BALKANS: Freedom Fighters or Freeloaders?

• by Vesna Peric Zimonjic (belgrade)
• Friday, April 23, 2010
• Inter Press Service

The list has been available Since Apr. 6 at the site www.registarbranitelja.com (registry of defenders) in the Croatian language. It contains 501,666 names of people registered as veterans in this tiny nation of 4.5 million people.

So far, it is still unknown who leaked the list, an uncomfortable secret since the end of war in 1995, but they did it to 'unmask true veterans from false ones’’.

Freedom fighters cost the state almost a billion dollars a year in lifelong pensions, free public transportation, tax-free import of cars, boats, tax cuts or exemptions. They are also entitled to free shares in privatised companies and have priorities in house purchases and scholarships for children.

The ruling ideology in Croatia, since independence, remains that the country was defending itself from Serbian aggression and that the Serbian army aimed to overrun the country or keep it forcefully within a union.

The heroism of Croatian defenders in the war remains an undisputed fact and no war crimes were committed by them, as Croatia was merely defending itself.

'It is impossible that so many people fought in the war,' Croatian war veteran Tomislav Vrcelj (58) told IPS over phone from Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. 'Napoleon took 500,000 people in his fatal Russian campaign in 19th century, one of the biggest armies in history. If we had half a million people in 1991, we could have reached [southern Serbian town of] Nis,' he added.

Nis is more than 700 km southeast of the Croatian capital.

Croatian authorities responded to the publicising of the list with anger. A well-known information technology wizard was arrested and released from jail several times on suspicion that he was involved.

Tracking of the site led to U.S. company InvisiHosting, which admitted that it had rented it to an anonymous client for 10 dollars a month. Its owner, Mathew Schiros, refused to disclose the identity of his client.

Schiros told Croatian media: ‘’It [the list] must be a hugely interesting thing, as it appears that the whole of Croatia is trying to take a look at it...the site is crashing from time to time.'

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said in a statement that there should no longer be a controversy over participation in the war, and that 'the list should become public, but not in such an illegal way'.

The main association of war veterans called it a ‘’witch hunt' and its head, Tom Kacinari, told Croatian TV that 'making the list public is certainly not the way to separate real veterans from false ones’’.

Kacinari also strongly condemned publications like the daily ‘Jutarnji List’, which commented that the controversy smells 'of abuse of impoverished state funds by fake veterans, who live a life of many benefits, based upon falsely presented patriotism.'

Well-informed sources in Croatia, who insisted on anonymity, told IPS that the list on the Internet is not complete. It does not, for example, contain veterans who took part in the war as members of police which is under the jurisdiction of the interior ministry.

In the meantime, cases of bribery and fraud have come to light where people have wriggled their way into the list by paying thousands of dollars.

'This is preposterous, the whole thing,' Ivona Martincic (55), widow of a war veteran, told IPS over phone from Zagreb.

‘’My husband, an army doctor, was killed in the war at the age of 35 and his family pension was barely enough for me to bring our two children up on,’’ Martincic said. ‘’Now I read how veterans’ status was sold for thousands of dollars to whoever had the money to pay to enjoy benefits others gave their blood and lives for.’’

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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