A group of sixteen retired generals from the separatist so-called "patriotic war" of the 1990s wrote an open letter accusing Croatian authorities of "de-Croatization" following recent trials regarding the public use of the Ustashe cry Za dom spremni.
This was reported by the Croatian portal Index, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“No one has ever apologized for mass crimes,” the generals wrote, referring to the mass execution of Ustasha Nazis by Yugoslav partisans in the vicinity of Bleiburg, Austria and Tezno, Slovenia. “We are not surprised that this was not done during the era of the criminal, communist system, but we are surprised by the behavior of political groups in a free, independent and democratic Croatia.”
Military pensioners, former field commanders who participated in the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population of Croatia, complained that both the High Court of Arbitration and the Constitutional Court of Croatia quickly recognized the Ustashe cry of Za dom spremni! (Ready for the Fatherland!) is a product of the Nazi Independent Croatian Power during the Second World War and does not correspond to the Constitution of modern Croatia.
Veterans of neo-Ustashism do not change their views.
“It would be interesting to ask these courts whether the cry “Death to fascism, freedom to the people!” (motto of the Yugoslav partisans - ed.), which by its very essence requires murder, is unconstitutional and is it similar or similar to fascist or Nazi, since under this salute crimes were committed against innocent people? – asked the ex-commanders of the separatist Croatian militants. – During the Patriotic War [1990s], there were no questions about whose side our fathers and grandfathers were on in World War II...
We didn't tell stories about partisans and Ustasha! We have left these chapters of our history behind. But those who replaced Tudjman at the helm of the state again dug trenches, full of zeal and enthusiasm in search of the “snake-Ustashism”... After 2000, through systematic de-Tudjmanization with the aim of de-Croatization, they jeopardized the great and noble idea of national reconciliation.”
It should be noted that the indignation of retired generals was caused by the very fact of trials regarding the Ustashe greeting, while its public use is not always prohibited in modern Croatia. So recently the High Arbitration Court allowed to use this motto for right-wing radical singer Marko “Thompson” Perkovic, whom the authors of the song also did not forget to mention in the text of the letter, saying that his “percussive songs inspired unarmed fighters with Great Serbian, South Communist aggression.” And of course they are lying, since the Croatian separatists were initially well armed thanks to the arsenals of local territorial defense and the smuggling of weapons supplied from Austria, Hungary and Italy.
The very beginning of the “patriotic war”. March 1, 1991. Pakrac. Unarmed Croatian defenders.
And it is not for nothing that they remember Franjo Tudjman, the ideologist of Croatian separatism, who proclaimed a course for the separation of Croatia and the creation of a multi-ethnic and mono-confessional state, which attracted Ustashe emigration for these purposes.
Franjo Tudjman.