CROATIA - Croatia and Slovenia - page 65

AsTu đ mantookpower,hewastednotimeinreintroducingmanyUstašesymbols,
including their currency (the kuna, still used today). These provocative actions raised
eyebrows worldwide, and raised alarms in Croatia's Serb communities.
Tu đ man espoused many of the same single-minded attitudes about ethnic divi-
sions as the ruthless Serbian leader Slobodan Miloševi ć . Croat forces—which may
or may not have been acting under Tu đ man's orders—carried out wide-scale ethnic
cleansing, targeting Serb and Muslim minorities. Tu đ man and Miloševi ć had secret,
Hitler-and-Stalin-esque negotiations even as they were ripping into each other rhet-
orically. According to some reports, at one meeting they drew a map of Bosnia-
Herzegovina on a cocktail napkin, then drew lines divvying up the country between
themselves. Their so-called “Kara đ or đ evo Agreement” completely left out the Bos-
niaks,whoconstitutedthelargestethnicgroupwithinthenationwhosefatewasbeing
decided. When Tu đ man's successor moved into the president's office, he discovered
reams of secret missives between Tu đ man and Miloševi ć .
To ensure that he stayed in power, Tu đ man played fast and loose with his new na-
tion's laws. He was notorious for changing the constitution as it suited him. By the
late 1990s, when his popularity was slipping, Tu đ man extended Croatian citizenship
toanyoneintheworldwhohadCroatianheritage—aployaimedatgettingvotesfrom
Croats living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who were sure to line up with him on the far
right.
Tu đ man kept a tight grip on the media, making it illegal to report anything that
would disturb the public—even if true. When Croatians turned on their TV sets and
saw the flag flapping in the breeze to the strains of the national anthem, they knew
something was up...and switched to CNN to get the real story. In this oppressive en-
vironment, many bright, young Croatians fled the country, causing a “brain drain”
that hampered the postwar recovery.
Tu đ man died of cancer at the end of 1999. While history will probably judge
him harshly, the opinion in today's Croatia is qualified. Most agree that Tu đ man was
an important and even admirable figure in the struggle for Croatian statehood, but
he ultimately went too far and got too greedy. Tu đ man's HDZ party is still active,
frequently naming streets, squares, and bridges for this embodiment of Croatian na-
tionalism. The most elaborate tomb in Zagreb's national cemetery (Mirogoj) honors
this “Croatian founding father.” And yet, prosecutors at the International Criminal
Tribunal in The Hague have said that if Tu đ man were alive, he would be standing tri-
al for war crimes.