Operation Bljesak Anniversary
Today Croatia marks the twelfth anniversary of Operation Bljesak (Flash), with which Croatian forces liberated western Slavonia in 1995. President Mesić, PM Ivo Sanader and parliamentary speaker Vladimir Šeks have laid wreaths and lit candles in Okučani, while a Zagreb HDZ delegation led by veterans' minister Jadranka Kosor held their own ceremony in Mirogoj ceremony at the Defenders' Cross (a memorial to Homeland War soldiers) and the grave of their party's founder Franjo Tuđman.
The Bljesak anniversary was presumably the occasion for Marko Perković Thompson's concert this evening in Sisak as part of an event organised by the local HSP. (HSP Sisak already introduces its website with a midi of Thompson's first hit on the theme of veterans, Prijatelji (Friends). It remains to be seen whether any Sišćani will use the occasion to express the kinds of sentiments about the late Ivica Račan that one wouldn't write in a condolence book.
Talking of anniversaries, it's also the 300th of the United Kingdom. Any takers for a bet on reaching 350?
UPDATE: courtesy of Neretva River, a proper lowdown on anniversary politics in Sisak.
Labels: commemoration, croatia, politics, sisak, thompson
posted by Catherine @ 10:10 am
2 comments
2 Comments:
The HSP's event down by the fortress is just part of the party's May Day celebration and not really a commemoration of Bljesak; Thompson advertised it homage to the patron saint of workers...
About any negative expressions regarding Račan, he's actually not a hate figure amongst local Hsp-ovci. Sanader and Tuđman on the other hand... (one Sisački hsp-ovac use to claim that he didn't expect much from either comrade Tito or Tudman and saw the HDZ as having inhereted the unreformed and authoritarian aspects of the old SKH while, the SDP was atleast led by reformists) Even Sisak's HDZ mayor, Pintarić publicly denounces his own party (he apparently thought the microphone was turned off when he praised the local HSP, his coalition partners, at the expense of the HDZ).
Anyway, local politics is a world away from the Sabor and hence, the HSP going all out to celebrate May Day and leaving any mention of Bljesak and the war to the HDZ, and the HSP coming to power in Slavonski Brod thanks to the support of the SDP...
Nice blogg.
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