Even before this book was published, a few weeks ago, Joža Manolić caused a scandal and a scandal in the Croatian public: he coldly stated that he did not understand why the HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko burst in with neo-Ustasha-right-wing stories about lustration "Udba" and "Yugocommunist", you already know, when he himself was a registered associate of the State Security Service (Udba) of the RSUP of Croatia at the end of the eighties. According to Joža Manolić, he was very useful for them in obtaining information from church and Jesuit circles as a young and promising lay theologian connected to the Jesuits in Frankopanska. And who would he "scrutinize" now? Karamarko threatened to file a lawsuit, and Manolic said he couldn't wait. In all of this, however, the most interesting thing is that after Manolić's statement about Karamark, there was a thunderous "Croatian silence" for eight whole days: none of the media dared to even mention that statement, and the two or three journalists who tried, they were censored immediately; Boris Pavelić from Rijeka's "Novi List" was almost fired when he tried to look back on it. Only our colleague Viktor Ivančić in Zagreb's "Novosti" rejoiced wickedly and ate everyone's soul - with every right. Viktor asserted that the Croatian state is the work of the Udbas and their collaborators from the country and - especially - emigration, so now you shine...
photo: "Vremena" archive...Franjo Tuđman with Slobodan Milosevic...
PARTIZAN, YOU KNOW, INTERNAL IMMIGRANT: From this first book of memoirs, however, it turns out that there are also many candidates for Karamark's "lustration" and even more for criminal processing due to much more banal misdeeds, such as privatization robbery, Rodian-mafia monopolies on everything, predatory raids on neighboring countries and on domestic neighbors, embezzlement of one's own country by means of fraud with the procurement of weapons and other critical resources such as narcotics, cigarettes and others. The famous "patriotic war" that Karamarko and his obscurantist right-wingers from the Herzegovinian-émigré current of the HDZ are trying to fuel even with military parades, Manolić reduced it to realistic frameworks and treated it purely criminalistically, separating the honest from the dishonest, the stupid from the smart, the reasonable from frantic.
He had enough experience and professional knowledge to deal with it, but he also had time. As a young and smart tanner and trade unionist, he came close to the communists as early as 1935; After the creation of the Quisling NDH, for some time he led the actions of illegals in Zagreb (with success), a dangerous and deadly job. They nearly attempted to assassinate Pavelić himself, but they failed and gave up at the last moment; we learn that for the first time. He welcomes the end of the war as the head of the OZNA for Bjelovar, his native region, faced with chaos, bandits crusading in the forests and revanchists among the partisans. From there, Stevo Krajačić, a friend and protector until the end of his life, sent him to Belgrade, to the Udba High School, from where he returned to Zagreb in 1948 to the position of head of the Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions, as it is called today. In the last chapter of this book, he deals at length with the case of Cardinal Stepinac, probably because for years he was accused of being "Stepinac's jailer". The chapter is written meticulously, with references to all possible witnesses, and seems sincere. No one poisoned Stepinac; he had a privileged status in Lepoglava and later under house arrest in his native Krašić; the autopsy was fair. He was certainly not a martyr, claims Manolić, so - therefore - he hardly qualifies as a saint; there were no miracles either. This, of course, will not prevent the Vatican from canonizing him. Manolić also mentions a long private conversation between Tito and Stepinac, from which the story will later develop that Tito wanted to found a separate Church in Croats, separate from Rome. Ironically, the same idea was heard much later by Joža Manolić from a friar from Norval, Canada, a follower of Maks Luburić, the Ustasha butcher and the first author of the idea of "historical reconciliation of all Croats" that Tuđman fell for.
photo: fonet / ap...and Tomislav Karamarko
Manolić was politically marginalized after 1971 and the famous session in Karađorđevo, as suspicious along the lines of Croatian nationalism. He didn't like prison like his future friend and ally Stipe Mesić (and quite a few others), but he became an "internal emigration": not really a dissident, because like an old man he knew how to watch who he hung out with and what he said. At the same time, he preserved most of his connections and sources of information with which he is constantly in contact. Politically, he claims to have become and remained a democratic socialist, disillusioned with communism, but socially aware and concerned. At the end of the eighties, he is quite lucidly aware that the whole thing is slowly going into paralysis and ruin; the fall of the Berlin Wall does not surprise him too much. As a man and operative born of the war and those later years, he has information from the best sources; such were born in a professional environment where there was hardly any difference between the militia, the Udba, Ozna and Kos, the party and the state. Those links are saved.
