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Franjo Tuđman (14 May 1922 – 10 December 1999) was a Croatian politician and historian who became the first president of Croatia, from 1990 until his death in 1999. He served following the country's independence from Yugoslavia. Tuđman also was the ninth and last president of the Presidency of SR Croatia from May to July 1990.
Tuđman was born in Veliko Trgovišće. In his youth, he fought during World War II as a member of the Yugoslav Partisans. After the war, he took a post in the Ministry of Defence, later attaining the rank of major general of the Yugoslav People's Army in 1960. After his military career, he dedicated himself to the study of geopolitics. In 1963, he became a professor at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Sciences. He received a doctorate in history in 1965 and worked as a historian until coming into conflict with the regime. Tuđman participated in the Croatian Spring movement that called for reforms in the country and was imprisoned for his activities in 1972. He lived relatively anonymously in the following years until the end of communism, whereupon he began his political career by founding the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 1989.
HDZ won the first Croatian parliamentary elections in 1990 and Tuđman became the President of the Presidency of SR Croatia. As president, Tuđman introduced a new constitution and pressed for the creation of an independent Croatia. On 19 May 1991, an independence referendum was held, which was approved by 93 percent of voters. Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. Areas with a Serb majority Log Revolution, backed by the Yugoslav Army, and Tuđman led Croatia during its War of Independence. A ceasefire was signed in 1992, but Bosnian War had spread into Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Croats fought in an alliance with Bosniaks. Their cooperation fell apart in late 1992 and Tuđman's government sided with Herzeg-Bosnia during the Croat-Bosniak War, a move that brought criticism from the international community. In a final verdict of war crimes trial of former high-ranking officials of Herceg-Bosnia, the ICTY stated that Tuđman shared in their joint criminal enterprise goal of establishing an entity to Greater Croatia which was to be implemented through the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims. However, it did not find him guilty of any specific crimes.
In March 1994, he signed the Washington Agreement with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović that re-allied Croats and Bosniaks. In August 1995, he authorized a major offensive known as Operation Storm which effectively ended the war in Croatia. In the same year, he was one of the signatories of the Dayton Agreement that put an end to the Bosnian War. He was re-elected president in 1992 and 1997 and remained in power until his death in 1999. While supporters point out his role in achieving Croatian independence, critics have described his presidency as Authoritarianism. Surveys after Tuđman's death have generally shown a high favorability rating among the Croatian public.
Besides Franjo, Stjepan Tuđman had an elder daughter Danica Ana (who died as a baby), Ivica (born in 1924) and Stjepan "Štefek" (born in 1926). When Franjo Tuđman was seven, his mother Justina () died while bearing her fifth child. Tuđman's mother was a devout Catholic, unlike his father and stepmother. His father, like Stjepan Radić, had anticlerical attitudes and young Franjo adopted his views. As a child, Franjo Tuđman served as an altar boy in the local parish. Tuđman attended elementary school in his native village from 15 September 1929 to 30 June 1933 and was an excellent student.
He attended secondary school for eight years, starting in the autumn 1935. The reasons for the interruption are not clear, but it is assumed that the primary cause was an economic crisis in that period. According to some sources, the local parish helped young Franjo to continue his education and his teacher even proposed him to be educated to become a priest. When he was 15, his father brought him to Zagreb, where he met Vladko Maček, the president of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS). At first young, Franjo liked the HSS, but later he turned towards communism. On 5 November 1940, he was arrested during student demonstrations celebrating the anniversary of the Soviet Union October Revolution.
Tuđman was traveling between Zagreb and Zagorje using false documents which identified him as a member of the Croatian Home Guard. There, he was helping to activate a partisan division in Zagorje. On 11 May 1942, while carrying Belinić's letter, he was arrested by the Ustashas, but managed to escape from the police station.
On 26 April 1946, his father Stjepan and stepmother were found dead. Tuđman never clarified the circumstances of their death. According to the police, his father Stjepan killed his wife and then himself. Other theories accuse Ustasha guerrillas (Crusaders) and members of the Yugoslav secret police (OZNA).
Franjo and Ankica did not qualify as secondary school graduates until after the war, in Belgrade. He graduated from the Partisan High School in 1945 and she finished five semesters of English language in the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry.
In 1953, Tuđman was promoted to the position of colonel and moved to position head of office of the Chief of staff of the Federal Secretary of People's Defence. On that position in 1959, he became a major general. At the age of 38, he had become the youngest general in the Yugoslav Army. His promotion was not extreme, but it was atypical for a Croats because senior officers were increasingly likely to be Serbs and Montenegrins. In 1962, Serbs and Montenegrins composed 70% of army generals.
On 23 May 1954, he became secretary of JSD Partizan and, in May 1958, its president, becoming the first colonel to occupy that position (all previous holders were generals). He was placed in that position in order to solve administration problems inside of the club, especially the FK Partizan. When he arrived, JSD Partizan Belgrade was a kind of intelligence battlefield where leaders of UDBA and KOS struggled for influence. That caused clubs (despite having notable and good players) to have bad results, especially its football section. During his club presidency, the club adopted the black-white striped kit which is used to this day. According to Tuđman, he wanted to create a club that would have a Yugoslavism image and oppose SD Crvena Zvezda that had an exclusive Serbian image. Tuđman was inspired by Juventus FC uniforms. However, Stjepan Bobek (former player of FK Partizan) claimed that uniform colors idea was, in fact, his, which he passed on to Tuđman.
