MIHANOVIC'S ORATION IN PARLIAMENT (HIGHLIGHTS)

ZAGREB, May 9 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament Speaker, Nedjeljko Mihanovic, today addressed a ceremonial session of the Croatian Parliament, marking the 50th anniversary of the victory over fascism in Europe. The oration was portentously headlined: "Against Every Totalitarianism." By denying the tremendous role of Croatia in the anti-fascist struggle in Europe, the Serbian propaganda has deliberately besmirched the Croatian people with the taint of fascism, Mihanovic said. "At this historical moment it is needful to deny and refute all the hate-filled lies, fabrications, calumnies, diffamatory and libellous allegations that have been deliberately, one-sidedly and ignominiously spread with a view to blackmailing the entire Croatian people," he elaborated. It was undeniable truth that Croatia had proportionally the strongest anti-fascist movement in Europe, judging by the numbers of active combatants and other activists, Mihanovic said. "There were 471,837 persons participating in the Croatian struggle, and 230,000 were active soldiers. In the four years or armed anti-fascist struggle in Croatia, 63,336 combatants were killed," he specified. Mihanovic then recalled the Italian fascist pretensions to the Croatian coast, particularly stressing the military importance of Croatian partisan units in Istria and Dalmatia. "On the 13th of September, 1943, the Istrian National Liberation Committee declared the union of Istria, Rijeka, Zadar and other occupied areas with Croatia, which was confirmed by the ZAVNOH (Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia) on the 20th of September, 1943," Mihanovic said. He recalled that the first constituent session of the ZAVNOH, held on June 13 and 14, 1943 in Plitvice (now occupied) and Otocac confirmed the sovereignty of Croatia. "On the basis established by ZAVNOH, the struggle for Croatia firmly adhered to the principles of federal autonomy and national independence of the Croatian people within the Yugoslav federal community," Mihanovic said. "The establishment of the ZAVNOH, with all the international- law attributes such as the army, representation offices, government, state territory with a firmly defined state-republic boundary (which we call the 'AVNOJ' boundary), legislation, national flag, anthem and the firm constitutional principle of 'right to self-determination, including secession', meant the establishment of a political body with a historical nation-building role," Mihanovic said. But after fascism was defeated, central and eastern Europe were doomed to see one totalitarian regime substituted by another, equally sinister - Bolshevism. "The majority of the Croatian people equally abhorred the criminal notturno of fascism, with its radical nationalist and racist ideology, and the daemonic ideological spectre of the political tyrrany of Communism," Mihanovic pondered. A particularly tragic feature of Croatian history, according to Mihanovic, was that socialist demagogy and the rallying cry of "brotherhood and unity" were used as a cloak to cover the malignant growth of Serbian Belgrade centralism and an unholy alliance between state and party. "In the blood-drenched planetarium of Croatian history, that learned scholar and Head of the Croatian state, Frajno Tudjman, has found the life-saving key to our historical and political riddle in the reconciliation of all Croats, the unity of the Croatian people, the cooperation between the homeland and the diaspora, the implementation of the realistic Croatian policy, without romantic 'longings and fantasies,'" Mihanovic enthused. "Let these two anniversaries - the 50th anniversry of the victory over fascism and the 50th anniversary of Bleiburg and the Way of the Cross - pave the way for unity, openness and tolerance of spirit and a moral-political cohesion of the nation. Let this spirit of unity and tolerance harbinger new perspectives of the opening of our reality to democracy and freedom," Mihanovic heralded. (hina) jn as 091426 MET may 95