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A MESSAGE FROM MICHAET LEESDeliaered at the Dedication of a Plaque to General Draza Mihailooic,Birmingham, England, October 22, 1991

I have just returned from the Serbian autonomous territory of Krajina, where Ivisited the front line positions near Knin. I would like to pass the following message tothe Serbs of North America. I have prepared a speech to be read at a meeting inBirmingham, England where a plaque is being erected to the memory of that greatSerb, Draza Mihailovic. \Atrhile certain historians and government bureaucrats havealtered historical facts to suit their own ideology, my personal experience with thisgreat leader was that of a concerned individual who was willing to make everysacrifice for democracy and freedom. I am grateful to be a participant in hisrecognition.

Allow me to applaud your action in erecting a monument to General DrazaMihailovic. Recognition of the heroism, patriotism, and total self-sacrifice of CicaDraza is long overdue. I am huppy to tell you the truth of what happened in 1943 - 45.The truth of the British betrayal of the Serbian Loyalists is now known in Belgrade andwill - I am confident - soon become the generally recognized version of historyreplacing the old false Titoist mythology which has dominated for 45 sad years. Tell alie 100 times and it becomes the truth. Those Titoist lies, supported by Tito's dupesoverseas, have become received wisdom and holy writ for two generations. But theTitoist confidence trick is collapsing totally at astonishing speed, thus proving that thegrotesque edifice he erected was built on sand.

We must, however, not now dwe1l on the past. Whilst finalizing therestoration of a true perspective to history, we must learn the lessons it teaches us - andwe must learn urgently, today, this very hour, because the Serbian nation is threatenedwith another betrayal. Tito bamboozled Churchill through brilliant disinformation.The Ustasa backers of the new lndependent State of Croatia are trying to do the same tothe Western World. The Serb communities, the Serbian Lands claimed by Croatia,need our support. We need to put a stop to a second betrayal. Contact your membersof Parliament, tell them that the 600,000 Serbs in the areas falsely claimed by Tudimanmust not be abandoned to harassment, racial discrimination and expulsion from thelands where they have lived for 1,000 years.

Serbian Orthodox Churchin Banja Luka destroyedto its foundations.

The Croats, with their racial purity policy, inspiredby Hitler and Pavelic, have proved themselves unfit to ruleany other people. Let them have their state Let them go andtake their nasty habits and hate with them. But, the Serbianlands must be controlled by Serbs. They will be controlled bySerbs because the Serbs, traumatized by the 7941-45 genocideand by the vicious recent attacks on them, will fight, if theyhave to, in the woods and the mountains as they fought forthe allies in 1914-18 and again as our most loyal and braveally n1941.- 45.

The European Community, the USA, and perhaps,the United Nations are assuming responsibilities withinadequate understanding of the consequences and are beinginfluenced by 1ies, as was Churchill rn7943. Speak up for theSerbs in their lands and tell the world it is playing with fire. itis now not a question of economic links or governmentalforms for successor states in Yugoslavia. The issue is simple.

Keep it simple. The Serbs in their lands in Croatia must never again be left to the non-existent mercies of another people - a people that regard Serbs as Hitler regarded thejews. Write to your members of Parliament now! Draza Mihailovic was a great Serb.He was a great Yugoslav too and, had we not betrayed him, I believe Yugoslavia couldhave become a harmonious state. I would love to see Yugoslavia come tegether again.But the immediate task is S.O.S.

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SAVE OUR SERBS!

qJ.we,

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ItllCHAtL [[[S was one of the British liaisonofficers dropped by the special forces intoAxis-occupied Yugoslavia in1943. From hisunique position inside the war-torn country,and a year spent with the resistance fightersof General Mihailovic, Michael Leeswitnessed an inexplicable change in thecharacter of Allied support: promises toMihaliovic of vital arms and supplies werenot kept; scheduled sabotage actions wereabruptly canceled by the Special OperationsExecutive (SOE), Cairo; eventually Mihailovichimself was completely abandoned.

The full explanation for this betrayal ofMihailovic lay hidder; however, until themid-1980's, when Lees was led to a cache ofsecret service files mistakenly declassified.These files, examined in light of his ownwartime experiences, enabled him tocomplete his book The Rape of Serbia, a taTeof perfid1.. He nor'r- believes that lt'instonChurchill's decision to abandon Mihailovicand throw support to Tito was largely theresult of disinformation spread by BritishCommunists and sympathizers in the secretservices and other agencies, which wasendorsed by the reports and enthusiasticrecommendation of British officers who hadbeen duped by Tito himsel{.

Michael Lees is the author of SpecialOperations Executed, an account of hisexperiences as a special forces officer in theBalkans and Northern Italy during WorldWar IL He and his wife-who also served inSOE-in Dorset, England, now live and farmin County Cork, Ireland. In Oclober,1991 hespent time in Belgrade, Montenegro, Knin,Krajina and in territory in Bosnia. In Knin hepresented a one hour broadcast on Knin freeradio interviewed by the minister ofInformatiory Lazar Macura. He also spentconsiderable time at the front line with thecommanding officers in the Krajina.

The Serbian people o{ the world indeedowe a debt of gratitude to this non-Serb whohas made a valuable contribution to theSerbian community. He has brought truth tooul despair, and he has validated our beliefin the wrong done to us by the NationalistCroatians and by outsiders who exertedcontrol over the lives oI Serbian people andtheir government.

THE USTASHI MASSACRES

by Daaid Martin

I am grateful for this opportunityto join the Serbian people of the UnitedStates in commemorating the hundreds ofthousands of Serbs who fell victim to theunspeakable horror of the Ustashimassacres. The exact number of Serbs whodied in this holocaust may never be known.On this 50th anniversary of the genocidewhich took place in1941in the IndependentState of Croatia and as the world is againwitness to a civil war between Croats andSerbs in Yugoslavia, I extend to everyone in the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of WesternAmerica, my heartfelt concerns {or the Serbian people.

The following text is a condensed version of chapter seven in my book, TheWeb of Disinformation, supported by documentation, inadvertently declassified fromthe secret files of British intelligence, along with my personal research on the subject.This information is very appropriate today. Josip Broz Tito postponed his bid forpower until he could enlist the support of certain emigre politicians, the moreimpressionable sectors of the British and American press, and persuadable elementsin the British Foreign office. In achieving these objectives, Tito and his helpers inBritish intelligence, from James Klugmann down, were aided in many ways by theUstashi massacres. Knowing that they could never purchase the support of the Serbs,the Nazis exerted themselves to purchase that of the Croats. The first act of the Nazioccupiers was to set up the Independent State of Croatia, with its territories enlargedto include the mainly Serbian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the districtsof Srem and Lika. Of the totai population of some 6 million in the Independent Stateof Croatia, almost a third were Serbs.

