Tudjman Can, Tripalo Can't

In the response in Zagreb's Vecernji List and Vjesnik, Seks wonders what would have happened to a member of parliament in France, Britain or the US during W.W.II if they went around telling German magazines their country wasn't ready militarily or politically.

We don't know what happened to Seks' party leader Croatian president Franjo Tudjman after his interview to VREME. Tripalo didn't recall that fact in his response to Seks (published in Split weekly Feral Tribune) but he said: "Perhaps Seks doesn't like VREME because it is an anti-Milosevic weekly since he and his bosses secretly admire Milosevic, dream and agree that the Yugoslav crisis can only be solved through him even at someone else's expense. Doesn't that provide an alibi to imperial Serbia? The fact that Milosevic duped them on several occasions doesn't matter to them."

Obviously these are two politicians with completely different values in politics and absolutely opposed in terms of each other.

Seks' Attack

"The whole world knows that the Croatian president or ruling party did not lose one third of Croatia's territory, the truth is that part of that territory was occupied by the former Yugoslav army and Serbia with the help of rebel Serbs while Croatia had no arms or an army.

The authorities in the so-called Krajina claim it is a separate state, different from Croatia, and you Tripalo think (with what) that we will have a hard time integrating that territory into Croatia. That claim will earn you recognition in Knin.

You also told a magazine published in the enemy state of Serbia that the Croatian people and state were not militarily or politically ready to liberate their own occupied territory. First, you gave the enemy a false assessment of Croatia's ability, its readiness and political unity to militarily liberate the occupied territory. That false assessment helps the occupier's assessments and confirms his convictions to persist with the occupation. You have raised the morale of the Chetnik criminals in Croatia."

Tripalo Response

"Unfortunately, during all great social changes, society's muck comes to the surface along with honest, noble people and true patriots. That's not because of their social origin but because of their morale, character or humanity. The muck includes Vladimir Seks. Some stains in his biography limit his maneuvering space and he can be held on a leash and even charged with dirty work. He sometimes forgets himself and that's probably why he was behind the coup against Tudjman two years ago, but he was quickly subdued. Now he is quick to complete any task in order to suck up and make sure his past mistakes are forgotten."

Croatia According to Seks

"The overall territory of the Republic of Croatia is 89,738 square kilometers because the land mass is 56,538 sq. km. and the republic's territorial sea is 33,200.

Of that total, 23.34% of the land mass is under Serb occupation or 14.7% of the total. Therefore, Tripalo you should know that 23.34% is not one third, but less than a fourth and that's only the land mass which means just 14.7% of the total area is under Serb occupation."

Croatia According to Tripalo

"I am criticized for not knowing that just days after the VREME interview someone would take a calculator to prove Croatia is bigger than we believed and Seks concluded that the percentage of occupied territory is lower than I said.The Zagreb agreement expanded the territory under UNPROFOR control and increased that percentage. Let Seks include the skies above us in Croatian territory and the percentage of occupied territory will be even smaller. Percentages are important to Seks, I care more for every grain of Croatian land.

According to Seks, my biggest betrayal is that I credited Tudjman and his ruling party for creating the Croatian state but claimed mistakes had been made later, one third of territory occupied and would be hard to reintegrate. Isn't that confirmed by facts? In all my articles at home and abroad, I have said the cause of the war was Serbian aggression, that the occupied territories are part of Croatia and that the question of the Croatian Serbs must be solved within the Croatian state.

As for the mistakes in Croatian policies, they are obvious because Croatia is now forced and ready to give the Serbs much greater rights and political autonomy than the cultural autonomy they asked for at first. Also, the unconditional acceptance of the Vance plan was against Croatian interests. Croatia is temporarily, not for a set period, giving up its sovereignty over much of its territory until the Yugoslav crisis is resolved through negotiations. The UNPA zones were created where the Serbs are a majority and most interestingly, where they are a significant minority. In that way some local communities (Slunj, Petrinja and others) with majority Croatian populations were sacrificed. Croatia accepted the stand that UNPROFOR would respect the authorities they find there and because of the aggression those authorities were not elected in multi-party elections but were rebel, Chetnik authorities. If Seks feels lose is an embarrassing word let him find some better word or let him fly the Croatian flag in Vukovar, Knin, Beli Manastir. The fact that reintegration into Croatia will be difficult can't be seen only by political blind men."

The reactions in which opponents, like Seks, respond to arguments have few opinions in common. Seks' main weapon against Tripalo is the fact that VREME is published in Belgrade which automatically means Tripalo is a traitor.

Members of the Croatian and Serbian authorities are equally rigid in communication, even at low levels, such as the Tripalo interview. The communicators on both sides give the same responses which Tripalo voiced: "Why can't I give an interview to VREME while Tudjman and Milosevic make deals on our fate?"