From: simic@pollux.ccsf.caltech.edu (Petar Simic)
Subject: Re: Irony of our history
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:06:40 GMT

	Josip Loncaric writes:
>>
True, Serbs were DRIVEN into resistance by Ustashe terror, but Croats 
joined resistance OUT OF PRINCIPLE.  ...
<<

	This is very naive, isn't it? Or is it a joke? 

	-----------------------------------------------

	Josip Loncaric further writes:
>>>

Here is why: Partisans and Serbian royalists were rivals.  You claim that
Partisans were "overwhelmingly Serbian".  You want us to believe that Serbs
preferred to join Tito (a Croat) over Mihajlovic (a Serb)?  Do you suggest
that Serbs overlooked his Croatian origin because they loved his Communism
so much?  NONSENSE.  

<<<
 	Serbs did not care for his "Croatian origin" (I have feeling that you
 find this deeply puzzling, but it is natural to me) nor for his Communisam.
 He lead one anti-fascist and anti-nationalistic movement to liberate
 Yugoslavia, but many of the people in the high command arround him were
 Serbs, so the image of the movement was Yugoslav. Serbs, unlike Croats,
 always felt that Yugoslavia is their country and that their patriotic duty
 is to defend it. So, in the areas where partisans where present, Serbs
 would join them in large numbers; many where simple people and they did
 not care nor understand Communist ideology, but joined as the way to fight
 domestic and foreign fascists who violated their land and their lives. 

	By the way, here are some relevant excerts from historic documents
 which illustrate the attitudes of Serbs and Croats toward Yugoslavia, and
 towards Hitler at the wery begining of the war. The sorce:

	 Edmond Paris, "Genocide in Satellite Croatia", Chicago, 1961.

	First a glimse on the attitude of Serbs at the begining of the war.
	-------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Desparate to avoid a war they had no chance of winning, the
 Yugoslavians sought a compromise with the Germans. In March 1941, the
 two countries secretly negotiated a treaty which ostensibly guaranteed
 Yugoslavia's neutrality...

	The treaty took many by surprise and pleased very few. The Serbians
 felt especially humiliated. Their frustration and anger exploded into
 mass protest. Demonstrators demanded abrogation of the treaty, crying,
 "Better war than the pact", "Better death than slavery".

	Ridning on the crest of popular sentiment, a group of Serbian
 officers in the Yugoslav army, led by gen. Dusan Simovich, staged a 
 bloodless coup. A new government was formed and Petar, the young son
 of King Alexander, was proclaimed its king.

	"Yugoslavia has found its soul!" announced a jubilant Cherchill.

	...Hitler took it as a personal insult and flew into rage. He decided
 to inflict heavy punishment on the Serbians.

	The coup and Hitler's reaction to it ultimately proved catastrophic
 to both the Serbians and the Nazies. Hitler was forced to postpone his
 invasion of the Soviet Union for six weeks, a fatal delay accordint to 
 military experts, because ...The Nazies never regained their momentum. 
 More than million Serbian lives were lost in the war...

	...German army attacked Yugoslavia from several directions, while
 the German air force bombed Belgrade and other Serbian cities mercilessly."

	---------------------- end of citation --------------------


 *	Now a glimse on the attitude of Croats at the begining of the war, and
 the contribution of Croatian part of the Yugoslav army in defending contry
 against the invading Germans:
  

	"...Many members of minority groups sided with the enemy. The army's
 Croatian contingent refused to fight...

	Yugoslavia was partitioned, and the largest partition, roughly one
 half of the country was proclaimed an independent state by the Croatians...

	The newly-created Croatian state was made up of nearly half non-Croatians,
 Serbians, Jews, Gypsoes, who were declared extra-legal citizens. Within
 four years, Croatian Fascists had exterminated some one million of these
 "citizens"...."

	---------------------------------------------------------

	Sincerely,
	Petar.