The Ustashi massacres took place on the heels of the German occupation.The news reached the Allied world that there had been extensive massacres of theSerbian minority in the newly created Independent State. The perpetrators were theUstashi militia of the quisling Croat fuehrer, Ante Pavelic. Initial reports claimedthat 150,000 Serbs had been massacred; while arriving reports claimed 600,000 werekilled. A11 reports were replete with details of such psychopathic fiendishness thaton first reading they seemed almost absurd.

The facts of the massacres would indeed be incredible if they had not beenauthenticated from so many different sources, including photographic evidence bythe Ustashi themselves, as such evidence was one sure way of receiving Pavelic'sapproval and elevation to higher rank within the Ustashi militia. In quantity theUstashi massacres rivaled the rvorst of the Nazi crimes, and for sheer cruelty theysurpassed anvthing that Himmler ever der-ised. This militia bore the samerelationship to the Croatian armv as the German SS Cuard bore to the Wehrmacht.Its personnel lvere recruited from the most viciouslv anti-Serb and most depravedand sadistic elements in Croatia. Inbued'rr-ith the Nazi approach to the problem ofethnic minorities and ethnic purit]-, the Ustashi cold-bloodedly adopted a programcalling for the liquidation of the Serbian people in Pavelic's New Croatia State.

Numerous reports of entire Serbian communities being locked in theirchurches and burned alive and reports that the Ustashi were adorning themselveswith necklaces made of Serbian eyes were so horrible that one simply cannot blamethe civilized Western World for initially disbelieving them. It must be stressed thatonly a minority of the Croat people were actively involved in the massacres. But thenews of the Ustashi massacres, following hard on the German invasion, created

bitterness in the most moderate of serb hearts, and from the less moderate heartshatred poured over with volcanic fury.For many months Croatians were inclined to deny that the massacres hadtaken place. some of them even

-urt ,o ?u. as to suggest that the whole story was aGestapo frame-up aimSf at dividing the yugosrav i!rpr". a"J, r,u.,i.,g committedthemselves to this oosition, they weie .o-pJil"d bf p;i; a fl ,ril further. vwrenletters substantiatiirg the origiir"i;:il; were reieived frori a prominent Croatpolitician, the letters were suppressed. \A/hen a Croat businessman arrived in Londonbringing with him u.r "y"*itn"ss account of what il-hilft;d, his account, too,was suppressed.

I^/hen, at last, it was no longer possible to deny that the massacres had takenplace, it became customary to accusi tG serbs "f.;*;ti";;or,o ruy simply that"brothers were killing biothers." "serbs were killii"g Crou%)-u.a ,,Croats werekilling serbs." After neirly two years delay, some of thJCroat poriticians got aroundto denourrcing the Ustashi *airu.rer. nut by this time hu;H;;, of thousands ofserbs had perished, it was too late to make an impression on the embittered Serbs.

-fduy no one denies that the massacres did take place. It is of interest to notethat in The Yugoslaa elorteg lig]tt to Liae Tito states that ,,during three month s of 1941,with the aid of the ustashi, ihe Nazis succeeded in extermin-ating more than half amillion serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, il t;iliiu:;t'ua the Croatianmembers of the yugosrav government i"n exire i--uailt"r/ rJiaurir"a themserveswith the serbs when the fict of the massacres was established, broadcasted thisknowledge to yugoslavia condemning the Ustashi u"d utt;;l"Jl" .rr" C."rG;i;to give every assistance to their serb 6rothers, and orgariil"a u "u-puign of protest,even the most embittered serb nationalist would h"ave felt s;titrra" for such adisplay of brotherlv fellowship and sympathy. tnrtuuJ,-ti"y i"-"i""d silent, andtheir silence was inierpreted as acquie##;.

The serb cabinet ministers,urged that the government address an immediateappeal to w.orrd opinion in order"to stop thJ -"rru.r"r,-making whateverreservations it considereg

ry.:r.ru.y as to the details or tt "

-e*orandum on themassacres submitted by the Serbian-Orthodox Church. The Croat ministers took thestand that until confirmation was received, the memora.a"- nua to be consideredsusPect' The Croatian,ministers in the Yugoslav govemm""r- ""1" also refused topermit publication or dishibution of these ilports.

Dr. Grga Andjelinovic was perhaps the most notabre Croat and did speak ofthe massacres over the'BBC, condemnilg the Ustashi rnrrau.".r-ur.rJ offering the serbpeople sympathy. But Juraj Kmjevic, Jiraj sutej, and r"u" s,ruuri., the recognizedleaders in exile of the Croat Peasant Rarty, iemalned silent. whenever the subject wastouched upon in London, they spoke nof of ,,massacres,, but of ,,fratricidal strife.,,The Roman Catholic Croatian hierarchy failed to live up to the requirementsoffieir.calling. Archbishop stepinac of Zagreb'aiiil d"i""d;i, s"ay ttrat he was nora Croatian extremist buta moderate who, i a youthful_y"g;ri;;id"alist, had foughtas a volunteer with the Serbian army on the Salonika f.r"? i" w;d war I. on the

|osip Bmz Tib Dreza lfiheilovic Wiuton Churchill fames Klugmann

other hand, there were many moderate serbs and even moderate Croats whobelieved that Stepinac had not gone far enough in opposing Ustashi excesses and thatit is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile such acts with the fact that he served asvicar-general of the Ustashi forces.

It is incontestable that the Partisans owed much of their early accretion ofstrength, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily to the Ustashi

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for it wasfrom the tens of thousands of Serbian peasants driven into the mountains by theUstashi massacres and prepared to grasp at any leadership offered to them that thePartisans recruited a large part of their following. Fearing a Serb vengeance-andthere were a number of instances of Serb vengeance-many thousands of Croats whothemselves had no part in the massacres turned to Tito. This was especially truefollowing the Italian capitulation in September 1943. As a fellow Croat, they reaioned,Tito would protect them from Mihailovic, whom Partisan propaganda cleverly andunscrupulously depicted as the bearer of Serb vengeance. The Partisans not only didtheir best to promote the fear of vengeance but, taking advantage of the situation,accepted into their ranks thousands of Ustashi, officers and soldiers, whose mereaction in joining the Partisans miraculously transformed them from fascist butchersinto progressive humanitarians. There were repeated protests about this situationfrom British and American officers with Mihailovic.

Many of the men who joined Tito had betrayed Yugoslavia at the time of theGerman invasion, had fought with the Nazis on the Russian front and had beendecorated by both Hitler and Pavelic. All this was something that Mihailovic and hisfollowers found repugnant and utterly incomprehensible. Mihailovic had neverabandoned hope for a reborn Yugoslavia after the war-he referred to his armyalways as the "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland." He had also taken the stand thatonly the guilty would be punished for the Ustashi massacres. In line with theseatLitudes, he did appeal to the Croatian domobranci, or home guard, to come over tohis side. But he refused to appeal to the Ustashi as a matter of principle. In the eyes ofMihailovic and his followers, there could be only one reward for the Ustashimurderers, especially for their officers-immediate execution. They took this standbecause it was the Ustashi movement that had acted as Hitler's fifth column duringthe invasion of Yugoslavia; it was the Ustashi militia that was responsible for theterrible massacres of 7947; and it was from the ranks of the Ustashi that most of thevolunteers for the Croat contingents on the Russian front came. For such men, saidMihailovic and his followers, there could be no forgiveness and no redemption.