Tuđman attended the military academy in Belgrade, like many officers who did not have formal military education. He graduated from the tactical school on 18 July 1957 as an excellent student. One of his teachers was Dušan Bilandžić, who would be a future advisor. Before he turned 40 years old, he had risen to become the youngest general in the Yugoslav Army. He was prominent in attending to communist indoctrination while based in Belgrade, where his three children were born. Obituary, theguardian.com; accessed 19 July 2015.
Tuđman's increasing insistence on a Croatian-centric interpretation of history turned many professors from University of Zagreb like Mirjana Gross and Ljubo Boban against him. In April 1964, Boban denounced Tuđman as a nationalist. During Tuđman's leadership the institute became a source of alternative interpretations of Yugoslav history which caused his conflict with official Yugoslav historiography. He did not have an appropriate academic degree to qualify him as a historian. He began to realize that he would need to obtain a doctorate in order to keep his position. His dissertation was entitled The Causes of the Crisis of the Yugoslav Monarchy from Unification in 1918 until Its Breakdown in 1941, and was a compilation of some of his previously published works. The University of Zagreb's Faculty of Philosophy rejected his dissertation, on the grounds that some parts of it had already been published. The Faculty of Arts in Zadar (then part of University of Zagreb, today University of Zadar) accepted it and he graduated on 28 December 1965.
In his thesis, he stated that the primary cause of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's breakdown was the repressive and corrupted regime which was at odds with the contemporary mainstream Yugoslav historiography which considered Croatian nationalism to be its primary cause. Bogdanov and Milutinović (both ethnic Serbs) did not object to this. However, the Zagreb-based publisher Naprijed cancelled the contract following his refusal to change some controversial statements in the book. He publicly supported the goals of the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language. The Croatian Parliament and League of Communists of Croatia from Zagreb, however, attacked it and the board of the institute requested Tuđman's resignation.
In December 1966, Ljubo Boban accused Tuđman of plagiarism, stating that Tuđman had compiled four-fifths of his doctoral thesis, The Creation of the Socialist Yugoslavia, from Boban's work. Boban offered conclusive proofs to his claim from articles published previously in the magazine Forum and the rest from Boban's own thesis. In 1967, Tuđman was expelled from Communist Party and forced to retire from the institute.
Between 1962 and 1967, he was the president of the Main Committee for International Relations of the Croatian League of Communists Main Board. He was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament between 1965 and 1969.
In 1970, he became a member of the Croatian Writers' Society. In 1972 he was sentenced to two years in prison for subversive activities during the Croatian Spring. (2025). 9783838260143, ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. ISBN 9783838260143 The authorities of SR Croatia additionally intended to prosecute Tuđman on charges of espionage, which carried a sentence of 15–20 years in prison with hard labour, but the charge was commuted by Tito. Following Tito's intervention, Tuđman served only nine months of his sentence. According to Tuđman, he and Tito were close friends.Franjo Tuđman's , ... s kim sam i ja bio prijatelj, i koji me na kraju spasio od progona njegovog vlastitog komunističkog režima." ( "... Tito was a friend who in the end saved me from the persecution of his own communist regime") However, Tuđman later described Tito's crackdown as an "autocratic coup d'état".
The Croatian Spring was a national movement set in motion by Tito and the Croatian communist party chairman Vladimir Bakarić amid the climate of growing liberalism in the late 1960s. It was initially a tepid and ideologically controlled party liberalism, but it soon grew into a mass nationalist-based manifestation of dissatisfaction with the position of Croatia within SFR Yugoslavia. As a result, the movement was suppressed by Tito, who used the military and the police to put a stop to what he saw as separatism and a threat to the party's influence. Bakarić quickly distanced himself from the Croatian communist leadership that he himself had helped to gain power earlier and sided with the Yugoslav president. However, Tito took the protesters' demands into consideration and in 1974 the new Yugoslav constitution granted the majority of the demands sought by the Croatian Spring. On other topics like Communism and one-party political monopoly Tuđman remained mostly within the framework of the communist ideology of the day.
In 1977, he traveled to Sweden using a forged Swedish passport to meet members of the Croatian diaspora. His trip apparently went unnoticed by Yugoslav police. However, on that trip he gave an interview to Swedish TV about the position of Croats in Yugoslavia that was later broadcast. Upon returning to Yugoslavia, Tuđman was put on trial again in 1981 because of this interview, and was accused for having spread "enemy propaganda". On 20 February 1981 he was found guilty and sentenced to three years of prison and 5 years in house arrest. However, he was released in February 1983 for medical reasons. He was reincarcerated in May 1984 but subsequently released again in September due to health concerns. In June 1987, he became a member of the Croatian PEN centre. On 6 June 1987, he travelled to Canada with his wife to meet Croatian Canadians. They were trying not to discuss sensitive issues with emigrants abroad fearing that some might be agents of the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA), which was a common practice at the time.
During his trips to Canada he met many Croatian emigrants who were natives of Herzegovina or were of Herzegovinian ancestry. Some of these later became Croatian government officials after the country's independence, the most prominent of whom was Gojko Šušak, whose father and elder brother had been members of the Ustaše. "The Communist Partisans led by Tito are said to have killed his father, an Ustashe officer, three months later and burned the Susak house to the ground. An elder brother was also an Ustashe officer.", nytimes.com, 5 May 1998; accessed 20 July 2015. These meetings abroad in the late 1980s later gave rise to many conspiracy theories. According to these rumours the Croats of Herzegovina had somehow used the meetings to earn a huge amount of influence inside the HDZ, as well as the post-independence Croatian establishment.
