From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Nikola Malenovic)
Subject: Re: Draza Mihailovic
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 02:49:22 GMT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

In article <By1FII.1Hw@news.cso.uiuc.edu> brg6080@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Rasputin) writes:
>keserovi@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Goran Keserovic) writes:
>>  Learn your own history.....the Chetniks were Nazi collaberators. It 
>>  was the Partizans who faught the Nazis, not the Serbs.

>No they weren't.  That was propaganda spread by Tito to
>justify his efforts to exterminate them.
>
>Tito spent more time and effort fighting the Chetniks
>than he spent fighting the Nazis.



I hate to admit, but 'Rasputin' is darn right :)


it is well known that Tito asked Germans to:

a) easy their attacks on the non-Serb led divisions.
b) get their help (coordinate with them) so he could nutralize Serb-led
   movements in B&H (NOTE: I explicitly wrote: Serb-led movements in B&H,
   becuase Chetniks was one of the movements on the teritory of Kingdom of
   Yugoslavia).

>Some references substantiating my claims:
>
>David Martin; The Web of Disinformation; Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
>(1990).
>
>Michael Lees; The Rape of Serbia; Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (1990).


actually Milazzo's book seems like a pretty good reading - considering that
it is neither a pro-Croatian, nor pro-communist nor pro-Chetnik source.
(i.e. considered 'neutral' :)


>'Cro' had drawn the Serbian symbol (it's not a Chetnik symbol).

uh. considering some people's ignorance, what'd you expect?

there was a pretty intense discussion on the s.c.y. about 4C (the
forementioned symbol), and it really flooded the net... :)

anyone got the whole discussion archived?


>The Serbs in general opposed Hitler, while the Ustashis

unfortunately, some Serbs were of the colabborationist line :( a few
prominent Chetniks leaders included. (Kosta Pecanac for example...)


>--Branko


I wrote an article a while back, while trying to discuss some things with
hjhrgovc@athena.mit.edu (Hrvoje J Hrgovcic), and I think I will re-post the
whole thing. some people might learn a few things. I am omitting some parts
of the posting that are not relevant at this point.


Nik
--


In article <1992Jun26.194943.3607@athena.mit.edu> hjhrgovc@athena.mit.edu
(Hrvoje J Hrgovcic) writes:

>now is markedly
>different from what their Chetnik (capitalized and
>uncapitalized `c') predecessors were doing there
>fifty years ago.

	Ah, Mr. Hrgovcic, you completely revealed your communist
  education on this matter. I would like to 'remind' you what happened
  during WWII in NDH (yes, B&H was 'annexed' by NDH).

	'Chetniks' or 'chetniks'(using your writting, though we both
  know it is 'The Chetniks') in NDH during the period 1941-1943 were
  not The Chetniks. One of the origin of the The Chetniks can be found
  in the paragraph :

"During Serbia's struggle for independence against Turks in the nineteenth
century the Chetniks were small guerrilla detachments which fought in the
enemy's rear and represent the whole tradition of grass-roots resistance to
foreign domination."

	After April's 1941 defeat, The Chetniks were "officially"
  headed by the Kosta Pechanac - who was of a collaborationalist line.
  "Officially" means that there were quite a few detachments (i.e.
  'illegal bands') and each detachment had its own leader.

	Draza Mihajlovic was the most important figure - the one
  who organized remaints of the YU Army. Mihajlovic specially asked
  Pechanac to join him and subordinate himself to Ravna Gora movement
  and become a leader for the South Serbia where he would prevent
  Germans from sending the re-inforcement troops when 'the time
  comes'. Mihajlovic opposed IMMEDIATE action against the enemy
  because "the time... is not yet ripe" - he was afraid that it would
  lead to bloody reprisal against Serbian population. THIS WAS EXACTLY
  what ultra-violent wing - Communists - used in order to attract
  people in their lines. The strategy was to attack the enemy - and
  they did not attack well defended German troops but the local police
  force (gandarms) and this has led Germans to bloody reprisals which
  helped Communist to gain a lot of young recruits who were hungry for
  blood. In the time of war, the most violent party would get the most
  members. Mihajlovic knew this and he  immediately tried to make a
  deal with Communist (Partisans) where they would share the 'plen'
  (the stuff you gain when you take the city over).

