Croatian oppositionist was not afraid to call the late separatist leader a criminal in parliament
A member of the Croatian Assembly from the opposition Democratic Front, Katarina Peovic, spoke out against the militarization of higher education and the glorification of the Croatian separatist leader Franjo Tudjman, who started the war.
For her bold stance, Peović was subjected to harassment from nationalists and conservatives, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The topic of parliamentary hearings of the Croatian Sabor was a bill on the creation of defense and security faculties at universities.
“Shouldn’t we be working on demilitarization 25 years after the war? – asked Katarina Peovic, speaking from the podium. – We are persistently increasing the budget of the army, opening faculties that will train exclusively military personnel, and finally, is it appropriate to name them after Franjo Tudjman, given that the International Criminal Tribunal (in The Hague - ed.) determined that Tudjman participated in a joint criminal activity?
These honest and truthful words provoked a real frenzy on the part of deputies representing the national conservative parliamentary majority.
Thus, the speaker of the Croatian Sabor, Gordan Jandrokovic, told the deputy to “choose her words.” A deputy from the oldest party founded by Tudjman himself with the goal of destroying Yugoslavia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Zeljko Reiner said that he considers it “shameful and rootless” that Tudjman is called a “criminal in parliament.”
MP Marian Pavlicek accused Peovic of “defending the five-pointed star” (the symbol of the Yugoslav People’s Army), which, in his opinion, was “destroying Vukovar.”
He was also joined by Croatian ATO (“patriotic war”) veteran Stipo “Cipe” Mlinaric, declaring that “the proven criminal is Tito” and “the red five-pointed star attacked Vukovar.”
“That’s what the International Tribunal decided, not me,” Peovic retorted. – Please avoid insults, distortions and statements that you think something was said incorrectly or incorrectly – the facts are completely different. Here you are talking about Tito and the partisans as criminals...”
However, Jandrokovic cut Peovic off by cutting off her microphone.
Indeed, in the text of the ICTY verdict against Croatian generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markač, Tudjman was named as a participant in “a joint criminal enterprise, the purpose of which was the forced and permanent eviction of the Serbian population from the Krajina region” (a year later, the Croatian thugs, who received substantial sentences, were acquitted on all counts ). And in the text of the verdict to the commanders of the Bosnian Croats who fought against the Bosniaks and received substantial sentences without subsequent acquittal, he was mentioned as “the leader of a joint criminal enterprise, the goal of which was to create an entity in BiH with a Croat majority and subsequent annexation to Croatia.”
Tudjman made the following public statements:
“I thank God that I am not married to either a Serb or a Jew.”
“There wouldn’t be a war in Croatia if Croatia didn’t want it.”
“The NDH (Hitler-allied state entity) was not only the creation of local quislings, but also the will of the Croatian people.”
Franjo Tudjman
After carrying out Operation Storm to cleanse the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina, Tudjman stated that “we have resolved the Serbian question, there will be no more 12% Serbs and 9% Yugoslavs, as it was, and the remaining 3% will no longer be able to threaten the Croatian state.”
However, Franjo Tudjman was never put on trial for his “joint criminal enterprises”, died a natural death in Zagreb and is still revered by Croatian nationalists and conservatives.
Croatian opposition leader dared to call the late separatist leader a criminal in parliament.