On 17 June 1989, Tuđman founded the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Essentially, this was a nationalist Croatian movement that affirmed Croatian values based on Catholicism blended with historical and cultural traditions which had been generally suppressed in communist Yugoslavia. The aim was to gain national independence and to establish a Croatian nation-state.
Tuđman based his campaign mostly on the national question. He stated that the Yugoslav dinar earned in Croatia should stay in Croatia, thus objecting to the subsidies for less developed parts of Yugoslavia, or for the Yugoslav army. He addressed the economic crisis, called for the renewal of a market economy and a parliamentary democracy, and expressed his support for the accession to the European Community. He maintained that Yugoslavia could survive only as a confederation. Although Tuđman had ties with the right-wing anti-Communist diaspora, he also had important colleagues from the Partisan Communist establishment, including Josip Boljkovac and Josip Manolić. His main opponent in the election was Ivica Račan from the League of Communists of Croatia (SKH), who became the SKH Chairman in December 1989.
Tuđman's talk of Croatia's past glories and independence was not received well among Croatian Serbs. The HDZ was heavily criticized by Serbian media, portraying their possible victory as a revival of NDH. Veljko Kadijević, general of the JNA, said at meeting of the army and SR Croatia leaderships that the elections would bring the Ustaše to power in Croatia. A few weeks before the elections, the army removed the weapons of the Territorial Defence from stores all over Croatia. During a HDZ campaign rally in Benkovac, an ethnically mixed town, a 62-year-old Serbian man, Boško Čubrilović, pulled out a gas pistol near the podium. Croatian media described the incident as an assassination attempt on Tuđman, but Čubrilović was in late 1990 charged and convicted only of threatening the security staff. The incident further worsened ethnic tensions.
During his campaign, on 16 April 1990 Tuđman had a conversation with news reporters where he said:
The part of the statement about his wife was later widely criticized, including by officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Croatian historian cited claims by Tuđman's son, Miroslav and the writer about the statement being directed against the former Yugoslav communist system rather than against Jews or Serbs; instead about mixed marriages being used by Croats as a means to promotion in the system. On 19 April, at a rally in Zadar, Tuđman said:
This was in line with his previous speech at a rally in Sinj on March 24, his first public speech after the events in Benkovac, when he also emphasized that Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia were Croatian precisely because the Croatian people participated in the partisan movement and found themselves on the winning side.
The elections were scheduled for all 356 seats in the parliament. Tuđman's party triumphed and got an absolute majority of around 60% or 205 seats in the Croatian Parliament. Tuđman was elected to the position of president of Croatia on . After the victory of HDZ the nationalistic Serb Democratic Party (SDS) spread its influence quickly in places where Serbs formed a high percentage of the population. Since the split among communists in Yugoslavia along ethnic lines was already a fact at that time, it seemed inevitable that the conflicts would continue following the multi-party elections which brought to power new political establishments in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while at the same time the same communist officials kept their posts in Serbia and Montenegro.
On 25 July 1990, a Serbian Assembly was established in Srb, north of Knin. Jovan Rašković announced a referendum on "Serb sovereignty and autonomy" in Croatia in August 1990, which Tuđman labeled as illegal. A series of incidents followed in areas populated by ethnic Serbs, mostly around Knin, known as the Log Revolution. The revolt in Knin concentrated the Croatian government on the problem of the lack of weapons. The effects of the JNA's confiscation of the Territorial Defence supplies was partly undone by the new Defence Minister, Martin Špegelj, who bought weapons from Hungary. As it had no regular army, the government had focused on building up the police force. By January 1991 there were 18,500 policemen and by April 1991 around 39,000. On 22 December 1990, the Parliament of Croatia ratified the new constitution. The Serbs in Knin proclaimed the SAO Krajina in municipalities of the regions of Northern Dalmatia and Lika.
In December 1990 Tuđman and Slovenian President Milan Kučan presented their proposal on the restructuring of Yugoslavia on confederal grounds. Tuđman believed that a confederation of sovereign republics could accelerate the Croatian accession to the European Community. The leaders of the Yugoslav republics held many meetings in early 1991 to resolve the growing crisis. On 25 March 1991, Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević met at Karađorđevo, a meeting which became controversial due to claims that the two presidents discussed the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. However, the claims came from persons that were not present at the meeting and there is no record of this meeting that proves an existence of such an agreement, while Milošević did not behave subsequently as if he had an agreement with Tuđman. On 12 July 1991, Tuđman met with Alija Izetbegović and Milošević in Split.
The armed incidents of early 1991 escalated into an all-out war over the summer. Tuđman's first plan was to win support from the European Community, avoiding the direct confrontation with the JNA that had been proposed by Martin Špegelj, the Minister of Defence, since the beginning of the conflict. Tuđman rejected Špegelj's proposal as it would be damaging on Croatia's international position and there were doubts that the Croatian Army was ready for such an action. The emerging Croatian Army had only four brigades in September 1991. As the war escalated, Tuđman formed the National Unity Government which brought in members of most of the minor parties in the parliament, including Račan's Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Fierce fighting took place in Vukovar, where around 1,800 Croat fighters were blocking JNA's advance into Slavonia. Vukovar assumed enormous symbolic importance to both sides. Without it, Serbian territorial gains in eastern Slavonia were threatened. The unexpectedly fierce defence of the town against a much larger army inspired talk of a "Croatian Stalingrad". Increasing losses and complaints from the Croatian public for failing to hit back compelled Tuđman to act. He ordered the Croatian National Guard to surround JNA army bases, thus starting the Battle of the Barracks. Tuđman named Gojko Šušak the new Minister of Defence in September 1991.
