THE TRUTH

Every war, including the most recent Serbian-Croatian war, influences the consciousness of the warring sides. The opposite is also true: pre-war consciousness itself, to a certain extent, contributes to the outbreak of military conflicts.

The first victim in any violent conflict is the truth, or rather speech about the conflict. The attitude of a third, "neutral", party towards the warring parties is formed in connection with the reports about the conflict itself and in connection with the interests of that third party.

Let us look first at how one of the sides in this conflict, the Serbian side, sees itself. On the "Serbian Hour" broadcast over Cleveland Public Radio Station WCPN, on January 5, 1992, an Orthodox Christmas greeting to the listeners was read in Serbian. After the traditional Serbian Christmas greeting, "Mir Boziji, Hristos se rodi!" [God's peace, Christ is born!], priest Momcilo Djujic, among other things, sends this message to Serbs "in the fatherland and in diaspora:"

The Serbian people has lived through such fateful days many times in its past, but by faith in God it [the Serbian people] always overcame all misfortunes and conquered all enemies and remained in honor on the world stage among the cultured peoples as God's people who - in its struggle for freedom, survival and future life - never took away other people's property, nor killed, or wiped out civilian population, nor ruined other people's homes, nor destroyed temples that were raised to God's glory.

It is a known fact that a part of the Orthodox clergy of northern Dalmatia in Croatia condemned Momcilo Djujic as a German collaborator at their congress on October 21, 1943. (Another part of the clergy served as Djujic's Chetniks, while a third part waited out the war without taking a political position.) Here is the text of the public condemnation of Djujic's activity during the Second World War:

And what did Djujic's "active assistance of the German occupiers" consist of? Vladimir Dedijer, in his Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita [New materials for a biography of Josip Broz Tito] writes, "The Dinaric Chetnik division, under the command of the priest Momcilo Djujic, bore the daily order to clean out the Croats and Muslims from Lika and northern Dalmatia [in Croatia]" (Vol. II, pp. 548-549, see Wilderness, p. 314). Serbo-Nazi ideology extends directly from the World War II Chetnik movement to the present.

What were the results of this "cleaning?" The result was that "1327 residents of the Knin area were killed by the knives, clubs, and bullets of Djujic's brigands" (Tomislav Vukovic, Mozaik izdaje (Zagreb: HKD sv. Cirila i Metodija, 1991), p. 185).

Let us suppose that all this testimony against Djujic is unreliable. Let us suppose that Djujic never gave out the mentioned "daily order." Let us suppose that there is not a single piece of proof of Djujic's war crimes, because of which he cannot return to former Yugoslavia even today. Let us suppose that Djujic is innocent. Let us return to his assertion that "the Serbian people [...] never took away other people's property, nor killed or wiped out civilian populations, nor ruined other people's homes, nor destroyed temples that were raised to God's glory" in its "struggle for freedom, survival and future life."

Then the question arises: is Father Djujic speaking the truth in his Christmas greeting? Before answering one should explain that both Father Djujic and the "Serbian Hour" program consider the war in Croatia precisely "a struggle for freedom, survival and future life" of the Serbian people.

Let us look now at the evidence against Djujic' s assertion about the Serbian "not taking away", "not killing", "not wiping out", "not destroying" and "not ruining", which according to Djujic, has assured the freedom-loving "God's people" a place of honor "on the stage of the world among the cultured peoples."