The Partisans made much of the fact that certain Serb formations claiming tobe under the command of Mihailovic took vengeance for the Ustashi massacres bystaging countermassacres of Croat and Moslem communities. It is true that suchcountermassacres did take place. But, rather than condone or encourage them,Mihailovic did everything in his power to prevent them, and otherwise to curb theextremists. The task was not an easy one. Serb fathers whose children had been killedbefore their eyes by the ustashi were not inclined to listen to argumentsdistinguishing between Ustashi and Croats; the Croats had killed their children, theywould kill Croats. Though Partisan propaganda did its best to convey the impressionthat Mihailovic's followers were fanatical pan-Serbians perennially thirsting for Croatblood, Mihailovic's stand always was that Yugoslavia must be re-constituted, and thatonly the guilty would be held to account for the massacres.

Mihailovic, at his bitterest, spoke thus of the problem: "I am often asked, am Ifor serbia or for Yugoslavia? If you ask my heart, it will answer: I am for a great andpowerful Serbia; but if my reason, I would answer that the Serbs have made manysacrifices for Yugoslavia in two wars, but never have the Croats shown the leastgratitude . . . Th"]- (the Serbs) rvould have the right to say: We no longer wantYugoslavia. But tlrere are higtrer inErests which compel us to remake this count{r . . ."

For some time after the uusr;rcres Mihailovic's heart had the upper hand overhis head. Though he refused to listen to the urgings of the ultranationalists whodemanded a complebe break with the Yugoslav ideal, whenever he was called upon to

speak, it was serbia that came first, and when he brought in yugoslavia, it wasobvious that he was speaking ugui*i hi, h"urr.on December rs, lg+5, Mihairovic was celebrating the feast of his patronsaint, saint Nicholas. The festivar was-attended bt;"p;;3"r,iutirre, from all ovelYugoslavia. In a speech derivereJ ui ti.," tu.,.n"".,'vru.Ji*i.'p."auuu., as a Croatparticipant, said the following:,,.

. . As a Croat, I thank you, General M.ihailovic, for your three greatachievements. Firstly, for haui.g prese*ed.the yugoslav,ia"rfru"_.rg the Serbseven after it h_ad been stained b"y'the blood of zoolooo s".o -iriy., ."rro *"."slain by the ustashi terrorists. i, *"r y." who had the boldness to hoist theYugoslav colours at Ravna coru u,.,aur ihe most difficult circumstances, and at atime when many serbs thought thai reconciliation couri ^""*

o. possiblebetween them and the Croat"s. Seconaly,,fo. ha_ving refused to preach theprinciple of vengeance against the Croats, demanding instead the punishmentonly of those who wereluilty oi the c.i-e, commiited. Thirdly, for havingtaken' in the name or ai-t trre vujortur,r, an energetic attitude to defendilT:rTTr against dictatorship of "i{ r.i"a, ,^"*"i ii.l,i" 'r.i, ,n" right orwhile the representatives of the Croat people in London were turningagainst Mihairovic as "the national

"n*-y oi tr'" Croat peopte,,,a paralleldevelopment was taking-.plu"" il;;;l;;;-r;la ; rh" ;.,.trh i'J."ig' office. rn a'good faith the Foreign oJfice berieved that the accounts ,;;;;;;rrcres were grossryexaggerated' It was still early in the war, the facts of B"lr;"J"Auschwitz had notyet been estabrished, and io tne e"!io-su*or., -"-n-t'u"t:rfifr""_"d artogetherincredible that Croat fascists could have"massacred 600,000 serbs in cord blood.

one other factor entered into the_ attitude of the British Foreign office.Having helped to bring together the south slav peoples after world war I, certain ofthe Foreign office experts were not disposed to ,i"" t'ru, ,ruiy jirirpr"a. It was on t1resoit of this anripathy-to Mihaito;i. ";;'rh";"ru, tnri'ir,l,"ij,

"il.,s propagandato the British and Croatial.peopleg, in particular, took root. witr,rn Britishintelligence, some were pro-Tito, oir ia"oroji.al grounds,-;a;;l".u.rse they werecaught up in the epidemicrnania of p.o-TrtoiJ-, ,tirio;h;;;"because rhey werevictims of disinformation. The forcus'f.o* within found ii .u."rrury to weakenwhatever influence Mihailovic strtt retaineJ by means "r "

.""..plrgn of carumny andminimization, in which the charge or .orJoiitioil;y;'o;Hi;T rore. Concomitantwith this, it was necessary to ionvince the- British government that Tito had theYugoslav peoples behind him. Finalry, ,i".u ttu g;;;;;.;d;rty oJBruish officials whowere anti-Mihailovic were at the sime time aiti-Co-*rrr,'rri, it-*u, necessary toassure them that the partisan rrro.r"-"rrt was not a Communist but a nationalmovement, that Tito had no intention of introducing" s.;*;;-", u.a that he wasquite prepared to collaborate in u gorr".rr-"rrt with"certain ,r.roBl".tio.ruble membersof other parties. Tito gave Churchil rur.uq"rrrt";;;;;:J';:=ihurchi, took himat his word, even though there was r-;l; evidence avairabil wittrout access towartime inte'igence, thit Tito's -orr"-"'r,t fr.;ih; b;ffi* until the end wasneither national nor democratic.

This is the story "f llr" :?l: plaved bv the Ustashi massacres in Tito,s rise topower. In commemorating the soth'annrtersarv of these gtorlirh

-ussacres, I thinkit would be well to reca[-kpeciary t" th; riti;; il;.:r#t ug. rit.,ution_thatthe existing frontiers of the itate "i c.outiu *ere arbitarity

"riuBIirn"d by Tito, atotalitarian dictator. It wo,Id be bad-enoulh rit}," ,.,rv pr"oi".i -""r,rted of the factthat President slobodan Milosevic

"r s..uiu-i, still a io'mm"rriri. -L"t it would arsobe well to recalr that the.possibility oi

" p"*"r"r solution ,itil yugosrav problemhas been rendered infiniiely

'''o.6 airri.'Ji uy tn" d".i;i; oi-c.ou6u. presidentFranjo Tudjman, a former Tito generar, to uaopt a- flag for r,i, ;ir",a"p"r,dent state ofCroatia" modered verycrosei-y urt". *,"-ur'tusni r?ag w'ti"n fr"riaed over themassacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbians.