In early October 1991, the JNA intensified its campaign in Croatia. On 5 October, Tuđman made a speech in which he called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against "Greater Serbian imperialism" pursued by the Serb-led JNA, Serbian paramilitary formations, and rebel Serb forces. Two days later the Yugoslav Air Force bombed Banski Dvori, the seat of the Croatian Government in Zagreb, at the time when Tuđman had a meeting with Yugoslav president Stjepan Mesić and prime minister Ante Marković, none of whom were injured in the attack. On 8 October the Croatian Parliament cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia and declared independence. Tuđman asked the Kosovo leadership to open a second front there against the JNA and offered help in weapons. The leadership decided against armed conflict, but gave support to the independence of Croatia and called on ethnic Albanians to desert the Yugoslav army.
In November 1991 the Battle of Vukovar ended that left the city devastated. The JNA and Serbian irregulars seized control of about a quarter of Croatia's territory by the end of 1991. In December 1991, the SAO Krajina proclaimed itself the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK). Until the end of 1991 sixteen ceasefires were signed, none of which lasted longer than a day.
On 19 December 1991, Iceland and Germany recognized Croatia's sovereignty. Many observers believe Tuđman's good relationship with Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany's foreign minister at the time, had much to do with this decision. Hostilities in Croatia ended for a time in January 1992 when the Vance plan was signed. Tuđman hoped that the deployment of UN peacekeepers would consolidate Croatia's international borders, but the military situation in Croatia itself remained unsettled.
The Bosniak leadership initially showed willingness to remain in a rump Yugoslavia, but later changed their policy and opted for independence. The Croat leadership started organizing themselves in Croat-majority areas and on 18 November 1991 established the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia as an autonomous Croat territorial unit. At a meeting in December 1991 with the HDZ BiH leadership Tuđman discussed the possibility of joining Herzeg-Bosnia to Croatia as he thought that Bosnian representatives were working to remain in Yugoslavia. There he criticized HDZ BiH president Stjepan Kljujić for siding with Izetbegović. However, in February 1992 he encouraged Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to support the upcoming Bosnian independence referendum. Izetbegović declared the country's independence on 6 April that was immediately recognised by Croatia. At the beginning of the Bosnian war a Croat-Bosniak alliance was formed, though it was often not harmonious. The Croatian government helped arm both Croat and Bosniak forces. On 21 July 1992, the Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation was signed by Tuđman and Izetbegović, establishing a military cooperation between the two armies. In September 1992 they signed two more agreements on cooperation and further negotiations regarding the internal organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, though Izetbegović rejected a military pact. In January 1993 Tuđman said that Bosnia and Herzegovina could survive only as a confederal union of three nations.
Over time, the relations between Croats and Bosniaks worsened, resulting in the Croat–Bosniak War. The Bosniak side claimed that Tuđman wanted to partition Bosnia and Herzegovina, a view that was increasingly accepted by the international community. This made it difficult for Tuđman to protect Croatia's interests and support Herzeg-Bosnia. As the conflict escalated, Croatia's foreign policy reached a low point. Throughout 1993 several peace plans were proposed by the international community. Tuđman and the Herzeg-Bosnia leadership accepted all of them, including the Vance-Owen Plan in January 1993 and the Owen-Stoltenberg in July 1993. However, no lasting ceasefire was agreed. In early 1994 the United States became increasingly involved in resolving the wars. They were concerned with the way the Croat-Bosniak war helped the Serbs and put pressure on the two sides to sign a final truce. The war ended in March 1994 with the signing of the Washington Agreement. In June 1994 Tuđman visited Sarajevo to open the Croatian embassy there. He met with Izetbegović and discussed the creation of the Croat-Muslim Federation and its possible confederation with Croatia.
The war caused great destruction and indirect damage in tourism, transit traffic, investment, etc. President Tuđman estimated the cost of direct material damage at over $20 billion and that Croatia was spending $3 million daily on care for hundreds of thousands of refugees.Jane Shapiro Zacek, Ilpyong J. Kim: The Legacy of the Soviet Bloc, University Press of Florida, 1997, p. 130 When the ceasefire of January 1992 came into effect Croatia slowly recovered. As economic activity picked up steadily and negotiations with the leaders of RSK got nowhere, the Defence Minister, Gojko Šušak, started amassing weapons in preparation for a military solution.
Tuđman won the presidential elections in August 1992 in the first round with 57.8% of the vote.Dieter Nohlen (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p. 410 Simultaneously, the parliamentary elections were held that were also won by HDZ. During the campaign, Dobroslav Paraga, the extreme right-wing leader of the Croatian Party of Rights, accused Tuđman of betraying Croatian interests by not engaging in an all-out war with Serbian forces. Tuđman tried to marginalize his party due to their use of Ustaše symbols, that brought criticism in the foreign press towards Croatia. Paraga won only 5 seats in the parliament and 5,4% of the vote in the presidential election.Charles Vance, Yongsun Paik: Managing a Global Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities in International Human Resource Management, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, p. 614
In January 1993 the Croatian Army launched Operation Maslenica and recaptured the vital Maslenica bridge linking Dalmatia with northern Croatia. Although the UN Security Council condemned the operation, there were no incurring sanctions. This victory enabled Tuđman to counter domestic accusations that he was weak in his dealings with RSK and the UN.
