
Despite their
nostalgic feelings for Yugoslavia, the members of the Yugoslav Club viewed
themselves as immigrants committed to America. Those Croats opposed to the
concept of Yugoslavia felt like exiles and therefore immersed themselves in
homeland politics. The infighting among Croats may have been a blessing in
disguise for Los Angeles. By focusing their chauvinism on each other, they've
avoided aiming their hatred at other ethnic groups.
A healing
process may have begun, though. After heated debate, the Yugoslav Club changed
its name.
A
reconciliation banquet spearheaded by Cardinal Mahoney brought all the
protagonists, the hierarchies of the Croatian and former Yugoslav Clubs, and
Councilman Svorinich, together at the Mary Star of
the Sea parish center. With the older, hard-liner Slavs fading out of the
picture, and the younger generations feeling indifferent about old country
politics, the split among Croats in San Pedro may die a natural death--of
course, only if there are no further acts of local violence.
Perhaps not
surprisingly the conflict in former Yugoslavia has spilled over onto the
basketball courts of the NBA. Star players Vlade
Divac of the Los Angeles Lakers and Drazen Petrovic of the New Jersey Nets had been close friends in
Yugoslavia when they played together on the Yugoslav National Team that won the
silver medal at the 1988 Olympics. Divac is a Serb, and Petrovic
a Croat.
Divac was
quoted by the Associated Press as saying that he couldn't understand why Petrovic hadn't talked to him since the European Cup
championship in 1990. Divac seemed to have forgotten that after the game he had
grabbed a Croatian flag from a fan, slammed it to the floor, and trampled it.
Shortly thereafter the Serbs initiated hostilities in Croatia. Another Croatian
ex-teammate, Stojko Vrankovic
of the Boston Celtics, ignored Divac when his team played the Lakers. After
Divac tried to rekindle old friendships, Vrankovic
said, "I can never forget what you did to my flag." No doubt he
couldn't forget recent Serbian atrocities either.
Despite the
great differences in attitude among Croatian immigrants, many have backed the
fledging Croatian state. In fact, support from overseas Croats allowed Croatia
to survive its first year of existence. Aside from the fact that it had no
allies, Croatia was virtually bankrupt when it declared independence. Whatever
federal funds the republic had before the war were held in Belgrade banks, and
therefore, Serbia immediately confiscated them. In order for the country to
function fiscally, the government had to rely on overseas Croats for a majority
of its financing.
Athletes also
helped rescue Croatia fiscally during the first few critical years. Former
Yugoslavia had no shortage of talented athletes, particularly in soccer and
basketball. Because Europe takes soccer seriously, it didn't hesitate to tap
the Croatian pool of players. According to Soccer, between 1992 and 1996
Croatia sold an incredible 1,553 player contracts abroad for millions of much
needed dollars.
Loath to lose
their privileged status, the Serbian minority in Croatia campaigned vigorously
to maintain the status quo. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the early
1990 elections and then ousted the Serbs who had ruled under the Communist
Party. While the HDZ prepared to take over the reins of government, rebel Serbs
fought back by orchestrating a number of incidents.
Serbs had
either supported the Serbian Democratic Party (SDP) or the Party of Democratic
Changes, the rechristened Communist Party. The Serbian parties couldn't accept
the fact that they had lost the election. So incited by
propaganda, which included the belief that the Croats had already slaughtered
thousands of Serbs even before they had taken over the government, the rebel
Serbs took to the streets, burning Croatian symbols and flags.
A staged
provocation in the small Croatian town of Benkovac
ranks with the Polish border guard "attacks" on Germans that
"justified" Germany's invasion of Poland prior to World War II. Miroslav Mlinar, the president of
the local SDP, was attacked by unknown assailants. He was immediately taken to
a hospital in Zadar where his injuries were evaluated
as not serious. But Mlinar and his family wouldn't
accept the diagnosis of Croatian physicians. So they elected to get a second
opinion at the hospital in Knin. The
hospital’s director Milan Babic, a dentist who later
became the Serbian rebel leader, declared Mlinar's
injuries life threatening and grave.
Believing the
attack was genuine, Croats overwhelmingly condemned it
and urged the authorities, who at the time were still Communists, to
investigate. But Serbs from the whole spectrum of Yugoslavia, including the
media, had identified the recently elected "genocidal Croatian
entity" as Mlinar's attackers.
Dr. Jovan Raskovic, a psychiatrist and president of the SDP, made a
number of pronouncements that concluded Mlinar's
attack resulted from Croatian nationalistic forces. His arguments convinced the
SDP to boycott the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.
Consequently, the Serbian population that supported the SDP weren't
represented in the parliament.
The newly
installed government pursued the Mlinar
investigation. A commission made up of Zagreb's medical school professors
established that Mlinar's injuries were negligible.
Although the commission was made up mostly of ethnic Serbs, the Serbian
community gave no credence to the commission's report.
The Serbian
media and Belgrade threatened the newly elected government with a variety of
reprisals and officially demanded that the election should be annulled and a
new government installed in Croatia. The Mlinar
affair became a cause celebre. Its rallying cry has
become a slogan for the Serbian people: "An attack on every Serb, no
matter where, is felt as an attack on the whole Serbian people."
Once the dust
settled, the Croats were found innocent of the allegations. But the damage
caused by the Mlinar affair had irreversible
consequences. The SDP refused to settle differences between the Serbs and
Croats in Croatia democratically and demanded autonomy. Although Serbia denied
autonomy to the majority Albanians of Kosovo, it demanded autonomy for Serbs in
Croatia where they comprised only about ten percent of the population. Despite
the Serbs' lack of cooperation, in a conciliatory move, President Tudjman
offered Raskovic a cabinet position, but was
summarily rebuffed. After the SDP refused to cooperate with Zagreb and flatly
rejected all government positions, it set about establishing an independent
Serbian state within Croatia, the illegal Serbian Autonomous Region (SAO) of Krajina.
