A Free Croatia Bit by Bit

For the past couple of years the USA and Great Britain have been writing articles about Yugoslavia's ailments. Such articles never make use of crucial facts in their analysis of Yugoslavia today and prefer to fabricate history and invent new names like 'Crovenia' in order to throw a smoke screen in front of the truth. If the truth were known their arguments would come unstuck even faster than Yugoslavia will. Their weak arguments are dependant upon blatant lies, especially demographic les about the umber of Serbs in Yugoslavia today whose numbers vary in articles from 6 million up to 9.5 million, yet we are supposed to believe at the same time that these numerous Serbs are being oppressed by an Albanian minority. Their stories also depend upon elimination of events in Yugoslavia in 1971, the political uprising in Croatia (the 'Croatian Spring') and in 1981, the uprising in Kosovo which resulted in marshall law in that province. Two more major issues are also left out of such articles, firstly the reports in Yugoslavia by Amnesty International, and secondly, the issue of indebtedness with the IMF.

If the articles mentioned that Amnesty International has regularly reported that Albanians from Kosovo in Yugoslavia constitute the greatest number of political prisoners per capita in Europe or in the USSR then Serbian claims about being oppressed by Albanians would fall flat.

If the articles discussed the regular IMF loans to Yugoslavia right up until 1988, and highlighted the poor repayment record of Yugoslavia, then the question would have to be asked, where did the money go, after all Yugoslavia is not 'in' the 'Third World'. In an article in 'The Age' newspaper in Australia (p.21 17 Oct 1988) it is said that the 'western countries were the principal cause of the depression' of the Third World countries and that "because of their debts,developing countries were now paying almost $35 billion a year more to western countries than they received". Has Yugoslavia ceased to be a financial proposition for the Serbs? Even Serbians are feeling the brunt of austerity measures.

Recent articles in 'Time Australia' (p.20, 24 Oct 1988) and in 'The Economist' (p.16 & 57, 21 October 1988) point not only to the weakness of Yugoslavia, they inadvertently point to a weakness in solidarity between Great Britain and the USA. Just briefly I will illustrate this with a couple of statements. The Economist calls Milosevic "Mr" while Time Australia calls Milosevic "dangerous". The Economist refers to the Yugoslav constitution as "disastrous" while Time Australia calls the constitution a "complex power sharing arrangement". Dozens of articles recently and during 1987 and 1986 illustrate the bias of these two sources. American reporting is pro-democratic-Yugoslavia; the British reporting is pro-greater-Serbia and along with this pro-splitting of Yugoslavia. The biggest clue to British bias is found in the following sentences:

"The richest, most self-confident and western-minded bits (Croatia and Slovenia) would break away to form a democratic and free-market country with a population about the size of Switzerland's. Bosnia and Herzegovina could either join the new Crovenia or become part of a Great Serbia ... (p.17)."

The key word used in this article is "bits". Serbians know that Croatia is not a "bit". Serbs know that both in area and in numbers the Croats equal the Serbs, and may even outnumber them. Croatia has great reserves of immigrants in Western Europe and in the so-called dispora to rely on. Serbs have also made a lot of enemies in Yugoslavia recently and even in Russia by boycotting the recent Orthodox 'thousand year' celebration, simply because Russia invited representatives from the Macedonian Orthodox Church to attend.

As for England and America, they appear to be as divided over the issue of Yugoslavia as they are over Northern Ireland, and '1992', or were over the Boston Tea Party.

Recently in Great Britain an attempt was made to assassinate a Croatian activist, Nikola Stedul at close range outside of his home in Scotland. Fortunately Nikola Studul is bravely holding on to life. His improvement will be psychologically hastened when he witnesses Croatian people world-wide praying for his recovery.

The assassination attempt on Scottish soil illustrates two points. Firstly, to the world it is necessary to stress that Yugoslavia should be dismantled peacefully -- ironically this was the essence of Nikola's program, because Yugoslavia like Apartheid is a blot on the free world. Secondly, Croatian people should learn now, if not before, from the assassination of over ninety other assassinations against Croats in Western Europe and farther afield over the past decades that the next generation of Croatians should carefully reconsider before leaving Croatia.