Despite clashes with the RSK forces, during 1993 and 1994 the overall condition of the economy improved substantially and unemployment was gradually falling. On 4 April 1993 Tuđman appointed Nikica Valentić as prime minister. The anti-inflationary stabilization steps in 1993 successfully lowered inflation. The Croatian dinar, that was introduced as a transitional currency, was replaced with the Croatian kuna in 1994.Istvan Benczes: Deficit and Debt in Transition: The Political Economy of Public Finances in Central and Eastern Europe, Central European University Press, 2014, p. 203 GDP growth reached 5.9% in 1994.
On 22 July 1995, Tuđman and Izetbegović signed the Split Agreement, binding both sides to a "joint defence against Serb aggression". Tuđman soon put his words into action and initiated Operation Summer '95, carried out by joint forces of HV and HVO. These forces overran the towns of Glamoč and Bosansko Grahovo in western Bosnia, virtually isolating Knin from Republika Srpska and FR Yugoslavia.
At 5:00 a.m. on Friday, 4 August 1995, Tuđman publicly authorized the attack on RSK, codenamed Operation Storm. He called on the Serb army and their leadership in Knin to surrender, and at the same time called Serb civilians to remain in their homes, guaranteeing them their rights. The decision to head straight for Knin, the centre of RSK, paid off and by 10am on 5 August, on the second day of the operation, Croatian forces entered the city with minimal casualties. By the morning of 8 August the operation was effectively over, resulting in the restoration of Croatian control of 10,400 square kilometres (4,000 square miles) of territory. Around 150,000–200,000 Serbs fled and a variety of crimes were committed against the remaining civilians. United States President Bill Clinton said he was "hopeful that Croatia's offensive will turn out to be something that will give us an avenue to a quick diplomatic solution."
A joint offensive of Croatian and Bosniak forces followed in western and northern Bosnia. Bosnian Serb forces quickly lost territory and were forced to negotiate. Talks regarding a peace treaty were held in Dayton, Ohio. Tuđman insisted on solving the question of RSK-held eastern Slavonia and its peaceful return to Croatia at the Dayton peace talks. On 1 November he had a heated debate with Milošević, who denied control over the region's leadership. Tuđman was ready to hinder the Dayton agreement and continue the war if Slavonia was not peacefully reintegrated. The military situation gave him an upper hand and Milošević agreed on his request. The Dayton Agreement was drafted in November 1995. Tuđman was one of the signatories of it, along with the leaderships of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, that ended the Bosnian War. On 12 November the Erdut Agreement was signed with local Serb authorities regarding the return of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia to Croatia, with a two-year transitional period. This ended the war in Croatia. Official figures on wartime damage published in Croatia in 1996 specify 180,000 destroyed housing units, 25% of the Croatian economy destroyed, and US$27 billion of material damage. Regarding the exodus of some 150,000 Krajina Serbs from Croatia, Tudjman remarked that the refugees left so fast that they "didn't even have time to collect their dirty currency and their dirty underwear". He later boasted to his generals: "We have resolved the Serbian question... there will never be 12 percent of Serbs" in Croatia. "If there are three or five per cent of them, that isn't a threat to the Croatian state".
Treatment of the media brought criticism from some international organizations. Notably, the Feral Tribune, a weekly Croatian political and satirical newspaper magazine, was subjected to several lawsuits and criminal charges from government officials as well as being forced to pay a tax usually reserved for pornographic magazines. Some opposition parties in Croatia advocated the view that, far from Europeanising Croatia, Tuđman was responsible for its "Balkanisation" and that during his presidency, he acted like a despot. Other parties, for instance the Croatian Party of Rights, argued that Tuđman was not radical enough in his defence of the Croatian state.
Croatia became a member of the Council of Europe on 6 November 1996. On 15 June 1997 Tuđman won the presidential elections with 61.4% of the votes, ahead of Zdravko Tomac and Vlado Gotovac, and was re-elected to a second five-year term. Marina Matulović-Dropulić became the Mayor of Zagreb having won the 1997 local elections, which formally ended the Zagreb crisis.
In January 1998 Eastern Slavonia was officially reintegrated into Croatia. In February 1998 Tuđman was re-elected as president of HDZ. The beginning of the year was marked by a large syndical protest in Zagreb, due to which the government adopted legislation regulating public gatherings and demonstrations in April.Taylor & Francis Group: Europa World Year, Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 1339
After the war, Tuđman controversially suggested that the remains of those killed during the Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators be brought and laid to rest at Jasenovac, an idea he later abandoned. This idea included burying Ustaša troops, anti-fascist Partisans and all civilians together and was inspired by General Francisco Franco's Valle de los Caídos. Previously he had appointed Ustaše official Vinko Nikolic to the Croatian Parliament and his administration named multiple streets after Ustaše politician Mile Budak. He also appointed former Ustaše official Ivo Rojnica as Ambassador to Argentina but after some controversy he was replaced.
In 1998 Tuđman claimed that his program of national reconciliation had prevented a civil war in Croatia during the collapse of Yugoslavia.