"The Communists leaders probably recognized that the Chetniks had a good
deal of support among the peasants and Serb politicians and that some active
cooperation from the officers would be necessary to train and command the
Partisan detachments, at least in the first part of the war"

  Also about Mihajlovic, it was said :

"Before the end of the year (1941), Mihajlovic, although rapidly emerging as
the leading Chetnik officer, found himself parleying with a number of other
leaders of non-Communist armed detachments who favored everything from open
collaboration with the occupation order against the Communists to immediate
general uprising in league with Partisans."

  You do understand that 'Chetnik' is a 'generic' name for the
  non-Communist Serb-led armed detachments. 

"...was that many of the rebel leaders gradually became local spokesmen and
the intermediaries for the Serb community. this of course, tended to enhance
their importance, and, as the web of arrangements and ties between the
Italians and the Serb representatives on the local level became more varied
and complex, each group became more nearly autonomous and less capable of
cooperating with others."

	This clearly clears the hands of Draza Mihajlovic from the
  acts of the 'Chetniks' in Herzegovina and Bosnia. It was only at
  late 1943 that D.Mihajlovic ATTEMPTED TO subordinate several
  prominent 'Chetnik' Leaders in Bosnia. So we learned that 'Chetniks'
  in Bosnia were actually local bands formed as 'cheta' (translation:
  defensive units) and were acting mainly according to the local
  settings. The fact was that non-Communist bands in Bosnia were
  cooperating with Italians, but on this we can find :

"Despite the successful arrangements made by the rebel spokesman with the
Italians in parts of Herzegovina and western Bosnia, the majority of Serbs
still lived in constant fear of Ustashi terror and probably remained in the
hills or even swung over to the intransigent, mainly Partisan, camp. Serb
leaders who offered an occasion to place their units at the disposal of the
Second Army for joint anti-Partisan operations, or even, as in the case of
the Bos Grahovo Serbs, to attach special formations to the Italian army to
fight in the Soviet Union were probably attempting to come to advantageous
terms with the Italians without disarming themselves."

	Also, I should note here that Italian policies were mostly
  pro-Serbian, because Italy wanted to increase it sphere of influence
  on the expense of Zagreb (NDH), and the Ustashi solution of 'The
  Serb problem' was the perfect excuse for Italians - they would claim
  they are protecting Serbian population from the slaughtering and
  would gain more influence among Serbian leaders in Bosnia who were
  outraged with the Ustashi policies.


	To return to your slanderously excerpt about Draza Mihajlovic
  and his famous 'list' as a long-range goals of the Chetniks
  organization. Listen to this :

"At this point, Mihajlovic probably had little if ANY control over MANY of
the Serb armed formations and was in NO position to turn suddenly against
the Axis."

	Also Mihajlovic was never 'co-operating' with Nedic (as you
  suggested - or someone else, for it does not matter WHO suggested
  this) - the following quote reveals what happened :

"Titoist historians attempt to add credibility to the Partisan' fear of
dealing between Mihajlovic and Nedic by pointing out that in early September
a Chetnik officer and a Nedic gandarme were captured near Belanovica
carrying a plan for coordinate Chetnik-gandarme operations against the
Partisans hidden inside a spare auto tire... Although there is little doubt
that Mihajlovic's agents were in contact with Nedic, there is no proof that
ANY concrete arrangement were made. Chetnik sources, obviously, deny the
whole thing. Pantelic, for example writes that on 5 September he met Reserve
Major Alexander Misic, who, having just conferred with Nedic at Belgrade,
attacked the minister-president violently.  More-over, if Nedic made ANY
sort of an arrangement with Mihajlovic in September, he certainly did not so
inform the Germans."

