I Will Be Antifascist as Mesic Wants as His Heir

Andrija Hebrang is complaining he only reads untruths about himself, the HDZ and government, so he calls Ivo Sanader to share his sorrow.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – Last week, Andrija Hebrang announced he accepted to be the Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ) candidate for president, putting a stop to speculations that his candidacy that was made conditional upon medical check-ups served only to buy time for Ivo Sanader’s big return to the political arena. After he announced his candidacy, Hebrang took a vacation in the Adriatic where he learnt of the first, for him unfavourable, results of a popularity poll for presidential candidates. 

How do you comment on the results of a poll by which Ivo Josipovic has twice as many voters than you – 22% versus 11%. Ndan Vidosevic and even Vesna Pusic are beating you in the polls?

For twelve years I have been losing in polls and winning in elections. Polls in Croatia are a political means of a fight with the aim to discourage the voters who support a certain candidate. This is why

in many countries of the EU polls are forbidden one month before elections. This is the best indicator of their value. The worst result I had was in polls in 2003 when I was an individual  candidate for the HDZ in parliamentary elections in Zagreb’s electoral unit of Dubrava. But I was victorious over the joint candidate of all other parties with a 12 percent difference.

Still, according to the polls, you do not have the support of the HDZ’s voters. 23 percent of them would vote for the HDZ and 11% of them would vote for you. Do you think Nadan Vidosevic stole those votes from you?

Nadan Vidosevic cannot steal HDZ votes because he has not been active in the HDZ for years and has also been criticising the HDZ’s government for years. This is yet another proof of the credibility of the poll.

Who came out with information that Nadan Vidosevic will be a candidate of the HDZ? Vidosevic believes that this is a set-up so he would lose the support of the HDZ.

I was elected unanimously at the party presidency, at the central committee and by acclamation at the HDZ Assembly. All others can run as candidates outside the party and I wish them all the luck. The text published in the Jutarnji list daily is pure fabrication that is also a political means of fighting. This information was denied by both Seks and Vidosevic and Mrs. Adlesic.

Ivo Sanader was the one who decided about your candidacy and Jadranka Kosor is carrying that out consistently. However, last week, media reported that Ivo Sanader, Luka Bebic and Vladimir Seks offered an extension of Stjepan Mesic’s mandate.

I can only laugh at that. The HDZ top never offered Mesic an extension of his mandate for the simple reason that before all elections Mesic worked vehemently against the HDZ and he is doing so now. The idea of a mandate extension is a test balloon from the president’s office which met with unanimous, harsh refusal with the HDZ top. In the meantime, I have not read one single truth about myself in the past two or three months.

Is it right that Ivo Sanader sails the Adriatic on a yacht in these difficult times for the country?

I see nothing wrong with relaxing on a yacht because he spent six years doing good for Croatia without a single day’s rest, without weekends or holidays and practically without resting sleep and after six years like that he has the right to a quality vacation.

How often do you talks to the former prime minister, Ivo Sanader? How strong is his influence on the work of the government and ministers he still calls?

As far as I know, from what I have spoken to ministers about, this is a fabrication. I can say that I speak with Ivo Sanader only when I call him. I would like to hear who are the ministers Sanader called.

He never even sends you a text message?

He does not call me because I call him, whenever I need some advice or a consultation or, if nothing else, to share my sorrow about the fabrications I have been recently reading about the government, the HDZ and myself.

How often do you call him? Every day?

Whenever I need to.

Were you surprised by the statements of some HDZ leaders, for example, Vladimir Seks, in the Novi list daily, who harshly criticised the former prime minister, Ivo Sanader?

I did not see that anywhere in the interview, but it was in the equipment of the article and Vladimir Seks quite vehemently denied it. The equipment of the article was not authorised and that is the old methodology of a change in the sense of the interview. Seks gave very good interviews last Sunday about me, Ivo Sanader and Jadranka Kosor, but nobody mentioned that.

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said she believed in your victory and that many will be surprised to meet the real Andrija Hebrang during the campaign. What is the real Andrija Hebrang?

I don’t know what Mrs. Kosor meant, but she probably meant the difference in a politician when he is defending the colours of his party and a politician when he is defending the colours of his country without a party prefix. I will be the president of all citizens, not just the right-wingers or left-wingers. On the contrary, when I am defending the colours of the HDZ, of course then I defend the colours of only one option.

What will you presidential campaign be like? Will you go amongst the people so they can get to know the non-partisan Hebrang?

I will not go for coffee because coffee is not good your health and I would not like to jeopardise the health of my future voters, however, it is too early to speak about strategy because there are five more months until the elections. The only thing I can say is that, like all my campaigns in the past 20 years, it will be rational, cheap, without expensive investments into renting facilities and expensive agencies, it will be adapted to the crisis times in which we live.

How do you assess the first month of Prime Minister Kosor’s mandate?

