The controversial Croatian pro-fascist singer Marko Perković Thompson, who proudly posed between two portraits of the Croatian WWII fascist leaders Ante Pavelić (the head of the so-called “Independent State of Croatia”, a puppet state of The Third Reich) and Jure Francetić (the commander of the so-called Black Legion) has demanded from the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović to protect his "right to work in the EU member countries".
Thompson’s concert which was supposed to be held in Maribor, Slovenia, was cancelled last week due to his decades-long pro-fascist inclinations and a number of public controversies.
Instead of distancing themselves from the political/ideological views and actions of the aforementioned singer, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has given instructions to the Croatian Ambassador in Slovenia to investigate whether Perković’s rights were indeed violated. Furthermore, he was supported by Croatian Minister of Culture Nina Koržinek Obuljen who stated that the Slovenian decision to ban the concert was "unusual", although Thompson's concert have previously been banned in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.
All of this is happening in the light of the approaching local and regional elections in Croatia, and the recently held State sponsored commemoration dedicated to the so-called “victims of the Communist terror” in Bleiburg, Austria. With the aim of spreading propaganda about "hundreds of thousands innocent Croatian victims” killed by the victorious Yugoslav Army, political and religious ceremonies (packed with fascist iconography and folklore) are held every year at the field called Bleiburg near the Austrian-Slovenian border.
Some 30 thousand people who were killed after May 9th 1945 were – in fact – mostly soldiers who fled from the responsibility for their war crimes in Yugoslavia (1941-1945) and who were willing to fight for the Third Reich even after its surrender. Most of them belonged to the Third Reich forces and the troops of their Croatian (ustaše), Serbian and Montenegrin (četnici) and Slovene (domobranci) war allies. The civilians who were killed after the Bleiburg surrender on May 15th were often taken along by the fascist soldiers, and used as human shields, or they joined the fleeing troops out of fear or pure ignorance. Historical facts about these events have been commonly decontextualised, distorted and falsified in the media and revisionist historiography during the last 25 years. Accordingly, both (pro)fascist solders and civilians are represented as innocent Croatian victims of the allegedly anti-Croat Yugoslav Army. The Partisans who liberated the country were, in fact, in large percentage Croatian, while among those who fled to the field of Bleiburg were also Serbs, Slovens, Germans etc. The ideological and political conflicts that happened in Yugoslavia during the WWII are continually, insistently and intentionally presented by the revisionist historiography in ethnic terms, thus perpetuating and empowering the ethnic tensions among South Slavic peoples. Thompson's public apperance and music has had an important role in spreading the propaganda and normalising nationalistic anatognisms and hatred among the younger generation.
Although PM Plenković decided not to attend Bleiburg commemoration this year, his willingness to protect the controversial and openly pro-fascist singer is yet another proof that the pro-European HDZ who is leading the country is not willing to clearly distance itself from the rising neo-fascism in Croatia. The decision not to attend Bleiburg was therefore only the matter of the pre-election political maneuvering.
