Chapter 4

His death lurked in Zagreb but he was travelling to Marseilles to meet it. A vicious secret police, a burgeoning military, a new constitution to legalize his sanguinous regime conspired with a global economic crisis to make him a hated figure, even by Serb Democrats. Days before his death, he earnestly considered to return to a parliamentary form of government. But it was too late and too little for those who sought his end. The Ustasha movement ("insurgence" or "insurrection", officially the "Croatian Ustasha Movement") was a product of the personal rebellion of Ante Pavelic and like-minded others. Born in Bosnia, he was a member of the Croat minority there, in a Serb-infused environment. He practised as a lawyer in Zagreb and there joined the Nationalist Croatian Party of Rights. He progressed rapidly and by 1920 (at the age of 31), he was alderman of Zagreb City and County. He was a member of the Skupstina when anti-Croat sentiment peaked with the triple murder of the Croat deputies. When Alexander the King dissolved parliament and assumed dictatorial powers, he moved (or fled) to Italy, there to establish a Croat nationalist movement, the Ustasha. Their motto was "Za Dom Spremny" ("Ready for Home" or "Ready for the Fatherland"). Italy the fascist was a natural choice - both because of its ideological affinity and because it opposed Yugoslavia's gradual drift towards Germany. Italy was worried about an ultimate anschluss ("unification or incorporation") between the Reich and Austria - which will have brought Hitler's Germany to Austria's doorstep.

Thus, the Ustasha established training centres (more like refugee camps, as they included the family members of the would be "warriors") in Italy and Hungary (later to be expelled from the latter as a result of Yugoslav pressure). Having mainly engaged in the dissemination of printed propaganda, they failed at provoking a peasant rebellion in north Dalmatia (promised to Italy by the Ustasha). But they did better at assassinating their arch-foe, King Alexander in 1934 (having failed earlier, in 1933). In this the Ustasha was reputed to have collaborated with the fascist IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) under Ivan Mihailov in Bulgaria. By joining forces with the IMRO, the Ustasha has transformed itself into a link in the chain of terrorist organizations that engulfed the world in blood and flames prior to the onslaught of the greatest terrorist of all, of Hitler. While some versions of the unholy alliance between the Bulgarian- Macedonian outfit and the Croats are unsubstantiated (to put it gently), it is clear that some assistance was provided by both lower Italian ranks and the IMRO. The actual murderer of the King was Mihailov's Macedonian chauffeur, Vlado Georgiev-Kerin. The Ustasha was also known for blowing trains and for attempting to do so on more than one occasion both in Croatia and in Slovenia. King Alexander seemed to have ordered the systematic annihilation of the Ustasha just before his own untimely Ustasha-assisted annihilation. Lt. Colonel Stevo Duitch "committed suicide" in Karlsbad and there were attempts - some successful, some less - on Pavelic in Munich, Percevic in Vienna, Servaci (Servatsi) in Fiume and Percec in Budapest. It was made abundantly clear to the Ustasha that it was an all-out war with no prisoners taken. The King had to go. It was a strange movement, the Ustashe. Claiming the continuous "rights of state" of the Great Croatian Kingdom under Peter Kresimir and Zvonimir in the 11th century - they nonetheless gave up Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy and, later, accepted a German occupation of eastern Croatia. Composed of frugal ascetics and avaricious operators, merciless romanticists and hard nosed pragmatists, murderous sadists and refined intellectuals, nationalist Croats and Serb-haters who had no coherent national agenda bar the mass slaughter of the Serbs. Thus, it was a social movement of the dispossessed, a cesspool of discontent and rage, of aggression too long suppressed but never sublimated, of justified social and political grievances irradiated by racism, national chauvinism, militarism and sadism. A grassroots reaction turned cancerous, led by a second hand, third rate Hitler-clone. A terrorist organization displaying the trappings of a state in the making. This is not to say that it lacked popular support. Tensions ran so high between Serbs and Croats that daily brawls broke in pubs and restaurants, trains and public places between Serb soldiers and Croat citizens in Croatia. The Ustashe fed on real friction, were charged by escalating tensions, mushroomed on growing violence. Prince Paul, who acted as regent for 12 years old Peter II, permitted the operation of political parties but did not reinstate parliament. All this time, a Yugoslav opposition of democratic forces included Croat as well as Serb intellectuals and wannabe politicians. Vladko Macek himself - later, the epitome of Croat separatism and the most successful promoter of this cause - was a member. In the 1938 elections, his party - the Peasant Party - won an astounding 80% of the votes in Croatia.