DAVID ttlARTlN has had a distinguishedcareer as a journalist, political analyst,organizer of humanitarian and anti_totalitarian causes, and as a staffer on theSenate fudiciary Committee.

Mr. Martin was the organizer andexecutive director of the Committee for a FairTrial for General Draza Mihailovic. Includedon that committee were: Arthur GarfieldHays, head of the American Civil LibertiesUnion; The Honorable Charles poletti, formergovernor of New York; Adolf A. Berle, Jr.,former assistant secretary of state; andTheodore Kiendl, an eminent Wall Streetllwyer. The committee gathered testimony ofthe American officers who had been attachedto Mihailovic and of the more than 500American airman who had been rescued byMihailovic . Despite representations to thecontrary by the U.S. State Department, thistestimony had been specifically refused bythe Belgrade court.

InThe Web of Disinfotmation: Churchill,sYugoslao Blunde4 David Martin details thegreatest allied blunder of World War II whichoccurred not in any of the famous theaters ofbattle but at the bottom of Europe, inYugoslavia. In December 1943 WinstonChurchill made the fateful decision toabandon the pro-Democratic nationalresistance army in Axis-occupied yugoslaviaand to support instead the Communiitguerrilla forces and their leader, fosip BrozTito. The consequences of this choicl wereprofound and far-reaching. Tito took theweapons supplied by the Allies. Some wereused against the Germans, but the greater partwere used against his own countrymen,especially the pro-Western resistance forcesled by GeneralDraza Mihailovic. When thewar was over, Tito was in power andYugoslavia firmly in place as a strategic partof the Communist bloc.

David Martin, the world,s foremostscholar on the subiect, fully uncovered thetragic tale in secret British files that were onlyrecently inadvertently declassified. Hereveals that the Yugoslavs and their pro-Western forces were betrayed and thitChurchill, and others, were quite simplydeceived-by Communist moles andsympathizers who had infiltrated the militaryintelligence services. The prime moverbehind the entire effort was a rnember of thefamous Cambridge spy set that included KimPhilby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, andAnthony Blunt. Martin names this,,fifthman" and reveals his conspiracy and itsdevastating success; that man was |amesKlugmanrl by all accounts the most brilliantand enterprising mole of them all.

Mr. Martin is the author of two previousbooks about Draza Mihailovic Ally Eetuayeitand Patriot or Traitor: The Case ofbenetaiMihailovich- Mr. Martin and his wifecurrently live in Arlingtory Virginia.

SETO DRAKUTICFEBRUARY 7, Ig42

The Ustashi, under the leadershipof Franciscan priest, Fr. MiroslavMajstorovic killed 2,300 adults and550 children.

Prior to killing the adults, unborn children were violentlycut from their mothers' womb and slaughtered. Of theremaining children in the village, all under the age of 12, theUstashi brutally removed arms, legs, noses, ears, and genitals.Young girls were raped and killed, while their families wereforced to witness the violation and carnage.

The most grotesque torture of all was the decapitation ofchildren, their heads thrown into the laps of their mothers, whowere themselves then killed.

THE CASE TOR IHE SERBSby Michael Mennard

Stephen Sestanovich's article "The Diplomatic Mistake That MadeYugoslavia" $uly Foreign Seruice lournal, pp. 11,-\2) offers a comprehensive picture ofthe messy Yugoslav situation, a thankless job, to say the least. Unfortunately, thearticle fails to explain why Yugoslavia's first incamation, established in 1918 as theKingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, was such a failure after only 23 years.Instead, the story revolves around the bullying Serbs on the one hand and the poor,suffering Croatians and other Yugoslav ethnic groups on the other. But the problem isnot so simple.

Ploin 0ld NotionolismThe conflict between the Croats and the Serbs is often presented as a

confrontation between the struggling, embattled, democratic forces of freedom-loving and pro-Western Croatians against the Communist, totalitarian, imperialistic,and Byzantine Serbs. It is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is the plain, old struggleknown in history as Balkan nationalism. Few people remember that the Serbs werefaithful allies of the United States in two World Wars, while the "Western-oriented"Croatians were fighting on the side either of Austria-Hungary or Nazi Germany. TheNazi puppet, the Independent State of Croatia, even found it necessary to declarewar on the United States, a declaration that was never repealed.

The Serbs and the Croats lived for centuries in Austria-Hungary, side by sideand intermingled. As early as the middle of the 15th century, Serbian freedomfighters and their families were driven into the Military Region (Vojna Krajina), orKiajina, as it is now known, before the onslaught of the superior Turkish forcesfollowing the fall of Bosnia. The Hapsburgs encouraged both Serbs and Croats tosettle in the border region in an effort to establish a zone of defense against the Turks.As they had done elsewhere, the Hapsburgs manipulated the Roman Catholic Croatsagainst the Eastern Orthodox Serbs.

The rivalry between the two grew rapidly and at times became bitter andhostile. In the 19th century, Croatian philosopher and politician Ante Starcevic,known for his radical views, denied the very existence of the Serbian people. In twoof his many pamphlets, entitled "The Name Serb" and "The Slavo-Serbian Breed inCroafia," Starcevic described the Serbs as "Gypsies" and "Albanians" (then, as now/considered insulting terms in Croatian), "an alien stock," "less than human," "a dirty,evil breed." He suggested that "one third of the Serbs should be killed, one-thirdconverted to Roman Catholicism, and one-third forced to emigrate."

Starcevic, whose influence in Croatia in the second half of the 19th centurywas pervasive, is still regarded as the father of the Croatian nation. He founded theCroatian Party of the Pure Right, which became an inspiration and an ideologicalhome of the 2bth-century Croatian Ustashe movement. The Party of the Pure Rightstill exists and remains active in Yugoslavia. Not surprisingly, Ustashe and ageneration of Croatian intellectuals and politicians still use the same terminology astheir ideological father.

An interview with Croatia's current President Franjo Tudjman published inThe Nezu Yorker on March 78,7991invoked this scurrilous tradition. Speaking aboutthe Serbo-Croat problem, Tudjman said: "Croats belong to a different culture-adifferent civilization-from the Serbs... Croats are a part of Western Europe, part ofthe Mediterranean tradition... The Serbs belong to the East. They use the Cyrillicalphabet, which is Eastern. They are an Eastern people, like the Turks and theAibanians. They belong to the Byzantine culture... Despite similarities in language,we cannot be together." Tudjman has also been widely quoted by Croatiannewspapers as saying he is elated whenever it occurs to him that his wife is neither aSerb nor a jew.

Thanks to Starcevic and his disciples, Croatians have never felt comfortablein post-World War I Yugoslavia. As soon as they realized that their Austro-Hungarian experience and cultural background were insufficient to take over thenew state, the Croatians embarked upon a campaign of obstruction and non-cooperation. As part of a long-range plan, the terrorist wing of the CroatianUstashe assassinated Yugoslav King Alexander I in 1.934 and collaborated withNazi Cermany in World War II, while butchering the unsuspecting Serbianminority and other undesirables. The Ustashe staged mass slaughters in some 30concentration camps created across a geographically inflated Nazi dominionnamed the Independent State of Croatia. More than 700,000 persons weredestroyed in those camps only because they were Serbs, Jews, or Gypsies.