In 1995 a Ministry of Privatization was established with Ivan Penić as its first minister.William Bartlett: Europe's Troubled Region: Economic Development, Institutional Reform, and Social Welfare in the Western Balkans, Routledge, 2007, p. 18 Privatization in Croatia had barely begun when war broke out in 1991. Infrastructure sustained massive damage from the war, especially the revenue-rich tourism industry, and its transformation from a market socialism to a market economy was thus slow and unsteady. Public mistrust rose when many state-owned companies were sold to politically well-connected at below-market prices.International Business Publications: Croatia Investment and Trade Laws and Regulations Handbook, p. 22 The ruling party was criticised for transferring enterprises to a group of privileged owners connected to the party.William Bartlett: Europe's Troubled Region: Economic Development, Institutional Reform, and Social Welfare in the Western Balkans, Routledge, 2007, p. 66
The method of privatization contributed to the increase of state ownership because the unsold shares were transferred to state funds. In 1999 the private sector share in GDP reached 60%, which was significantly lower than in other former socialist countries.Istvan Benczes. Deficit and Debt in Transition: The Political Economy of Public Finances in Central and Eastern Europe, Central European University Press, 2014, pp. 205-06. The privatization of large government-owned companies was practically halted during the war and in the years immediately following the conclusion of peace. At the end of Tuđman's rule, roughly 70% of Croatia's major companies were still state-owned, including water, electricity, oil, transportation, telecommunications, and tourism.
Value-added tax was introduced in 1998 and the central government budget was in surplus that year.OECD: Agricultural Policies in Emerging and Transition Economies 1999, p. 43 The consumer boom was disrupted when the economy went into recession at the end of 1998, as a result of the bank crisis when 14 banks went bankrupt, and GDP growth slowed down to 1.9%. The recession continued throughout 1999 when GDP fell by 0.9%. Unemployment increased from around 10% in 1996 and 1997 to 11.4% in 1998. By the end of 1999 it reached 13.6%. The country emerged from the recession in the 4th quarter of 1999.Istvan Benczes: Deficit and Debt in Transition: The Political Economy of Public Finances in Central and Eastern Europe, Central European University Press, 2014, p. 207 After several years of successful macroeconomic stabilization policies, low inflation and a stable currency, economists warned that the lack of fiscal changes and the expanding role of the state in economy caused the decline in the late 1990s and were preventing a sustainable economic growth.Gale Research: Countries of the World and Their Leaders: Yearbook 2001, p. 456
The US was the main mediator in reaching a peace treaty in the region and continued to have most influence after 1995. The Croatian offensives in 1995 did not receive unambiguous supports from the US, but they supported Croatian demands for territorial integrity. However, the Croatian-American relations after the war did not develop as Tuđman expected. Serb minority rights and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia were asserted as the main issues and they led to a deterioration of relations at the end of 1996 and during 1997. Tuđman tried to counter the pressure with closer relations with Russia and China. In November 1996 he received the Medal of Zhukov, awarded for contribution to the antifascist struggle, from Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
A confederation between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted under the Washington Agreement, was not accomplished, while the Croat-Bosniak Federation acted only on paper. In August 1996 Tuđman and Izetbegović agreed to fully implement the Dayton agreement. Herzeg-Bosnia was to be formally abolished by the end of the month.
In 1999 the NATO intervention in Kosovo began. Tuđman expressed his concerns regarding the potential damage to Croatian economy and tourism, which was estimated at $1 billion. Still, the government expressed their support to NATO and granted permission to NATO planes to use Croatia's airspace. In May, Tuđman said that a possible solution is to deploy UN peacekeepers in Kosovo that would enable the return of Albanian refugees, while Yugoslav forces would retreat to Serb-majority northern Kosovo.
During Tuđman's life, neither Richard Goldstone nor Arbour, the ICTY's first chief prosecutors, reportedly considered indicting him. In 2002 the new ICTY prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said in an interview that she would have indicted Tuđman had he not died in 1999.Klaus Bachmann, Aleksandar Fatić: The UN International Criminal Tribunals: Transition Without Justice?, Routledge, 2015, p. 131 Graham Blewitt, a senior Tribunal prosecutor, told the AFP wire service that "There would have been sufficient evidence to indict president Tuđman had he still been alive".
In 2000, British Channel 4 television broadcast a report about the tape recordings of Franjo Tuđman in which he allegedly spoke about the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Serbs after the Dayton Agreement. They claimed that the then Croatian President Stjepan Mesić gave them access to 17,000 transcripts. Mesić, who succeeded Tuđman as president of Croatia, and his office denied giving any transcripts to British journalists and called the report a "sensationalistic story that has nothing to do with the truth".
At the trial of Gotovina, in a first-degree verdict, the Trial Chamber found Tuđman to have been a key participant in a joint criminal enterprise, the purpose of which was to permanently remove the Serb civilian population from the territory of Republic of Serbian Krajina and repopulate it with Croats. In November 2012, an ICTY appeal court overturned the convictions of Mladen Markač and Ante Gotovina, acquitted the two former generals and concluded that there was no planned deportation of the Serbian minority and no joint criminal enterprise by the Croatian leadership.
In May 2013, the ICTY, in a first-instance verdict in the trial of Prlić et al., found that Tuđman, Bobetko and Šušak took part in the joint criminal enterprise against the non-Croat population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It ruled, by a majority, that the purpose of it was to de facto join Herzeg-Bosnia to Croatia. Judge Jean-Claude Antoanetti, the presiding judge in the trial, issued a separate opinion in which he contested the notion of a joint criminal enterprise and said that Tuđman's plans regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina were not in contradiction with the stance of the international community. Separate and Partially Dissenting Opinion of Presiding Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti
On 19 July 2016 the Appeals Chamber in the case announced that the "Trial Chamber made no explicit findings concerning Tudjman's, participation in the JCE and did not find them guilty of any crimes." On 29 November 2017, without attributing any crimes to Tuđman, the Appeals Chamber in the case upheld the convictions of six Herzeg-Bosnia and HVO leaders and concluded that he shared their joint criminal enterprise of "setting up a Croatian entity that reconstituted earlier borders and that facilitated the Greater Croatia" which would be done through the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims.