The regent, now much humbled by years of strife and paralysis - bowed to popular opinion so eloquently and convincingly expressed. He backed negotiations with Macek which led to a declaration of Croat independence in everything but name. The Sporazum of August 1939, a few days before the outbreak of World War II, granted Croatia self-government except in matters of national defence and foreign affairs. The Serbs were now disgruntled. The Serb Democrats felt abandoned and betrayed by Macek and his Faustian deal with the dictatorship. All other Serbs felt humiliated by what they regarded as a capitulation to irredentism, bound to have a disintegrative domino effect on the rest of Serbia's possessions. It is a surrealistic thing, to read the transcripts of these vehement and sincere arguments just four days before the world as all the conversants knew it, came to a shrieking end. When German planes were pulverizing Warsaw, Yugoslavia declared its mock-neutrality. Everybody knew that Paul was pro-German. Even King Alexander before him signed a few secret pacts with the rising, ignore at your peril, Central European force. The Austrian national socialists who were implicated in the murder of the Austrian prime minister, Dolfus, in July 1934, escaped to Yugoslavia and resided openly (though disarmed by the Yugoslav police) in army barracks in Varadzin. In 1935, a fascist movement was established in Serbia ("Zbor"). Fascism and Nazism were not without their attractions to Serbs and Croats alike.

This is the great theatre of the absurd called the Balkans. Pavelic and the Ustasha were actually closer in geopolitical orientation to the Yugoslav monarchy (until Paul was deposed by the Yugoslav army) - than to Mussolini's fascist Italy. They were worried by the latter's tendency to block German designs on Austria. In a region known for its indefinite historical memory and lack of statute of limitations, they recalled how the Italians treated Montenegrin refugees in 1923 (returning them to Yugoslavia in cattle cars). They wondered if the precedent might be repeated, this time with Croat passengers. The Italians did, after all, arrest "Longin" (Kvaternik), Jelic and others in Torino following the assassination of the King. In the paranoid twilight zone of European Big Power sponsored terrorism, these half hearted actions and dim memories were enough to cast a pall of suspicion and of guilt over the Italian regime. Mussolini called Pavelic his "Balkan Pawn" but in that he was mistaken. There are good reasons to believe that he was shocked by the murder of King Alexander. In any event, the free movement of Pavelic and the Ustasha was afterwards severely restricted. On March 1941, the Crown Council of Yugoslavia decided to accede to the Tripartite Pact of the Axis, though in a watered down form. Yugoslavia maintained the prerogative to refuse the right of passage in its territory to foreign powers.

Yet, no one believed this would be the case if confronted with such a predicament. This decision - to give up Yugoslavia's main asset and only protection - its neutrality - was taken under pressure from the Croats in power at the time. The Pact was already joined by Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Two days after the Yugoslav Prime Minister (Dragisa Cvetkovic) and his foreign minister signed the Pact in Vienna - they were deposed together with the Regent Paul. The precocious Peter was made King of Yugoslavia by the rebellious officers, headed by General Dusan Simovic. The generals now in charge reverted to Yugoslavia's neutrality and refused to join the British-Greek naval treaty, for example. But what appeared to be spontaneous demonstrations in favour of the conspirators and against the Tripartite Pact erupted all over Serbia. It was a challenge to Germany which it could not ignore. The Supreme Command of the Wehrmact (OKW) issued "Undertaking 25" (against Yugoslavia) and "Case Marita" (against Greece). The Yugoslavs mobilized (albeit with a surprising procrastination), the Germans invaded (on April 6, 1941) and, within 10 days it was all over. The Croats did their best to assist the new forces of occupation, disrupting and sabotaging the best they could army operations as well as civilian defence. It was clear that many of them (though by no means the majority) regarded the Serbs as the real occupiers and the Germans as long awaited liberators.