Although some in the Croatian Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy duringWorld War II tried to stop the genocide (and paid for their courage with their lives),many either condoned and participated in the carnage or saw the panic-strickenSerbian Orthodox population as a promising target for conversion to RomanCatholicism. According to the highly respected historian Victor Novak and othercredible sources, some 250,000 Serbs were converted by 1943.

Following World War II, Croatian leaders, Communist and non-Communist alike, ignored the Ustashe's beastly crimes. The leadership,ecclesiastical or lay, made no apology of any kind; neither even conceded torecognize the crime publicly, even though the Ustashe's outrageous activities weredeclared genocide during the Nuremberg Trials. Instead, many minimized thecrimes. Croatia's "democratically elected" President Tudjman, for his part,repeatedly makes unwise and uncharitable statements while conducting aCroatization of the republic's governing apparatus by bringing in only thoseCroatians who can prove they have four generations of pure Croatian ancestry.Little wonder the Serbs feel unsafe under Croatia's current regime.

Demorrotir TroditionsThe Croats professed their own feelings of insecurity during their tenuous

union with the Serbs. From the very beginning, the source of Croatia's allegedfears was the co-called Greater Serbia, an early 19th century concept designed toprovide a more effective Christian challenge to the Turkish presence in the Balkans.Serbian history, however, should have reassured Croatians. Prior to World War I,Serbia was an independent kingdom with a well-developed political, social, andeconomic life. Its constitution of 1903 was the latest in the progression of Serbianconstitutions that started in 1835, all considered very liberal even by Europeanstandards.(worthy of mention is the fact that Serbia signed a treaty with the UnitedStates nearly 110 years ago.) it provided for a constitutional monarchy, a bicamerallegislature, and a multi-party system, with free elections. Freedom of the press lr-asguaranteed. It should be recalled that neither Croatia nor Slovenia was anindependent state when the two joined the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, andSlovenes. Slovenia never had a state of its own; Croatia not since 1102.

The creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slor-enes onDecember 1, 1918 was by no means a hasty affair. It was the result of dedicaterlwork of the Yugoslav Committee, established in London in 1915, and compr66d 61the Serb, Croat, and Slovene leaders. A11 but one, a representatir-e trom theKingdom of Serbia, were disgruntled citizens of Austria-Hungan'.

For their part, Serbs tried to cooperate and coexist lrith Croatian;. i-n thenew state. Slovenians played along. There r,r'ere Slor-enians in er-en- singleYugoslav government. Slovene Roman CathoLic priest and p-olitician Dr-

-A,ntonKorosec became the first prime minister after King

-\lerander dismissed theparliament, renamed the country Yugoslar-ia, and introduced a higilv crrtralizedsystem, mainly because of Croatia's non-cooperation-

The Serbs also gave ample proof of their rt-illingrre-s to sharc- For example.reparations due Serbia ;rs compn$ltion for r-irtual destructiqr ot ils propertr and a

50 percent loss of life among its male population^were equally divided withCroatians and Slovenes. This rias done even though Croatians and Slovenes foughtas allies of the Central Powers and suffered virtually no loss of property andminimal casualties.

As far as Tito's Yugoslavia is concerned, Sestanovich's claim that Serbs hadpolitical and military superibrity is unfounded. During the e1:t 3q years/ no.S"rbj3"iras held the position oiprime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Thecurrent prlme ministei, the foreign minister, and the minister of economicdevelopment-the key positions-are all Croatians. Most of the remaining cabine_tmembers are either iroatian or Slovenes. And, the current "collective president,"who controls the military forces, is also a Croatian.

After all the obstructionism, hatred, and bad faith, the serbs would befoolish not to want to part ways with Croatians. But so far, nothing has been done todetermine how the country's-huge foreign debt is going to be paid and by whom'Above all, there are some AOO,OOb Serbians still living in Croatia, and the Serbs areunlikely to leave them to extremists as potential fodder for another try at genocide'

Old GuordTo survive, Yugoslavia must achieve some sort of accommodation. For that,

however, the Yugoslavi must rid themselves of their presen! leadership- of recycledCommunists. Most of these leaders have made cosmetic ideological changes,,butttrey still know little beyond what they learned under Tito' Serbian PresidentSlobodan Milosevic, for example, whose political flip-flops are well known, is now a,socialist,"although he has been quoted in an interview by

,Le Monde saying-he hasbeen ,,a Communist out of conviction since the age of 17." The rest are Tito leftovers:president of Croatia Franjo Tudjman was a world war II Partisan and Yugoslavir*y g""".al until jailed for exiessive Croatian nationalism. Josip Manolic, until."""rrtt! prime miniiter of the Croatian government was a highly placed- officer ofunge, th" Yugoslav version of the soviet KGB. President of slovenia Milan Kucanwas, for y"u.rih" principal ideologue of the Slovene CommunistParty, specificallyresponsible for applying Party doctrine in education. And there are many/ manyothers.

Throughout the years since Tito's death in 1980, the Serbian leadershipcommitted an incomprehensible, mind-boggling error' The- Croats conducted aforeign med.ia

"u-puigtt to convince the world that Tito's federalism was nothing

more"than u ,ubteri.rgE for Greater Serbia and Serbian chauvinism, or both' Ratherthan combat the camplign, the Serbs remained quiet. \Atrhen pressed, they gave a patur,r*"r, "Why botheil A"y right-minded Person knows that truth and justice are onour side." Thlr

-uy havi bJen innocenie or just plain Balkan superciliousness'n".""tfy, the Serbs have made an effort to present their case through the world'smedia, tut it may be too little and too late t-o recapture some of the good will theytraditionally enjoyed, particularly in this country'

The Crooked StroightAssuming that th-e United States still favors a federation or confederation of

Yugoslav states 6ver a broken up, hat-in-hand bunch of "sovereign" states,. th.e;.;; of them smaller than Indiaria, what can the United States do? Precious little, ifu"itnittg. There is an old folk saying in Yugoslavia: it is like "ryhg to- straighten outthe Drina." The Drina ls a rapiaf meandering river flowing north through thecentrally located republic of Bosnla-Herzegovina-. That is a fair description of whatthe Uniied States would face if it interceded'

TheUnitedStatescanplayapositiverole,however,byseeingtoitthatthecracks now visible in the mediation efforts of the European Community and theConference on security and Cooperation in Europe do not become too great. TheUnited States must rJalize, hovirever, that Yugoslavia, including Croatia,.is theBalkans, regardless of what Croatia's curreni leaders say. There, nothing asimportant aJ nationalistic confrontations can be resolved without some bloodshed'

For once, the United States should remain on the sidelines, using its great influenceonly to make sure that fairness prevails. U.S. allies in Europe are in a much betterposition both to observe and to act, if need be, to keep the Yugoslav crisis undercontrol. For the United States, antagonizing both disputing sides by remainingstrictly neutral may be just what is needed. The friendship will be easy to restorewhen the conflict is over and the country needs its shattered economv rebuilt.