	Also Mihajlovic had his own spy network infiltrated among
  Nedic's puppet gov'. This network was SWATed (i.e. destroyed) by the
  Germans who by the end of 1942 successfully deciphered the Chetnik
  radio transmission.  That was the time when Germans overestimated
  The Chetnik's movement and even thought that The Chetniks were
  bigger danger than Partisans formations, and made quite an effort to
  neutralize the Chetnik movement in Serbia (in which they did
  succeed).

	Now the paragraph PRECEDING YOUR QUOTE about long range
  program of the Chetnik organization was :

"Until the middle of 1942, Mihajlovic was a general without a fighting
organization in Serbia and still lacked control over developments in the
rest of Yugoslavia. Nonetheless, the Chetnik staff thought they could rebuild
the movement by co-opting the collaborationist formations and, with Allied
recognition and support, were certain of Germany's ultimate defeat and the
reconstruction of Yugoslavia along Serb nationalist lines. The postwar goals
of the Chetniks, as Mihajlovic saw them in December 1941, bore no relation
to what the weak officers' movement could hope to accomplish in the future
and went far beyond a restoration of the political status quo ante bellum.
In his orders to Lasic and DJurisic, he outlined an ambitious set of aims
which combined his expected anti-COmmunist and pro-monarchic orientation
with plans for territorial adjustments and domestic reconstruction inspired
by both Greater Yugoslav and the most extreme sort of the greater Serb
passions. Reminding the Montenegrians that he was relying for the final
victory on the aid of 'the great democracies, England, America, Russia and
China,' he established as the Chetnik long-range program:

  [list follows]...

	Now the paragraph *PROCEEDING* YOUR QUOTE about long range
  program of the Chetnik organization was :

"Mihajlovic and his staff assumed that the Axis Powers would lose the war,
but, before that happened, the officers had to eliminate or at least reduce
drastically the influence of the Partisan resistance and take all measures
necessary to protect Serbs, especially those in Independent Croatia, from
the ravages of Axis and Ustashi reprisals. Collaboration with the Italians
served both of these ends, yet there was always the danger that the Serb
nationalist formation [* what HJH calls 'chetniks' or 'Chetniks' in his
posting - remark by NVM *] would gradually be reduced to the level of police
formations attached to the occupation forces, that the tactic of
collaboration would lead to a weakening of the Chetnik political position in
London, or even that the Italians would soon drop out of the war, thus
isolating the Chetniks. In any event, Mihajlovic's long-range program, not
to mention the events in Serbia of 1941, placed an immediate priority on a
Partisan defeat; moreover, the spontaneously formed and often civil-led Serb
nationalist bands in western Yugoslavia, and even those Chetniks who were
enthusiastic about resisting the Ustashi often had to cooperate, at least
formally with the occupation powers' anti-Partisan measures. [* later remarks
are that this was due to general Mihajlovic and Chetniks policies along
anti-Communist lines - remark by NVM *]"

	I should add that General Dragoljub Draza Mihajlovic was given
  a highest honor one foreigner can get given by pres.Truman of US.

	IF ALL OF THIS can not pursue you that The Chetniks were not a
  shame of Serbian people, I really do not know WHAT WILL. All I can
  do is leave you in your dreams, really....


>Having modified the name, I also feel justified in
>applying ``neo-Chetnik'' to other Serbian militant
>groups, e.g., Arkaniacs, but if the prefix or the
>capitalized letter bothers you, feel free to
>ignore it.)

	What bothers me is that you are making the SAME mistake as
  Communist regime did in Yugoslavia (revisionist like Tito, Tudjman
  etc.) who call those troops, in B&H that are headed by the local
  political figures, with name 'Chetniks' when they, as those
  'Chetniks' in B&H in WWII were not under the command of The
  Chetniks. And also using communist stereotypes and asserting that
  Serbian people should be ashamed of The Chetniks.

	I think I made a point of the mistakes that Croats are trying
  to impose for the second time in 50+ years.

>Hrvoje H.


Nik
--