full circle

[Ivo Skoric]

Once again in Croatia Nazi paraphernalia can put you in prison. I 
remember, when I was growing up, the flag that is today the 
national flag of Croatia, coul put you in prison, too. It was Racan, 
actually, and not Tudjman, who stopped putting people for 
nationalism in prison. It was old Racan's communist government 
that relaxed ban on nationalists giving statements to the media, 
which created a 14 month nationalist hysteria in Croatian media, 
that in the end put Tudjman in the office.

Yugoslav communist party was heavily criticized before that by 
international human rights organizations for maltreatment of their 
nationalist political opponents. Likes of Dobroslav Paraga and 
Vladimir Seks were darlings of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty 
International (the same with Vojislav Seselj in Bosnia, at the time).

Now Racan is bringing rules from another era back - and nobody is 
saying anything against it. There is no outcry among human rights 
organizations abroad. And the State Department is busy with 
building more efficiently police world. So, they probably like the 
idea. I guess Racan will not ban the flag, though, from practical 
reasons.

ivo


>From www.iwpr.net:
CROATIA: USTASA SYMBOLS BAN

Questions raised over government plans to crackdown on those 
who glory in
the country's fascist past.

By Drago Hedl in Osijek

Moves by Ivica Racan's centre-left government to outlaw 
iconography
glorifying Croatia's Second World War fascists are seen in many 
quarters
as a cynical attempt to smooth Croatia's passage into the 
European Union

Draft laws will soon be presented to the Croatian parliament 
forbidding
the display of symbols of the Ustasa, the pro-Nazi movement that 
governed
Croatia under Axis protection from 1941 to 1945.

The proposed legislation is being presented as an attempt to 
combat a
growing trend towards the public display of symbols and 
iconography
lauding the bloodthirsty Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, NDH, and its 
dictator,
or Poglavnik, Ante Pavelic.

But if the bill becomes law, analysts believe that the authorities are
unlikely to enforce it, as this would lead to an open conflict with the
radical right.  The government's fear of such a clash has been very
evident over its reluctance to extradite indicted Croatian army 
general
Janko Bobetko whom nationalists consider a war hero.

Recent years have seen monuments and statues put up to 
celebrate the lives
of Ustasa military commanders and the publication of pictures of 
Pavelic
taking the Nazi salute. Ustasa songs are once more heard in sports
stadiums and at pop concerts while market stalls sell a plethora of 
Ustasa
T-shirts, badges, cigarette lighters and other NDH "souvenirs".

Such behaviour is to be outlawed by the proposed legislation - 
nicknamed
the "law on de-Ustasa-ization" - which bans all acts or sale of
merchandise "celebrating former fascist states or organisations".

Offenders caught publicly displaying "flags, badges, clothes, 
slogans,
ways of salutation and other insignia of former fascist states" will be
liable to the payment of fines and in more serious cases to jail 
terms of
up to three years.

But even before the discussion has begun in parliament, the 
proposal has
ignited a public furore, drawing criticism from legal specialists and
right-wing politicians.

The former say it will be hard to put it into practice: that it will be
virtually impossible to punish the hundreds of youngsters who turn 
up at
pop concerts in black T-shirts decorated with the Ustasa "U" sign, 
let
alone the thousands of football fans who sing Ustasa songs in the 
stands;
and that attempts to prosecute offenders could trigger public
demonstrations in support of Ustasa ideology.

Hard line right-wingers, meanwhile, have predictably countered with 
a
demand for similar penalties for the display of Partisan and 
Communist
symbols, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer-and-sickle and 
the
singing of anti-fascist songs.

"These complaints are ridiculous," a well-known Zagreb intellectual, 
who
wished to remain anonymous, told IWPR.  "No one today in 
Croatia publicly
displays the five-pointed star or the hammer-and-sickle, whereas 
there is
a real flood of Ustasa symbols."

The centre-left government of prime minister Ivica Racan says the 
proposed
law is based on the preamble to the Croatian constitution, which 
condemns
the former NDH, and also mirrors the German penal code, which 
outlaws
pro-Nazi demonstrations.

It says it was a response to appeals from human rights groups, 
various
intellectual forums and independent media groups critical of the
"re-Ustasa-ization" of Croatia under the government of former 
president
Franjo Tudjman.

Tudjman's own position was, in fact, ambivalent. Though he fought 
against
the NDH as a young man, as president he sometimes defended its 
legitimacy,
describing Pavelic's Croatia as "not just a quisling creation, but 
also an
expression of the centuries-old desire of the Croatian people for 
their
own state".

Mirjana Kasapovic, professor of political sciences at the University 
of
Zagreb, said the Communists vainly attempted to "de-Ustasa-ise" 
Croatia
after the Second World War, attributing their failure to the fact that
they merely replaced one undemocratic regime with another.

Analysts say the proposed legislation is little more than a cynical
attempt by ministers to bolster their bid for European Union 
membership,
as there's little evidence that they're prepared to take on the 
country's
resurgent right-wingers.

Drago Hedl is a regular Osijek-based IWPR contributor.