Meanwhile, the various Yugoslav emigrant organizations would do n-ell toremain equally aloof. Their ardent support of factions in the "old countrr-" isunderstandable but unwise, as it only raiiei unfillable expectations. Conspiracies br-U.S. based groups to provide arms, several of which have recently come to light mustbe curtailed. The most recent case, in Florida, involved three Croatians n-ho tried topurchase and export illegally military hardware from the United States to Croatia inthe amount of $12 million.

The main problem for Yugoslavia will be that in the Balkans, anvthing otherthan a clear-cut victory is seen as defeat and humiliation. Compromise is an alien,virtually non-existent concept. Some kind of a face-saving device wiil har-e to befound, and that, in itself, will be a problem.

What the Yugoslavs need, other than new and truly democratic leadership,is some quiet unobstructive mediation, in a dignified atmosphere, conducted br-persons or institutions familiar with the area, the peoples and the centuries-longhistory of their conflicts. No television limelight, no day-to-day reports, color stories,interviews, in-depth analyses and no grandstanding. The less exposure to the media,the better. Only in that quiet, undistracting atmosphere can the feuding parties hopeto reach some kind of lasting solution to problems. That solution must be their oun,accepted and recognized by all.

illl$AtL I{IENNARD is a retired ForeignService information officer. He frequentlywrites about and visits Yugoslavia. Hecompleted his doctoral dissertation atGeorgetown University on "BishopStrossmayer, the Serbs, and the Croats inthe Second Half of the 19th Century."This article has been reproduced from theOctober1991 issae of Foreign Seruice lournalwith the express permission ofboth the writer and editor.

]anko Crevar 40 Janko Crevar 56 Josip Crevar 30 Jovan Crevar 58 Mile Crevar 21io Devic 32 Ilija Devic 40 Ilija Devic 40 Luka Devic 45 Matija Devic 23 Milan Dervic 36 Simo19 Devic Teso Devic 20 Dragan Dragojevic 32 Dragan Dragojevic 21niakZ7 Mihajlo Drobnjak 54 Milan Drobnjak 38 Mile Eremija 59 Nikola Eremija 2(L Stanko Ivkovic 50 Ilija Jovanovic 27 Jovan Jovanovic 69 Marko Jovanovic 27c 50 Adam Kajganic 22 Janko Kajganic 42 lovan Kajganic 40 Jor'-Joco Kajganic 25irko Kajganic2l Nikola Kajganic 46 Pavao Kajganic 22 PavaoKajganic22 PetarKeVa39 Simo Klipa 60 Pavao Komljenovic 56 Petar Komljenovic 36 Dusan Korcc22

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nkovic 44 Milan Dankovic 18 Mile Dankovic 36 Petar Dankovic 44 Petar Gubic 44 Ietar Gvozdic 41 Petar Gvozdic 36 Rade Gvozdic 40 Marko Ivkovic 48 Milan IvkoIilutin Janjanin 31 Mojsije Janjanin 42 Nikola Janjanin 46 Pane Janjanin 62 Pavaolarlnrc 27 Milutin Kajganic 36 Pavao Kajganic 19 Tanasije Kajganic 37 Stanko Kragultile Kukulj 30 Milos Kukulj 61 Milos Kukutj 54 Milos Kukulj 51 Milos Kukulj 45 (37 Stanko Kukulj4l Stojan Kukulj33 Vujo Kukulj 41 Dragan Lackovic 38 Djuro L

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Today, early in September, 1991, thehome and the bed previously occupied byIJUBAI{ JEDNAK was riddled with bullets bythe current Croatian Nationalists, seekersof "freedom" and "democracy" in Croatia.

An obvious second attempt to killthis valuable witness to Croatian genocidecommitted on the Serbian people in 1941and one of the few survivors to testify in1986 at the trial of Andrija Artukovic,minister of Interior, Independent State ofCroatia.

Ljuban fednak is the recipient of TheFiist Order of St, Saaa, Highest Award inthe Serbian Orthodox Church given to alay person. He survives once again, thistime as a refugee in an unnarrred country.

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ANDRIJA ARTUKOVICArtukovich entered the United States

in 1949 under a 30 day tourist visa obtained inIreland under the false name of Alois Anic.Thanks to his protectors in Roman Catholiccircles, he escaped every attempt of extradition.All the favorable articles written about him bythe Croatian and American ecclesiastics are well-remembered, and there is absolute proof thatRoman Catholic circles of Los Angeles organizedvarious benefits in order to raise funds to defendhim from extladition. He remained in the UnitedStates until his successful extradition and histrial in 1986.

The Justice Department, after manyunsuccessful attempts to deport Artukovic, wasfinally successful in 1981 when director AllanRyan of Special Investigations (OSI) of theJustice Department introduced evidence signedby Artukovic directing punitive measuresagainst Serbs and fews. The authenticity o{ thesedocuments has never been questioned. Even hisson Radoslav Artukovic, of Seal Beach,California, acknowledges that they are genuineand incriminating.

Yugoslavia filed an extradition requestwith the U.S. government seeking the return ofArtukovic to stand trial, not on charges of havingimplemented a widespread program ofpersecution as minister of Interior, but rather onspecific charges of murder. To support thosecharges, Yugoslavia provided affidavits of manypeople, including Bajro Avdic, the putativemotorcycle driver. The Justice Department putthe deportation proceedings on hold andpresented Yugoslavia's evidence to a federalcourt, which ruled that the evidence wassufficient to state a prima facie case o{ murder,for which Artukovic was returned to Yugoslaviato stand trial.

As minister o{ the Interior in the"Independent State of Croatia" and one ofPavelic's most trusted confidants, Artukovic wasresponsible for the Croatian secret police, knownas the Ustashi. Artukovic's position in theCroatian government equaled that of Himmler'sin Germany.

The first and, to date, the fullestaccount of Artukovic's actions in Croatia and thelegal proceedings in the United States {rom 1951to 1984 can be read in detail in a current bookQuiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi WarCriminals in America by Allan A. Ryan, Jr.

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NEVER AGAIN !Dr. Milan Bulajic

USIASHI GII{O(IDE INTHE INDIPE]IDENTSTATE 0F (R0AT|A (]{DH}FRoflt t 94 t

-t 945

Within the framework of theConvention of the United Nations onPreventing and Punishing the Crime ofGenocide, the confirmation and presentation ofthe truth about the Ustashi crime of genocideperpetrated against the Serbs, ]ews, andGypsies in the quisling Independent State ofCroatia during World War II is our debt tomore than one million victims-a debt that cannot be forgotten, and a crime that must neveragain be repeated.