For many, Mrs Kosor is a big surprise in the positive sense. Not for me because I believed in her from day one. I have known her since she entered politics in 1995, therefore for 14 years. We have got to know each other in various difficult, crisis situations in politics and I have seen her way of reaction.

In the HDZ they say she is very harsh, harsher than Sanader, and that she cannot be persuaded to relent from her decisions.

She has a great ability of listening to other people’s opinions and she has a great ability of synthesising suggestions. When she makes a decision, it is final and irrevocable, but she makes it known with utter feminism, meaning gently, calmly, without raising her voice, with a smile. She definitely has a tendency for negotiations, she can accept other people’s opinions and now the opposition accuses her of roaming because of that. She was not roaming, she was negotiating and adapting to social partners and partners from the ruling coalition. Being a prime minister does not always mean flying solo, but also being part of a choir and one needs to know how to put that in music. She found an ideal combination. It is also not unimportant that she really does have absolute support of the party’s leadership and she can count of each one of us whenever she needs to.

You have been criticised as being a chauvinist because of your statement that everybody in the HDZ stood behind her as if she were a macho man. What did you mean with that?

That was, of course, said metaphorically. Myself and Vladimir Seks are placed in the rigid right-wing and we, as so falsely accused rigid right-wingers, absolutely supported a woman as party president and we once again proved that there is no rigid right wing in the HDZ. Because of those accusations, I allegorically said: “We will support you as if you were a macho man”. And we have shown that which the leftists never managed to do – that we can yield a woman as prime minister and party president.

As presidential candidate who wants to advocate the interests of all citizens, what is your stance about the crisis tax and the law on medically assisted fertilisation?

As presidential candidate I believe the law on medically assisted fertilisation has been adapted to modern medical knowledge about embryos whose freezing is unnecessary today and is also murder if it is not used after freezing. I support the notion that every child has the right to know who his parents are once it reaches the age of 18. Regarding the crisis tax, I will come across as a member of the HDZ and not as a presidential candidate, just because in the critical time for the country, the dangerous term “capitation” is being used just to get the people disgusted by the government they chose. My first argument for the crisis tax is that it was yielded through negotiations with social partners and that is their suggestion. The second argument is that we had a much more grievous salary cuts in 2000 when Racan’s government, without an agreement with unions, curbed salaries by 20 percent for public and civil servants. At the time I had the salary of a university professor and my salary was also cut. We could have launched the term “capitation”, but we did not.

Why not?

Because we always thought that in a crisis one needs to be constructive, not destructive. Therefore, this is not “capitation”, nor was that “capitation” back then, but both are exits from a crisis whose goal is a better economic situation next year.

Is Mesic trying to topple the coalition government? He said about you that as president you would return Croatia back to the 20th century.

Mesic is trying to topple the coalition and after ten years he figures to check the constitutionality of two laws during the biggest economic crisis. With regards to his criticism of me as candidate, every one of his criticisms brings me one to two percent of new voters, so I cannot be angry. His whole life Mesic supported the left wing, even during the past ten years when he did you contrary to the constitution. He uses untruths. The other day I read that he is appalled at my statement that I would not have sent the generals to The Hague. I never made such a statement. I said that it was not us who sent them to The Hague, but that they went on their own, respecting the Constitutional Law.

You announced that your presidential programme “For a European and proud Croatia” consists of advocating the principle of antifascism as a framework within which Croatia was created and in which it exists and the revitalisation of the role of Croatian Homeland War soldiers in the Homeland Defence War and the founder of the country, Franjo Tudjman. What is your relationship with your opponent, Miroslav Tudjman, with whom you were once connected in the HIP party and with whom your daughter is employed as a science assistant? Do you expect him to give up from his candidacy and support you, giving you his two percent of votes? 

You also are using inaccurate information from the press. The person who fabricated the lie is counting on 99.9 percent of citizens not having the opportunity to check the veracity of those lies and this is why they are printing them. My daughter does not work for professor Tudjman. She is in the library department at the Faculty of Philosophy and he is in the informatics department. It is also completely incorrect that he was her mentor for her doctor’s thesis, so you see how a network of lies is being made. And third, I consider Miroslav Tudjman a friend, but because of some political differences relating to his criticisms of the HDZ, we have not seen or heard each other in over a year. And that is the whole truth. I respect his candidacy because, as far as I know his stances, his political framework has also been drawn up on the model of European Union countries, that is, respecting statehood and national pride.

They say for you that of all Croatian politicians you evoke the most emotional reactions in public. From being just like your father to your extreme statements that women without a partner should not have children or that Maks Luburic fought for Croatian interests? What is it in you that you cause such strong reactions, after all, you are a level-headed university professor?

