Zagreb in political disarray as final exit nears for Tudjman

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON (JP): The 77-year-old man now on life support in Zagreb's Dubrava hospital used a brand of rhetoric they just don't make any more. For example: "Our enemies, who come from the stagnant waters of negative heritage and from abroad, still exist. Various fools, crackpots, dilettantes, ignoramuses and simply those who sold their souls want to denigrate...the glorious and thunderous Croatian victories."

Franjo Tudjman liked dressing up in general's and admiral's uniforms, too, and for almost a decade he has ruled Croatia with an iron hand.

At the height of the anti-Muslim genocide in Bosnia, President Alija Izetbegovic remarked that having to choose between the twin monsters he had as neighbors, Tudjman and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, was like having to choose between leukemia and a brain tumor. But now the lesser of the monsters is dying (of stomach cancer with a secondary brain tumor) -- and the Croats have no idea what happens next.

Croatia's five million people have known no other leader than Tudjman since they broke away from Yugoslavia in the 1991-1992 war, for the former general was not one to tolerate an active opposition. Elections were manipulated, critical newspapers were persecuted, and the state television was known as "TV Tudjman". Even within his own Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ) no challengers were allowed to emerge.

So now, as the deathwatch outside the Dubrava hospital lengthens into weeks, there is total political disarray in Zagreb. The man who will assume power when they turn off Tudjman's life-support machine, parliamentary speaker Vlatko Pavletic, must hold new presidential elections within 60 days.

Parliamentary elections were already tentatively scheduled for next month, and cannot be postponed past January. The ruling party may split even before that, for Tudjman, in a foreign diplomat's words, "is the glue that holds the HDZ together."

Recent opinion polls suggest that the opposition coalition could win a parliamentary majority in the forthcoming elections. The one man who might have been able to assume Tudjman's mantle as president smoothly, defense minister Gojko Susak, died last year of lung cancer.

If the HDZ splits and its pro-European faction takes charge, then it would stand a better chance of keeping its majority in parliament -- but it is more likely to fall into the hands of the special adviser to the president on internal affairs, Ivic Pasalic.

Pasalic, like Susak, is a rabid nationalist of Bosnian Croat origin who advocated the partition of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia. (All you have to do is kill or expel all the Muslims). Rabid nationalism in itself is no handicap in the mono-ethnic, sub-fascist state that Tudjman has created in Croatia, but Pasalic lacks Susak's stature as the man who built up a Croatian army from scratch. He has also played a leading role in crooked privatization deals that enriched HDZ cronies. He will not have an easy ride.

The HDZ has had three full years to prepare for Tudjman's death (he was first diagnosed in late 1996). The fact that it has been unable to organize a smooth succession in all that time suggests that it will not outlive Tudjman by long in its present form. Moreover, it has badly mismanaged the economy (largely because senior party members have been looting it to their own advantage), and it may soon face United Nations sanctions because of its refusal to hand over indicted Croatian war criminals to the international tribunal in the Hague.

For those who could see beyond the lying propaganda about "irrepressible ancient hatreds", the manipulation of ethnic suspicions and resentments that led to the catastrophic wars of former Yugoslavia was always primarily the fault of two power- hungry individuals, Milosevic in Serbia and Tudjman in Croatia.

Milosevic is the greater monster, in the sense that he has caused many more deaths and driven many more people from their homes, but that's mainly because he was much better armed. (The Serbs grabbed almost all the heavy weapons of the old Yugoslav army).

So what difference would it make to the Balkans if not only Tudjman but his whole party were suddenly removed from power?

Not much, in the short run, for there is as yet little willingness among Croatians to acknowledge their own role in the horrors -- the expulsion of the Serbian minorities from Croatia, the atrocious behavior of the Bosnian Croat militias, the mass graves containing both Muslims and Serbs in connection with which specific Croatian leaders are being sought by the war crimes tribunal -- let alone to allow expelled minorities to come home in either Bosnia or Croatia itself.

But later on it could make a big difference. Give the Croats an opposition-led government and a freer press, and within months they will inevitably be plunged into a painful but necessary national conversation about what really happened.

Within a year or two, they could be ready to deal with their own villains and face up to their own large share of responsibility for the catastrophe that swept the region after 1989. And none of this could even begin until Tudjman died.

"A lot of things will be different (after Tudjman's death) because such personalities exist only once in a country's history," as Ivic Pasalic remarked recently in a different context. It's a remark that will come true much faster if Pasalic does not succeed him, of course -- and the Serbs would also have to get rid of Milosevic before real progress could be made. But Tudjman's death is a start.