The last serious research of victim numbers before the Yugoslav wars was conducted by Croatian economist Vladimir Žerjavić and Serbian researcher Bogoljub Kočović. Both Žerjavić and Kočović arrived at a figure of 83,000 deaths in Jasenovac, each using different statistical methods. 59,589 victims (of all nationalities) were identified by name in a Yugoslav name list that was made in 1964. In his book Tuđman had estimated, relying on some earlier investigations, that the total number of victims in the Jasenovac camp (Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Croats, and others) was somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000. He listed the victims as "Gypsies, Jews and Serbs, and even Croatians", reversing the conventional order of deaths to imply that more Gypsies and Jews were killed than Serbs. Tuđman emphasized that the camp was organised as a "work camp". He estimated that a total of 50,000 were killed in all Ustashe camps throughout the NDH. While he rightfully challenged the inflated numbers, he wound up downplaying Ustaše crimes by providing figures that were too low.
In Horrors of War, Tuđman asserted that 900,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust instead of six million. Aside from the war statistics issue, Tuđman's book contained views on the Jewish role in history that many readers found simplistic and profoundly biased. Some have described it as anti-semitic. Tuđman based his views on the Jewish condition on the memoirs of a Croatian former Communist Ante Ciliga, who described his experiences at Jasenovac during a year and a half of his incarceration. These are recorded in his book, Sam kroz Europu u ratu (1939–1945), paint an unfavorable picture of his Jewish inmates' behavior, emphasizing their alleged clannishness and ethnocentrism. Ciliga claimed Jews had held a privileged position in Jasenovac and actually, as Tuđman concludes, "held in their hands the inmates management of the camp up to 1944 because in its origins Pavelić's party was philo-Semitic". Tuđman added that most prisoners at Jasenovac perished at the hands of Jews, who controlled the liquidation process, and not the Ustaše. Ciliga theorized that the behavior of the Jews had been determined by the more-than-2000-year-old tradition of extreme ethnic egoism and unscrupulousness that he claims is expressed in the Old Testament.
Tuđman summarized, among other things, that "The Jews provoke envy and hatred but actually they are 'the unhappiest nation in the world', always victims of 'their own and others' ambitions', and whoever tries to show that they are themselves their own source of tragedy is ranked among the anti-Semites and the object of hatred by the Jews". In another part of the book, he expressed the belief that these traits weren't unique to the Jews; while criticizing what he alleges to be aggression and atrocities in the Middle East on the part of Israel, he claimed that they arose "from historical unreasonableness and narrowness in which Jewry certainly is no exception".
In 1994, Tuđman apologized for the remarks made about Jews, stating that in the years since the publication of the book his views on world Jewry had changed. The problematic passages were subsequently edited out in the English version published in 1996, but kept in the Croatian, French and German versions.
On 22 April 1998, Tuđman received the credentials of the first Israeli ambassador to Croatia, Natan Meron. In his speech Tuđman said, among other things:
His tenure as president was criticized as Authoritarianism by some observers. Goldstein views Tudjman's post-war policies negatively, remarking that "between healthy nationalism and chauvinism, he chose chauvinism; between free-market economy and clientelism, he chose the latter. Instead of the cult of freedom, he chose the cult of the state. Between modernity and openness to the world, he chose traditionalism; a fatal choice for a small state like Croatia that needs to open for the sake of development".
In a December 2002 poll by HRT, 69% voters expressed a positive opinion about Tuđman.
In a June 2011 poll by Večernji list, 62% voters gave the most credit to Tuđman for the creation of independent Croatia. In December 2014, an Ipsos Puls survey on 600 people showed that 56% see him as a positive figure, 27% said he had both positive and negative aspects, while 14% regard him as a negative figure.
In a survey by Promocija Plus in July 2015, regarding the renaming of Zagreb Airport after Tuđman, a majority of 65.5% showed support for the initiative, 25.8% were opposed to the idea, while 8.6% had no opinion about it.
Foreign policy
Mate Granić was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 until the end of the Tuđman administration. In 1996 he signed an agreement on normalization of relations with FR Yugoslavia. On 9 September 1996 Croatia established diplomatic relations with FR Yugoslavia.
Relation to the Catholic Church
Živko Kustić, a Croatian Eastern Catholic priest and journalist for Jutarnji list, wrote that Tuđman's perception of the church's role in Croatia was contradictory to the goals of Pope John Paul II. Moreover, Kustić expressed doubt that Tuđman had ever been truly religious except when he was very young. Tuđman considered the Catholic religion to be important for the modern Croatian nation. When taking the oath in 1992 he added sentence "Tako mi Bog pomogao!" () which was not then part of the official text. In 1997, he officially included the sentence in the oath. Tuđman's era was the era of the Catholic revival in Croatia. Church attendance rose; even former communists massively participated in church sacraments. The state was funding the building and renewal of churches and monasteries. Between 1996 and 1998 Croatia signed various treaties with the Holy See, by which the Catholic Church in Croatia was granted some financial rights, among others.
Health problems and death
Tuđman was diagnosed with cancer in 1993. His general health had deteriorated by the late 1990s. On 1 November 1999 he appeared in public for the last time. While being hospitalized opposition parties accused the ruling HDZ of hiding the fact that Tuđman was already dead and that the authorities were keeping his death secret in order to win more seats in the upcoming January 2000 general election. Tuđman's death was officially declared on 10 December 1999.
