Re: G.A.Geyer Washington Times article
UN Interventionin CROATIAtoo late
Ms. Georgie Anne Geyer
c/o Universal Press Syndicate
4520 Main St.
Kansas City, MO. 64112
Aug. 18, 2002
Dear Ms. Geyer:
I want to thank you for your excellent and insightful article about Vukovar in the Washington Times of 8/11/02. You are one of the rare journalists who report not just the "here and now" but search deeper into the history of an area to understand the origins of certain events.
The fall of Vukovar was indeed "Croatia's Stalingrad". Yet, as you pointed out, Croatians are supposed to reconcile with the Serbs who so recently destroyed the city and cold-bloodedly murdered hundreds of the Croatian population, while sending the rest - the majority of the town's citizens - walking over minefields, with just clothes on their backs, to become refugees in their own country.
I am glad you mentioned the injustice of the OSCE which was not allowing Croatians to mention the Serbs' many Croatian victims and their mass graves, as well as not permitting the removal of the name of a street that Serbs named after an assassin, because "it would hurt the Serbs' pride"! What about Croatians' pride? After all, we are talking about a city in Croatia, not Serbia! While this occurred in 1997, sadly not much has changed since. The Western Powers demand of Croatia to allow the return of all the Croatian Serbs, no matter what atrocities they might have committed. Yet there is no reciprocal agreement for the return of Bosnian Croats to their homes in Serb-held Bosnia. Why are these demands made on Croatia, yet for instance no one has suggested, much less demanded, that the Czechs allow the return of the Sudeten Germans who were forced out of Czechoslovakia over 50 years ago!
The U.S. and especially the EU are demanding "reconciliation" if Croatia wishes to become sometimes in the future ( no date has been even set) a full member of the EU. Worse, the EU has now established a new approach, the so-called SAA, the "Stabilization and Association Agreement", which includes all former Republics of Yugoslavia, but without Slovenia, adding instead Albania. In other words, the EU wants to cobble together people who fought a bitter war to be separated. They arbitrarily decided to leave out Slovenia, adding instead Albania, a very backward country of the Balkans, to be part of the SAA with Croatia, a country which has been historically considered Central European, as are Austria and Hungary, and not part of the Balkans.
Obviously such distinctions do not matter to the Big Powers precisely because they have the power to decide where in their opinion any country should be placed. The Croatian Government is so eager to join the EU that it obeys every EU whim, even when it is detrimental to Croatia. The country is being impoverished by various demands placed on it by the IMF and others, which it simply cannot meet without deep cuts in the social structures.
These internationalists like to talk about nationalism being passe, yet show me one Frenchman, German or American who would consider himself a citizen of the world before being a national of his own country and being proud of it. The question is: why should that be denied to smaller countries in the name of "Globalism"?
Please keep writing your insightful observations and hopefully someone in the Western governments will see the light! Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Hilda M. Foley
National Federation of Croatian Americans
13272 Orange Knoll Dr.
Santa Ana, Ca. 92705
Re: G.A.Geyer Washington Times article
UN Interventionin CROATIAtoo late
Ms. Georgie Anne Geyer
c/o Universal Press Syndicate
4520 Main St.
Kansas City, MO. 64112
Aug. 18, 2002
Dear Ms. Geyer:
I want to thank you for your excellent and insightful article about Vukovar in the Washington Times of 8/11/02. You are one of the rare journalists who report not just the "here and now" but search deeper into the history of an area to understand the origins of certain events.
The fall of Vukovar was indeed "Croatia's Stalingrad". Yet, as you pointed out, Croatians are supposed to reconcile with the Serbs who so recently destroyed the city and cold-bloodedly murdered hundreds of the Croatian population, while sending the rest - the majority of the town's citizens - walking over minefields, with just clothes on their backs, to become refugees in their own country.
I am glad you mentioned the injustice of the OSCE which was not allowing Croatians to mention the Serbs' many Croatian victims and their mass graves, as well as not permitting the removal of the name of a street that Serbs named after an assassin, because "it would hurt the Serbs' pride"! What about Croatians' pride? After all, we are talking about a city in Croatia, not Serbia! While this occurred in 1997, sadly not much has changed since. The Western Powers demand of Croatia to allow the return of all the Croatian Serbs, no matter what atrocities they might have committed. Yet there is no reciprocal agreement for the return of Bosnian Croats to their homes in Serb-held Bosnia. Why are these demands made on Croatia, yet for instance no one has suggested, much less demanded, that the Czechs allow the return of the Sudeten Germans who were forced out of Czechoslovakia over 50 years ago!
The U.S. and especially the EU are demanding "reconciliation" if Croatia wishes to become sometimes in the future ( no date has been even set) a full member of the EU. Worse, the EU has now established a new approach, the so-called SAA, the "Stabilization and Association Agreement", which includes all former Republics of Yugoslavia, but without Slovenia, adding instead Albania. In other words, the EU wants to cobble together people who fought a bitter war to be separated. They arbitrarily decided to leave out Slovenia, adding instead Albania, a very backward country of the Balkans, to be part of the SAA with Croatia, a country which has been historically considered Central European, as are Austria and Hungary, and not part of the Balkans.
Obviously such distinctions do not matter to the Big Powers precisely because they have the power to decide where in their opinion any country should be placed. The Croatian Government is so eager to join the EU that it obeys every EU whim, even when it is detrimental to Croatia. The country is being impoverished by various demands placed on it by the IMF and others, which it simply cannot meet without deep cuts in the social structures.
These internationalists like to talk about nationalism being passe, yet show me one Frenchman, German or American who would consider himself a citizen of the world before being a national of his own country and being proud of it. The question is: why should that be denied to smaller countries in the name of "Globalism"?
Please keep writing your insightful observations and hopefully someone in the Western governments will see the light! Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Hilda M. Foley
National Federation of Croatian Americans
13272 Orange Knoll Dr.
Santa Ana, Ca. 92705