On Korčula, Milat heard Ustaše songs that openly called for the slaughter of Serbs and Muslims. He used his mobile phone to record a group of young men who were playing those songs and who had an HOS flag with the Ustaše greeting. They tried to take his phone, hit him multiple times, and the attack was reported to the police.
On the holiday of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian Veterans, on Korčula, Petar Milat, the president of the Klub MaMa, an independent Zagreb cultural center, experienced firsthand what it is like to react not only to socially and culturally inappropriate behavior, but also to unconstitutional behavior. Milat photographed a group of young men who were playing Ustaše songs on a loudspeaker on the seashore, next to a black HOS flag.
This group of young people physically attacked Milat, who was using his mobile phone to photograph their unconstitutional act, the celebration and invocation of the Ustaše regime, in a public area. This is a picture of today’s ideology and behavior of a part of the upcoming generation of Croats who are invoked and wished for in their recent speeches by Minister of Defense Ivan Anušić and the President of the Croatian Parliament Gordan Jandroković, young people who “respect our faith, our church, our tradition and identity” at MPT concerts.
“I was sitting next to the NOB monument on Korčula, and from a loudspeaker a few hundred meters away, from a pier, purely Ustaše songs were being played, not Thompson’s, but songs that directly invoke Ustaše, knives, openly call for the slaughter of Serbs, Muslims… The songs were heard throughout the city. As a person who grew up on Korčula, what I was listening to was inconceivable, I was horrified, I couldn’t listen anymore, I got up and went to that group, about ten young men, aged 18 to 25, local residents.
Revolted and disturbed, I started recording that group of young men with my mobile phone, as well as the HOS flag with the Ustaše greeting. It all seemed unreal, unnatural, and foreign for my native Korčula with its pronounced partisan past. When they saw me filming, they physically attacked me. They jumped on me, pushed me, held me very violently, tried to snatch my mobile phone, threatened me to delete the photos, and in that commotion I received several strong blows. It all lasted for several minutes. This morning I reported the physical attack to the police, and handed over the photos,” Petar Milat says about his holiday experience on Korčula.
“I remember, during the war, when HOS members and Dobroslav Paraga held election rallies here, on Korčula, in 1992, I didn’t feel as insecure as I did yesterday listening to that horrific call for slaughter. I should note, those Ustaše songs were played by all young men, twenty-year-olds, none of them have any connection to the war.”
Let’s remember, last autumn, during the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Korčula from the occupying fascist forces and their domestic helpers, the Ustaše, the arrival of a Montenegrin amateur choir that was supposed to sing several partisan songs was prevented. With a strong reaction from the local veterans’ association, the police asked the choir for a work permit. The epilogue remained unclear and mysterious, never fully legally clarified.
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Source: Portal Novosti, Photo: Privatna arhiva