Suchergebnisse

The author gives an outline of constitutional and legal provisions regulating the rights of ethnic minorities in the Republic of Croatia as well as the site-based policy of the protection of minority rights. The major areas in which the Government of the Republic of Croatia has been supporting the activities of the minority groups' organisations are: publishing, cultural societies, libraries, minority curricula, preservation of the minority cultura heritage and research projects. Between 1992 and 1997, the Government of the Republic of Croatia earmarked 22 million DEM for the minorities' activities. The author concludes that the ethnic minorities in Croatia, despite the political and economic hardships, have enjoyed a high degree of minority rights and freedoms. (SOI : PM: S. 64)

Because it was the estate of a junior branch of the Habsburg family, Belje was treated as land confiscated by the state after 1918. At first it was occupied by the army, then it came under the administration of the National government of Baranja, Backa and Banat, and finally it fell under the control of the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Finances in Belgrade, which meant that it was officially the property of the crown. All this had a negative effect on the economy of the estate, which became a problematic enterprise instead of a model of successful agricultural production. Following the death of King Alexander, and with the establishment of commercial ties between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Third Reich, Belje attained relative independence in its export policy. Nonetheless, as regards the hiring of labourers and connections with Croatia, Great Serbian policy continued to hold sway. (SOI : CSP: S. 525)

The author surveys the public activities of Slavko Kvaternik, one of the leading Croatian nationalists of the 1930s, and for a time, minister of the Croatian Home Army during the Second World War (1941- 1942). The article states that Kvaternik occupied a peculiar position with respect to the radicals grouped around Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Ustasha regime. Kvaternik was not an ideologue of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), nor did he agree with Pavelic's repressive internal policy or Pavelic's dependence on fascist Italy. Because of this conclict, Kvaternik was pushed out of office and left Croatia at the end of 1942. None of these facts prevented the communist Yugoslavian government from proclaiming him a "war criminal" and carrying out the death sentence in 1947. (SOI : CSP: S. 398)

The Hrvatski Radisa society initially had the mission to place poor children with Croat artisans in order to become good artisans and merchants themselves. The World War I had tragic consequences for the Lika region, even though there was no war operations conducted there. A great number of children were left orphans, and the new Yugoslav administration followed national key in social policy. In order to help children in Lika, the Gospic chapter of Hrvatski Radisa was instituted in 1920, which endeavored to place children with good Croatian artisans in Zagreb. In spite of interferences of some Serbs, the chapter had a good success, primarily because the population wholeheartedly accepted the initiative. The chapter showed some initiative to better the economic situation in Lika, but the Yugoslav government tried everything that this initiative goes in a different direction. This was especially evident after 1922 when Gospic ceased to be a regional center. In the article there is being mentioned a lot of people from Gospic, Lovinac, and other places, who helped the work of Hrvatski Radisa. (SOI : CSP: S. 357)

The author deals with the possibility of the application of the formalized mod in the study of the public administration issue in the federally structured American administration. The theory of American federalism has taught us that the expenses of the implementation of political decisions are inversely proportionate to the administrative level of their application: the expenses are bigger if the implementation is done at lower administrative levels, i.e. state or local instead federal authorities. On the other hand, that theory claims that the decision-making expenses are proportionate to the level of decision-making: the lower the decision-making level, the smaller the expenses. The American experience in the arena of the policy of oil and gas exploitation confirms the model's rationale, and is applicable to other fields: the optimal effect and the minimal expenses have been achieved in the situation in which political regulations are decided upon at the state level, while their implementation lies within the domain of federal government. (SOI : PM: S. 162)

International pressure prevented Croatia from ending the occupation of eastern Slavonia by military means. The author claims that the policy of peaceful integration and the UNTAES mandate are rife with risks which might jeopardize the eventual Croatian control of that region. He points out a set of contentious issues related to the occupied territory: the incomplete demilitarization, dual government (parallel UNTAES and Serbian authorities), no return for the non-Serbian refugees, staying on of the Serbs from other parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. Particularly risky for Croatia are the efforts of the local Serbs to retain absolute ethnic majority as the grounds for establishing territorial autonomy which would enable the militant accolytes of Greater Serbian politics to remain in the region and push for the secession and annexation by Serbia, the efforts which would in all probability be given military support by Serbia, this time under the circumstances which would be much more unfavourable for Croatia than in 1995. The author concludes that for Croatia the only acceptable solution is the total integration of eastern Slavonia and the establishment of full Croatian sovereignty while the creation of a Serbian autonomous province in that region must on no account be permitted. (SOI: PM: S. 188)

The nationalization of Jewish property in the Independent State of Croatia was carried out through a number of legal decrees: the legal decree concerning the mandatory reporting of Jewish property and commerce of June 5, 1941, the legal decree concerning property of individuals deported from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) of August 7, 1941, and the legal decree concerning the nationalization of Jewish property of October 30, 1943. The promulgation of these decrees was entrusted to the state directorate and the state treasury, more specifically, the treasury's office of nationalized property. With these measures the Ustasa government wanted to emancipate the national economy from Jewish capital, so this aspect of economic policy was called the "arianization of production". On the basis of available documents from the Croatian national parliament (Sabor) and official reports from the office of nationalized property it is possible to substantiate the value of Jewish property nationalized by September 15, 1943 (including movable goods, buildings, retail and industrial trades, and valuables) at 6,711.369,971 kunas. Further, according to the documentation of the committee in Zagreb administering the donations of Jews to help finance the state, it can be shown that on October 31, 1941 Jews voluntarily procured to the state a total of 106,533.929,67 kunas, which amounts to 1065,339 kilograms of gold. (SOI : CSP: S. 453)