The Ustashi are members of aseparatist, chauvinist, terrorist organizationcalled the "Ustashi-Croat Liberation Movement," which was formed after theproclamation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on January 6,7929 that replaced theKingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In order to dismember the then existingYugoslavia, the Ustashi leader Dr. Ante Pavelic organized the assassination of KingAlexander I Karadjordjevic on October 9,7934 in Marseilles at the outset of the king'sstate visit to France. On that occasion Louis Bartou, the French minister of ForeignAffairs, was also killed. The Ustashi terrorists were supported by the Fascist powersin their preparations for the Second World War. The assassins fled to Hungarianterritory (janka Puszta) and were secretly transported from there in a militaryaircraft to Fascist Italy (the Lipari camp), from which Pavelic expected the mosteffective assistance.

After the putsch of March 27, 1,941, in which Yugoslavia opposed the NaziFascist Tripartite Pact, the strategy of the Third Reich was disrupted by postponingthe "Barbarossa" plan for attack on the Soviet Union, and Adolf Hitler ordered thedestruction of the Yugoslav state and punishment of the Serbian nation. A group ofwell-trained Ustashi terrorists, headed by Ante Pavelic, was brought to Yugoslaviawith the Italian Fascist occupational forces. Counter to the principles of internationallaw, an "Independent State of Croatia" was formed on the occupied territory ofYugoslavia on April 10, 1941. The state of Croatia adhered to the Axis Tripartite Pactand declared war on the Allies.

Immediately after the formation of the Ustashi Independent State of Croatia(ISC-NDH), the Ustashi began carrying out unheard of crimes against the SerbianOrthodox population. The genocide was blueprinted in the Lipari Islands under theaegis of Mussolini's Fascist regime and approved by Hitler. Official documents andlists of execution pits, compiled on official orders, have been preserved. Thesedocuments contain, in addition to the names of sites in which the pits were located,the estimated spatial dimensions, such as "space for 100 persons," //space for 200persons," even "space for 800 persons," etc. The attempt to create an ethnically pureCroat Catholic area called for a demonic project of genocide of unbelievable scope inview of the then national structure: 3,069,000 Croats or 50.78 per cent, L,874,000Orthodox Serbs or 30'56 per cent,717,000 Muslims or 11.86 per cent. The strategy ofimplementing this crime against humanity was described by the Ustashi official Dr.Mile Budak in the following way: one third is to be killed, one third expelled, onethird converted to Catholicism!

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This huge program of genocide could not be realized by only a group ofseveral hundred Ustashi terrorists. Included were the paramilitary formations of theCroat Peasant Party ("Guardians") of Dr. Vlatko Macek. A broader mobilization of theCroats was made possible with the cooperation of the Roman Catholic clergy for thepurpose of setting up a Roman Catholic state (Civitas Dei) in the strategicallysignificant Balkans. The purpose was also to destroy the Orthodox Christian Church-the "schismatics," who could prevent the strengthening and expansion of the"Antemurale christianitatis." The Orthodox Church was banned and outlawed. Afterbeing brutally tortured, about 220 Orthodox clergymen were murdered, as well asMetropolitan Dr. Petar Zimonjic, Bishop Sava Trlajic, and Bishop Platon jovanovic,while the rest were deported. The Orthodox churches were burned to the ground and,in many instances, burned while filled with Orthodox Serbs. Some churches wereplundered and transformed into Roman Catholic churches. The Ustashi alsocommitted the crime of genocide of the jews. More than 30,000 ]ews were"e1iminated." The Ustashi minister Dr. Andrija Artukovic, who collaborated on thisproject with the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, boasted at a Ustashi rally onFebruary 23,7942 that the "Ustashi Croatia radically resolved the Jewish question."

The Ustashi genocide of the Gypsies in Croatia was horrifying indeed. V\4rolevillages were destroyed. As these victims were annihilated without any lists drawn-up, their exact number is not known - but it is reckoned to be between 40,000 and100,000. The Ustashi criminals slaughtered and brutally killed hundreds of thousandsof men, women and children only because they belonged to a specific nation orreligion. "Those arrested had their ears and noses severed, their eyes gouged, werekilled with knives and clubs, their skin sliced into strips, and their bodies placed onnails. They used female genital organs as ashtrays, cut off the breasts of women, threwlive victims into furnaces and killed with poisonous injections"- (text from theIndictment of the District Public Prosecutor of Zagreb at a trial of Dr. AndrijaArtukovic).

The most brutal form of Ustashi crime was the mass murder of children.Throughout the whole occupied territory of Europe it was only in the Ustashi NDHthat concentration camps for children were organized. The Ustashi Dionisije ]uricev inhis clergymen's robes openly preached: "No one except a Catholic can live in thiscountry and who refuses to be converted will be dealt with-sent to jasenovacl It is nosin today to kill even a small child who hinders the Ustashi movement!"

The jasenovac Ustashi camp system was a veritable death camp from 1941'-45.Pavelic's headquarters issued a command through minister of the Interior AndrijaArtukovic to aII the institutions in the state saying that the "collection and labor campJasenovac can take in an unlimited number of prisoners." The Jasenovac camp, whichcovered an area of 210 square kilometers, was the biggest collection center, torture andexecution area that ever existed in the Balkans. By its brutality and torture it decidedlyheld first place in Europe and in the world. The inmates were slaughtered with knivesand other sharp blades, killed with saws, axes, and burned alive. The corpses werethrown into mass graves, while others were thrown into the Sava River. We do notknow the exact number of victims who met their death in Jasenovac. The Commissionfor Crimes of the Occupational Forces and their helpers in 1945 arrived at theconclusion that the exact number of victims will never be ascertained. But afterinvestigation and interrogations of countless witnesses this figure can be estimated at700,000. In a village called Donja Gradina there is a commemorative plaque in Serbo-Croat, Russian and English that reads: "It is proven that 366,000 inmates were killedhere."

A special form of Ustashi genocide was the forcible Catholicization of theOrthodox Serbs. The program for this encompassed specific categories of the SerbianOrthodox population, especially those who were economically and politically weakand who, in view of the number of Serbs in the NDH, could not physically bedestroyed within a brief period of time. With close cooperation of the Bishops'Conference of the NDH, which organized with the Vatican's knowledge and blessinga separate Commission of Bishops, conversion to Catholicism was to include one

third of the Orthodox Serbian population. Using threats and extortion, the NDHconverted about 255,000 Serbs. Many of them, after having been promised safetyupon conversion to Catholicism, became the victims of Ustashi genocide because thepriests of the Roman Church told them that they were saving their souls but couldnot guarantee saving their bodies. This enforced Catholicization of the OrthodoxSerbs has never been annulled by the Holy See. The converted Serbs were proclaimedto be "Croats."