You set the diagnosis. Which left-wing communists say that I said that women without a partner should not have children? At the time I read an article from the Social Democratic Party’s draft law on medically assisted fertilisation and I criticised that. I brought to Nova TV the SDP’s original text and read original articles in which women without partners are not allowed to go to in vitro fertilisation. Of course, the leftist communists eliminated the fist part. Regarding Luburic, my interview for NIN in Serbia was not at all taken as it was with leftist communists because the purpose of the interview was to build a bridge between our two countries and as such it was warmly welcomed. I said nothing else about Luburic apart that he is a war criminal, I have been studying him for decades now and I know more about him than the new leftist communists such as Jergovic or whatever their names are.

Why did you so carefully study Maks Luburic?

I did not study Maks Luburic. He was merely an executor. I studied the ideologist, Ante Pavelic, because I could not understand how it was possible for one Croatian political option to join in with fascism and accept the most horrific racial methods. I also studied the Croatian leftists because I could not understand how it could, after World War II, quietly kill dozens of thousands of people without a trial. I think that every intellectual has to seek answers to these two questions and, most importantly, find solutions for them to be finally put away in history and not to use up our energy necessary for overcoming current problems.

What did Maks Luburic fight for?

Maks Luburic fought for the fascist ideology, just like those who thought like him, with the most horrific means.

Did he believe he was fighting for Croatian interests?

Of course he did. I stated clearly that he “thought that he was fighting for Croatia’s interests, it was not as if he thought he was fighting for the interests of Somalia, was it”. But then the communist criminals after World War II thought they were fighting for the interests of Yugoslavia when they were killing innocent people. Every criminal ideology is filled with beliefs of just causes.

A couple of days ago in an interview for Sarajevo’s Oslobodjenje you said the assertion of Ustasha signs on Thompson’s concerts, as well as in Bleiburg, should be punished. But in Bleiburg you held a speech, not giving heed to the audience dressed in black. Did you attend a concert by Thompson?

Regarding Thompson, I immensely appreciate his contribution to the Homeland Defence War because he joined the war when it was most difficult and when many of his critics today sat with their arms crossed, waiting for the outcome of the war. I did not attend any of his concerts because I hear Ustasha uniforms are a regular occurrence there. But I ask, what are the police doing? Ustasha insignia in Croatia seems to be above the law. Police has to act very simply towards such costumes.

With regards to Bleiburg, some estimates say there were 20,000 people there and from the stand where I held my speech I did not see one single black uniform. Not one. Perhaps because I was focused on my speech. After the speech I saw several black uniforms and I asked the police why they are not reacting. They replied the uniform is not outlawed in Austrian law because they never existed in Austria’s history. In a police report I subsequently received I read that seven people out of the 20,000 that were there wore black uniforms. Because they sang loudly some songs that are outlawed in Austria, three people were arrested. Some who spoke about an Ustasha party should respect the reports of the Austrian police and not insult some 20,000 people who came to pray for the innocently killed.

President Mesic, therefore, need not worry. If you become his heir, his wish that he be succeeded by an advocate of antifascism will come true?

That is the only wish of his that will come true.

Why should people vote for you?

Because people should elect a politician that does not politically roam. Meaning, a politician who has not changed party after party, depending on the needs of his political career. A candidate should be elected who dedicated most of his life to the good of Croatia, even at the time when Croatia needed volunteers to go against the aggressor. The most horrific sentence I read by a columnist a couple of days ago was that “of all party candidates Hebrang is the only Croatian Homeland Defence War volunteer from day one, which could be aggravating circumstances for him in elections”.

Perhaps this is the calculation because of the establishment of good relations with Serbia. Both Damir Kajin and Ivo Josipovic have announced this as their first task as president.

I think better relations, not to the detriment of Croatia, can be established by somebody who was in the war. In the interview for NIN I advocated the establishment of better relations and I said “Wounds are still open, we have unresolved problems and we can establish better relations only if we start resolving the unresolved issues”. For me an unresolved issue is that 9,000 Croatian civilians were killed and nobody has ever unconditionally apologised for that. Also unresolved for me is war damage, the border and over a thousand missing persons we are still searching for.

But this is not a reason not to talk about it and not to establish economic and cultural ties without these problems being swept under the carpet and being solved in succession. I don’t know how these problems would be solved by someone who slept at the time when those problems were becoming current. Perhaps they would solve them to the detriment of Croatia, and I would not want such a president.

I would definitely be equally the president of the rightist and leftist Croatia and would bridge that rift that is draining us of so much energy. I would give both some distance, I would go both to Jasenovac and Bleiburg, to a meeting of World-War II antifascists fighters and to a meeting of Croatian Homeland Defence War soldiers and to a meeting of political prisoners. With equal distance and example I would show how to cure wounds so we can finally move forward.

Of course, my “eastern sin” still remains and I will be adamant about it, which is marking the graves of the victims of antifascism after World War II. I will never give up from my stance that each one of the victims has the right to a cross and a prayer.

Does that include your father?

That includes my father and dozens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of victims.