Milan Babic succeeded Raskovic as head
of the SDP and was named president of SAO Krajina.
The head of Knin's police station, Milan Martic, organized the arming of local Serbs with weapons
sent from the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs and distributed by the JNA.
The commander of the JNA garrison was Ratko Mladic, who later went on to better things in Bosnia.
Barricades were set up on highways and railroad lines.
These
barricades effectively suspended traffic between Zagreb and the coast, severely
curtailing the tourist industry, one of Croatia's major sources of foreign
currency. Meanwhile, the Serbian parliament in Belgrade pledged support for its
brethren in Croatia and requested that the JNA enforce their decision. Martic became president after Babic
was ousted for daring to question the authority of Milosevic. Martic was later named a war criminal by an international
tribunal for ordering the missile attack on the center of Zagreb in May, 1995. Babic was demoted to the post of mayor in Knin after his attempt to usurp Milosevic’s authority
failed. Later, he was one of the first to leave Krajina
prior to the 1995 Croatian offensive.
The newly
elected government in Croatia was at a distinct disadvantage by every measure.
Aside from being woefully unprepared to govern and faced with an armed
insurrection supported by the federal army, they had to contend with a
bureaucracy whose members were vehemently opposed to the new order. Prior to
1990, the criteria for appointment for positions in the hierarchy and middle
management, from accountants to zookeepers, had been based on Communist Party
affiliation rather than personal qualifications. Since the new order was
elected on an anti-Communist platform, formerly entrenched bureaucrats found
the new order's agenda threatening.
In all
communist countries, vocal opposition, or even suspicious activity, could lead
to imprisonment or disappearance. Croats coined a catchy phrase to characterize
those whose whereabouts had become unknown: "The night ate them up."
And if the "disappeared" resurfaced, it was usually because they had
safely escaped to the West.
Following the
euphoria and bravado set in motion by the crumbling of communism in Europe,
would-be democratic leaders were rudely awakened to the reality of running
governments. The virgin administrations contained few individuals with
political experience and no cadre to draw upon for support. The new order had
no practical knowledge of running anything, let alone countries. Because the
old regime's political and economic infrastructures were predicated on
Communist Party membership, there were very few non-communists to take over.
But in Croatia a pool of highly qualified individuals existed outside of the
old establishment.
Yugoslav
Communism tacitly allowed the development of a sub-culture of entrepreneurs who
were highly skilled in management. As long as they didn't challenge dogmatic
issues, kept a low profile, and most importantly, greased the palms of the
officials, they were left alone. Using methods that would make Karl Marx turn
over in his grave, yet are considered laudable in a capitalistic society; they
took advantage of the system.
Their skill in
exploiting the system allowed Yugoslavia to have the highest standard of living
in the communist world.
The new
government begged these entrepreneurs to join and fill key posts, but found few
takers. The most enduring quality of these individuals was survival. Among many
Croats, uncertainty about whether Croatia would remain a viable state and fear
that Serbia would eventually crush them influenced their decision making.
The fear was
so real that many talented Croats fled the country. Others held onto the
security of their old positions, hoping they could avoid the almost certain
pogroms that would visit the nation if Serbia successfully thwarted Croatia's
independence efforts. As a consequence, most government posts were filled by
second or third choices, particularly by holdovers from the old regime or
people whose only talent was patriotism. Despite the shortcoming of having
individuals that lacked qualification that filled important positions, the
government is surviving by trial and error.
For example,
one individual, after having lived in the United States for several years but
had learned how to exploit the American system returned to Croatia. Before he
left, he incurred huge debts, declared bankruptcy and absconded. Apparently
this uneducated, former tradesman had no qualms about jeopardizing his American
citizenship since he readily accepted his being “elected” a deputy member of
parliament and installed as an assistant director to a ministry that deals with
sensitive high finance decisions. His only qualifications were loyalty to
Tudjman and that he had personally delivered funds collected by émigrés which
Tudjman used in his first election campaign. Apparently this money carried the
tide, since no other political party exploited professional public relations in
their campaigns.
The
predominance of Bolshevistic mentalities remained an enduring problem within
Croatia's government and state run enterprises. Such anachronisms weren't
unexpected, because many in the new government were former members of the
Communist Party who had simply switched party labels. Although many Communist
bureaucrats originally lost their positions, they were reinstated to give the new
government a semblance of efficiency. Despite its best intentions, the new
regime couldn't entirely dispense with the skills and knowledge of the old
hands, including members of the security services who had for years busied
themselves amassing files on internal opponents and external enemies of the
state. As long as they swore allegiance to the new order and had no visible
blood on their hands, all were welcomed back. It was a classic Hobson's choice.
But mores
can't be changed with a stroke of the pen. Suspicion and intolerance permeated
the new regime.
When the JNA
invaded Slovenia in June, 1991, Croatia's military was limited to a police
force. Even after the invasion of Slovenia, most Croatian politicians didn't
believe the Serbs would turn on Croatia with such brutal force. Lacking realpolitik experience, the Croatian government naively
believed the rhetoric of self-determination espoused by the United States and
other Western nations. They believed that help, such as the Sixth Fleet, would
come to their aid. The survivors of the Tito period had idealized Western
democratic principles and beliefs learned from Voice of America. They couldn't
comprehend that the West had no intention of helping their fledgling democracy.
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