Ivica Racan is certainly not happy about the pro-fascist speech delivered by the vice-president of the Parliament, Baltazar Jalsovec, in Bleiburg, where he said that Croatia had been established on the foundations of Bleiburg, or more precisely, of the Independent State of Croatia [NDH, pro-Nazi Croatian puppet state created during WWII].
Ivica Racan is not a nationalist and he is certainly not happy with the statement of a HSLS [the Croatian Social Liberal Party] member, Djurdja Adlesic, that the Government does not know how to speak to the volunteers, or more precisely Liovic, Mercep and other leaders of the right-wing terrorists, who inspired five military police members to demolish the monument [to Serb victims from WWII] in Veljun.
Ivica Racan is not happy that the Defense Minister Jozo Rados (also a HSLS member) visited the grave of Gojko Susak [former Croatian defense minister], the evil spirit of the wars in Croatia, but also in Bosnia. I don't believe that he is happy with another HSLS member Davor Biscan, a retired SZUP [one of Croatian secret services] agent and one of the suspicious disabled war veterans, becoming the head of HIS [another Croatian secret service].
The Prime Minister has been caught in the trap of his own calculations, which made him chose Budisa for a coalition partner before the elections. It didn't take a long time for this unnatural relationship to come home to roost. Because, Drazen Budisa hasn't changed a bit from what he was at the beginning of his political career. Circumstances have changed, but not Drazen Budisa. Despite the political reality, he still believes that his national-populism is "in" and everything else "out". His supporters, who were given various governmental positions, seem to share his opinion. Jozo Rados, for example. Can this man who went to bow to Susak's grave be expected to bring the Defense Ministry into order, or will he naturally protect Susak's legacy, claiming that it is not true that precisely this ministry, headed by Susak, was the center of all possible abuses, which today result in rampages of the volunteers' leaders?
His visit to Susak's grave means that in a certain way he agrees with the man who turned the Defense Ministry into a place from which money was sent to various suspicious para-governmental institutions, and where the top generals rolled in their privileges acquired through false myths and enormous disability compensations.
Jozo Rados is familiar with the "right" of Gojko Susak to give apartments to suspicious heroes and HDZ toadies, but because of his reverence for the great "warrior" he doesn't dare to investigate how "generals" Zagorec or Kakarigi received and how Andrija Hebrang, one of his predecessors, gave apartments. The Ministry of Defense is just an example of the fatal continuity of the former government, but Drazen Budisa is a true engine of such policy is. Ivica Racan, however, is not allowed to touch him, because he rose to power thanks to Budisa. And tied his own hands in the most delicate issues of the domestic policy. Foreign policy was anyway never of interest to Budisa.
Drazen Budisa is a classic political loser, but he is also a poor loser. This man, whose only political trump card for the last thirty years has been the nation, is ready to humiliate that nation if it suits him. Because, what else is his latest claim that the election of Stipe Mesic, by no one else but the Croatian citizens, is a "very strange choice" and a "political oddity"? Aware that he is not in a position to grab Racan by the throat, Budisa had been promoting himself as a loyal keeper of Tudjman's nationalist illusions.
"I've been attacked by the radical left-wing circles... Those people consider the whole period of the last ten years a period of darkness, and believe that everything achieved in the so called decade of HDZ rule should be destroyed" (Slobodna Dalmacija, May 17, 2000).
It is very probable that the political and human pathology of Franjo Tudjman, which can be seen in his conversation with Jure Radic about ethnic engineering in Vukovar, published by Feral in this issue, does not belong to the domain of darkness in Budisa's opinion, but is merely needed to create the national state. (Racan, in spite of Mesic's request, has refused to make the transcrips of this conversation public, because 'we think about the future rather than the past" (Vecernji List, may 17, 2000).) Regardless of the price!
After all, who does this rhetoric remind you of: "Dogmatic left-wing forces are responsible for the destruction; they want to create the political and cultural life; they protect the undemocratic and anti-populist attitude" (Slobodna Dalmacija, May 17, 2000)? Just like Tudjman, Budisa ("I'm not paranoid") sees these "destructive anti-populists" everywhere; "in some parties, institutions, media..." Budisa has successfully detected the "anational elements" as a threat to the Croatian stability, unlike the right-wing radicalism that only deserves a mild rebuke.
Often excesses of the head of the HSLS seem to be pointing that the coalition Racan-Budisa will not last very long. Is there a better way to cover that, than to permanently blame it one someone else, the third man, the "bizzare" President Mesic? Thus, Mesic's dissatisfaction with the work of the State Attorney's Office and the alleged criticism of the Ministry of the interior (Police), due to their indecisiveness to solve the piling affairs, hurt Minister Sime Lucin so much that he immediately offered his resignation, which Racan refused to accept, but didn't forget to berate the President. Racan's Government dealt with the "Lucin case" very quickly, but not with the case of the General Attorney, who, despite the evidence about criminal activities of, for example, Nevenka Tudjman, hasn't done anything so far. Ivic Pasalic is still the untouchable holy cow, just like Skegro and the false generals and the organizers of the terrorist incidents, the purpose of which was to overthrow the Government, let alone demolish monuments...
No one denies the fact that Racan's Government is in a bad position, but does this mean that no one, not even the President, is allowed to say that now, when hundred days have passed, they should finally stop being concerned only with themselves, and that the "time for change" is long overdue? Obviously yes, which is why Stipe Mesic really turns out to be a "bizzare" person, who permanently demands taht Tudman's criminal legacy be cleared up, instead of the establishment of a "meek and indecisive democracy".
But, we must bear in mind that only Mesic and the Members of Parliament were elected directly by the citizens, and that Racan chose Sime Lucin and Budisa chose Jozo Rados, so that they would all do the job the way they had promised to the Croatian citizens. And the first thing to do is to clear up the "past". Otherwise, they should stop playing with resignations. They should finally resign!