OLD AND NEW MISTAKES OF THE ANTI-CROATIAN PROPAGANDA

The anti-Croatian propaganda learns from its mistakes, adapts, but at the same time it makes new and greater mistakes. So, for example, the title of Tudjman's book "Bespuca povijesne zbiljnosti" was incorrectly translated in Belgrade as "Wastelands - Historical Truth". The incorrect translation was used by Kaplan, Preuss and many others. After Katarina Mijatovic"s assertion' (The New York Times, January 3, 1992) that the translation is "Wastelands of Historical Reality", the propaganda adapts itself. A paid advertisement printed in The Washington Post already adopts Mijatovic"s translation. The advertisement in The Washington Post has the banner headline, "Serbs Fear Croatian Return To Fascism" (February 19, 1992, p. A16. On the same day, on p. A18, The Washington Post published an editorial entitled "Yugoslavia - the Cyprus Model".)

The very title of the advertisement reveals a shift: although the propaganda usually insists that today's Croats are fascists, this title says that the Croats are not fascists (but they could, from the Serbian perspective, return to fascism). The advertisement covers a whole page. The title is printed on two lines, in letters more than 1.3 inch tall.

The advertisement consists of a photograph and text. The photograph in the center of the advertisement shows Hitler and Pavelic shaking hands. Under the photograph it says, "Adolf Hitler at a meeting with Ante Pavelic, fascist leader of the Independent State of Croatia which adopted a policy of genocide that claimed hundreds of thousands of Serb, Jewish, and Gypsy victims during World War II."

In the upper left-hand corner of the photograph is printed in fine print, "Photo provided courtesy of the Museum of the Revolution of the People and Minorities of Yugoslavia" in Belgrade. The advertisement was created by the organization Wise Communications, 1250 24th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20037, which acts as an agent for the Oil Company Jugopetrol, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

(The same organization, Wise Communications, supported Klara Mandic's tour through America in February of 1992. Klara Mandic is "a Jewish leader, founder and general secretary of the Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society" from Belgrade, as The Jewish Advocate of January 24-30, 1992, presents her to American readers. During her tour of America K. Mandic lectured on the threat to the Jews in Croatia.)

The text of the advertisement in The Washington Post is divided into two parts. In the upper part are eight "facts", and in the lower part a passage with the subtitle "U.N. Initiative is Key To Peace In Yugoslavia". What sort of "facts" are cited in the text? Here are the first two:

fact
Under the fascist leadership of Ante Pavelic, Croatia declared war on the United States before Germany did so in 1941 and fought against the United States and its allies in both World War II and World War I.

fact
Serbia was an unwavering ally of the United States in both World War II and World War I.

These "facts" to a great extent do not correspond to historical truth. In saying that Croatia also fought against the United States in the First World War (although not, however, under "the fascist leadership of Ante Pavelic"), the propaganda admits that Croatia then, although a part of the Austro-Hungarian' Empire, existed as a state subject, as a triune kingdom with its own parliament and other powers. Under other circumstances the same propaganda will deny that Croatia existed, at all before 1918. The article does not mention where and when Croatia fought against the USA in the First World War. That would be a real fact, but that fact is not and cannot be cited.

It is an undisputed fact that Serbia provoked the First World War, in which thousands of American soldiers also died. That fact, not surprisingly, is not mentioned in the anti-Croatian advertisement, but it is mentioned in the American advertisement for R.G.D. Laffan's book "The Serbs: The Guardians of the Gate". The advertising blurb describes the Serbs as "an important but misunderstood people, unfortunately remembered by most as the precipitators of World War I - when a nationalist assassinated Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914." (Barnes & Noble: America's #1 Book Sale Catalog. 1992 Book Sale #3, p.11).

In the Second World War a pro-Nazi government was formed under general Milan Nedic, which, together with the highest level of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Draza Mihajlovic"s Chetniks and some Serbian political parties, was an unwavering ally of Germany until 1944 when Tito's forces liberated Serbia. (And Tito was a Croat.) This is a fact, just as it is a fact that one part of the Serbs fought against fascism.

It is a fact that the largest opposition party in pre-war Yugoslavia was Hrvatska Seljacka Stranka (HSS) - the Croatian Peasant's Party (HSS). It is a fact that the Serbian nationalist Punisa Racic killed the leader of the HSS, Stjepan Radic, and some of his colleagues in the Belgrade Parliament in 1928. It is a fact that the HSS "before the war had the majority of the Croatian people behind it" (Wilderness, p. 445). It is a fact that the same party, HSS, which represented the majority of the Croatian people, refused to collaborate with the Germans and the Ustashe in 1941. It is a fact that the new head of the HSS, Vladko Macek, refused to become the puppet head of the Independent State of Croatia "because of his democratic, anti-fascist views" (Wilderness, p. 433). It is a fact that because of this the Ustashe tried and imprisoned Macek in the Jasenovac concentration camp, and then interned him in Kupinec ("Jasenovacki Ocenas", Danas, March 17, 1992, pp. 46-48). It is a fact that on the soil of the Independent State of Croatia one of the strongest anti-fascist movements in Europe was active under the leadership of the Croat Josip Broz Tito. One of the participants of that anti-fascist movement was Franjo Tudjman. Those are facts too.