On April 10, 1941, six days into the invasion, the Germans declared the Independent State of Croatia (NDH, after the initials of its name in Croatian - Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska). Vladimir Mecak, leader of the Peasant Party and Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia called on the people to collaborate with the new government. Overnight, a fringe terrorist organization, (erroneously) considered to be more a puppet of Italy that a true expression of Croat nationalism, found itself at the helm of government in circumstances complicated by internecine rivalries, inter-ethnic tensions, an history of hate and mutual resentment, a paranoia stoked by sporadic violence. The Serbs were evidently a fifth column and so were the Jews. Indeed, Croatia's Serbs wasted no time in joining resistance movements against the Nazis and the NDH. Anyhow, the vacuum created by Macek's surprising passivity and by the Church's abstention - was filled by the Ustashe. The new state included a part of Dalmatia (the rest went to Italy), the region of Srem and the entirety of Bosnia Herzegovina. It was the closest Croatia ever got to re- creating Great Croatia of a millennium ago. Fearful of Croat encroachment, the Slovenes hurried to discuss the declaration of their own state modelled after the NDH - only to discover that their country was split between Italy and Germany. In Zagreb, the enthusiasm was great. The 200 nor so returning Ustashe were greeted back even by their political rivals. People thronged the streets, throwing flowers and rice at the advancing former terrorist and German convoys.

The NDH existed for four years. It had 7 governments - only 5 of which were headed by Ante Pavelic. As opposed to popular opinion, the Ustashe were not a puppet regime, far from it. Both the Italians and the Germans express their continued frustration at being unable to control and manipulate the Ustashe. Despite their military presence and economic support - both Axis powers lacked real leverage over the ever more frantic activities of the Ustashe. Even when it was clear that the Croat NDH - in its genocidal activities - is alienating the Serbs and adding to the ranks of resistance movements throughout Yugoslavia, there was precious little the Germans or Italians could do. They held polite and less polite talks with the top echelons of their own creation but like the fabled Dr. Frankenstein found that the NDH had a life very much of its own and an agenda it pursued with vigour and conviction. It is impossible - nor is it desirable - to avoid the issue of the mass killings of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Some Croats claim that "only" 60-70,000 were killed in Jasenovac and other camps. The very use of the word "only" in this context ought to send a frisson of repulsion down the spines of civilized men. The Serbs, Jewish scholars and many international scholars claim the number was between 300-600,000 people. The reason for the disparity in numbers is that - despite their "German" pretensions, the Croats acted like the least of the barbarous Balkanians in their mass slaughters. This was no industrial affairs, replete with bureaucracy and statistics. The massacres were atavistic, primitive, the call of blood and guts and scattered brains. It was an orgy, not an operation. There is nothing much to tell about the NDH. The regime was busy enacting laws against deadly sins and minor vices (such as pornography). The collaboration with the Catholic Church proceeded smoothly. Laws were passed against the Jews. The NDH army fought the partisans and the Allied Forces. When it tried to surrender to the British army in 1945 - it refused to accept their capitulation and turned them over to the partisans. In a series of death marches army soldiers and civilian collaborators with the Ustashe were deliberately exterminated. The Balkans knows no mercy. Victims become butchers and butchers victims in nauseating turns. By 1944, the NDH lost half its territory either to the Germans or to the partisans. The rump state survived somehow, its leaders deserting in droves. Pavelic himself escaped to Austria, from there to Italy and Argentina. He survived an attempt on his life in 1957 and then fled to Paraguay and Spain where he died in 1959. THE DEAD "After all, if the Croat state wishes to be strong, a nationally intolerant policy must be pursued for fifty years, because too much tolerance on such issues can only do harm." Adolf Hitler to Ante Pavelic in their meeting, June 6, 1941

"For the rest - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - we have three million bullets. We shall kill one third of all Serbs. We shall deport another third, and the rest of them will be forced to become Roman Catholic." Mile Budak, Minister of Education of Croatia, July 22, 1941 "There are limits even to love... (It is) stupid and unworthy of Christ's disciples to think that the struggle against evil could be waged in a noble way and with gloves on." Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Saric, 1941 "Croats no longer think that German troops are present merely to provide peace and security, but that they are here to support the Ustasha regime [...] The Ustashas promote the impression that they act not only in agreement with German instances, but actually on their orders. [...] There is here today a deep mistrust of Germany, because it is supporting a regime that has no moral or political right to exist, which is regarded as the greatest calamity that could have happened to the Croat people. That regime is based entirely on the recognition by the Axis powers, it has no popular roots, and depends on the bayonets of robbers who do more evil in a day than the Serbian regime had done in twenty years." Captain Haffner to General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, Plenipotentiary of the Wehrmacht in Zagreb, Croatia, 1941

"Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation... I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustasha crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with the available forces, I could not ask for such action Ad hoc intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the past." General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau to the OKW, July 10, 1941 "The horrors that the Ustashi have committed over the Serbian small girls is beyond all words. There are hundreds of photographs confirming these deeds because those of them who have survived the torture: bayonet stabs, pulling of tongues and teeth, nails and breast tips - all this after they were raped. Survivors were taken in by our officers and transported to Italian hospitals where these documents and facts were gathered." Commander of the Italian Sassari Division in Croatia, 1941

"Increased activity of the bands is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustasha units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustashas committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand." Report to Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler from the Geheime Staatspolizei - GESTAPO - dated February 17, 1942 "From the founding [of the NDH] until now the persecution of Serbs has not stopped, and even cautious estimates indicate that at least several hundred thousand people have been killed. The irresponsible elements have committed such atrocities that could be expected only from a rabid Bolshevik horde." German foreign ministry plenipotentiary representative in Belgrade Felix Benzler to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Reich " (In Croatia under the Ustasha) ...over half a million [Serbs] were murdered, about a quarter of a million were expelled from the country, and another quarter of a million were forced to convert to Catholicism." Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust

(All quotes from "The Real Genocide in Yugoslavia: Independent Croatia of 1941 Revisited" by: Srdja Trifkovic, published in: www.rockfordinstitute.org and in: www.antiwar.com )

Return

KLA - The Army of Liberation

"(There is a growing tendency among foreign observers) to identify the criminal with the honest, the vandal with the civilized, the mafiosi with the nation.'' Former Albanian President Sali Berisha "They were terrorists in 1998 and now, because of politics, they're freedom fighters" Jerry Seper, quoting an anonymous "top drug official" who refers to a 1998 State Department report, in the article "KLA Finances War with Heroin Sales", Washington Times, May 3, 1999 "The Albanian villages are much better, much richer than the Serbian ones. The Serbs, even the rich ones, don't build fine houses in villages where there are Albanians. If a Serb has a two-story house he refrains from painting it so that it shan't look better than the Albanian houses." Leon Trotsky, War Correspondent for "Pravda", reporting from the Balkan Wars, 1912-3 "When spring comes, we will manure the plains of Kosovo with the bones of Serbs, for we, Albanians, have suffered too much to forget." Isa Boletini, leaving the Ambassadors Conference in London, 1913

"Instead of using their authority and impartiality to restrain terrorist gangs of Albanian extremists, we face the situation in which the terrorism is taking place under their auspices, and even being financed by United Nations means" Milosevic, March 2000 "Getting history wrong is an essential part of being a nation." Ernest Renan, French historian "We spent the 1990's worrying about a Greater Serbia. That's finished. We are going to spend time well into the next century worrying about a Greater Albania." Christopher Hill, Ambassador to Macedonia, 1999 "There is no excuse for that, even if the Serbs in Kosovo are very angry. I accept responsibility. One of the most important tasks of a democracy is to protect its minorities." Milosevic to Ambassador Hill who reported to him about atrocities in Kosovo "I am like a candle. I am melting away slowly, but I light the way for others." Adem Demaci, political representative of the KLA

BEFORE The founding fathers of the KLA were Ibrahim Rugova, the pacifist president of the self-proclaimed "Kosovo Republic", established in 1991 - and Slobodan Milosevic, his belligerent Yugoslav counterpart. The abysmal failure of the Gandhiesque policies of the former to shelter his people from the recrudescently violent actions of the latter - revived the fledging KLA outfit. Contrary to typically shallow information in the media, the KLA has been known to have operated in Kosovo as early as the attack on policemen in Glogovac in May 1993. Its epiphany, in the form of magnificently uniformed fighters, occurred only on November 28, 1997 (in the funeral of a teacher, a victim of Serb zealousness) - but it existed long before. Perhaps as long as the People's Movement of Kosovo, founded in 1982. The historical and cultural roots of the conflict in Kosovo were described elsewhere ("The Bad Blood of Kosovo"). Reading that article is essential as this one assumes prior acquaintance with it. Kosovo is a land of great mineral wealth and commensurate agricultural poverty. It has always languished with decrepit infrastructure and irrelevant industry. Kosovo's mineral riches were looted by Yugoslavia for decades and both Macedonia and Kosovo were the poor relatives in the Yugoslav Federation.