One of the more renowned Croatian commentators, Boris Buden, writes in the latest issue of the Zagreb by - weekly Arkzin on the political implications of the testimony to the Hague Tribunal of Stipe Mesic, one of the leading Croatian politicians.What is most important, Mesic has brought into question the whole story which is told here as the truth about the patriotic war.
The role played by the Croatian 'statehood' politicians, lead by president Tudjman in the preparation and the execution of the war, and particularly in the political deal making with the aggressor, at the account of others, of course, was not only the role of a passive, innocent and naive victim. Along with many other facts which are slowly surfacing - for example the whole story concerning the killing of Reihl-Kir - Mesic's testimony for the Hague Tribunal is an important contribution to the confirmation of the thesis which Tudjman himself expressed without paying much attention: that Croatia did not want its independence, there would be no war ! Today, too many things have piled up so that the answer to that threatening question: say first who was the aggressor and who was the victim!, could still be quite simple and withiut a doubt.
All this is still not the decisive and most important in the decision of the city council of Nova Gradiska to revoke the status of an honorable citizen for Stipe Mesic. In that official act there is an important symbolic meaning which surpasses its political premises and implications. The question here is that this is the first time that the new Croatian regime is bringing down the monuments it has put up itself. Actually, this Mesic, as the given reason literally states, "has blackened and muddied his homeland", has previously indebted this homeland, for which it has honored and rewarded him with the title of the honored citizen of Nova Gradiska.
This title was nothing more than a form of a symbolic monument, reward for an individual, not given to him as a prize, but presented publicly, in his glory and honor. The greatest son of Nova Gradiska and the surrounding area, the living monument of its glory and love of homeland, has suddenly been thrown into dust, defamed as the traitor of the homeland, spat on as local and national shame, and consequently, publicly stripped of his rewards.
With this act, for the first time, in a symbolic sense, a full circle has been closed - from national glory to national defamation and shame. It is exactly this fact that Croatian immortality is also short lived is the most important knowledge which could be arrived at in the case of the honoured citizen Mesic.
Source: Zagreb by-weekly "Arkzin", October 1997
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