Death of Tudjman , cnn.com; 13 December 1999; accessed 16 May 2015. He had a funeral Mass in Zagreb Cathedral and was buried in Mirogoj Cemetery.
Vrhovnik
Tuđman was conferred by the Croatian Parliament the military rank of Supreme commander of Croatia, or 'Vrhovnik' on 22 March 1995. It was the highest honorific title in the Croatian Armed Forces and equivalent to Marshal. Tuđman was the only person to ever hold this rank. He held it until his death. The uniform for this position allegedly was modeled on the uniform of Josip Broz Tito as Tuđman was a dedicated Major General of the Yugoslav People's Army. The title was eventually abolished in 2002.
ICTY
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the United Nations in 1993. Although the Croatian government passed a law on cooperation with the ICTY, since 1997 relations between ICTY and Croatia worsened. Tuđman criticized the work of the ICTY in 1999, while the ICTY's chief prosecutor Louise Arbour expressed her dissatisfaction with Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal.Alan Carling: Globalization and Identity: Development and Integration in a Changing World, I.B. Tauris, 2006, p. 170
Tuđman as historian
Tuđman did not have a formal academic education as historian. He approached history as a Marxist scholar and Croatian attorney. He always regarded history as a means of forming society. His voluminous, more than 2,000 pages long, Hrvatska u monarhističkoj Jugoslaviji (), has come to be assigned as reading material concerning this period of Croatian history at some Croatian universities. His shorter treatises on national question, Nacionalno pitanje u suvremenoj Europi () and Usudbene povijestice () are still well-regarded essays on unresolved national and ethnic disputes, self-determination and creation of nation-states in the European milieu.
Horrors of War
In 1989 Tuđman published Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti (Literal English translation: Wastelands of historical reality) which was published in English in 1996 as Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy. The book questioned the different claimed numbers of victims killed during World War II in Yugoslavia, particularly regarding the Jasenovac concentration camp, something Tuđman had previously done in an earlier work published in 1982. The Yugoslav government's estimates put the number of Jasenovac victims between 600,000 and 700,000 while some Serbian historians even suggested up to one million victims; both sets of numbers which were exaggerated. Tuđman felt that Jasenovac was being used to impose a collective guilt on Croats and to prove "the genocidal nature" of Croatian nationalism.
Legacy
Tuđman is credited by his supporters with creating the basis for an independent Croatia, and helping the country move away from communism. He is sometimes given the title "father of the country" for his role in achieving the country's independence. His legacy is still strong in many parts of Croatia as well as in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatian majorities; there are schools, squares and streets in some cities named after him, and statues have been erected. In December 2006, a large square near Ilica Street in the Črnomerec section of Zagreb was named after him. In June 2015 Siniša Hajdaš Dončić, Minister of Maritime Affairs Transport and Infrastructure, said that the reconstructed and upgraded Zagreb International Airport will be named after Tuđman.
Public opinion
Tuđman's approval ratings remained largely positive throughout his presidency and were generally evaluated higher than the rest of the government. They increased significantly following the admission of Croatia to membership in the United Nations in May 1992, the successful military operations in January 1993 and August 1995, and the peaceful reintegration of eastern Slavonia in January 1998. Polls showed a drop in support in the second half of 1993, throughout 1994 and in 1996. From early 1998 his approval gradually declined, before increasing slightly in November 1999.
+ Franjo Tuđman's approval ratings
!Date
!Event
!Approval (%) December 1991 69 May 1992 Croatia accepted into the UN 77 July 1992 71 January 1993 Operation Maslenica 76 May 1993 61 December 1994 55 August 1995 Operation Storm 85 October 1996 60 July 1997 Re-elected president 65 February 1998 50 October 1998 44 November 1999 45
Immediate family
Honours and decorations
Yugoslav
Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941 Order of Military Merits with Great Star Order of the Partisan Star with rifles Order of Merits for the People, 2nd Class Medal for Bravery
Croatian
Awarded by the Croatian Parliament in 1995:
Grand Order of King Tomislav Grand Order of King Petar Krešimir IV Order of Duke Domagoj Order of Ante Starčević Order of Stjepan Radić Order of Danica Hrvatska with the face of Ruđer Bošković Order of the Croatian Trefoil Homeland War Memorial Medal Homeland's Gratitude Medal
Military rank
Vrhovnik of the Croatian Armed Forces
Foreign
Zagreb Zagreb Santiago de Chile Buenos Aires Zagreb Athens Zagreb
Notes
Sources
External links
Categories: 1922 Births, 1999 Deaths, People From Veliko Trgovišće, Presidents Of Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union Politicians, Croatian Communists, Croatian Holocaust Deniers, Croatian Marxists, Croatian Nationalists, Croatian Independence Activists, Yugoslav Partisans Members, Candidates In The 1992 Croatian Presidential Election, League Of Communists Of Croatia Politicians, Politicians Of The Croatian War Of Independence, Politicians Of The Bosnian War, Croatian Military Personnel Of World War Ii, Generals Of The Yugoslav People's Army, Members Of The Croatian Academy Of Sciences And Arts, Burials At Mirogoj Cemetery, Deaths From Cancer In Croatia, University Of Zadar Alumni, Collars Of The Order Of The Liberator General San Martin, Order Of Ante Starčević Recipients, Recipients Of The Military Order Of Italy, Recipients Of The Medal Of Zhukov, 20th-century Croatian Politicians, 20th-century Croatian Historians, 20th-century Presidents In Europe, Croatian Spring Participants
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