Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

128 WESTERN YUGOSLAVIA REACTS
their activities, the Serbs established a foothold, especially around Knin, for the
most part as Chetniks. With the arrival of Tito’s Partisans in autumn 1942, they
switched over to the Partisans and, in this way, laid the foundation of their future
strong position in the administration and political apparatus of communist-era
Croatia.
The Ustaše’s murderous actions against the Serbs have been happily cited to
the international public up to today in order to win understanding for the
secession of the Serbs in Croatia. Without a doubt the earlier events still have their
importance. But to derive from that the claim that Tudjman’s Croatia had
threatened the Serbs in equal measure and had justified the Serbs’ actions in
1991 is simply nonsense.
It should not be forgotten either that the Chetniks of Knin, before they became
Partisans, had also committed massacres against Croats during 1941/42.
Moreover, the Serbs of the Krajina opposed the Sporazum and wanted to be left
outside the Banovina Hrvatska. The Serbs during the Second World War were as
much under the influence of mystic and religio-national movements as the
Croats; the Chetniks and the Ljotić movement were both likewise inspired by
such mystical ideas. Today very little is said about the annihilation of Muslims
by Chetniks in eastern Bosnia or the Sandžak, although they began about the same
time as Ustaše actions against the Serbs. When I visited Novi Pazar at one time,
I was told how this city, the capital of the Sandžak, was saved from a massacre
by Chetniks in the winter of 1941/42 only by the arrival of some 2,000 nationalist
Albanians from Kosovo. 114
The Partisans operating in the region of Croatia were by no means merely an
affair of the Serbs. Many Croats likewise joined. Djilas describes how, on the
occasion of a visit to Partisan main headquarters in Croatia, under the command
of Andrija Hebrang, he found the atmosphere “very Croatian”. 115 As in Slovenia,
the conflicts in Croatia had many of the earmarks of a civil war. At the end of the
war, the British turned over many Croatian Ustaše and Domobranci (members of
the regular Croatian army), together with Slovenian Domobranci, to the
Partisans, who proceeded to slaughter them. 116
Today’s Croatia has a much greater connection with the movement of 1970/71
than with the state of the Second World War, even though the leading
personalities of the “Croatian Spring”—Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Miko Tripalo
—were denied a political “comeback”. One should rather think, in connection
with the condemnation of certain features of the Zagreb government today, that
in Croatia’s difficult fight for independence, patriotism frequently had to substitute
for adequate weaponry. Still, some of Tudjman’s utterances, both before and after
his accession to power would have been better left unspoken. Even Karadžić, the
Serbian leader in Bosnia, himself conceded in early 1991 that Tudjman’s Croatia
was not the Ustaše. 117 The number of national symbols which a nation has at its
disposal is limited. The Ustaše had adopted a lot of the old Croatian tradition or
folklore; it would have been unusual if these symbols had not been endorsed also
by today’s Croatian state. Even in Germany, today’s national anthem and the