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Sakic Arrested
"RESPONSE" August 1990 Embracing the Brutalities of the Past In Croatia, dangerous signals are appearing on the political landscape Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and his conservative, nationalist party recently won majority in the Croatian Parliament. Tudjman, one of the authors of the "Jasenovac Myth", reduces the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust from six million to one million, and states that historical data about Jasenovac is "inflated". He further wrote of alledged "participation of Jews in the liquidation of Gypsies in Jasenovac", and accused jews of havingtaken "the initiative in preparing and provoking not only individual atrocities but also mass slaughter of non-Jews, Communists, Partisans and Serbs."... ... Meanwhile, the new Croatian Democratic Union (CDU) government has taken steps to form a special police force made up of "pure Croats without mixture of other blood The newspaper "Politika Ekspres" said that the 600,000 strong Serb population of Croatia feared the new police unit could be used against them. The Wiesenthal Center has also received reports that Dinko Sakic,
the former commandant of Jasenovac was recently interviewed on Zagreb radio
in Croatia. The Center has asked the US. Ambassador to help ascertain
whether Sakic is actually in Yugoslavia or had visited there.
 War criminals Dinko Sakic and his wife Nada (Esperanza) Luburic
War Criminal Dinko Sakic Returns Ustashas Are Coming Home Interview given by the commander of the Ustashi death camp at Jasenovac, Dinko Sakic, given to the weekly "Magazin" still causes reactions dividing the Croatian public. The claim of this war criminal that he is "proud of what he did" and his readiness "to repeat it", and also that the "present day Croatia is the achievement of Pavelic's Independent State of Croatia the foundations of which he made in Jasenovac", stirred a part of independent media, but did not provoke reaction on the part of either the regime press or state officials. A large number of Quisling Ustasha warcriminals, officials of the proNazi "Independent State of Croatia" have returned to presentday Croatia from their political exile in the last three years. After having fled to the USA, or Latin America, most often by using Vienna and Vatican as "rat lines" when the Axis Powers broke down in 1945, most of them have kept in touch between themselves and with faschist circles or ruling dictatorships in these countries, serving various extremist, terrorist and intelligence sabotage centers. Dozens of Yugoslav diplomats throughout Western Europe and both Americas lost their lives due to the actions of these centers. Chauvinist Croatian seccessionist parties, movements and distinguished individuals have received substantial financial support from these emigrant centers, or their protectors. Even President Tudjman has on more than one occasion personally expressed gratitude and approval for such "patriotic perseverance" both at home and when he traversed America in order to animate "the Croatia in exile". Such emigrants obtained permission to return home with no diifficulty whatsoever they received amnesty "via facti" (without, God forbid, any public or court debates, and without any mention of their being on internationally verified lists of warcriminals). They have even been given the opportunity to express publicly their feelings of "pride and joy for acting according to the way presentday Croatia understands its most fundamental interests". They have even received applause and public congratulations for these past "acts" and contributions. Facts of this kind have variously become reasons for resignation, alarm, or impetus to action for citizens of Croatia depending on their position. In any case, these facts are no longer news, nor subject to doubt. Sporadically only, they provoke a cry from a lone fearless Croatian conscience, such as the one exemplified by the recent public pronouncement of Edo Murtic, one of the greatest Croatian artists. These facts otherwise also appear as argumentation in increasingly infrequent public debates, in the Parliament or in some journals, whenever the unavoidable question of the reasons why Krajina Serbs refuse to submit to a rerun of the "Independent State of Croatia" is raised. On these occasions, the reactions to mentioning such facts even official ones are violent, irrational and aggressively threatening. There is, however, a new detail that goes beyond all previous "pardons for sins" and tramples all the remaining considerations for the victims of Ustasha genocide. After two and a half years of surveying the situation and contacts with the authorities in Zagreb, the Ustasha head of Jasenovac, the most notorious genocidal fashist camp in southeastern Europe, Dinko Sakic has returned to Croatia. And he publicly expressed the opinion of his never extinguished and rehabilitated movement we haven't killed them all, what a pity! Like other similar returnees, Dinko Sakic was also given an opportunity to inform the Croatian public about his present national, political and ideological convictions in a special interview given to the Zagreb journal "Magazin". On this occasion, the Belgrade weekly "Vreme" published a comment on February 13, 1995 titled:"Confessions of the Former Head of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp".A Lullaby for the Executioner How Dinko Sakic Looks After President Tudjman. Almost at the same time when the fifty year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp was being celebrated, the Croatian journal "Magazin" published an interview with Dinko Sakic, the former head of Jasenovac concentration camp. Introduced as "a creature completely lost in the crowd", as "a man without homeland", but with "numerous enemies", Dinko Sakic reveals why he didn't return to Croatia earlier: "I didn't want to go to Croatia. Not out of concern for myself, not out of fear, but in order not to make problems for the president and the government, for some people could have used my presence to burden the president with the accusation that the head of Jasenovac, a war criminal, walks the streets of Zagreb". In connection with this statement, Boris Dezulovic writes in the journal "Feral Tribune": "Dinko Sakic is obviously not familiar with the Croatian political situation, for were he well informed, he would have known that his return wouldn't have been much of a problem for the president (Tudjman). On the contrary, he might have saved him some travel expences, for the president might have had to travel far in order to award him with some suitable medal. Dinko Sakic could have been just the right person for the president's vision of Croatia reconciled at the foot of the monument in Jasenovac, as the monument of all the victims of the Second World War (Ustasha and resistance fighters alike) and even nice to have around at the ceremonial opening". Among other things this is what the former head of Jasenovac camp declared in the interview: 1. "I regret that we hadn't done all that is imputed to us, for had we done that then, today Croatia wouldn't have had problems, there wouldn't have been people to write lies!" 2. "Jasenovac was a legal institution based on law, where all those proved to had worked for the destruction of the Croatian state, and who had been dangerous for the public order and safety were interned. 3. "There are no states in the world that don't have prisons and camps, and somebody has to perform this thankless duty". 4. "For the hundredth time I have to say that there were no mass executions in Jasenovac. Considering the duration and the population of the camp, the death rate was natural and normal: at any time there were 3000 inmates in the camp" 5. "If we shot people, we did it on the basis of the law. I only want to tell you that the legal state and the rule of law was functioning". 6. "We are today under the Jelacic's tail and see only what surrounds us, but Dr. Franjo Tudjman is, to put it metaphorically, on the top of the cathedral and his horizons are wider and larger. Nobody in Croatia is of his caliber". 7. "I am proud of all I did". 8. "If I were offered the same duty today, I would accept it!" The editor of "Feral Tribune" concludes: "Hipocrisy of the Croatian state authorities thus reaches its peak. In the name of opportunistic, decorative antifaschism, they would thus give their blessing to scientific conferences and international celebrations, but would not, at the same time, do anything to ensure that the real victims of faschism like a Jasenovac survivor who asked our reporter to understand his refusal to talk because he was "afraid for his daughter, son and grandchildren" do not experience the fear much more real than the fear of "making problems for the president". Dinko Sakic is not experiencing that kind of real fear just the sincere regret that "Feral Tribune's" nevertobe interviewee is still alive at all. After all, had they 'done all that is imputed to them, Croatia wouldn't have had problems'. Had they killed them all, Croatia wouldn't have had any dilemma as to who are its antifaschists, and who were the faschists".
R. V.
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