In the final solution of the "Serbian question," according to the Ustashigenocide plan, one third of the Serbs who were not physically destroyed or forciblyconverted, was to be deported from Croatia and economically ruined. This group ofSerbs was ruthlessly destroyed. Serbian families were brutally expelled from theirsecular hearths without the possibility of taking any personal belongings with them.An agreement was reached that the Serbs should be deported to the German-heldterritory in Serbia on condition that Croatia should receive the Slovenes who weredeported from the territories annexed by the Germans. The most eminentrepresentatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the NDH, Dr. Krunoslav Draganovic,Dr. Stjepan Lackovic and others, took part in drawing up this program. After theliberation of Yugoslavia the NDH was not proclaimed a war crimes organization on thebasis of the Nuremberg War Criminals Trial. De-Nazification was also not carried out.The Ustashi leader Ante Pavelic, aided by an organization under the auspices of theVatican, fled with a large number of Ustashi criminals and was not tried in absentia.The Ustashi minister of Interior, who in 1986 was extradited from the USA, was nottried in Zagreb for the crime of genocide of the Serbs, jews and Gypsies, but only as awar criminal. At the Zagreb trial in 1986, which was to have been the YugoslavNuremberg, the Ustashi minister Artukovic was tried for crimes that never evenhappened and not for the crime of genocide, for which he was personally responsible.The representatives of the Vatican and the high clergy of the Roman Church in Croatiadid not condemn the Ustashi genocide-they did not hold responsible the RomanCatholic priests who, as sworn Ustashi, were personally responsible. There was noexpression of remorse of the part of the Roman Catholic Church for the responsibilityfor the terrible crime of genocide in the Ustashi NDH, not even such repentance as wasexpressed by the Roman Catholic Church in Germany with regard to the Nazi crime ofgenocide of the Jews.

In liberated Yugoslavia the pits into which the bodies of Serbian victims werethrown were deliberately covered with concrete in an attempt to destroy the evidencecontained on those sites. Also covered with concrete was the truth by using the sloganof "brotherhood and unity." Even the number of genocide victims was neverconfirmed. There was a ban on the "counting" of the victims, their digging up and theirproper burial.

The new Croat nationalistic "Croat Democratic Community-HDZ"leadership, after a prescribed period of forgetfulness, developed a theory on thecreation of the "jasenovac myth." This 'myth' was defined by Dr. Franjo Tudjman inhis work, The Wasteland of Historical Reality, as one intended to prove that the wholeCroat nation was to blame for genocide. In this way the fear of responsibility of thewhole nation for the mass crime of genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsiesis being dissipated by openly revising the events that took place during World War II.Again, there has ensued cooperation between the clergy and the nationalists motivatedby the same objectives, that is the rejection of responsibility of the Roman Catholicclergy.

In such a sifuation and given the absence of collected proofs, the number ofgenocide victims is blatantly minimized. On the occasion of this 50th anniversary of theUstashi Independent State of Croatia-NDH, Dr. Franjo Tudjman describes this state asthe expression of the historical aspirations of the Croat people and states that in theUstashi camp of Jasenovac there was a total of about 30,000 victims. Since we knowthat about 20,000 ]ews alone were killed there and about 11,000 children, a largenumber of Gypsies, a certain number of Yugoslav-oriented Croats and anti-Fascists, byhis count it tums out that there were no Serbian adult victims at all!

In 1945 many war criminals fled from justice. Under such conditions theworld public was not made aware of the real truth of genocide perpetrated during thewar on the territory of occupied Yugoslavia. Without a knowledge of this truth, it is notpossible to understand the present tragic events in Yugoslavia which are a danger toworld peace. There is no documentation whatever in the United Nations headquartersin New York about the Ustashi ]asenovac death camp. In the International Red CrossCommittee in Geneva there are only about two dozen photographs from Ustashipropaganda sources on which the primitive Ustashi death camp is shown as asanatorium with cooks in white attire, the inmates working at machines, and thewomen forking hay in the fieldsl

Contained in this photo-essay, the reader can see real picfures of the executionground which has been called "the biggest Serbian clty under the ground." The visualperception of the truth of the horrible crime of genocide between 1941-45 is importantso that the tragic events in Yugoslar.ia in 1991 can be understood.

In the new Independent State of Croatia people are being dismissed from theirjobs, their homes bumed, and the first victims are paying with their lives, as n 1947,only because they belong to the Serbian nation. The basic purpose of the svstematicailyimposed and imported crisis in Yugoslavia again, as in 1941, is the dismemberment ofthe Yugoslav state, which is not in the interest of any nation because all the nationsliving in this area are suffering as a result. The instruments used in breaking upYugoslavia in 1941' were the paramilitary formations of Macek's peasant "Guardians"against the Yugoslav Royal Army coupled with the illegal military support of FascistItaly. This is the same purpose of the paramilitary formations of the ruling party inpresent-day Croatia and the territorial units of Slovenia against the Yugoslav People'sArmy, together with the full financial and armed assistance from abroad.

On May 78, 1947 Pope Pius XII received the head of the Ustashi IndependentState of Croatia at the time of the genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.On May 26, 1,991. Pope John Paul II received the Croatian Democratic Communityleader Dr. Franjo Tudjman at a time of the existing sovereign Yugoslav state. PresidentTudjman was also received by the acting state secretary of His Holiness the Pope,Monsignor Angelo Sodone, even though he receives only those persons that the popereceives as part of a state visit, all with the purpose of supporting the Croat secessionistforces and the creation of a Catholic state in the strategically important Balkans. TheFirst World War began on the territory of the Yugoslav lands. Due to events inYugoslavia, the Second World War took a different turn. In order to prevent a newthreat to the peace in Europe and in the world, the tragic events from the past must notbe forgotten, as this is a precondition for their avoidance in the future. At the timewhen human rights are gaining more and more significance for mankind's future, onemust not forget the need to implement the United Nations Convention on thePrevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The strengthening of democraticforces in the world is constantly followed by the danger of the revival of the forces ofFascism, Nazism and other forms of totalitarianism and domination over the freehuman spirit. This is the real meaning of the contents of this presentation.

DR. Mll.AN BUIAJI( is a member of theAcademy of Arts & Sciences, Belgrade, theWorld Organization for Peace, UnitedNations, historian and eminent authoritv oninternational law, member of ILA(International Law Association), and L{IPPI(World Peace by Way of Law and Justicel. Heis also author of The Pinciples o.fInternational Lazo and De'celopn ETtt.

Dr. Bulajic documented and authorcd afour-volume dissertation on the U-

THE MARTYRDoM 0F THE SERBS (t94t-451Veselin Kesich, Professor at St. Vladimir's Seminary, Crestwood, N.y.

On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia by bombing the "open cityof Belgrade. The powers surrounding Yugoslavia, except for Greece, were allied *iilHitler. Each occupied sections of the country. Italy seized part o{ Slovenia an