THE ROLE OF SERVICE IN THE RISE OF TUĐMAN: Precisely thanks to these connections, Manolić knew from the beginning who, how and through whom he marketed the famous Declaration on the Croatian language from 1967: Udba, of course, through his at least twenty associates who signed it. Later, he mentions both the code name and the name, as well as the identities of a number of national workers from literature and culture who were connected to the Udba. During the dramatic events of 1971 in Croatia (Maspok), Manolić says that the student movement (Croatian university students) was led from the advanced operational center of Kos; that the immediate surroundings of Budiša and Čičko, the leaders at the time, were filled with all possible collaborators of all services (without going into details, which is a shame).
There is, of course, a suspicion that the old fox from Udba is falling into paranoia and conspiracy theories as he gets older, interpreting everything as underground actions and manipulations by the secret services. However, he supports his claims with documents and witness statements. How thorough he is in this book of memoirs can only be seen when he reaches his nineties and his participation in the HDZ government under Tuđman. Comrades communists, as is well known, did not leave anything to the elements, which will become evident during the "transition" of power after the victory of the HDZ in the 1990 elections.
According to Manolić's story, detailed and "documented" (the Udbas would say), the "repressive authorities" came to the conclusion and assessment relatively early that communism is over and that it is necessary to prepare for new times. Tuđman gets a passport and travels around, all under the supervision of the Service and with prepared meetings with reliable people. There is a gallery of émigré characters, but with the exception of those of integrity, for example with Yaksh Kushan who was the only one who was not compromised, nor in a relationship. A number of characters from the wanted list come to the founding congress of the HDZ, with silent guarantees from the Service that no one will do anything to them. Passports and citizenships are quickly distributed, everything is forgotten and everything is fine.
Tuđman is in constant contact with Manolić and the latter warns him that anyone from the Croatian enemy emigration is Udba's agent or source; there is no help, Tuđman will say resignedly and not very interested, it is the way it is. Later, at the end of 1993, when he finally parted ways with Tuđman, Manolić will explain in detail that the "repressive system" of SR Croatia greatly helped the transition of power from SKH to HDZ, and he explains this.
CROATIAN SILENCE: All that was fine and dandy, but problems arose immediately, in the "differentiation" in the police and State Security (SDS). There were purges, ethnic and political. Emigrant and far-right elements turned out to be stronger than expected, and Tuđman was weaker and lenient towards them. On the other hand, the JNA and Serbian services did not rest either. Manolić's book shows a strong conviction that Croatian government structures were (and remain) deeply infiltrated even earlier, in time. He tends to interpret extreme outbursts and statements as the work of agents-provocateurs, "sleepers". Truth be told, there have been cases; there were also unsung follies, provocations for which we still do not know whether they were the work of agents or fools (the chances are equal). But, in the book, Manolić will "deconspire" a whole series of "positions" of the Security Administration of the JNA in Croatia, with explanations that mostly coincide with what was already known, but there are also different interpretations that do not belong to what is known, that we will not go into now in those details. For some reason, the role of the Serbian Ministry of State Security remains neglected - hopefully until the next book.
In relation to the treatment received by the military service and its agencies, the treatment of the HDZ and Herzegovinian emigrants and natives at Manolić's place is harsh. First of all, he was always familiar with the type of people in question, but also with who was the Udba's collaborator in emigration, who was an agent provocateur, and who was killing on behalf of the Service; who has hungry relatives in Grude and Široki Brijeg, etc. Tudjman was indifferent to these warnings, even when they concerned indisputably criminal types, maniac-extremists and fraudsters. Manolić came to the conclusion that Tuđman was fascinated beyond measure by the citizens of Herzegovina as a model-Croatian, superhuman and the only reliable one. Later, during the political split in 1993, he would tell him openly and quite harshly. He spared no space in describing the machinations of the Herzegovinian emigrant lobby, crimes and, above all, robbery and crime. The entire Zagreb underground connected immediately with the veterans from Herceg-Bosnia and they took it over, almost like the Zemunci of Belgrade. After all, this is exactly what the new book by our Zagreb colleague Jasna Babić talks about Zagreb mafia, a terrifying document about the corruption of the police, the secret services and the judiciary and their ties to the mafia under the control of Bosnian and Herzegovina "godfathers".
Josip Manolić's book, therefore, came out these days; truth be told, we got it before the Croatian bookstores, but there is still a painful silence. Knowing the litigious tendencies of Croatian dignitaries, one should expect an avalanche of defamation lawsuits and worse. Something does not seem to us that it will come to that: the old fox from Udba knows what he is writing about and what documents he has at hand. Otherwise, in such cases it is best to completely ignore such books as if they do not exist. This is not a problem, because the media are already restrained by state-corporate managerial reins: only Zagreb's "Novosti", "weekly rational minority" reacted to the statement about Karamark as a cooperative link of Udba. Serbian. All others were and remain silent. If they are smart and obedient, they will keep quiet about this book. We are left to wait for the next sequel to Joža Manolić's memoirs - if it comes out at all, we are not sure of what.
